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Yeah it's interesting considering he cited individuals like Xi and Putin who essentially are the government of their respective countries getting horrible value

Yeah it's interesting considering he cited individuals like Xi and Putin who essentially are the government of their respective countries getting horrible value for their wealth. And it's not just limited to dictatorships; the US didn't get shit for the $2 trillion it spent on the Afghan wars, and still lingers behind some smaller countries in QoL. While it's nice to extoll of efficiencies of scale, it's hard to say they work in practice. Maybe it would be a better idea to say any entity shouldn't have control over X amount of assets, whether individual, corporation, or government.

bequanna 4y ago
> and still lingers behind some smaller countries in QoL. I hear this all the time and it’s a silly comparison. Some small homogenous country in Western Europe with citizens who subscribe to an empowering philosophy and share the same culture will obviously have a higher QoL. It’s way easier to get the ship where you want it to go when most everyone is actually rowing and agrees on the direction.
- tomatotomato37 4y ago
  That supports my argument though. A highly populated country is much more likely to have citizens with clashing philosophies or cultures. Subdividing it to smaller states results in a state having less citizen "worth" but more efficient application of that worth overall.
  - bequanna 4y ago
    Looking at the US specifically, what do you think about the Federal govt ceding power to groups “closer” to the individuals? Dedicating more budget and leaving more laws up to localities like States, municipalities, etc.
    - tomatotomato37 4y ago
      I've always been a fan of state over federal, but I don't think a lot of our states are "rich" enough to balance out the others. I'd imagine an optimal balance would be several of the lower population states be merged together based on culture until we have ~10 states with the wealth of Germany or some such, but then dumping a lot of the federal powers to before Wickard v. Filburn. The thing is that the impotence seems to kick in on the "super-large" continent sized countries, but that doesn't mean there isn't a minimum size too, of which a Vermont or Kentucky doesn't really meet compared to a Texas or California. It should also be noted these changes would only practically be achieved with a time machine, because the social/economic/military cost of changing anything involving the foundation of the US nowadays would be apocalyptic

bequanna 4y ago

> and still lingers behind some smaller countries in QoL. I hear this all the time and it’s a silly comparison. Some small homogenous country in Western Europe with citizens who subscribe to an empowering philosophy and share the same culture will obviously have a higher QoL. It’s way easier to get the ship where you want it to go when most everyone is actually rowing and agrees on the direction.

tomatotomato37 4y ago
That supports my argument though. A highly populated country is much more likely to have citizens with clashing philosophies or cultures. Subdividing it to smaller states results in a state having less citizen "worth" but more efficient application of that worth overall.
- bequanna 4y ago
  Looking at the US specifically, what do you think about the Federal govt ceding power to groups “closer” to the individuals? Dedicating more budget and leaving more laws up to localities like States, municipalities, etc.
  - tomatotomato37 4y ago
    I've always been a fan of state over federal, but I don't think a lot of our states are "rich" enough to balance out the others. I'd imagine an optimal balance would be several of the lower population states be merged together based on culture until we have ~10 states with the wealth of Germany or some such, but then dumping a lot of the federal powers to before Wickard v. Filburn. The thing is that the impotence seems to kick in on the "super-large" continent sized countries, but that doesn't mean there isn't a minimum size too, of which a Vermont or Kentucky doesn't really meet compared to a Texas or California. It should also be noted these changes would only practically be achieved with a time machine, because the social/economic/military cost of changing anything involving the foundation of the US nowadays would be apocalyptic