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Somehow, I think that using a bureaucracy to fix this bureaucratic tendency won’t solve it. Not that it’s not well-intentioned, but at some point we need to ex

by dimal 2y ago

Somehow, I think that using a bureaucracy to fix this bureaucratic tendency won’t solve it. Not that it’s not well-intentioned, but at some point we need to expect that individual humans to behave ethically, or else we’re doomed. Over and over, we try to fix society by adding more and more bureaucracy and the situation only gets worse.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
We keep adding layers of bureaucracy precisely because we can't expect individual humans to behave ethically at scale. Personal ethics aren't fully personal in nature - they're just as much a function of social environment as of one's "heart of hearts". Ethical behavior being expected and respected makes it easier for any individual to stick to their principles in the face of conflicting factors, like desires or basic self-preservation instinct. Individual ethics in social context is a powerful organizer, and can keep small groups of people (30-50) stable and working together for a common goal. Humans evolved to cooperate together at that size - such groups can self-govern and self-police just by everyone's sense of right and wrong. But it quickly breaks down past that size. Letting some individuals assume leadership role and direct others only stabilizes the group up to ~150 people (Dunbar number); past that, the group loses cohesion and ends up splitting up. Long story short: larger groups have survival advantage both against environment and over smaller groups. Because of it, we've eventually learned how to scale human societies to arbitrary sizes. The trick to do it is hierarchical governance to overcome Dunbar limit, and explicit rules to substitute for intimate relationships. By stacking layer upon layer, we grew from tribes of 150 governed by the spoken words of their chiefs, through kings managing networks of nobles via mutual obligation, to modern nation states that encompass millions of citizens in a hierarchy that's 4+ level deep (central government -> provinces -> regions -> towns), slowly building up more levels as nation states group into blocs. With each layer we added, complexity of explicit governance grew, giving rise to what we now call bureaucracy. The modern bureaucracy isn't some malignant growth or unfortunate side effect - it's the very glue that allows human societies to scale up to millions of people and more. It's the network of veins and nerves of a modern society - it's what allows me, one tiny cell, to benefit from the contribution of other cells and contribute on my own, and it's what keeps all the cells working as a whole. This means that, yes, as the society grows and faces new challenges, the solution usually really is more bureaucracy.

by dimal 2y ago

TeMPOraL 2y ago

We keep adding layers of bureaucracy precisely because we can't expect individual humans to behave ethically at scale. Personal ethics aren't fully personal in nature - they're just as much a function of social environment as of one's "heart of hearts". Ethical behavior being expected and respected makes it easier for any individual to stick to their principles in the face of conflicting factors, like desires or basic self-preservation instinct. Individual ethics in social context is a powerful organizer, and can keep small groups of people (30-50) stable and working together for a common goal. Humans evolved to cooperate together at that size - such groups can self-govern and self-police just by everyone's sense of right and wrong. But it quickly breaks down past that size. Letting some individuals assume leadership role and direct others only stabilizes the group up to ~150 people (Dunbar number); past that, the group loses cohesion and ends up splitting up. Long story short: larger groups have survival advantage both against environment and over smaller groups. Because of it, we've eventually learned how to scale human societies to arbitrary sizes. The trick to do it is hierarchical governance to overcome Dunbar limit, and explicit rules to substitute for intimate relationships. By stacking layer upon layer, we grew from tribes of 150 governed by the spoken words of their chiefs, through kings managing networks of nobles via mutual obligation, to modern nation states that encompass millions of citizens in a hierarchy that's 4+ level deep (central government -> provinces -> regions -> towns), slowly building up more levels as nation states group into blocs. With each layer we added, complexity of explicit governance grew, giving rise to what we now call bureaucracy. The modern bureaucracy isn't some malignant growth or unfortunate side effect - it's the very glue that allows human societies to scale up to millions of people and more. It's the network of veins and nerves of a modern society - it's what allows me, one tiny cell, to benefit from the contribution of other cells and contribute on my own, and it's what keeps all the cells working as a whole. This means that, yes, as the society grows and faces new challenges, the solution usually really is more bureaucracy.