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Kind of sounds like what is happening now in the west under our current financial/economic system, albeit slowly by manufacturing crisis's and health problems t

Kind of sounds like what is happening now in the west under our current financial/economic system, albeit slowly by manufacturing crisis's and health problems to whittle down the population. >To make a somewhat successful "common good" society you first need to exterminate large swatches of the population It sounds like you are conflating "common good" with authoritarianism. Common good happens at the grass roots level and then spreads by consensus. Doesnt mean it will happen on a large scale, esp if there are larger forces at work. It seems like this is a population size problem to me. Or at least a concentration of large populations in a small area (Cities). Maybe the trick is to spread out the population a bit more and prevent areas from becoming over populated somehow. I don't have the data in front of me right now, but there are some sources that say when groups become to large people vie for attention which causes the most egoic people to try and dominate the areas that they are in. Thus this creates social circles that try to gain power for powers sake and do not contribute to society.

ants_everywhere 1y ago
> when groups become to large people vie for attention which causes the most egoic people to try and dominate the areas that they are in. You may be interested in this essay from the feminist movement in the 60s: https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm. It describes how the lack of structure or process forces the group to be run primarily by social dynamics like friendship, charm and influence. There are lots of effects that happen as groups scale. But this capture of consensus-based and flat groups by ego-centric charismatic members happens in even tiny groups. That's why successful flat groups (e.g. parliaments) have structure (e.g. Robert's rules) and make decisions by majority vote rather than consensus.
- trinsic2 1y ago
  Yeah I can see some truth in this. Structure and processes help us deal with this problem. And my experience has been that structures and process get corrupted, kind of like what has happens in or political systems over the years. IMHO, it seems like it easier to deal with ego when the groups are smaller. When they get too large, we tend to use bureaucracies to manage decision making logistics. Bureaucracies make it easier for people that want power over others to hide.

ants_everywhere 1y ago

> when groups become to large people vie for attention which causes the most egoic people to try and dominate the areas that they are in. You may be interested in this essay from the feminist movement in the 60s: https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm. It describes how the lack of structure or process forces the group to be run primarily by social dynamics like friendship, charm and influence. There are lots of effects that happen as groups scale. But this capture of consensus-based and flat groups by ego-centric charismatic members happens in even tiny groups. That's why successful flat groups (e.g. parliaments) have structure (e.g. Robert's rules) and make decisions by majority vote rather than consensus.

trinsic2 1y ago
Yeah I can see some truth in this. Structure and processes help us deal with this problem. And my experience has been that structures and process get corrupted, kind of like what has happens in or political systems over the years. IMHO, it seems like it easier to deal with ego when the groups are smaller. When they get too large, we tend to use bureaucracies to manage decision making logistics. Bureaucracies make it easier for people that want power over others to hide.