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‘In passing by the side of Mount Thai, Confucius came on a woman who was weeping bitterly by a grave. The Master pressed forward and drove quickly to her; then
by tristramb 1y ago
‘In passing by the side of Mount Thai, Confucius came on a woman who was weeping bitterly by a grave. The Master pressed forward and drove quickly to her; then he sent Tze-lu to question her. “Your wailing,” said he, “is that of one who has suffered sorrow on sorrow.”She replied, “That is so. Once my husband’s father was killed here by a tiger. My husband was also killed, and now my son has died in the same way.” The Master said, “Why do you not leave the place?” The answer was, “There is no oppressive government here.” The Master then said, “Remember this, my children: oppressive government is more terrible than tigers.”’
The subject of this paper is the problem of ensuring that government shall be less terrible than tigers.
--- From The Taming of Power by Bertrand Russell, 1938
- smallmancontrov 1y ago...and that was in 1938, when there was no such thing as an AI panopticon.
- lostlogin 1y agoIt also came just before some particularly terrible governments really hit their stride.
- matt123456789 1y agoAnd the original “Tyranny is Fiercer than a Tiger” significantly predates even that!
- jfengel 1y agoI wonder if her husband, son, and father in law would agree with that conclusion.
- nosianu 1y agoYes? They stayed and did not leave. Confucius asking the woman did not create that option. It was always there. My personal thought would also be that one has significantly higher chances to succeed against a tiger than a government, including much more control over whether a tiger attacks in the first place (for example, fences or not going out alone would already improve your chances significantly, which would do nothing against government officials).
- jfengel 1y agoI don't doubt that. But the story just demonstrates survivor bias, literally. Surely there's a better way to illustrate the point. As it is the obvious fallacy makes me inherently skeptical of a conclusion that I'm otherwise inclined to agree with.
- giardini 1y agonosianu says "one has significantly higher chances to succeed against a tiger than a government" I don't think so! A tiger will kill you in the blink of an eye. As for fences: while clearing land for the British railway lines in India, it was sometimes necessary to bring in skilled tiger hunters to eradicate these beasts. In one attack, for example, a tiger jumped a high fence (intended to keep tigers out) around a human encampment, seized a victim, jumped over the fence again carrying his prey and ran away with the meal.
- idkfasayer 1y ago[dead]
- thaumasiotes 1y ago孔子過泰山側，有婦人哭於墓者而哀，夫子式而聽之。使子貢問之曰：「子之哭也，壹似重有憂者。」而曰：「然，昔者吾舅死於虎，吾夫又死焉，今吾子又死焉。」夫子曰：「何為不去也？」曰：「無苛政。」夫子曰：「小子識之，苛政猛於虎也。」 https://ctext.org/liji/tan-gong-ii#n9720 https://ctext.org/liji/tan-gong-ii#n9720