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Surveillance and totalitarian control is a downward spiral of misery and suffering for everyone, even those in power. It reminds me of some quotes from the Tao

by N_Lens 17d ago

Surveillance and totalitarian control is a downward spiral of misery and suffering for everyone, even those in power. It reminds me of some quotes from the Tao Te Ching - Restriction breeds the disorder it's meant to prevent (ch. 57) The more prohibitions there are in the world, the poorer the people become. The more sharp weapons, the more the state falls into confusion. The more laws and edicts are posted, the more thieves and bandits there are. The world isn't a thing to be managed (ch. 29) The world is a sacred vessel; it cannot be manipulated. Whoever acts on it ruins it; whoever grips it loses it.

FlowingRiver 16d ago
Will add Chapter 46. "When the Tao is present in the universe, The horses haul manure. When the Tao is absent from the universe, War horses are bred outside the city." I would consider surveillance weapons against the people. I think this reflects all manners of international governance nowadays. Also Chapter 17. " When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. Next best is a leader who is loved. Next, one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised." If you don’t trust the people, you make them untrustworthy."
api 17d ago
Yet there's incentive structures that push it forward. It's a classic example of us being dragged along by incentives and emergent patterns against our individual wills and better judgement. People think it's a conspiracy of the elite, but the last part of your message is true and it makes me wonder to what extent everyone is being dragged along by everyone else and nobody can stop because nobody can stop. I mean if I were a multi-billionaire, I'm not sure I could do anything. I could piss into the wind with a somewhat larger amount of piss. I've come to believe that our lack of agency over emergent behaviors in our own societies and economies is a central problem of the human condition.
- N_Lens 17d ago
  I mostly agree with your take. The ultra wealthy are entrapped by their own minds & machines of wealth that have tight demands.
  - datsci_est_2015 17d ago
    And yet they still hold immense power to make our lives shittier. It is far easier to destroy a functioning system than it is to build one from the ground up
    - throwitaway222 17d ago
      And yet the lives of everyone on this board has never been this comfortable in the past.
      - ux266478 17d ago
        Do we live in different worlds? I can't think of a single meaningful way my comfort has increased in the past 25 years. In fact, with the rise of the homeless and mental health crises, the encroachment of more and more people who have no business touching computers into cyberspace, the increased relevance of flash mob power on the internet, I would say my comfort has been actively degraded on a fundamental and significant level. On a broader timescale, we can take a look at the fact that goods which were designed to be affordable and mass-produced have been elevated to refined luxury goods, like the Herman-Miller Eames, as an indicator that material standards have fallen very far. Not the least of which because of an ever-dwindling labor share of capital (beginning in the 1970s), which silently impoverishes working households and degrades their comfort while being completely invisible to an uncareful eye on paper. Much of the major boons of comfort were established prior to the transition to shareholder capitalism. Things like e-commerce, IoT, online banking, these are for the birds. Meaningful advances are things like HVAC and refrigeration, ubiquitous motorized transport, electrical lighting.
        godelski 17d ago
        I believe the parent is implying that we sit uncomfortably at home, silently, rather than uncomfortably marching through the streets, demanding. Yet, I say that while uncomfortably sitting in my home, typing on a screen
- hkpack 17d ago
  Well said, I have exactly the same thoughts. However, overcoming these forces is something people did successfully in the past. I think right now we are just in a cycle of mass confusion caused by the technological revolutions, which prevents us to see clearly (as it happened in the past as well). Without alignment we just drift by natural forces of a system in place in whatever direction. When we adapt and if the world survives, this should not be an issue. The problem of billionaires is that they are one level below from the top in abstraction of a society. They are required to play by the rules of the state designed by someone else, and they lack the knowledge and experience to go one level higher and think about the policies and rules for society itself - and this is much harder than doing business, and requires completely different skills. Because of these factors, we see them being able to hoard wealth but unable to influence the system in any positive way, except for the ones which the system was already designed for (create jobs, innovate, etc.)
  - godelski 17d ago
    Honestly, my worry is that the longer we put it off the more likely any revolution or change will happen more chaotically. It should be organized, with strong leaders. But if that fails, I think Reverend King has a famous quote about the unheard. And I think that ends up being chaotic and bloody. I don't want that, I hope we've evolved enough to do transitions of power peacefully, or at least as peacefully as possible
- Varelion 17d ago
  Hold on. Panama papers. Epstein files. CointelPro -> NSPM-7. There absolutely, without a reasonable doubt, is a conspiracy of the elite -- the billionaire class.
  - danielmarkbruce 17d ago
    The idea that all billionaires work together is hilarious. No real adult could possibly believe such nonsense.
    - Varelion 17d ago
      Any adult who has been paying attention has no doubt that enough of the elite do collude to call the duck a duck.
      - danielmarkbruce 17d ago
        In the real world it's hard enough to get 5 people on the same page about anything. The idea that dozens/hundreds of people with billions of dollars who are in business against each other in many cases are secretly colluding with any effectiveness is a joke. If they were, zuckerberg, larry and sergey would have been squashed in the 90's/00's by the elite of the time. Sam Altman would have been crushed years ago. Obama or Trump would have been put in their place, probably both. Look at all the billionaires all of a sudden kowtowing to Trump. The billionaires just got beat real bad in NYC. Billionaires just don't have much power. This isn't a movie.
        godelski 17d ago
        This seems to contradict itself. You first claim that there's no organization but then you claim billionaires have no power because of the more powerful above them. Hierarchy is organization, so which is it
        danielmarkbruce 17d ago
cineticdaffodil 17d ago
[dead]
thoughtbefore 17d ago
[dead]
onesandofgrain 16d ago
The world is not a thing to be managed huh?

by N_Lens 17d ago

FlowingRiver 16d ago

Will add Chapter 46. "When the Tao is present in the universe, The horses haul manure. When the Tao is absent from the universe, War horses are bred outside the city." I would consider surveillance weapons against the people. I think this reflects all manners of international governance nowadays. Also Chapter 17. " When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. Next best is a leader who is loved. Next, one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised." If you don’t trust the people, you make them untrustworthy."

api 17d ago

Yet there's incentive structures that push it forward. It's a classic example of us being dragged along by incentives and emergent patterns against our individual wills and better judgement. People think it's a conspiracy of the elite, but the last part of your message is true and it makes me wonder to what extent everyone is being dragged along by everyone else and nobody can stop because nobody can stop. I mean if I were a multi-billionaire, I'm not sure I could do anything. I could piss into the wind with a somewhat larger amount of piss. I've come to believe that our lack of agency over emergent behaviors in our own societies and economies is a central problem of the human condition.

N_Lens 17d ago
I mostly agree with your take. The ultra wealthy are entrapped by their own minds & machines of wealth that have tight demands.
- datsci_est_2015 17d ago
  And yet they still hold immense power to make our lives shittier. It is far easier to destroy a functioning system than it is to build one from the ground up
  - throwitaway222 17d ago
    And yet the lives of everyone on this board has never been this comfortable in the past.
    - ux266478 17d ago
      Do we live in different worlds? I can't think of a single meaningful way my comfort has increased in the past 25 years. In fact, with the rise of the homeless and mental health crises, the encroachment of more and more people who have no business touching computers into cyberspace, the increased relevance of flash mob power on the internet, I would say my comfort has been actively degraded on a fundamental and significant level. On a broader timescale, we can take a look at the fact that goods which were designed to be affordable and mass-produced have been elevated to refined luxury goods, like the Herman-Miller Eames, as an indicator that material standards have fallen very far. Not the least of which because of an ever-dwindling labor share of capital (beginning in the 1970s), which silently impoverishes working households and degrades their comfort while being completely invisible to an uncareful eye on paper. Much of the major boons of comfort were established prior to the transition to shareholder capitalism. Things like e-commerce, IoT, online banking, these are for the birds. Meaningful advances are things like HVAC and refrigeration, ubiquitous motorized transport, electrical lighting.
      - godelski 17d ago
        I believe the parent is implying that we sit uncomfortably at home, silently, rather than uncomfortably marching through the streets, demanding. Yet, I say that while uncomfortably sitting in my home, typing on a screen
hkpack 17d ago
Well said, I have exactly the same thoughts. However, overcoming these forces is something people did successfully in the past. I think right now we are just in a cycle of mass confusion caused by the technological revolutions, which prevents us to see clearly (as it happened in the past as well). Without alignment we just drift by natural forces of a system in place in whatever direction. When we adapt and if the world survives, this should not be an issue. The problem of billionaires is that they are one level below from the top in abstraction of a society. They are required to play by the rules of the state designed by someone else, and they lack the knowledge and experience to go one level higher and think about the policies and rules for society itself - and this is much harder than doing business, and requires completely different skills. Because of these factors, we see them being able to hoard wealth but unable to influence the system in any positive way, except for the ones which the system was already designed for (create jobs, innovate, etc.)
- godelski 17d ago
  Honestly, my worry is that the longer we put it off the more likely any revolution or change will happen more chaotically. It should be organized, with strong leaders. But if that fails, I think Reverend King has a famous quote about the unheard. And I think that ends up being chaotic and bloody. I don't want that, I hope we've evolved enough to do transitions of power peacefully, or at least as peacefully as possible
Varelion 17d ago
Hold on. Panama papers. Epstein files. CointelPro -> NSPM-7. There absolutely, without a reasonable doubt, is a conspiracy of the elite -- the billionaire class.
- danielmarkbruce 17d ago
  The idea that all billionaires work together is hilarious. No real adult could possibly believe such nonsense.
  - Varelion 17d ago
    Any adult who has been paying attention has no doubt that enough of the elite do collude to call the duck a duck.
    - danielmarkbruce 17d ago
      In the real world it's hard enough to get 5 people on the same page about anything. The idea that dozens/hundreds of people with billions of dollars who are in business against each other in many cases are secretly colluding with any effectiveness is a joke. If they were, zuckerberg, larry and sergey would have been squashed in the 90's/00's by the elite of the time. Sam Altman would have been crushed years ago. Obama or Trump would have been put in their place, probably both. Look at all the billionaires all of a sudden kowtowing to Trump. The billionaires just got beat real bad in NYC. Billionaires just don't have much power. This isn't a movie.
      - godelski 17d ago
        This seems to contradict itself. You first claim that there's no organization but then you claim billionaires have no power because of the more powerful above them. Hierarchy is organization, so which is it
        danielmarkbruce 17d ago

cineticdaffodil 17d ago

[dead]

thoughtbefore 17d ago

[dead]

onesandofgrain 16d ago

The world is not a thing to be managed huh?