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I think if you replace 'hackers' with 'guys' you get the basic definition of government: at some point, a nation picks its 'biggest meanest' (i.e. most capable)

• Padding 12y ago
  No.. Government is not about picking a better bully than your neighboring nation and beating them into submission. What government provides is a practically viable method (kludge?) to reaching consensus on issues where other more reliable methods (like science) fail to do so. Should "we" build up an army and enslave our neighbor nations or should we rather build up and industry and fabricate something all of them want to have (but can't produce themselves) and sell it to them for horrendous prices? Both alternatives have the same effect, but which one is "better"? Science can't provide conclusive answers here .. so what do we do instead? In the past we'd ask some designated mastermind deriving his legitimacy from god or a certain bloodline and such. These days we tend to vote on who that mastermind should be or create institutions that allow for more direct control by the nations subjects. But nothing of this has to do with picking a bigger bully. How big of a meanie you (as a nation) want to be is entirely orthogonal to being a government (or a democracy).