When multiple people desire the same goal or covet the same resources, they will pool their resources to stand a better chance of defeating their competition and bringing their desires to fruition. You continue to claim that reducing society to the smallest possible units will bring Utopia, Scrotie, and in a perfect world where every man is his own king and also no king suffers alliance with another, you might be right.
Reality, however, will never allow one man to beat two men. Forming alliances, building groups, making agreements with each other to mutually pursue a mutually desirable goal or avoid a mutually undesirable fate, will always be the way some people deal with the world. You can't unmake society, and there's not enough Earth for every single person to have their own personal country complete with every resource they could ever want. Until and unless we get off this rock and achieve post-scarcity society, two men acting in concert will always have an edge over one man acting alone.
What you talk about here is not a perfect unity but a dichotomy; not one people with one purpose, but one "us" versus one "them." Dichotomies are as close to actual unity as human nature allows; when people advocate for unity what they champion in practice is dichotomy.
As I've detailed in previous threads I'll reiterate here: dichotomies only cause social regression. Under a strict dichotomy whataboutism is (contrary to John Oliver's claim otherwise) logically valid - "do you want to be led by a murderer, or led by a rapist?" - and thus any competition between groups does not reap the benefits normally associated with free-market competition; instead, the two groups compete to see who can be slightly more villainous than the other while striving to appear only slightly more virtuous than the other, such that both remain at roughly equal strength and botb become gradually worse over time.
The magic number is three or more. My parable doesn't work without a third person who exists outside the dichotomy of two. You claim my theory works so long as there are no alliances whatsoever, but that isn't true; alliances are tolerable up until the third group is assimilated and only two remain. Indeed, economic specialization doesn't work its magic without numerous alliances for the purposes of mutually beneficial trade.
The real question is: if you have three or more groups in competition with each other such that merit decides which groups grow and which fail, by what process do we stop the assimilation of failing groups by successful ones until a state of homeostatic duopoly and regression is achieved? Are we doomed to endless cycles of free-merket boom followed by duopoly-fueled collapse?
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on May 9, 2018, 5:14:17 PM
Four men are trapped in a room. We'll assume Vault-Tec is responsible because of the nature of the room. Each day, a grate in the center of the room's floor opens and enough food for three and a half men is produced. Every day, one man has to go hungry - not hungry enough to weaken and die, but hungry enough to be uncomfortable and miserable.
The four men fight every day to claim a full share of the food, battering each other, but they're all equals and so random chance and happenstance determines who gets the half share and thus has to put up with a day of scant food.
Eventually however, one of the men approaches another and says "this is bullshit. I'm sick of going hungry every fourth day. I'll tell you what - fight with me, instead of against me. The two of us will fight together, and since we're not fighting each other we'll be certain to get more food." The second man agrees.
Now, every day, the two allied men fight side by side. The other two men, fighting each other as well as the allied men, cannot ever prevent the allied men from taking their shares, and so each of them suffers the Short Straw share twice as often. They cry to each other "this is bullshit! Those two are forcing us to suffer so they can always eat a full meal! We're not going to take this lying down!" They decide to pair up themselves, and so the fight goes back to being an even chance - save between two groups of two men, each of which is driven to hate the other. Their situation hasn't necessarily improved, each man still suffers one short day in four on average - but it has evolved, and none of the four can afford to remain isolated and alone for fear of being overpowered by men who've allied with each other.
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Moral of this story? When multiple people desire the same goal or covet the same resources, they will pool their resources to stand a better chance of defeating their competition and bringing their desires to fruition. You continue to claim that reducing society to the smallest possible units will bring Utopia, Scrotie, and in a perfect world where every man is his own king and also no king suffers alliance with another, you might be right.
Reality, however, will never allow one man to beat two men. Forming alliances, building groups, making agreements with each other to mutually pursue a mutually desirable goal or avoid a mutually undesirable fate, will always be the way some people deal with the world. You can't unmake society, and there's not enough Earth for every single person to have their own personal country complete with every resource they could ever want. Until and unless we get off this rock and achieve post-scarcity society, two men acting in concert will always have an edge over one man acting alone.
That's as much a law of reality as physics is.
Better scenario than Scrotie's, yet still falls short. The groups that'll form will consist of three men and a loner, not of two groups with two men. A group of three will guarantee permanent benefits whilst the guy left out has no chance of shaking their alliance. Nobody wants to team up with the loser. Rather than expressing teamwork for the sake of a goal, the scenario becomes an example of oppression and iron fist rule due to personal greed.
Four men are trapped in a room. We'll assume Vault-Tec is responsible because of the nature of the room. Each day, a grate in the center of the room's floor opens and enough food for three and a half men is produced. Every day, one man has to go hungry - not hungry enough to weaken and die, but hungry enough to be uncomfortable and miserable.
The four men fight every day to claim a full share of the food, battering each other, but they're all equals and so random chance and happenstance determines who gets the half share and thus has to put up with a day of scant food.
Eventually however, one of the men approaches another and says "this is bullshit. I'm sick of going hungry every fourth day. I'll tell you what - fight with me, instead of against me. The two of us will fight together, and since we're not fighting each other we'll be certain to get more food." The second man agrees.
Now, every day, the two allied men fight side by side. The other two men, fighting each other as well as the allied men, cannot ever prevent the allied men from taking their shares, and so each of them suffers the Short Straw share twice as often. They cry to each other "this is bullshit! Those two are forcing us to suffer so they can always eat a full meal! We're not going to take this lying down!" They decide to pair up themselves, and so the fight goes back to being an even chance - save between two groups of two men, each of which is driven to hate the other. Their situation hasn't necessarily improved, each man still suffers one short day in four on average - but it has evolved, and none of the four can afford to remain isolated and alone for fear of being overpowered by men who've allied with each other.
***
Moral of this story? When multiple people desire the same goal or covet the same resources, they will pool their resources to stand a better chance of defeating their competition and bringing their desires to fruition. You continue to claim that reducing society to the smallest possible units will bring Utopia, Scrotie, and in a perfect world where every man is his own king and also no king suffers alliance with another, you might be right.
Reality, however, will never allow one man to beat two men. Forming alliances, building groups, making agreements with each other to mutually pursue a mutually desirable goal or avoid a mutually undesirable fate, will always be the way some people deal with the world. You can't unmake society, and there's not enough Earth for every single person to have their own personal country complete with every resource they could ever want. Until and unless we get off this rock and achieve post-scarcity society, two men acting in concert will always have an edge over one man acting alone.
That's as much a law of reality as physics is.
Better scenario than Scrotie's, yet still falls short. The groups that'll form will consist of three men and a loner, not of two groups with two men. A group of three will guarantee permanent benefits whilst the guy left out has no chance of shaking their alliance. Nobody wants to team up with the loser. Rather than expressing teamwork for the sake of a goal, the scenario becomes an example of oppression and iron fist rule due to personal greed.
What you're talking about here is basically a monopoly plus slavery. The thing is that monopolies don't last long, slavery or not; they devolve into infighting. Dichotomies offer the maximum sustainable amount of unity; monopolies have more unity temporarily but lack homeostatic equilibrium, or if they persist it's as a target of conquest for dichotic competition (ex: the US government has a monopoly but Ds and Rs fight over control of it).
In your scenario the enslavement of that one man would persist until the dichotomy with less control over him sees a military advantage in calling for his freedom. Not coincidentally, this was exactly the motivation for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on May 9, 2018, 10:52:10 PM
What you're talking about here is basically a monopoly plus slavery. The thing is that monopolies don't last long, slavery or not; they devolve into infighting. Dichotomies offer the maximum sustainable amount of unity; monopolies have more unity temporarily but lack homeostatic equilibrium, or if they persist it's as a target of conquest for dichotic competition (ex: the US government has a monopoly but Ds and Rs fight over control of it).
In your scenario the enslavement of that one man would persist until the dichotomy with less control over him sees a military advantage in calling for his freedom. Not coincidentally, this was exactly the motivation for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
We break up monopolies when it hurt us. More stable monopolies like Powerful Monarchies last for hundreds of years. If they are powerful, they can't be easily broken. Saying monopolies don't last long, might as well say no institution last forever. Monopolies are advantageous to the people reaping its benefits, and disadvantageous to people being exploited by it. It is totally fine to people reaping its benefits and they might even support it. Why would anyone support slavery? Because it benefit them. Slavery lasted for hundreds if not thousands of years. The better saying is Monopolies last too long...
What you're talking about here is basically a monopoly plus slavery. The thing is that monopolies don't last long, slavery or not; they devolve into infighting.
Correct, but there's no factors in the scenario given that'd cause infighting.
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ScrotieMcB wrote:
In your scenario the enslavement of that one man would persist until the dichotomy with less control over him sees a military advantage in calling for his freedom. Not coincidentally, this was exactly the motivation for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
Correct again. This however would require for five or more parties to be involved in the example scenario, as with four parties there's always only negatives to defending the weakling. Only if two out of three teamed up with the weakling would it become worth it.
Both hypothetical scenarios / thought experiments presented here fail to deliver the thoughts meant to be behind them.
As for 'balance of power', I see no point in discussing it on a general level. Due to hereditary greed of human race, there will never be a lasting unity between people (or groups of people), no matter how similar or different they are. Thus, competition and dissonance exist. Unhealthy as they are, these give a fighting chance for others against the greedy part of mankind.
What you're talking about here is basically a monopoly plus slavery. The thing is that monopolies don't last long, slavery or not; they devolve into infighting.
Correct, but
there's no factors in the scenario given that'd cause infighting.
This isn't true. Having functionally rendered one participant to property, you basically just restart the scenario with 3 participants instead of 4.
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Anonymous1749704 wrote:
Spoiler
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ScrotieMcB wrote:
In your scenario the enslavement of that one man would persist until the dichotomy with less control over him sees a military advantage in calling for his freedom. Not coincidentally, this was exactly the motivation for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
Correct again.
This however would require for five or more parties to be involved in the example scenario, as with four parties there's always only negatives to defending the weakling. Only if two out of three teamed up with the weakling would it become worth it.
Again, wrong. If two non-slaves teamed up against the third non-slave, it's doubtful they'd rather convert the slave to an ally than include him as an additional spoil of war. What is more likely is that one non-slave goes to war against another non-slave while the last non-slave takes neither side in the conflict (perhaps because he's already dead). This trio of one vs one plus one neutral is essentially the same trio as in the opening post.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
Again, wrong. If two non-slaves teamed up against the third non-slave, it's doubtful they'd rather convert the slave to an ally than include him as an additional spoil of war. What is more likely is that one non-slave goes to war against another non-slave while the last non-slave takes neither side in the conflict (perhaps because he's already dead). This trio of one vs one plus one neutral is essentially the same trio as in the opening post.
Or another scenario where a stronger group control all the food. What is stopping people from wanting to be the "Masters" group instead of the "slaves" or "Non-slave"? Competitions doesn't just stay static, it would often cause short term disequilibrium, the imbalance of power happen and one group dominates. Like I say We don't always favor competition, we favor monopolies when it benefit us. Who is gonna argue against winning?
Last edited by deathflower#0444 on May 10, 2018, 6:31:15 AM
The most likely thing to occur is that they would, after some infighting, realize that their best situation is to split the rations so that everyone got approximately 87,5% of a meal.
Why? Because if they go and gank up on one guy so that he always get half a meal, he'd eventually die. This open up two options in this case. Either the meals get cut to 2,5 or there's a new fourth guy added.3 In both cases, in both cases, it can create a serious shift of power and leave one of the initial 3 screwed out.
Build of the week #9 - Breaking your face with style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_EcQDOUN9Y
IGN: Poltun
The most likely thing to occur is that they would, after some infighting, realize that their best situation is to split the rations so that everyone got approximately 87,5% of a meal.
Why? Because if they go and gank up on one guy so that he always get half a meal, he'd eventually die. This open up two options in this case. Either the meals get cut to 2,5 or there's a new fourth guy added.3 In both cases, in both cases, it can create a serious shift of power and leave one of the initial 3 screwed out.
The guy would suffer from malnutrition maybe eventually die. But why would this be a bad thing if there would be more food to go around? This largely depend on whether the food that goes around is dependent on the number of people, which is unknown. If it is a constant, it may even be desirable to kill off other men in the room.
^ except "land" means nothing and people mean everything. When southern USA demographically becomes Mexico 2.0, it will de facto cease to be USA
Sounds racist to me. Someone's ethnicity doesn't determine whether they are American or not.
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morbo wrote:
and become something else, no matter who won the war 150 years ago.
If it comes to that, we defeated Mexico before and can do it again. We would probably end up making the entire nation of Mexico a territory, and just start culling the most corrupt areas with air strikes.
The Wall will take care of much of this, and tax reform (no deductions for non verified authorized workers) would take shut off the spigot of illegal invasion as well.
"The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." - Eugene Jarvis
PoE Origins - Piety's story http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2081910
