The individual in question says easily debunked nonsense constantly out of ideological drive. It is better to feed the comments to ChatGPT and let the machine do the job than waste brain cells on drivel.

I can say Elon Musk is an insufferable idiot — Moliere

Alright, but him and other "idiots" like Trump owe several things everybody here uses and have accomplished much more than everybody here together. Who are the idiots after all? Judge a tree by its fruits.

I believe @Tarskian says many things from the heart I disagree with. I asked ahead of time if they'd mind me starting a thread with the quote, and mostly just want to riff on this idea of hierarchies being inevitable, and whether democracy manages to address hierarchy at all, or is just a re-invention of the same.

Also, I can't deny, I enjoy going through drivel :D

If that's so then we could make the economy better even if hierarchy is inevitable. — Moliere

In a capitalist society, wealth becomes concentrated, then redistributed by economic crisis. It's happened over and over, no matter who was in charge. The secret to the endurance of capitalism is that it's incredibly creative. In a sense, it created all of us.

The only part democracy plays is that it provides the freedom capitalism needs.

I will be honest with you and tell you I have no clue what this means.

As to the OP, for starters, 'democracy' isn't 'rule by the people'. Obviously the argument here is etymological, but then it would be 'power by the people'; 'rule by the people' would be 'demarchy', but that is already a word that means 'city hall' in Greek, though it was used once or twice in ancient times as a synonym of 'democracy'. Not an important detail, but just throwing it out there.

There is nothing "geometric" about the matter either. It is another episode of the individual abusing mathematical language to give appearances of credibility to drivel.

Yeah, I agree that those parts don't mean much.

Though I include them because they seem to include the latter parts a bit. There's nothing "geometric" beyond asserting that hierarchy is inevitable. That's part of why I wanted to put this up here for discussion: I've often seen these sorts of claims with respect to hierarchy without really saying much more than "There will always be winners and losers, so stop talking about making it better"

just want to riff on this idea of hierarchies being inevitable, and whether democracy manages to address hierarchy at all, or is just a re-invention of the same. — Moliere

It is quite accurate that nature organises itself with hierarchical complexity. That began right from the Big Bang. It is the natural pattern of all Nature. It is the logic of organised being that can’t be escaped for reasons that hierarchy theory as a mathematical science makes clear.

So the thing when it comes to politics is to recognise the fact and use it to your best advantage. You don’t want to waste time trying to erase hierarchical order. You want to understand it well enough to use it to achieve your goals.

In general, democracy embodies the ideal of some fruitful balance of local competition and global cooperation in a society. Fruitful can then be defined in various ways. And that’s where choices start to get made.

If you want democracy that delivers eternalised 3% GDP growth, then that is a very simple thought that can indeed scale to organise a whole society. If you want that growth to be “fairly distributed”, then that becomes more complicated to ensure.

What even is fair if you, as a society, have decided to pursue growth over stasis (or even a well managed decline, as in Green politics)? Stasis would be have a Gaussian distribution of wealth as its ideal. Growth would be powerlaw.

Then how do you deal with oligarchy and other forms of wealth accumulation and corruption. Political power is going to accumulate in powerlaw fashion as well unless your economic system is run in a way that is independent from your political system.

So could you have a Gaussian constraint on wealth accumulation coupled to a powerlaw distribution of wealth? Getting tricky to manage. To do so would require having your society entrained to some kind of strong transcendent principle about billionaires returning their money to society in a counterbalancing generational fashion and not leaving it to their kids or self-agrandising but ineffective foundations.

So understand the naturalness of hierarchical order and you can start imagining the big picture choices that have to be made so as to tune the hierarchical order that is going to emerge no matter what social course you decide steer.

Always better to drive with a hand on the steering wheel. Make hierarchical complexity work for you.

"There will always be winners and losers, so stop talking about making it better" — Moliere

You cannot make it better for everyone but you can certainly make it better for yourself, by going where you are treated best.

As a digital nomad slash nomad capitalist, I do not care if the ruling oligarchy increases taxes in a particular jurisdiction, for example, because it never affects me.

Most political decisions are irrelevant to me because I can just choose another jurisdiction where they made another political decision.

Freedom from harassment by the oligarchy is possible. It takes effort to achieve it, but in my opinion, it is definitely worth it.

So the thing when it comes to politics is to recognise the fact and use it to your best advantage. You don’t want to waste time trying to erase hierarchical order. You want to understand it well enough to use it to achieve your goals. — apokrisis

Exactly!

Karl Marx did not erase hierarchical order. His communists merely created another one.

Any attempt at erasing inequalities will simply lead to other inequalities to the benefit of the small core demographic that has successfully managed to monopolize political power.

Political power itself cannot be abolished. It will always exist because that is simply human nature.

Freedom from harassment by the oligarchy is possible. It takes effort to achieve it, but in my opinion, it is definitely worth it. — Tarskian

Wow. You realised you describe the age of Colonialism so well. Just the same model in today’s world. Pack up your bags and settle in some land inhabited only by natives you fundamentally need not care about. Take it from there.

The individual in question says easily debunked nonsense constantly out of ideological drive. It is better to feed the comments to ChatGPT and let the machine do the job than waste brain cells on drivel. — Lionino

Perhaps you should consider not participating.

Wow. You realised you describe the age of Colonialism so well. Just the same model in today’s world. Pack up your bags and settle in some land inhabited only by natives you fundamentally need not care about. Take it from there. — apokrisis

First of all, colonialism is about forcing your views onto the indigenous population. You are not in that position as a digital nomad or nomad capitalist. You just need a place where the ruling mafia will leave you alone. It is not about oppressing others but about avoiding getting oppressed yourself.

Secondly, there is nothing in the doctrine of zakaat (mandatory charity) or sadaqah (voluntary charity) that says anything about which nationality is supposed to be its beneficiary. Every nationality is suitable for charitable action.

In fact, the digital nomad lifestyle is considered eminently halal:

https://digitalnomadbrothers.com/blog/post/faith-on-the-move-navigating-halal-travel-as-a-muslim-digital-nomad

Exploring the challenges and solutions for Muslim digital nomads, this guide offers insights on locating Halal food, keeping up with prayers, and ensuring one's travels never compromise their faith. Discover how to harmonize your nomadic lifestyle with the principles of Islam.

In the end, all morality emanates from the laws of the Almighty.

There is nothing in the digital nomad lifestyle that forces you to violate the laws of our beloved Lord.

This is normal because you are free to do as you please as long as you do not overstep the few guardrails with which our beloved Master has defined what behavior is forbidden onto you.

Karl Marx did not erase hierarchical order. His communists merely created another one. — Tarskian

Marxism failed as communism. But it fared better as social democracy. Russia and China had to make big jumps just to become industrial powers within a single generation. Europe was already a bunch of wealthy industrial powers - due to their colonial systems and technological might. So the basic issue of what kind of societies they wanted to be was at least in play in that regard. They were various versions of constitutional monarchies and so pretty high tech as social hierarchies.

As @frank notes, even then it took world wars and depressions to break up the wealth accumulations and tip the balance back towards the “ordinary folk”. So not exactly a well planned approach to bringing the balance back towards a more Gaussian wealth distribution.

Political power itself cannot be abolished. It will always exist because that is simply human nature. — Tarskian

Hierarchy is simply nature. It is the pattern that self-organises to distribute anything in scaled fashion. Your circulation system is fractal so that all your cells can live “each according to their ability/each according to their need”.

Power is a vague term, but it can be more precisely defined. US dollars per barrel of oil is a good metric these days, just as horsepower was a while back, or bushels of wheat.

Political power perhaps ought to mean the ability to get good things done. To be able to command resources with capital. In practice, it has been corrupted by adding the rider of “…for me, and my gang”.

So sure, we can have political power without also having its corruption. Or we can at least - pragmatically - minimise the corruption to some statistically tolerable level.

That is the way technocratic policy makers indeed think from long experience of trying to make political systems work. You can’t catch all thieves, but you can run a business that puts on a customer friendly face and so profits even while having to manage its annual “stock shrinkage” number.

Most of what actually happens in “power” circles - in well-run social democracies or corporations at least - is so mundane and commonsense that there is no doctrinal debate. The small stuff takes care of itself. The big stuff? Well that can be left til tomorrow.

First of all, colonialism is about forcing your views onto the indigenous population. You are not in that position as a digital nomad or nomad capitalist. You just need a place where the ruling mafia will leave you alone. It is not about oppressing others but about avoiding getting oppressed yourself. — Tarskian

Exactly what the colonisers shipping out Europe said by the boat load. They looked forward to no longer tugging the forelock at home, enjoying the welcome of the free and noble savages in the lands without yet the corruptions of civilisation.

Of course, illusion collided with reality with often genocidal results. At least the digital nomad can feel they are not importing their disease and cannon. Just their Melbourne cafe culture and sleaze.

I perfectly understand the allure of being a digital nomad. My comment is that this nothing new. Pick up sticks and head for where your relative poverty becomes relative wealth. Plenty of pensioners do exactly the same thing.

The political question is what do we think about it if we extrapolate the trend - the trickle becoming the flood? Do we still think it such a wonderful thing? Does it successfully scale?

Get to that question and you have a political position to advance here. At the moment you are just describing running away from problems rather than fixing problems.

In the end, all morality emanates from the laws of the Almighty. — Tarskian

Well that’s a point of view. But also the kind of appeal to transcendent principle that any hierarchical order is going to need to make to bring everyone under the one social system.

That is, religion has long served this precise social function. And sadly religious institutions are also famously corruptible. A constitutional society seems better. But the US is an example of how that can eventually go if it doesn’t keep its power balancing mechanisms politically up to date.

What about this as a better way of framing it for modern times? The globe is busy self-organising itself in terms of these new mobility possibilities.

The emerging hierarchy is influencers at the top, then the digital nomads, migrant workers and state-collapse refugees? Some travel by super yacht, others by rubber dinghy.

The political question is what do we think about it if we extrapolate the trend - the trickle becoming the flood? Do we still think it such a wonderful thing? Does it successfully scale? — apokrisis

They have apparently reached the limit in Barcelona, Gran Canaria, Mallorca, and Venice. The bottom of Spanish and Italian income ladder are now chanting "Tourist go home!"

I agree. I already said that 10 years ago. These places were dangerous tourist traps back then already. There's little point in visiting a place where 80% of the people around you are just other visitors.

But then again, as a nomad you can go and live for a while in Ulaan Bator, Mongolia, or even better, in one of their provincial cities, and get everyone incessantly staring at you, including the prettiest of their females.

These people want to talk to me. I am apparently "interesting" to them, the reason being that they don't often see a specimen like me in their godforsaken outpost of the world. "Can we invite you over for dinner tonight? We have two daughters!"

Get to that question and you have a political position to advance here. At the moment you are just describing running away from problems rather than fixing problems. — apokrisis

Instead of trying to solve everyone else's problems, I am solving my own. It works like a charm. I am completely satisfied with the outcome.

Why should I be interested in everybody else's problems? Are they even interested in mine?

That is, religion has long served this precise social function. And sadly religious institutions are also famously corruptible. — apokrisis

Welcome to the real world!

My own tactics consist in accepting the morality of the nomadic shepherds as my own moral standard. The first farmers were too degenerate already. I don't trust them.

If I could, I would reprogram myself around the morality of the original hunter-gatherers but these guys could not write. So, they did not transmit a copy of their moral rules to us. That is why I make do with the nomadic shepherds.

A constitutional society seems better. But the US is an example of how that can eventually go if it doesn’t keep its power balancing mechanisms politically up to date. — apokrisis

Power will predictably accumulate inside a small oligarchy. These people have now learned to game the system. It never stood a chance to begin with. Every system can be gamed. If it can be gamed, it will be gamed.

Why should I be interested in everybody else's problems? Are they even interested in mine? — Tarskian

Sure, sure. One can always live on the fringe as an option. Or seek to flee it too.

Digital nomad or migrant worker? Individuals can always be individual. Hierarchy theory is about the larger balance of a system that has to be a scalable combination of its freedoms and constraints. That is where the political debate begins.

If I could, I would reprogram myself around the morality of the original hunter-gatherers but these guys could not write. So, they did not transmit a copy of their moral rules to us. That is why I make do with the nomadic shepherds. — Tarskian

But we know quite a lot about hunter-gatherers. And what reliable sources are you using when it comes to nomadic shepherds? Any cites?

Every system can be gamed. If it can be gamed, it will be gamed. — Tarskian

And every system can be policed. That is what hierarchies are supposed to be doing if they are properly organised.

Hierarchies are just how nature plumbs its entropy flows. They are essentially neutral. Humans have simply turned economic and social hierarchies into something we can consciously construct. Scale neutrality becomes something we thus also have to maintain by good political design.

That is why anti-oligarchy and anti-monopoly policies exist. Breaking up the blockages with a bit of vigorous intervention.

Or not, if a good system is becoming a failing one.

On reading over this, not participating looks like the best option. Can't help forming a picture in my mind, though, and that will amuse till I fall asleep.

But we know quite a lot about hunter-gatherers. And what reliable sources are you using when it comes to nomadic shepherds? Any cites? — apokrisis

The Torah and the Quran emerged out of nomadic shepherds.

And every system can be policed. — apokrisis

That is not the problem. The problem is:

And who exactly polices the police itself?

That is why anti-oligarchy and anti-monopoly policies exist. — apokrisis

That is not the problem. The problem is:

Concerning the people who devise and carry out anti-oligarchy policies, they are an oligarchy themselves. So, who exactly will enforce anti-oligarchy policies against them?

The Romans already understood the problem very well:

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase found in the Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–348), a work of the 1st–2nd century Roman poet Juvenal. It may be translated as "Who will guard the guards themselves?" or "Who will watch the watchmen?".

The original context deals with the problem of ensuring marital fidelity, though the phrase is now commonly used more generally to refer to the problem of controlling the actions of persons in positions of power, an issue discussed by Plato in the Republic.

The custodes custodorum problem is fraught with infinite regress and is therefore fundamentally unsolvable. All solutions proposed always amount to bamboozling the populace into believing that they work, while that is simply not possible.

This time, we solved the problem! No, you didn't.

The Torah and the Quran emerged out of nomadic shepherds. — Tarskian

Just happen to be reading a book about the early Iron Age, and the Israelites weren't nomadic. Arabs weren't either. I can see how you'd get that impression though.

Just happen to be reading a book about the early Iron Age, and the Israelites weren't nomadic. Arabs weren't either. I can see how you'd get that impression though. — frank

https://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-a-nomad.html

Abraham is the first person in Scripture who seems to be specifically identified as living a nomadic lifestyle. He moved from place to place in a land that was not his own, living in tents.
...
When the people of Israel left Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years living as nomads. Even the tabernacle was mobile, so that it could be moved from place to place.

https://www.the-faith.com/featured-posts/prophet-muhammad-working-as-a-shepherd/

When the Prophet (peace be upon him) was still young, Abu Talib was going through a financial crisis; he had many mouths to feed, and business wasn’t going so well. To help his uncle get through those hard times, the Prophet (peace be upon him) worked as a shepherd. In an authentic Hadith, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said,“Every Prophet that Allah sent herded sheep (at one time or another during his life).” The companions said, “And even you?” He (peace be upon him) said, “Yes, I herded them upon Qararit.” (Ibn Hajar said that scholars mention two possible meanings of Qararit: it is either a place in Makkah, or it is a portion of a dinar or dirham, in which case the Prophet (peace be upon him) was mentioning his wages. (Al-Bukhari)

Abraham and the Exodus are folklore. The Israelites occupied a specific area.

Muhammad had a number of occupations. The Arabs weren't nomadic.

When the people of Israel left Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years living as nomads. Even the tabernacle was mobile, so that it could be moved from place to place.

Oh wow. I wasn’t expecting your ideology to be quite so narrowly based.

Abraham and the Exodus are folklore. The Israelites occupied a specific area.

Muhammad had a number of occupations. The Arabs weren't nomadic. — frank

Oh wow. I wasn’t expecting your ideology to be quite so narrowly based. — apokrisis

Imagine that I say that every claim is corrupt.

It won't work because in that case, the claim that claims that, is also corrupt.

Hence, there must exist truthful statements. The question is now: Where do we find them?

Well, not in our contemporary society. Everybody alive today has been corrupted from early childhood by our degenerate society. So, let's go back as far as we can to find a society with substantially less corruption. That is how I ended up at the nomadic shepherds. Going back earlier than that, is not possible, because the people who came before that, did not leave any written records.

I simply do not believe what modern people say on morality because their views were inculcated by the degenerate society in which we live.

Humans were originally nomadic because they followed migrating herds. They probably didn't have much corruption. There wasn't much to corrupt.

There is always a hierarchical top to society where all the political power accumulates, and therefore, also pretty much all the wealth. — Tarskian

That's true. It's a consequence of freedom. Competition means winners and losers. Winners are in a stronger position to compete and tend to win more than losers, and vice versa.

It is simply not possible to prevent the concentration of political power and therefore of wealth. — Tarskian

That works the other way round, as well. It is simply not possible to prevent the concentration of wealth and therefore of political power.

However, those at the top of the hierarchy tend to succumb to wishful thinking and to deceive themselves into thinking they are not utterly dependent of the lower ranks for their position. Competition means that they can lose everything. Secretly, however, I think they are well aware of this and have to live in fear, while pretending to be utterly confident. "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown". This may explain why philosophers, who are by definition rational, are seldom also kings.

Everybody alive today has been corrupted from early childhood by our degenerate society. — Tarskian

People have been saying that forever - almost certainly since societies were formed. But the Golden Age of the past, on closer inspection, always turns out to be a nightmare. Why on earth would one want to become a nomadic shepherd in any earlier age?

The free market is the worst possible way of organizing an economy except for all the others. It is riddled with paradox. It is not in the interest of sellers, and not in the interest of buyers either. Sellers want higher prices and will always do their best to distort the market. Buyers want lower prices and will always do their best to distort the market.
However, it is not a case of one group of people against another. Every participant in the market is both a buyer and a seller. That's why free markets are an extremely fragile institutions and will always require heavy state regulation. But

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes

indeed. Especially as they are also players in the market.

That works the other way round, as well. It is simply not possible to prevent the concentration of wealth and therefore of political power. — Ludwig V

I'm not sure if wealth necessarily leads to political power.

You would still need to make the connections with people who actually have the political power. Some wealthy people pull that off, but not all.

All politically powerful people get approached by wealthy people for political privileges, but not necessarily the other way around.

In a capitalist society, wealth becomes concentrated, then redistributed by economic crisis. It's happened over and over, no matter who was in charge. The secret to the endurance of capitalism is that it's incredibly creative. In a sense, it created all of us.

The only part democracy plays is that it provides the freedom capitalism needs. — frank

I think democracy is more of a levy to capitalism than an accelerator: democracy, thus far, has happened to help capitalism, but that's because democracies are overwhelmingly not democratic even in the representative sense. The people there come from money and so vote for things that help thems, like all humans do. (this is a big problem for representative democracy: since humans vote for themselves, by human nature, you can't build representative systems since the apes that get the office are no better than the apes at home, and will vote for themselves) 

But if you build in more steps for scrutiny then this gets tampered as the individual decision becomes collective.

As a digital nomad slash nomad capitalist, I do not care if the ruling oligarchy increases taxes in a particular jurisdiction, for example, because it never affects me.

Most political decisions are irrelevant to me because I can just choose another jurisdiction where they made another political decision.

Freedom from harassment by the oligarchy is possible. It takes effort to achieve it, but in my opinion, it is definitely worth it. — Tarskian

I think this is an individualistic response: if you can make it happen for you then do it.

Sure! If you're content then go be content all by yourself.

I'm thinking about everyone here while also thinking of myself.

You don’t want to waste time trying to erase hierarchical order. — apokrisis

Oh? I like to waste my time in exactly that pursuit.

All politically powerful people get approached by wealthy people for political privileges, but not necessarily the other way around. — Tarskian

That's true. But I was also thinking of the political influence wealth can have indirectly, not by influencing politicians. Where does that new factory go? Who going to be laid off? Where am I going to put my money? That sort of thing. Money talks. To put it another way, "it's all about economics, stupid"

you can't build representative systems since the apes that get the office are no better than the apes at home, — Moliere

I think you've slipped up there. Isn't the idea of representation that the apes that get the office should as like the apes as home as possible?

But your subtext is correct, of course. It is very hard to find democratic politicians who will vote for an unpopular policy.

Yes, I slipped up. And really any poking or prodding is welcome by me because I'm still thinking through these various questions that are attached. I asked ahead of time because I didn't want @Tarskian to feel picked on, but I thought they expressed a clear sentiment that I've seen across the 'nets and elsewise worth thinking about.


The apes that get to office should be like the apes at home, insofar that's possible (and insofar that we're able to protect the wolves voting what to do with the sheep in some legal jujitsu)


My thought is that as soon as you're "the representative" then, in the material sense of being-able, you're no longer the same as whom you represent. (one of the mechanisms of syndicalism is that representatives cannot re-present, so a new person has to go up to say what the people they represent think every time, whatever that "time" happens to be designated as)

But your subtext is correct, of course. It is very hard to find democratic politicians who will vote for an unpopular policy. — Ludwig V

I appreciate your grace, but I don't know what my subtext is (other than the usual drivel I say ;) ).

I'm thinking through these questions still, and posting in the hopes of hearing others' thoughts. In the old-skool forum way :D