I wrote a long reply to explore some ideas I’ve been entertaining recently. I guess I just wanted to straighten my own thoughts out, so please don’t take this as pontificating or “this is how it is for sure”. I just like thinking while typing. Feel free to not read.
I see your point and definitely agree with the conclusion:
Clearly, when it comes to certain kinds of problems, the response must be collective, supported by public effort
But umm… Sometimes the larger threat isn’t bears that randomly come over from the woods. Sometimes the people that were elected to protect you from bears and were supported by the public, even cheered and applauded… Idk, circumstances are important.
I also feel like lots of people focus a lot on the inherent flaws of different systems of political organization that they don’t adhere to, while turning a blind eye on their own.
Libertarianism
Yes, libertarianism is flawed and fails at a certain scale for both individuals and large populations as a whole in the presence of widespread distrust or relevant threats within or outside the population and will inevitably devolve into “anarchy” (which means warlords/cartels each with as much territory their ruthless leaders can secure and handle). Won’t disagree with you there.
Capitalism
What about good, old fashioned, standard American capitalist democracy? Well then it seems people get ruled by what results of the negotiation between corporations and political parties, who are largely controlled by the psychos who are ruthless enough to climb to the top of those systems… Ok so I guess this means getting ruled by psychos again. But at least people get to vote! At least people respect the law! right? Well… elections are basically a competition on what individuals and organizations are most effective at persuading or manipulating, and the law is the result of those competitions through time.
Communism
But now let’s think about communism. How’s that turned out historically? Seems to me like people stop accumulating private property and start accumulating political influence to improve their position within a state that attempts to control or at the very least regulate everything to impose equal distribution of different resources, except… you know… for the people that have influence. This has happened time and time again. Seems devolve into authoritarianism really fast because people get desperate about trying to get to the top of that ladder of influence that decides who gets what. (trust me on this one, I live in south america). And when you have authoritarianism you have literally every psychopath in the country doing everything they can to have access to the absolute power its leadership entails. So… ruled by psychos.
Socialism
Ok, ok, but maybe communism was too extreme. How about socialism? That works, right? I mean, sure! It works under the following conditions: Your country has so much wealth it can afford to secure services to the less fortunate (as defined culturally), the struggle for power between people that want large powerful governments and those who want large powerful corporations is relatively balanced and carried out in good faith (or else unstable system), and both your private sector stays competent enough to keep the country rich and your government stays sharp enough to promote adequate legislation in order for corporations to not wreak havoc… So wait… Doesn’t this mean that this is just like American Capitalism or Communism, where this happens but in an earlier stage of its life cycle, before it devolves into “corporations win” or “the state wins”? Because the population is still able to identify charlatans and the culture is cohesive so people don’t consider their political rivals to be sworn enemies yet?
Final thoughts.
Given enough time, whatever system a country uses or constitution it adheres to, the psychos will rise to different positions of power, they’ll fight each other for a bit and then one team will win, turning the lives of everyone who isn’t in their team a living hell. Then, given enough time, the oppressed seize a victory and then change stuff up, for the better or the worse and on and on it goes until an idea/creation myth powerful enough to unite a fractured society comes and money can be made and things can be built again with idealism and unity… But nothing lasts forever.
That’s just how it works. There are no good systems. Elections are as useless as royalty or theocracy. It’s not about systems, it’s about where in the life cycle of the society/empire you randomly got born into. All we can really do is adapt.
If you made it this far, I’m impressed. Thanks for reading! Appreciate you hearing out my thoughts and would love to hear your opinion.
Agree 100% to every statement you made.
But umm… you realize that just by changing religion’s name it doesn’t stop being religion? Like, just because now instead of striving to go to heaven or achieve enlightenment or some other afterlife or any other form of supernatural transcendence, we now strive for a better society of tomorrow and understanding the universe… as long as people are willing to kill and die for their version of how to achieve their notion of paradise/transcendence/whatever is meaningful to them, and leaders are capable of using this conviction to build empires, there isn’t any meaningful difference?
You might argue we got rid of “magic”, but again… changing names… Statistical anomalies, higher curled up dimensions, superimposed states… Just because we have observed bizarre phenomena that has blown our minds and have the ability to predict some of it’s behavior does not mean the eradication of all the unknown is possible. And that’s all “magic” is and was. The unknown over which we have little control.
Yes, the world is a lot more than psychopaths, and yes, religion was and is fucked up, and there is enormous value to kindness and compassion which we should all strive for, but I’m sure we can agree psychos play a big role in leadership and people have a hard time seeing the stories of their time for what they are.
And, as a reminder, if someone has an advantage over others in the game of achieving power does not mean it’s wise to do as they do or that they are any more (or less) valuable than anyone else. They’re just good at a game. My comment was in no way a message of admiration, rather a declaration of resignation.