Planting Seeds

Maximum Yield, accessed 8/25/2018

I believe that a society should be so robust and equitable, that one person or minority group of people should be unable to bully and leech the larger pool of humanity, no matter what the size of the society may be. I hypothesize that this form of social organization, logic, and human sentiment is healthier than alternative methods where any well-positioned minority (public or private) may leech off the well-being parasitically. This is based on the evidence I've seen from chimpanzee and bonobo societies (Goodall, Boehm), nomadic human societies (Boehm, Mantzvinos), human psychology (Boehm), and human history over many times and places (Turchin, Hacker and Pierson, Acemoglu and Robinson). We can mimic the mighty ant (Woolley-Barker), or gibbon (Wilson) and be well while we survive on this planet and others for many eons to come. Or we can keep doing what we're doing, and only be lucky to survive the arrival of climate change and the pressure that will be released against the wealthy when life takes an even darker turn for most.

Admittedly, it's harder to achieve this kind of effective bottom-up feedback in larger, more diverse, and more dispersed and segregated societies. That is why you need a government or state for societies where impersonal contact is the norm, and there is considerable diversity in mental patterns and ways of thinking about the world. Government applies the third-party referee with authoritative power that is needed in all competitive sports and large human encounters. It can serve as a common collective identity we can work with for higher level coordination at local through global scales (Mantzvinos, West). It makes life more predictable for other humans, so we know what we can and can't do to each other without fear of needing to independently inflict retribution on each other. Government is just the tool that is used to enforce that standard on all equitably, including on the government and its officials. It is healthier for the government to change itself internally regarding personnel and attitude/policy regimen in response to the changing needs and wants of the society than it is to dig in with current plans and preferences that aren't based in evidence to work. It is healthier for the whole group to have the society need only apply light, non-violent effort to receive the changes they need in the government, from the government. I believe this, because I hypothesize that societies who do a better job at acting as such with substance will do better than those who don't, or won't. I think it takes compassion, care, and a stalwart commitment to the discovery of truth and facts with the accumulation and discernment of quality evidence. Acting, customer service, public relations, lawyering, politics. This is all well and good to communicate internally and with the outside world, and to receive information from the outside world as feedback from the society and its parts. But when it comes to the designs of programs, policies, and the public sector itself, the field becomes more technical, scientifically demanding, and limited in what is desirable (even if it is feasible). Societies who accomplish this better than others, I hypothesize, will do better together than as a divided, argumentative group of groups that is only concerned with jumping on others and their each own "self interest" at others' expense if necessary. Governments and officials who do this better may also have an easier time staying in power and maintaining relevance in the world through honest, voluntarily given support from the population. It's a sacred trust thing, not unlike an honest exchange of love and commitment to another human being. Don't screw it up. Bad things start to happen when it gets neglected and screwed up.