There is no forest, just a bunch of trees

As humans, we instinctively simplify and abstract reality to make life easier to understand. We group things together and call them by a single name, and treat them as if they were a single unit. We don't see a trillion grains of sand, we see a beach. We don't think about each tiny water droplet that makes up a cloud. This method of abstraction is incredibly useful, and everyday life would be impossible without it. The problem arises when we forget that these abstractions do not actually exist in reality, but are only models of reality that are created within our minds. It's not clear if the universe is made entirely of 'particles' at the smallest scales, but if it is, then these particles are the ONLY things that exist in reality. Everything else that we think we know is just an abstraction of reality that is composed of these particles. In all likelihood, these 'particles' are just abstractions of more fundamental elements we have yet to detect or understand.

It is this mistaking of models for reality that leads to many of the problems we see in the world. It plays a huge role in the current economic crisis and in state-created problems in general. Ben Bernanke and the rest of the Federal Reserve have a model of human interaction in their minds they call the economy, and they base their interactions with the real world off of this model. The problem is, there is no 'economy' in reality. The economy ONLY exists as a model in their minds. They assume their model is accurate enough that they can predict real world consequences of their actions, but this assumption fails time after time, after time. You can't direct something you don't understand, and clearly our rulers have a tenuous grasp on reality at best.

Edit 12/27/10:
I just stumbled across an interview between Joe Nocera, New York Times columnist and co-author with Bethany McLean of All the Devils Are Here, and EconTalk host Russ Roberts that summed up this problem rather well. You can listen to an excerpt below:

The full version is available at the Library of Economy and Liberty and is really worth a listen if you want to better understand the economic mess we're in.

This mistake is at the heart of problems that result from top-down rulership. A top-down approach will only work if the ruler has an accurate model of reality to work from. As we all know, modeling and predicting reality is really, really hard. There are just far too many variables for any one person or group to understand. For anyone to believe that they can direct such a vast and disparate collection as the financial interactions of 300 million individuals is obnoxiously arrogant, and the very belief that these interactions need direction proves they don't understand reality well enough to direct it.

What do you see? A forest? There are no forests in reality, that is just an idea humans have for a group of trees. And what is a tree? They don't really exist either. That's just a trillion plant cells working together towards self-replication. And cells aren't real either. That's just an idea we have for a certain set of molecules that interact within a membrane. And a molecule is just a concept we humans created to model atoms that stick together, which is another simplification of a set of subatomic particles. If you can see the forest for the trees, remember it only exists in your mind.

We're climbing hills and ignoring mountains

With any complex system, we can imagine the system as a function with a huge collection of input variables and a corresponding set of outputs. You can picture this as a vast landscape with lots of local maximums and minimums, each representing the result (measured using whatever output you want) of a given set of inputs, and a single global maximum. You can think of a system like the economy in this way, where a certain set of taxes, regulations, subsidies, supply and demand make up the inputs, and the output could be measured in a variety of ways like GDP per capita, average income, or some kind of loosely defined idea like general prosperity. The exact inputs and outputs don't really matter since we can't actually evaluate this function, but I think it's a good way to think about a complicated system.

When you imagine a system in this way, you can see that wherever we currently are in the landscape, the most obvious solution is to follow the gradient up the hill to a local maximum. And that's what people tend to want in real life. People fear change, so we like to try to improve our condition while moving as little as possible from the status quo. Take the health care industry for example. We can think of the inputs as number of doctors, number of hospitals, health care rules and regulations, subsidies, FDA rulings, etc and output could be measured as average cost per surgery, life expectancy, infant mortality, or something more general and loosely defined like overall healthiness to cost ratio. From where we currently sit on this landscape, it's easy to look around and see that we're not even at a local max. So naturally people want to climb the closest hill, towards something like universal state-run health care. It's the obvious solution from where we are, given the massive interference the government already has in the health care industry. But like most things, the obvious solution isn't always the best one.

We could evaluate our system of government in a similar manner. We could set the structure of government as the input, with variables like the relative power and authority of different government positions, the method of voting, campaign finance, the media's effect on voters, primaries, lobbyists, etc. The best way to measure output for this system is highly controversial, but you could imagine using personal freedom, economic equality, overall happiness or some other measure of well-being. For each of these methods of measuring the output, we would find a very different landscape generated from the same inputs. When you see the system in this way, it's easy to see how there can be such varied and yet strongly held opinions about which way our society needs to move. If you measure the system based on personal liberty, the gradient points in a completely different direction than on the economic equality landscape. But in either situation, the most common answer is to just climb the closest hill. Most people won't even consider a change in the larger structure of government, the variables that have the biggest effect on the landscape and the greatest potential to lead us to a global maximum. The vast majority only want to alter the relatively weak variables of which politician is currently in power, moving us slightly up the closest hill towards a short local max.

If we want the best outputs for any system, we have to take a step back and look at the entire landscape. We shouldn't be looking for the closest hill, we should be looking for the global maximum: that huge mountain of prosperity lurking far away from our current position. It's tough to see where it is when your stuck on the side of a hill. You have to challenge all the assumptions that drove you into that region of the landscape, because the mountain may very well be on the other side of the map. We must also lose our fear of traveling downhill, because we will have to cross countless valleys and small hills to get to the global max, but we should never loose sight of that mountain in the distance.

Don't hate the player, hate the game

Politicians generally take a lot of blame for society's problems, and some of this is well deserved. But they aren't the cause of the problems, only an emergent property of the system we live in. The structure of democratic government encourages political candidates to use the government to promote the interests of certain groups as long as the consequences of these market manipulations can be kept hidden from the masses. Take corn subsidies for example. The benefit to the well-connect corn farmers is obvious, so politicians can easily buy votes by giving tax dollars to the farmers. This meets little resistance from the general population because the nominal cost to each of us is minimal. But the cost to society is huge. It encourages the use of high fructose corn syrup where in a free market cane sugar would be cheaper and healthier. It also encourage the use of corn to produce ethanol for fuel, a process that results in net energy loss. The system is stealing a portion of everyone's income to make food less healthy and throw away energy. But no politicians deserves all the credit for this stupidity, this kind of problem was bound to happen as a result of the structure of our system of government. These problems appear everywhere, and while individually they don't cost us much, the drain on society adds up. We see higher costs of health care thanks to doctor unions lobbying the government to limit the number of medical licenses and politicians eager to please this special interest group for some easy votes. We see higher costs and abysmal results in education thanks to teacher unions and elected officials working together to raise teacher's salaries and pensions, while denying parents and students real alternatives to government *cough* indoctrination *cough*, I mean education. Everywhere you look some group is exploiting the taxpayer to avoid competition or flat out take his money, and politicians couldn't be more eager to jump on board for some votes since they know the masses will never notice the sleight of hand. But the blame for these problems lies neither with the politicians nor the interest groups, it lies in the system that encourages both to behave in this manner.

The War of the Words

What does it take to control a population? Do you have to beat them into submission; use chains to prevent escape? Can you intimidate them with threats of violence into following your commands? Unfortunately the answer is far worse: you just have to use the right words.

The war for your mind is fought with words. Words that evoke strong emotional responses meant to overcome logic and reason; to prevent us from questioning or fighting back. Our rulers understand human psychology and exploit it mercilessly to control us.

Our rulers use words like 'terrorism' to make you stop thinking. 'Terrorists' don't have motives or reasons. They aren't defending themselves or their loved ones. They are imaginary evil doers who "hate us for our freedom". We must fear them and fight to eradicate them no matter how many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians we slay in the processes. If we begin to question the legitimacy of this war on terror, they say we must "support the troops". Don't question policy or leadership, just support the troops or you're un-American. Support the troops or you will lose your friends, your ingroup, and your social identity. Support them blindly while they kill the undesirables.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda chief

The truth is, there are no terrorists. There are only people. People with hopes, dreams, concerns and fears, just like you. If they react with violence, it is not because they hate your freedom. It is because they are scared. They're scared because a foreign military power has invaded and occupied their territory and has little concern for their well-being. Our government demands absolute submission, and unlike Americans, some people aren't going to give up their freedom without a fight.

"... the Mujahideen saw the black gang of thugs in the White House hiding the Truth, and their stupid and foolish leader, who is elected and supported by his people, denying reality and proclaiming that we (the Mujahideen) were striking them because we were jealous of them (the Americans), whereas the reality is that we are striking them because of their evil and injustice in the whole of the Islamic World, especially in Iraq and Palestine and their occupation of [Saudi Arabia]." -Osama Bin Laden , February 14 , 2003

But don't worry, hope! Change! Yes we can! Don't worry about specifics, just let the government spoon-feed you words with positive connotations. Then you can repeat them and feel good about yourself while you wave the flag and support the troops, knowing that you're part of the group. All while the government uses the "Patriot" Act to spy on you, read your emails and photograph you naked at airports.

Of course, they'll pay for all this through "taxes" and debt (future taxes on our children). Funny, when the mafia receives money in exchange for not acting out threats of violence, it's called extortion. When you pay the government to avoid being kidnapped and locked in cell, they get to use a nicer word for it.

If we want to fight back, we must first fight with words. Call things what they are, not what our rulers want us to call them. The war is in the words, so choose yours wisely.

Imagine a Prison

Imagine a huge prison that houses men, women, and children. Within this prison people are free to move about and interact, yet there are some very strict rules. Once a year, the prisoners must give a portion of their income to the warden. They may only consume materials authorized by the warden. They may only travel at speeds below the warden's "speed limit". They may only fish if they buy a license from the warden. The list goes on and on. Over the years, the wardens have introduced thousands of rules, and if the inmates don't follow these rules, more money is demanded from them. If they don't hand over their money, they are kidnapped and tortured.

In this prison, the guards force the children to take classes where they are taught that they are free. They are told that the guards are only there for their protection, and that the warden has their best interests at heart. The prison has been around for so long that all prisoners once took these classes, and all prisoners believe they are free.

Every few years a new warden is elected by the inmates. Inmates point to this as evidence they are free, as they have been instructed. Yet the election is a sham. The race is between two people, and both have similar agendas for the prison. Both will institute new rules and teach another group of children to love their prison.

To keep the people in their cells, the warden pays thousands of inmates to fight against other prisoners in far away lands. The prisoners love their prison so much they are willing to make sacrifices to help beat the "enemy". The pretense of war is the only excuse the warden needs to implement his new measures without prison riots. The inmates blame the "enemy" for all the problems in their prison, and ask the warden to take new power to fix the problems.

Would you be able to tell if you were in this prison?

When is it OK to steal?

I'm going to start with something most people would say is immoral and work my way to something most people are OK with. Let me know when it changes:

1. I steal all your money.

2. I steal all the money you make in a year.

3. I steal 25% of the money you make in a year.

4. I steal 25% of the money you make in a year, but use some of the money to do something you approve of (build a school or donate to charity or something).

5. I demand you give me 25% of your income to do something you approve of and threaten you with violence if you don't comply.

6. 10 people let you vote with them to choose 1 of them, who then demands 25% of your income with threats of violence.

7. 10 people let you vote with them to choose 1 of them who then hires someone else to threaten you to give up 25% of your income.

8. 1000 people let you vote with them to choose a few of them to decide how much money to take from you and how to use it.

9. 100,000 people vote to choose 100 people, who then hire thugs with guns to demand money from people to be spent however they 100 choose.

10. The entire population votes to select ~1000 people who then hire thugs with guns to demand money from everyone to be spent however those 1000 people choose.

11. The entire population is put through school by the 1000 people in charge, who teach children that taxation is good and voting legitimizes their ability to take your money. They then let you vote by giving you 2 choices, both of which plan to continue stealing your money by threatening violence.

12. [Our current system of government]

Good Government

Government is nothing more than the organization with the greatest force in a given population. The force can be physical or psychological, often a combination of the two. Organizations derive this force in a variety of manners, ranging from possessing the most fearsome weaponry, to relying on widespread belief in a dogma. The source of the force is irrelevant to the effects of the force on the people. So the question for a would-be government is how best to apply this force?

Most modern governments use this force for 'evil'. They systematically steal from their citizens, require adherence to an arbitrary set of laws, and punish disobedience. They murder and torture their citizens, rationalizing their acts as necessary for the safety of the public. They use their force to keep their people in fear, all in order to maintain their power and take advantage of their position.

It seems to me the government is in a unique position to try to make people happy. They could use their force to protect their people from tyranny. They could oppose 'evil', and help people find happiness. Instead of stealing from their citizens, governments could participate in a free market economy, using this income to (at the very least) protect the freedom of their people. If they made excess money, they could undertake any number of projects for the good of society. Provide free electricity, water, healthcare, etc, all for the good of the people. It's hard to imagine, but a good government would be more than tolerable.

Likely the reason there are no good governments is that organizations strong enough to become a government have little interest in the public good. Likewise, organizations interested in the public good rarely have the power to become the greatest force in a population, so they can’t overcome other ‘evil’ organizations.

*‘evil’ being defined as “making people unhappy”, or something along those lines.

The Development of Oppressive Government

All men are guided by self interest. Any choice you make is your choice. You can only choose what you want to choose. People choose to do a variety of things, but arguably the ultimate of life's pursuits is happiness. Happiness takes on many forms for different people. For some it is knowledge. For others it is physical pleasure, while for others it is adherence to a set of moral rules. Whatever the definition, it seems the universal objective remains a subjective happiness.

In the pursuit of individual happiness, humans became social creatures. We built communities to maximize our happiness. By working together, we were able to accomplish more collectively than we could by ourselves, and thus made life better for most participants. Naturally, some members chose to pursue happiness at the expense of others. Out of fear, people voluntarily gave up a few of their freedoms to guard the rest. They didn't plan on using the sacrificed freedoms in the pursuit of happiness, so it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. People agreed not to pursue happiness through murder, and could thus expect relative safety from being murdered. Only the murderers objected, and since they were a minority they were overruled by the rest of society. We agreed not to rape out of fear of being raped. Only the rapists objected, but they were silenced as well.

To make sure everyone followed the agreements, we granted certain people the right to break our rules so they could enforce them on others. We gave people the right to murder murderers, and steal from thieves. We called these people government, and we made up a variety of ways to choose these people.

Naturally, the men in government took advantage of their position, using it to pursue their own happiness at the expense of the governed. We created numerous systems designed to prevent the government from misusing their power, yet most have failed. Governments learned to rely on the fearful majority to take away their people's rights, all in the pursuit of happiness.

As governments grew in size, so did the number of mutual agreements people made. Soon people were promising each other not to drive too fast, out of fear of being crashed into. We agreed not to consume certain substances because others might harm us while consuming those substances. The few that consumed the illegal substance were silenced by the fearful majority. The government prodded us along. "Let us listen to your phone calls to prevent terrorism." "Well terrorism is bad, and I don't mind be listened to, so here, have my right to privacy. I wasn't using it to pursue happiness anyways." The few who cared about privacy were silenced by the fearful majority. "Let us search your houses, monitor your internet use, censor your media, track your money". "I don't have anything to hide, and it will help keep me safe. Take all the freedoms I have, just please don't let me get hurt." A few objected, but were once again overruled by the mass panic.

It seems the natural route for government and laws to move from more free to more protective. It's easy for people to get scared and seek protection by giving up rights, and it's very difficult to get back a freedom once it has been given away. It's interesting that the original reason for our government has become lost, and in its place is a purpose guided more by the preservation of life than liberty. For some reason, people no longer feel the way Henry felt when he exclaimed "Give me liberty, or give me death."

You could argue that we made the right decision, that life is more important than liberty. Freedom is meaningless to a corpse, but I believe life is meaningless to a slave. It seems societies are in a constant struggle between those who seek only to preserve life, and those that wish to live it. Those that wish to preserve life govern by taking away freedom, while those that wish to live life govern by protecting freedom. I believe the latter are more suited to govern since they allow the timid to live in their shells if they please, while the former would force the adventurous to adopt their own fearful lifestyle.

Brainwashing

The power of social indoctrination never ceases to amaze me.
Our feeble minds have so little control over what we believe. It's an interesting evolutionary response, to irrationally trust our society. It's great for our species, but if you seek personal fulfillment it can be hard to overcome. Just recognizing that your beliefs are not your own is incredibly difficult. Not only does society force beliefs on us, it forces us to believe we chose those beliefs.

Take clothing for example. People in our society are embarrassed to be naked. Think about that. Our society has so much control over our thoughts and feelings that to NOT wrap ourselves in plant material makes us feel awkward.

We're collecting honey and trained to like it. Go to school, go to church, get a job, get married, have kids, rinse, and repeat. Put off enjoying life until you're too old to enjoy life. Go to the walmart to get your food. Pay the lower class to build your house. Buy a car with credit. You need this perfume. Consume alcohol on the weekends, that's your reward, right? Love your country, praise the lord, and take your kid to daycare. Enjoy this coffee, hate smokers, and give an evil stare at that teenager cussing around your children. God knows those words are evil. Own property, you have a right to those molecules. Take your Prozac and give your child Ritalin, otherwise he won't get into the gifted and talented program. Help him collect his DARE stickers, because marijuana is bad. Buy a flat screen tv, and for the love of God don't mess with the system. You like your life.

Before I realized I was an anarchist...

I wrote the following before being introduced to the idea of anarchy. It's incredible how at the time I knew all governments were flawed but I just couldn't grasp the concept of a society without rulers. I keep saying I want to found a "government", when I really should have said society. -12/12/10

I think the US is flawed. Mainly because we lack so much freedom, but also because our government has way too much power and forces its citizens to live in fear.

I've been thinking a lot lately that the only way to fix America is to overthrow the government and start over. (Not that I have any desire to fix it, I plan on moving, just theoretically.) And to me that is a flaw in this style of government... preferably there would be a way to fix a government without bloodshed.

But I'm not sure that there is a way to do that. My ultimate measure of success of a government is the preservation of liberties, but is there a way to set up a government so that freedom will always be protected?

Democracy doesn't work, because eventually the people will get scared of something and will give up their liberties for protection and never get them back.

It seems like you could make a constitution-type document protecting peoples' rights, but everyone will ignore it eventually if the US can serve as an example.

A dictator or oligarchy could protect peoples' liberties... but it's risky putting power in the hands of a few. Especially when those people die or whatever and pass on the power. Maybe they can choose decent replacements... but after a few generations the chance of corruption or just incompetency goes up significantly.

I can't think of a way to permanently safeguard freedom. And this troubles me as a future founder of a government. Maybe a revolution every couple hundred years is the only way to do it.

After reading this, this note is probably more about my lack of trust in anyone but myself than government, but I still can't come up with a solution. I would be so pissed if I started a country based on freedom, only to have it look like the US 50 years later. I guess as long as I die before it goes bad I'll be happy.

It'd be great if someone could come up with a good style of government for me to use. Right now I'm leaning towards some kind of meritocracy, but that just seems like its doomed to corruption. Luckily I have a while to work out these problems.

Does democracy work?

I'm interested in political science, so sometimes I try to think about what makes a good country, why some countries suck, etc. I've pretty much always thought democracies were inherently good, and the more power in the hands of the people, the better. (And by democracy I mean direct democracy, with little to no representation) I thought people deciding what happens in their country is a good thing.

But lately I've been thinking leaving government up to people may not be such a great idea. People are dumb. I've always hated the electoral college and used it as evidence for why America sucks, but I'm having second thoughts about letting people vote for things themselves. (Not in America, just theoretically, because in America politicians are more retarded than the people so it doesn't really help.)

My priority is always freedom. IMO, protecting civil liberties is by far the most important reason to have a government. Not for protection or economic stability, but for freedom. Of course a government should try to achieve those other things, but not if it costs anyone any liberties. But apparently people cannot be trusted to protect their own liberties. Just look at organizations like MADD, the Brady Campaign, the American Family Associateion, supporters of prop 8, etc. For some reason, people are just dying for the government to make more laws about anything.

I really don't understand how people think it's ok for the government to say you can only drive a vehicle when the concentration of a certain molecule in your blood stream is below a certain threshold. It's unbelievable to me that people are alright with this. Who gives them the right to tell you what to ingest? I've always blamed stupid politicians, but I'm starting to realize that its people that are stupid. It seems like people are so scared of dying or people that are different from them that they beg the government to take their rights away.

But what systems could be better? I'd like some kind of minimal state, but there has to be a mechanism for maintaining the state and making decisions when necessary. A dictatorship under the right person would obviously be the best form of government, but that's assuming there is a right person. Someone who wouldn't let the power corrupt them, and would always make decisions with the interest of his people at heart. And then select a successor with all the same qualities. It seems unlikely, and doesn't leave any checks in case he does become corrupt.

Some kind of meritocracy or noocracy would make sense, where the smartest people rule, but just because a person has merit doesn't mean they believe in freedom, or wouldn't become corrupt. It seems like the more people you have making decisions, the less of a chance any of them could become corrupt... but if you have too many people than it's no longer a noocracy, its a democracy, which has the flaw of letting stupid people decide things.

Maybe a democracy can work, someplace where people aren't so stupid. Maybe with a better education system that taught children the importance of freedom, people wouldn't vote their liberties away. But then again, education is simply a way for countries to maintain that status quo by brainwashing their youth, so if the country every went south it would most likely stay that way. I don't know, I'm still torn on the issue.

Right to property?

Maybe TJ knew something when he changed up Locke's phrasing when writing the Declaration of Independence. Locke's social contract demanded that a government protect people's property, but what is property? How can a person come to "own" something? Even Locke questioned this and asked by what right an individual can claim to own one part of the world, when, according to the Bible, God gave the world to all humanity in common. Obviously I disagree with the source, but I think his reasoning good. He answered himself that persons own themselves and therefore their own labor. When a person works, that labor enters into the object. Thus, the object becomes the property of that person.

Here's where I disagree. How does doing work constitute ownership? If I dig a hole in someone's land, will they understand if I put up a fence around it? I can paint a car in a parking lot, but that doesn't give me a right to it. So how do we claim things as ours?

If I'm going to argue the right to property, then I probably need to talk about what property is. For now I'm just talking about tangible items, which is really just a clump of matter. Can you really own a certain set of atoms? Obviously people do make this claim, but what does this claim really do? Claiming you own something alone does nothing. You have to have something to back up this claim, and that's where I redefine ownership. Where most people claim that ownership is a right and the claim over an object is valid to the highest authority, I argue that ownership only exists when a man has the means in place to protect his possessions. In my mind you don't own something, you just protect it. If you can keep something to yourself, no matter the means, that's owning it to me.

In most places this is accomplished through taxes. We pay our government to maintain a system of protecting our "property". They do a pretty good job of it, too, so for the most part legal ownership in the US meets my requirements for natural ownership. The difference is stealing. Most people think this is a moral issue and is automatically wrong, but to me there's nothing philosophically wrong with stealing. Since my definition of ownership is being able to protect something, obviously if it gets stolen I would say you didn't own it to begin with. I'm not saying I'd go out and steal stuff, there are still the legal consequences from the US's system to protect property, but I don't think there's anything immoral about trying to protect something that someone else is already trying to protect (stealing).

Sometimes the idea of morality can be a means of protecting property on its own. If a society believes that simply claiming something means it's off limits to others, then that is a way of protecting property and constitutes ownership by my definition.

It's easiest to give examples on a large scale. What right did Robert de LaSalle have to claim all the land drained by the Mississippi River for France? Well none really, except for the French army. In reality actually planting a flag at the mouth of the Mississippi did nothing, it was only the French government's military that gave the claim any validity. The French King really could have claimed it from France and would have had as much right to own the interior of America as planting a flag at the mouth of a river. What gives a country the right to claim land? Take Little Inagua for example. This is a decent sized island in the Caribbean that the Bahamas claim as theirs. No one lives on this island, however. The only protection the Bahamas offers over this island is their military, which currently consists of 2 ships and an airplane, but unfortunately there are no qualified pilots to fly it. So my plan is to protect this island myself, and thus take over it. And how were settlers able to claim vast tracks of land on the frontier? They didn't buy it from anyone, they just had the means in place to protect their property.

The stupidest thing I've ever heard of is intellectual property. Now if claiming a certain set of atoms seems a little ridiculous, imagine claiming not the atoms, but the arrangement of those atoms. People think they can claim a pattern as their own. How is that even remotely possible? Whereas with property ownership I can see how you can protect it and this gives way to claims of ownership, but how can you protect an idea? It seems to me the only way of protecting a thought is to not act on it, and then that thought is worthless. To me any claim at owning something that isn't tangible is just retarded.