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Of course, and I'm not saying that. Coordinated action is so stupidly effective that it barely even matters what you do, and long as you all do it together. Th
by bulatb 20d ago
Of course, and I'm not saying that. Coordinated action is so stupidly effective that it barely even matters what you do, and long as you all do it together.
That doesn't mean it's possible for every problem. There's always a coordination cost. The larger your per-person cost times the number of people you need, the more unlikely the coordinated action is to happen. Spontaneous coordination is an oxymoron and improbable by definition. It's a situation where the system doesn't do what's energetically favored and instead does something else that isn't.
Ascribing agency to systems is a human bias. Ascribing it to groups of agents is both human nature and the fallacy of composition. Blaming individuals instead of looking at the system and the context is both human nature and the fundamental attribution error. This is one of many places where the bucket leaks.
Currently some groups with low coordination costs (and so high leverage) are coordinating to increase coordination costs for the groups that oppose them, using tactics that are independently high-leverage, multiplying their effect so much that they can make the opposition's costs effectively unbounded. Human nature makes the opposition wilfully, aggressively deny this and insist their costs are low and people are just bad and lazy. (Somehow, everybody being bad and lazy all at once does not reflect on human nature.)
The argument about coordination costs is more or less uncontroversial when projected into any other subject. It's only controversial here because of human nature. It's another leak.
Your opposition's agency is concentrated and yours is dilute. Human nature tilts the playing field, diluting yours and concentrating theirs. Accept this and adjust your strategy, or lose.
- Timon3 20d agoYour initial comment does literally say that collective action against individual interests has never happened. You might not have meant that, but that is the explicit implication of your bucket example "always get[ting] the same result". But it seems you actually agree with my initial statement? Or what are you arguing against? Because in my mind, altering our social and political systems is the only way to adjust our strategy.
- bulatb 20d agoI am saying human nature is the reason "just coordinate" has not resolved this problem, and denying human nature keeps us from coordinating on this problem doesn't help. Ugh, this is like my catchphrase now, but: "If everybody just" is a description of a problem, not a solution. Specifically a problem that exists because they haven't justed and will never just, no matter what could happen if they just. Coordination metaproblems where coordination problems that exist cannot be solved because of human nature are a consequence of human nature interacting with the laws of nature.
- Timon3 20d agoBut I'm not saying to "just coordinate", and I'm not denying any part of human nature? It feels like you're reading things into my initial statement that I neither wrote nor see when reading it again.
- bulatb 20d ago> humans do have that capacity, but our system is explicitly set up to give the most power to the greediest among us My argument is that we don't have that capacity. The system that we have is what we have because it's what has self-assembled and would self-assemble every time if we ran it again. I may be wrong, but that's what I'm claiming. If we want a system different than what self-assembles, we should first admit what self-assembles, and admit it's not because of individuals not doing their part or whatever. The system is the way it is because the natural laws it follows lead it to that state. This is where the whole idea of coordination as a simple answer fails. People won't spontaneously all accept an unappealing, morally unpleasant, complicated explanation of why things aren't better when a simple, pleasant, satisfying, even righteous explanation is available and fits their preexisting worldview. I am tired of the moralizing arguments[0] from people sabotaging their own causes, blaming people who are doing something that might work instead of sabotaging harder. If I misunderstood and that's not you, I'm sorry. I should have been less snippy at the top either way. --- [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42560779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42560779
- 20d ago