Such a perfect analysis & metaphor written so well... I teach college composition and OSR courses contextualized for Cybersecurity, Applied A.I. and Drone (aka Transnational threats) and you have created the perfect 3rd week reading for it. TY and the subscription price more than earned.
Excellent piece. I agree with most of your takeaways, but one line struck me:
> Israel, where faith in institutions survives
You mention that corporations are the last functional institution most Americans encounter. I agree with this, but, outside the military and religion, I don't think Americans have really ever experienced functional non-business institutions in the way we talk about them today (political machines like Tammany Hall were arguably extremely functional institutions, but I don't think they'd count in today's parlance). The history of America seems mostly defined by its lack of institutions, allowing (or forcing, depending on your point of view) for the ambitious to just do the job that needed to be done, for better or worse. The other defining feature seems to be that America has _always_ been bad at building large scale institutions. The crowning achievement of Hamilton (who was more interested in building state capacity than any still influential founder) was a central bank, which barely outlasted some of his peers (followed by a century of banking panics). There was arguably a brief respite during WWII and the Cold War, though much of those effective institutions were either military or primarily private (and people like my grandfather, whose ranch in central Washington was simply appropriated for Manhattan Project testing might disagree about the positive impact of this time of briefly "effective" institutions).
The striking thing to me, as I read more and more American history, is that the secularization of much of America (I'm one of those secularized Americans, by the way) removed the institution that actually tried to solve the problems that we now ask our governments to address (but expect them to fail at): religion, and the community fostered by it.
And yes, agreed on the last point. It's something both Charles Murray and George Packer have made: we expect governments to solve things we've traditionally solved otherwise (cf. Tocqueville and his observation about the American mania for associations).
You're going way back in time here, and maybe you're trying to make a larger historical statement about the US.
But, I think the comp in most Americans' minds (even if very subconsciously in the younger generation) is the WWII (and post-WWII) period of governance, which was pretty good (certainly compared to now).
I think that's fair. I still think that the WWII/Cold War era is actually the exception rather than the rule, historically, but for the purposes of what an average citizen experiences today, it's much more relevant than the Gilded Age and western expansion. While I will again raise that many Americans (such as my grandfather) did not experience what they'd call institutional excellence during the WWII era, it's pretty inarguably true that, at worst, we experienced effective partnership between public and private institutions as measured by output.
You’re echoing Martin Gurri here. I finished his book and loved it, but I think he’s wrong about networks being unable to create. Bitcoin (pause for the audience to roll its eyes) is a great example of how networks can enable people to say “yes” to a vision of the future. Humans have never collaborated at the scale of bitcoin without some hierarchy.
As for what this future enables, I imagine that projects like the EU, US and China likely to fail, but their constituent states are operating at scales that are still workable. Solid money prevents much of bad state behavior and will lead to states competing to be more competent business environments.
Oh, and I expect that cave of illusions will get even more elaborate and insane. The algorithms are all in their infancy in terms of what they can do, and despite this infantile level of technology (as viewed from inside the sausages factory) they are still incredible at holding attention. I expect that to get worse, so the future will be even more prosperous and safe than the present, but it will seem even scarier to people who chose that kind of fantasy.
Networks can certainly create virtual or digital communities. But where they stop short is making things work in the physical world. Bitcoin is great and all, but figuring out how and when to pave the access road to your communal property is a whole different bar (and most real problems we face are those).
It's the 'I'm super popular on FB but nobody shows up to my parties' problem, but at bigger scale.
My guess is people will use it to pay for private security / local police / functional local governments.
The world is full of intelligent people, but you can only have so many high status elites, by defintion. What happens if each state has opportunities with comparable scope / status as working in Washington now? I think this is an entirely feasible future.
if states fail badly enough, bitcoin will blow up in value; in that scenario, i'd expect people to just give away bitcoin to local governments in exchange for political status within them.
it's definitely scary, to be sure - but imagine being in the world in the 1930's and trying to forecast the incredible international order that would follow. All of history has likely seemed terrifying to its inhabitants.
One of my favorite pieces you've done! The "opting out of reality" part is what troubles me the most... we can only run from reality for so long before (as you said), it catches up with us and we have to pay the price. What that price is, I don't know - but the longer we wait to face reality, the more painful it will be.
It was weird and nerdy, but that's what we come to you for! And I started out writing PERL, so even the weirdest analogy is straightforward compared to that.
Wealth can be used to sustain illusions, as long as the wealth holds up. If the illusions aren’t too far from reality, they don’t drain wealth or might even grow it - see NYT stock after trump’s election.
I suspect the idea of a catastrophic painful return to reality might be a form of wishful thinking, because feeling like everyone is out of touch with reality is scarier than having everyone be aligned against some obvious threat.
Interesting you should say. I'm not primarily here for the tech, but this article was an example of where I feel our host's several interests come together into something greater than the sum of its parts.
The abstract class conceit isn't just useful as a framing device, although it is that; it's also legitimately illluminating, or at least it was for me. One of the best things I've read here.
I came across The Pull Request while you were not writing about tech. It was great. Then you commented that you would be returning to tech. I was not looking forward to that. Then you write this. Sir, this is the best pieces of writing I have read in years. Plato? Object-oriented programming? I don't know much about you, but if no one told you that you had a gift, they were not paying attention. I encourage you to find the place in you that produced this, tap into it and let the next piece flow out of you. Awesome work!
Minor point: I appreciate your weaving in passages from classic books and classical thinkers. Makes it more of a 3D intellectual experience.
Separately, the worthwhile economist Niall Ferguson wrote, in his highly illuminating The Square and the Tower (2019 maybe?), how power structures throughout history have been a series of hierarchies (I.e., the tower) collapsing into networks (the square) and re-forming into new hierarchies. He postulates that we’re closer to the 16th century now than we are to the 20th, which was the height of hierarchical power (with Stalin as the apex), due to the internet and social media having collapsed those hierarchies into networks, much as the Gutenberg printing press did at that time. He dutifully details the realities of both scenarios.
I know this is perilous territory, but if history does indeed rhyme, it would be fun to hear your strategic insight into where “this” is all going. Given your tech background, which is the new variable in this ancient cycle, how about you give it a go, and take a grounded, thought through WAG at where the world will be in 50 years ( just about after I’ll have been returned to the ether).
I know asks for predictions can be annoying, but I and many others think that this point we get the problems (more or less). What if you went sci fi and showed us where we could be, and, even more interesting, what our current and future practical and moral predicaments might be?
Such a perfect analysis & metaphor written so well... I teach college composition and OSR courses contextualized for Cybersecurity, Applied A.I. and Drone (aka Transnational threats) and you have created the perfect 3rd week reading for it. TY and the subscription price more than earned.
Thanks!
Excellent piece. I agree with most of your takeaways, but one line struck me:
> Israel, where faith in institutions survives
You mention that corporations are the last functional institution most Americans encounter. I agree with this, but, outside the military and religion, I don't think Americans have really ever experienced functional non-business institutions in the way we talk about them today (political machines like Tammany Hall were arguably extremely functional institutions, but I don't think they'd count in today's parlance). The history of America seems mostly defined by its lack of institutions, allowing (or forcing, depending on your point of view) for the ambitious to just do the job that needed to be done, for better or worse. The other defining feature seems to be that America has _always_ been bad at building large scale institutions. The crowning achievement of Hamilton (who was more interested in building state capacity than any still influential founder) was a central bank, which barely outlasted some of his peers (followed by a century of banking panics). There was arguably a brief respite during WWII and the Cold War, though much of those effective institutions were either military or primarily private (and people like my grandfather, whose ranch in central Washington was simply appropriated for Manhattan Project testing might disagree about the positive impact of this time of briefly "effective" institutions).
The striking thing to me, as I read more and more American history, is that the secularization of much of America (I'm one of those secularized Americans, by the way) removed the institution that actually tried to solve the problems that we now ask our governments to address (but expect them to fail at): religion, and the community fostered by it.
And yes, agreed on the last point. It's something both Charles Murray and George Packer have made: we expect governments to solve things we've traditionally solved otherwise (cf. Tocqueville and his observation about the American mania for associations).
You're going way back in time here, and maybe you're trying to make a larger historical statement about the US.
But, I think the comp in most Americans' minds (even if very subconsciously in the younger generation) is the WWII (and post-WWII) period of governance, which was pretty good (certainly compared to now).
I think that's fair. I still think that the WWII/Cold War era is actually the exception rather than the rule, historically, but for the purposes of what an average citizen experiences today, it's much more relevant than the Gilded Age and western expansion. While I will again raise that many Americans (such as my grandfather) did not experience what they'd call institutional excellence during the WWII era, it's pretty inarguably true that, at worst, we experienced effective partnership between public and private institutions as measured by output.
This is a great point, that many americans have a sense of “normal” which is calibrated by one of the most unusual periods in human history.
You’re echoing Martin Gurri here. I finished his book and loved it, but I think he’s wrong about networks being unable to create. Bitcoin (pause for the audience to roll its eyes) is a great example of how networks can enable people to say “yes” to a vision of the future. Humans have never collaborated at the scale of bitcoin without some hierarchy.
As for what this future enables, I imagine that projects like the EU, US and China likely to fail, but their constituent states are operating at scales that are still workable. Solid money prevents much of bad state behavior and will lead to states competing to be more competent business environments.
Oh, and I expect that cave of illusions will get even more elaborate and insane. The algorithms are all in their infancy in terms of what they can do, and despite this infantile level of technology (as viewed from inside the sausages factory) they are still incredible at holding attention. I expect that to get worse, so the future will be even more prosperous and safe than the present, but it will seem even scarier to people who chose that kind of fantasy.
Networks can certainly create virtual or digital communities. But where they stop short is making things work in the physical world. Bitcoin is great and all, but figuring out how and when to pave the access road to your communal property is a whole different bar (and most real problems we face are those).
It's the 'I'm super popular on FB but nobody shows up to my parties' problem, but at bigger scale.
My guess is people will use it to pay for private security / local police / functional local governments.
The world is full of intelligent people, but you can only have so many high status elites, by defintion. What happens if each state has opportunities with comparable scope / status as working in Washington now? I think this is an entirely feasible future.
As a hack, yes, I imagine they will.
That also sounds like Somalia.
if states fail badly enough, bitcoin will blow up in value; in that scenario, i'd expect people to just give away bitcoin to local governments in exchange for political status within them.
it's definitely scary, to be sure - but imagine being in the world in the 1930's and trying to forecast the incredible international order that would follow. All of history has likely seemed terrifying to its inhabitants.
One of my favorite pieces you've done! The "opting out of reality" part is what troubles me the most... we can only run from reality for so long before (as you said), it catches up with us and we have to pay the price. What that price is, I don't know - but the longer we wait to face reality, the more painful it will be.
Thanks! I was worried the analogy was too weird and tech-related.
It was weird and nerdy, but that's what we come to you for! And I started out writing PERL, so even the weirdest analogy is straightforward compared to that.
Wealth can be used to sustain illusions, as long as the wealth holds up. If the illusions aren’t too far from reality, they don’t drain wealth or might even grow it - see NYT stock after trump’s election.
I suspect the idea of a catastrophic painful return to reality might be a form of wishful thinking, because feeling like everyone is out of touch with reality is scarier than having everyone be aligned against some obvious threat.
Finally another tech article.
There was this one!
https://www.thepullrequest.com/p/ceci-nest-pas-un-csam
Interesting you should say. I'm not primarily here for the tech, but this article was an example of where I feel our host's several interests come together into something greater than the sum of its parts.
The abstract class conceit isn't just useful as a framing device, although it is that; it's also legitimately illluminating, or at least it was for me. One of the best things I've read here.
Thanks! I had my doubts about it, TBH.
That it was actually a useful way to think about things, or that people would respond to it?
That it would resonate with people. It's kind of technical and wonky.
I came across The Pull Request while you were not writing about tech. It was great. Then you commented that you would be returning to tech. I was not looking forward to that. Then you write this. Sir, this is the best pieces of writing I have read in years. Plato? Object-oriented programming? I don't know much about you, but if no one told you that you had a gift, they were not paying attention. I encourage you to find the place in you that produced this, tap into it and let the next piece flow out of you. Awesome work!
Thanks so much!
It's clear some readers are only here for the tech stuff, and many actually prefer a variety of topics. Going to be hard to strike a balance!
Minor point: I appreciate your weaving in passages from classic books and classical thinkers. Makes it more of a 3D intellectual experience.
Separately, the worthwhile economist Niall Ferguson wrote, in his highly illuminating The Square and the Tower (2019 maybe?), how power structures throughout history have been a series of hierarchies (I.e., the tower) collapsing into networks (the square) and re-forming into new hierarchies. He postulates that we’re closer to the 16th century now than we are to the 20th, which was the height of hierarchical power (with Stalin as the apex), due to the internet and social media having collapsed those hierarchies into networks, much as the Gutenberg printing press did at that time. He dutifully details the realities of both scenarios.
I know this is perilous territory, but if history does indeed rhyme, it would be fun to hear your strategic insight into where “this” is all going. Given your tech background, which is the new variable in this ancient cycle, how about you give it a go, and take a grounded, thought through WAG at where the world will be in 50 years ( just about after I’ll have been returned to the ether).
I know asks for predictions can be annoying, but I and many others think that this point we get the problems (more or less). What if you went sci fi and showed us where we could be, and, even more interesting, what our current and future practical and moral predicaments might be?
After all, everyone *loved* The Twilight Zone.