The Strange Disappearance of Cooperation in America (2013)

Does american culture resist coercion? Yes, excluding a few big bandwagon issues and incidents. But that's not really the point.

One might say when something needs to get decided or done, does the country get together and get it done or bicker and in-fight? Let's check some big "needs to get this taken care of issues":

* Slavery - Somehow, the "land of the free" was one of the last developed nations to condemn this practice. And while racism is a separate issue, even over a century later we're still having large public arguments about whether the slaves had it "easy" (?!)

* Climate Change - There is largely universal consensus that if current trends continue, there has been and will continue to be an accelerating increase in human suffering. Every developed nation on the planet agrees, almost every qualified scientist in the US agrees. We can accept that our scientists can predict the movements of celestial bodies across distances mind-bogglingly vast down to the minute, but trust our "guts" over them. Some might argue that the US is rejecting a goal chosen by everyone else, and doing so as a brave stand of individualism. I'd argue they are just demonstrating the issue.

Do I need to go on?

https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/...

I don't think this is a useful definition of cooperation, because "total utility" is not measurable, and might not even be well-defined.

I would define cooperation as people working together towards a common goal.

> It's rare enough that two people want the exact same thing, even less a group of people

It's rare for multiple people to want all of the same things, yes. This is why collective action should be limited.

But it's quite common for multiple people to have some common goal, in which case they can cooperate to achieve that goal, without having to share all of their other goals.

Your definition of cooperation appears to be all or nothing: either everybody agrees on everything, or people have to compromise. But if people don't agree on a particular goal, they can just choose not to pursue it together. They can go off and pursue their own goals separately. Nothing requires everybody to agree on a common set of goals and only pursue those.

> the alternative to "government oppression" is oppression by individuals/corporations/groups

No, the alternative to government oppression is voluntary choice. You can't be oppressed by individuals or corporations or groups that don't have power. And who gives them that power? Governments. Individuals or corporations and groups get to oppress others because they have bought the privilege of doing so from the government--which was supposed to protect people from oppression.

> you don't get a vote

My vote doesn't make any difference anyway; neither major political party in my country (the US) is willing to touch any policy proposals that I would advocate. The best I can do with my vote is to choose the candidates that I think will do the least damage. But I would be glad to trade the loss of that dubious privilege for a much smaller government that didn't try to meddle in so many things.

> I think there are a lot more good things than just that aspect that our collective invention of government brings

Governments do do good things. But that doesn't mean all good things get done by governments, or that governments doing them are the best way to do even those good things that governments do.

My whole point was that a society occasionally does, in aggregate, feel it needs to do something. If you're going to insist that it's only ever a minority imposing their will over everyone, then there is no point in further discussion.

> And somehow, the "something needs to get done, so let's get it done" methodology ended up killing [far too many]...and leading to .... Jim Crow.

You seem to have forgotten the context - I was demonstrating how the American refusal to cooperate led to a civil war, while the rest of the world managed to deal with it both faster and with a lot less bloodshed.

> A consensus that is based on flawed climate models that do not make correct predictions, and economic numbers based on no predictive power whatsoever.

Your assertion that your conclusion is somehow more valid that that of, well, just about everyone, is both a demonstration of the concept in question AND somewhat laughable considering your opinions on a minority forcing suffering upon the majority.

> If everybody else has a consensus that we should all shoot ourselves in the foot, should the US follow it?

Another straw man - no one is saying that. If the world thought it was dumb to shoot yourself in the foot, would you ignore them? One of these two scenarios is happening.

> Hopefully I've done the same.

I would say yes.