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Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

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Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#361

Post by bigstrat2003 »

yannyu wrote: post #121
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interestingly, in the past, the US federal government actively made efforts to keep private organizations from becoming too dominant. Yes but one can't just ignore the federal government itself, as if this wasn't an organization. In this framing of small organizations kept small by the government the largest organization is the State. Indeed in this framing the State's job is to control other organizations. While a…

Yes, but also we've eroded state and city rights in favor of federalism and standardization in the US as well. It's arguable that many steps in that direction have been for the better, but the consequence still remains that we've eroded the power of smaller organizations as a result. You're correct to note that this phenomenon crosses all aspects of life in the US, whether talking about churches, PTAs, book clubs, bu…

Federalism is having power divided, so we have gone away from federalism, not towards it. And I personally believe very strongly that it has been disastrous for our nation to do so.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#362

Post by rightbyte »

roughly wrote: post #291
thegrimmest wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The purpose of the state is to be the most powerful organization in the room - to constrain other actors I'm not sure this is a universal definition. Some of us just want a state that maintains a monopoly on violence, and otherwise does not constrain peaceful actors. An administration of peaceful coexistence rather than a mandate for cooperation. While administrating the peace does require some absolute power, it i…

How is an entity with a monopoly on violence not the most powerful actor in the room? And in what way is administering the peace not constraining other actors?

The state is not an entity except in a very abstract sense.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#363

Post by Tiktaalik »

nostrademons wrote: post #28

Matches my experience. Our kids' co-op preschool went out of business last year; their actual preschool got bought by private equity and is struggling to survive. Longtime neighbors say the spirit of volunteerism in the upper schools is suffering. And institutions that were big civic centers when I grew up - freemasons, Boy/Girl/Cub/Brownie Scouts, 4-H, YMCA/YWCA, local bowling/skating rinks, etc - are now shadows of…

> I'll posit a mechanism: when times are good, small organizations are born

Historically at least I think we can find many examples of the opposite, though perhaps these examples I can think are less around social activities and more around aiding business and society.

Many small organizations appeared due to hard times creating real problems that were solved by no one, and they had to step into the void. In the Prairies of Canada where times were very hard farmers and labourers created coop organizations to spread the risk around and help out each other.

For example not too far from me there's a Ukrainian old folks home which is associated with the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians. At one point pre WW2 prior to there being any sort of medicare this organization was a critical part of the social safety net for new Canadians and there would have been branches all across Canada.

After WW2 it was banned during the red scare but even after that when legalized again became much less relevant because its need in society has diminished as genuine social safety nets were created. Now it appears to focus on teaching Ukrainian dance.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#364

Post by gnulinux996 »

nostrademons wrote: post #28

Matches my experience. Our kids' co-op preschool went out of business last year; their actual preschool got bought by private equity and is struggling to survive. Longtime neighbors say the spirit of volunteerism in the upper schools is suffering. And institutions that were big civic centers when I grew up - freemasons, Boy/Girl/Cub/Brownie Scouts, 4-H, YMCA/YWCA, local bowling/skating rinks, etc - are now shadows of…

> Our kids' co-op preschool went out of business last year

The fact that schools can go "out of business" is incredible. The more I get in contact with everything American, the more left I lean.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#365

Post by SchemaLoad »

joz1-k wrote: post #346
cs702 wrote: post #21

Great post, thought-provoking. Highly recommended. Interestingly, in the past, the US federal government actively made efforts to keep private organizations from becoming too dominant. Here are just a few examples, from memory: * The Bell system was broken up, resulting in a geographically distributed telecom network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System : Your phone company was local. * Banks cou…

The reason governments no longer fight huge corporations or even clear monopolies is also due to heavy globalization. If one government destroys a monopoly (a global mega-corporation) in its country, it may strengthen the monopoly (and the global mega-corporation) in another country. So the line of thinking is, "We don't like this nasty monopoly, but at least it's our monopoly."

I don't really buy this. The government still has the ability to just ban or tax the foreign monopoly. And seemingly the EU has the ability to fine foreign businesses for being monopolies too.

China being a good example. Google being a monopoly in the rest of the world doesn't really impact them much since they just block the foreign products.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#366

Post by dogman144 »

My very loose sense on this was developed after a lot of perspective shifts via fortunately living in a lot of different spots in the US.

I think these small orgs are still around, are needed and I wish they were easier to find, but feels like finding them filters through:

- If it’s useful, it involves coastal tech people so to speak, and you can wade through many unknown gates to include “community” that’s actually sponsored marketing: often seems to be small group digital communities on Signal with shared thematic backgrounds of the members. Pair these with meeting people IRL when you can via travel and find time, it’s quite a useful network that’s all built digitally at first.

- If it’s fulfilling but low stakes, and peer-oriented: a lot of this is in infosec still via hacker culture, but overall I think you have to get outside of your economic class and bubble to find it generally, esp if you’re a tech person. In tech and similar careers, every “small group dinner” under the hood feels like 6-7 men making $550tc and trying to hit 650tc, or a group trying to attract those people. Dodgeball league for young professionals or not, career management feels very often in the background. It doesn’t feel authentic, or at least feel safe, because it likely isn’t.

Groups of people still do go fishing together, hiking together, cities sponsor makerspaces, community centers offer wood working classes, small group s get together to dicusss ideas, people have standing brunches… but it’s really hard to find this stuff in authentic contexts if first you’re not looking for it over some time, second you can’t suffer through being into the things you’re into alone, until you find someone doing the same, and third *if you city or area doesn’t have a moat to keep out, or at bay, modern, massively networked economies and what I think it tends to incentivize - the small org is in the cheap but functional community center, that is sponsored by a city that cares about it, that is advertised via the community radio station, that is in a city not under water by angry people at the exploding CoL…

I found 1 city out of 6-7 that still offers the latter input, and it to me feels is the lynchpin.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#367

Post by mym1990 »

joz1-k wrote: post #346
cs702 wrote: post #21

Great post, thought-provoking. Highly recommended. Interestingly, in the past, the US federal government actively made efforts to keep private organizations from becoming too dominant. Here are just a few examples, from memory: * The Bell system was broken up, resulting in a geographically distributed telecom network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System : Your phone company was local. * Banks cou…

The reason governments no longer fight huge corporations or even clear monopolies is also due to heavy globalization. If one government destroys a monopoly (a global mega-corporation) in its country, it may strengthen the monopoly (and the global mega-corporation) in another country. So the line of thinking is, "We don't like this nasty monopoly, but at least it's our monopoly."

Any source for this? My hunch is that there is so much money sloshing around that government interests are easily swayed and conflicts of interest are relatively common now.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#368

Post by dogman144 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #319

He should look up Roald Coase - mid 20C who tried o answer the question of why have firms at all - big or small. The “market” ought to be able to supply services (secretary, welding etc) - but his “Theory of the firm” suggests that there are complex processes inside a firm that are pretty easy to employ someone and teach them, and pretty hard to write a contract for. So there is a natural size of a firm that is a tug…

That is interesting conceptual linkage!

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#369

Post by elliotto »

softwaredoug wrote: post #261

Is there data to back this up? I'm skeptical. I see all kinds of "small organizations" forming in Slack communities, subreddits, and other online spaces. Some might be described as influencer driven communities like substack. Or audiences of a specific podcast. And so on. It's almost never been easier to participate in one of these "organizations". Even locally, where I live, the school board, city council, local adv…

I agree with you, I live in Sydney Australia and there are plenty of small orgs and communities to participate in.

I wonder whether this post is just a reflection of Terry living in California, which from where I sit looks like an end-stage capitalist hellscape.

Re: Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

#370

Post by at_compile_time »

neves wrote: post #351
joz1-k wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason governments no longer fight huge corporations or even clear monopolies is also due to heavy globalization. If one government destroys a monopoly (a global mega-corporation) in its country, it may strengthen the monopoly (and the global mega-corporation) in another country. So the line of thinking is, "We don't like this nasty monopoly, but at least it's our monopoly."

I thought it was Super PAC that rigged American democracy. Now China is the more efficient economy since their companies are must obey the State.

We must be working from different definitions of efficient.

Yes, the CCP can say jump and expect their corporations to do so, but when everyone in a modern economy jumps at the same time, massive oversupply is the result. More market-based economies are also prone to similar overproduction when everyone gets caught up in the same mania (see AI datacenters), but investors will eventually stop lighting their money on fire when it becomes clear that the returns aren't there. Chinese companies, on the other hand, will just keep jumping until the CCP decides that they are done jumping.

Our feedback loop is geared towards only doing things that provide a return on investment. Their feedback loop has things like social stability and global competitiveness as competing goals to actually doing productive work.

Yes, they are able to accomplish a tremendous amount when they set their minds to it, but doing a tremendous amount more of something than there is actual demand is waste, the opposite of efficiency.

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/china-is-sending-its-...

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