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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

#481

Post by dustincoates »

anon7725 wrote: post #438
pants2 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go to church every Sunday despite having zero belief in Jesus or God as they describe him. The sermons are socially relevant and thought-provoking, the congregation is caring and fun with cool social events, and the good that they're doing in our community is inspiring. I encourage HNers to try it! Just mentally replace "God" with "Nature" and "Jesus" with "Me" in every line and you have a good framework for self-r…

Assuming that you belong to something akin to traditional religion, do you not feel that you’re participating in bad faith (pun mostly not intended)? Others who attend church presumably assume that you share the stated beliefs?

I can say, as a Christian, that I'm not bothered by it. The church is as much for doubters as it is the true believers (and many of us will be both at different seasons of our lives).

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

#482

Post by shiandow »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #463
shiandow wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a symplistic view, two people can achieve a lot more together than individually and today's society can achieve a lot more than prehistoric humanity. I can get fruit and spices delivered to me that a Roman emperor would barely be aware of, and I can do so without leaving my bed.

The issue was power, not cooperation. Not sure where modern logistic chains come into play when talking about power.

If power is not the ability to make things happen then what is it?

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

#483

Post by Hilift »

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…

That doesn't mean those regulations or structures were intended to be a permanent fixture. Similarly, Bretton Woods was not intended to maintain gold at $35 per ounce.

The world is a place where some development requires large amounts of capitalization. That is also a competitive advantage. No-one cares about any of those previous bullet points if they are generally happy in their lives.

When the SEC brought their first large scale financial fraud indictment, no-one cared. (Investors Overseas Service (IOS), $224 million and International Controls Corporation (ICC)). It was pursued because someone stole money from the wealthy. However, many years later, one of the two fraudsters was revealed to be a notorious Russian agent that worked for the Office of Strategic Services in London during WW2. He would walk files of Ukrainian sources out of the OSS office (obtained from MI6!) and down the street to the Russian embassy. Those Ukrainian sources later disappeared.

The world is a sketchy/dodgy/evil place. Partitioning it into chunks may provide some temporary benefit, but the real world does not evolve that way. Look at Carlos Slim, Mexican Cartels, Russian oligarchs, META is on track for $80 billion net profit this year ...

Oh also, two of the Bretton Woods principal architects, also Russian agents. One had their US passport revoked and US citizenship revoked in 1954. He was the chief economic advisor to Franklin Roosevelt. No-one cared about him either, and he essentially envisioned the world of monetary policies that we have today. He lived out the remainder of his life very well off, advising Colombia on their monetary policy. In 1995, he was revealed to be a prolific Russian agent from KGB archives researchers and authors.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/may/21/internationalc...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Controls_Corpora...

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/591496adadd7b049345e5c...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauchlin_Currie

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

#484

Post by ngcazz »

defrost wrote: post #459
seu wrote: post #456

> An individual human without any of the support provided by larger organized groups is only able to exist at quite primitive levels, as any number of pieces of post-apocalyptic fiction can portray. This guy may be a math genius, but he should at least pay minimal respect to the thousands of people who have studied human cultures, societies and civilizations, and to their findings, before coming up with a post about…

As an anthropologist can you sketch out, for us not so blessed, an example of the higher or highest levels of existence an individual lacking any support from any larger organized groups has actually obtained? Thanks.

The point OP is making is that anthropological research has done the hard work of uncovering real insights that the author presumes are learned from works of fiction

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

#485

Post by dripdry45 »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #361
yannyu wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would argue. This is too brought a stroke. Federalism has been stripped away, yes, but if it had been done with some other rules in place and notifications so that smaller organizations can effectively pick up the baton, I would argue it could have worked better.

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

#486

Post by myrmidon »

astrange wrote: post #395
tbirdny wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue the opposite: that the mass entry of women into the paid workforce expanded the labor supply, contributing to wage stagnation and, eventually, the erosion of the middle class. But that wasn’t the only cause. Globalization, declining unions, automation, and regressive taxes were also factors.

Expanding the labor supply does not decrease wages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy More people = more economy = higher wages. Otherwise killing people and stopping other people from having children would increase your pay. As for the middle class, most of the reason for the decline is people moving into the upper class. https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/th...

> As for the middle class, most of the reason for the decline is people moving into the upper class.

Thats not what I get from the source you provided.

It shows that middle (and lower class) are massively losing income share: Ine 1971, you have 88% of population in middle class or below, with 72% of total income.

81% of population remain in that bracket, but now they only get 51% of total income. That is massive, and also bad for the economy as a trend because rich people spend less of their income.

The conclusion I draw from this is that middle-class (and below) is in decline because the rich "upper-class" is soaking up much of their income.

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

#487

Post by mdnahas »

We have done a lot to reduce risk, which has lowered the need for trust. We have national paper money, credit cards, insurance, flood-prevention infrastructure, FEMA (or did), etc.. We have less need for safety brought by connections with our neighbors.

And, with shipping being cheaper and the internet, you can stay at home and get food delivered, homegoods delivered, entertainment delivered, etc. and live without even interacting with your neighbors or seeing them at the local store.

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

#488

Post by Eisenstein »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #475
yannyu wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Oh, that one is easy. The original US constitution gave the federal government the right to preempt state laws in matters within its…

I am not criticizing your historical explanation or your comment, but I would like to make a footnote:

Sometimes narratives like these which lay out a simple cause-and-effect between political decisions and modern outcomes can make people think that reverting the situation is a solution to modern outcomes, but that is rarely the case.

Everything evolves, and the solution to modern problems is to find a solution that works within modern constraints.

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

#489

Post by GeoAtreides »

shiandow wrote: post #482
GeoAtreides wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue was power, not cooperation. Not sure where modern logistic chains come into play when talking about power.

If power is not the ability to make things happen then what is it?

Power is a boot stamping on a human face — forever.

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

#490

Post by mycall »

roughly wrote: post #220
Too wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like rock paper scissors, there are multiple dimensions to power and the state doesn’t always possess all of them. Media being the most obvious one (fourth estate). Federal bank another. As the split of government and parliament.

The state holds the guns, and if it doesn't hold the guns, it's not the thing I'm referring to as the state - fundamentally, the power of the state is the power of violence. Other actors may possess other types of power and other types of coercion, but those either leverage or are constrained by the state power of violence.

The democratic state is less violent than the individuals as a whole (including the police), so the distinction comes from actual vs potential violence.
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