[FRIAM] on government

[steve smith]

> There's no system of governance that hasn't been corrupted. They're 
> all the worst forms of governance ever invented, except for the 
> alternative of dealing with a group of self-selected fellow citizens 
> under no system of governance whatsoever.
>
> -- rec --

And being a fan of James Scott (The Art of not Being Governed 
<https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6477876-the-art-of-not-being-governed> 
and Against the Grain) I am inclined to respect this POV while on the 
other end, I also am quite the fan of Michael Levin's perspective on 
"what is life?" with all of it's spread across scale and across 
complexity and across species (in the broadest sense).

Until we might evolve from a slime-mold with psuedopods searching around 
and intruding/interpenetrating into oneanother seeking concentrated 
resources (like Russia's into Ukraine and now vice-versa, or 
Israel/Palestine/Lebanon/???).  Might we (collectively) become something 
more like a "proper" multicellular creature or a balanced, healthy 
ecosystem (or system of ecosystems)?

We have (only) been experimenting with large-scale self-organizing 
systems of humanity with lots of technological scaffolding 
(lithics/copper/bronze/iron/steel through antimatter, quantum dots, and 
nanotech, just to name a few?) and religio/socio/philosopho/politco 
linguistic technology for a handful (or two) of millenia, so it doesn't 
surprise me that we haven't wandered/mutated-selected our way into 
anything better than we have to date.

I am (very guardedly) hopeful that the acceleration of the latter 
(linguistic technology) in LLMs and other ML/AI (material technology) 
will give us the possibility of rushing this phase forward.  PInker 
might claim we have had material (and psycho-social-spiritual) 
advancement over the centuries and decades and maybe he is right in some 
sense...  but the leap-forward in collective 
self-governance/regulation/homeostasis we can all seem to imagine living 
under feels beyond our (heretofore?) grasp.

For better or worse, it feels to me that Kurzweil for all his nonsense 
in predicting an imminent singularity may be right... we will either 
self-organize in a Asimovian Foundation/Psychohistory galaxy-spanning 
culture (almost surely not) future or implode in a Mad Max (or 
grey-goo/planet-krypton) apocalypse.  Maybe even in my lifetime, almost 
assuredly in my children or grandchildren's?


>
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