Having worked in a small company of less than 500 people that grew to 10k + people I strongly agree with this. When it was small everyone knew everyone else it's impossible to BS your way to the top. Everyone known what you do and if you are good at your job. Once the company grew and grew I started seeing more and more people who does nothing and just BS their way around and they get away with it because people/management just don't KNOW you any more.
I've seen this myself working for a large company that grew exponentially. Sooner or later, I found myself on another planet with no connection to a larger whole. Communication was greatly eroded, and employees engaged in the most awful behavior to get ahead, stepping on coworkers, using slander, etc. Just a horrible experience. But I moved on too much greener pastures.
I think I learn as much in the comment sections of these videos as I do watching the actual content, thankyou all for having such informative and non combative conversations
I grew up in a town of less than 1,000 people. All of those advantages are true-input on local decisions, accountability, intermediate structures (schools, churches, etc).
How'd the world have looked like with only 1 million people? With only 1,000 cities with 1,000 residents each. And how well would everyone know each other? And would they all get along?
I chuckled too, that's my sense of humor. I normally have to explain the humor, and half the time I'd rather just keep the conversation moving without explanation. 😂
@@AIM-od9nr no, not at all, just making a joke 😂 I don’t think he lacks depth. You just seemed very bitter by your response, so I said something that I thought might be funny. It didn’t seem like you had an objective take, just you seizing an opportunity to criticize him.
there's no accountability in democracies...america's accountability is democratic or republican's parties which were mostly the same until just recently....large groups of people elected by large groups....there's zero accountability in that.
why do people first jump to "government needs to be accountable!", how about start with individual accountability? oh yeah, because it's easier to blame "them" for everything instead of looking internally at your own choices.
The constitution was designed to be that very thing, but the voters found out they could vote in people who would serve their interests, and enact their gross social controls on others. A republic, if they can keep it.
I've been an anarchist for over a decade and only just come across this guy in the last few months. He articulates anarchism as good as anyone I've ever heard. I would love to hear him have a conversation with either Bret Weinstein (to put Bret straight on his skewed fears of anarchy) or Jordan Peterson (to hear them overlap their thoughts on the 7 generation principle). Those conversations would be hugely beneficial for humanity right now
when you work for a large company you start to lose the recognition that humans require to feel satisfied when they do a "good job" and selflessly strive for perfection. Self-satisfaction becomes the dominating force. The company itself doesnt exist, it cant pat you on the back.. only the representative in charge of you can give you that satisfaction, and that person doesnt want to lose their job to you.
@@teiuq yes, the very idea of branding a name for a company creates this abstract concept of a company as a "thing", something that has an identity. It's also why companies feel obligated to be politically correct, image and appeal.
What people are missing, including this discussion, is the diminishing returns in networking groups. You can tell this guest even wants to tie in networking groups, the ability to work from home, company zoom calls, Microsoft Teams, etc.. because we've been force fed that as our future. However, one of the basic principles he brings up initially is the negative return on lying, manipulation and sociopathic behavior for the individual in small groups because it's easy to see the effect that individual and activity has on the group as a whole. However, when it comes to online networking groups the day to day actions of each individual is not easily seen by all other members of the group. So the ability to build trust and self-regulation at the individual level for the betterment of the group as a whole is not created organically. This is why most workers today complain about the inability to make change, have an impact or see results at a company level. It's why you still feel empty even after achieving amazing results because you can't see the benefit your actions had on the company as a whole.
There is a balance in a worker wanting to make change and a tyrannical CEO. If everyone at the table is talented, then you need to listen to everyone's opinion no matter how much you disagree. A great manager will be able to recognize this. A great manager will also be able to recognize that some people really are incompetent and shouldn't have a voice at the table. Unfortunately, the current trajectory of most companies, especially in silicon valley is that everyone should pursue the power of making change in the company....even if it's a terrible idea by an incompetent employee.
I really enjoyed Daniel's view on this and this discussion. I agree completely and have become very interested in the importance and leverage capacity of city governance since spending a bit of time studying municipalism/New Municipalism, Fearless Cities, the work of Murray Bookchin, participatory governance and democracy. I really think the lack of participation from the majority of citizens is a major part of the problem. It goes without saying that our representative democracies in the west are highly problematic and causing a lot of issues - since they're a fake democracy, not a democracy at all by any measure only in name. I think this fractal nature of governance in which the household, neighbourhood, community, and city all involve more active citizenry, more self-governance structures, direct democracy etc is the way to go. For technology and digital tools pol.is an open-source deliberative software created by Colin Megill in Seatlle is fascinating and has done great things in Taiwan along with other tools largely influenced by Audrey Tang their super-smart digital minister.
Im almost wished i never knew what was actually going on, my stomach has been turning ever since. Evil & wickedness come from within all of us naturally, this is why the human race is damned. The only way out of our fate is to spread Love, Poetry, Beauty, Peace, and Transparency.
The human animal is the only animal that struggles so hard with things other animals have no problems with because we have an objectifying mind. We think we can get somewhere to eliminate problems and discontent but it will never happen. 99.9% of our problems only exist as an idea.
TCrob what does that mean? A bear doesn’t have an objectifying mind. I’m saying 99.9% of our problems exist in our head. The other .1% of our problems are real, bodily pain or discomfort.
Dornish Red right but with humans you have to go through all kinds of mental gymnastics animals don’t. Crows communicate but I highly doubt they can hurt each other’s feelings through language. Most of the pain humans experience are from ideas and language, otherwise suicide or drug use wouldn’t exist.
@@zyxwfish yes, I wasn’t disagreeing. I thought the Epictetus quote supported what it was you were saying. Maybe my quote wasn’t applicable, either way, I agree with the sentiments you were trying to convey.
I had an idea many years ago about a scaling up Dunbars number for a new kind of society. Everyone lives in self governing groups of approximately 100 people. Electing one of their number to represent the group on the next level up. That next level up is comprised of 100 representatives from the base level groups. They then elect one of their number to represent them on the third tier. This scales up very quickly. 100 people in the first tier. 10,000 in the second tier. 1,000,000 in the third tier. 100,000,000 in the fourth tier ect. No individual would ever be more than 5 steps removed from the grand council.
It's a good idea, but not sufficient. You also need to provide "binding energy" at each level, some form of interdependence, based on trade of goods and services, and maybe shared stories (aka religion or ideology or philosophy). And each level would need its own Dunbar number, they are not necessarilly all going to be equal to the tribal Dunbar number. For example a family probably functions best with a handful of people, and a tribe or village functions best with maybe 20-30 families, and a city might be best with 100s of villages/tribes/neighborhoods/companies (but neighborhoods that are interdependent based on trade and production of goods and services, not just based on proximity), and a bioregion might have a handful of cities, a nation a handful of bioregions, and a transnational federation might have 10s of nations. The higher levels would be concerned less with trade and more with keeping rogue parts under control (but not totalitarian control).
@@iuvalclejan i like it my original proposal was just a basic outline. What you offer is refinement. However I still want to limit the upward funneling because you want to limit the number of levels and thus detachment the common person has to the upper tiers. perhaps 100 at the family level 10 at top tier and 50 for all intermediary tiers. As far as shared stories go and a binder, in my fantasy or thought experiment, the citizens find a family as adults and take the family and clan names regardless of gender. Thereby assuming family pride and history as their own. The rogue family or clan is a problem ive thought of a lot. One idea was that a parallel government of peace keepers would be formed with every clan sending one of their own to train as a PK. The PK are organized in the same fashion as the civilian government. The scary possibility however is accidentally creating a Praetorian Guard of sorts.
@@timothythomason1600 The whole point of a higher level is to be a pk for its warring parts, and to do this not only in response to hostilities, but prophylactically, by promoting trust and cooperation. This can be done recursively at all levels up to the hiighest. That's how nature does it... So we don't need separate pk groups. Also, humans probably can't handle families with more than a handful of adults, at least as far as optimizing intimacy. Many intentional communities have faltered for not recognizing the difference between a family and a clan/village tribe.
A society that focuses on art, beauty, and the mastery of skills. This includes science. Science needs more art to truly balance the masculine and feminine energies that are inherit in us all. The Greeks understood this as a core philosophy for their society, at the moment the balance is out of whack.
No that's a rewriting of history. The Greeks understood the importance of "good-thinking" that's why we have Socratic dialogues and logic from Aristotle, but like any around the Mediterranean they were patriarchal and that's precisely what it is needed to have good thinking. Good thinking happen when we move from being mostly guided by our instincts to our cognitive functions and that's what open us modern civilization. There is no man-woman energy, it's Zen philosophy. There is the ability to manage tools to manage our cognitive functions and men are better at it therefore they manage the society.
@@petermaquine8173 Plato has two works on social and political organization: the Republic and the Laws. In the first, he argues that, although men as a group are superior to women, there are many women that are better than many men; for this reason, women should be given the chance to benefit from an education that could turn them into potential city governors. In the light of his notion that only practising philosophers could govern wisely, this proposal in the Republic implies that women (or at least some women) could arrive at the pinnacle of knowledge, as represented by philosophy, thereby enabling them to be queens of the just city. Even in utopian terms, it does not seem irrelevant that this idea once arose in Greece and that it is the object of debate in one of the best known works of western philosophy.
How do we restructure humanity to be most efficient is the most important question we can be asking at every single moment. Is this efficient? How can we do better. Let's be better.
Just an idea, albeit completely off the cuff, what if we killed the possibility of a second term so that the president can actually focus on tasks for the full 4 years? The catch: in between every four year presidential term will be a one year term where the president elect and acting president preside over matters together in order to facilitate task continuity.
This was a roller coaster of logic. One sentence makes sense and then the next contradicts it... Dunbar number and global governance in the same rant? He did it! Somehow, he did it!
Some major problems with Schmachtenberger's analysis. 1) You can't compare abject poverty in China with US definition of the poverty line 2) High-Speed Rail is a very expensive solution in search of a problem. It barely works in extremely high-density urban environments and it doesn't solve the last mile problem. 3) The notion that mega cities are productive is commical. Go look at New York, LA, and San Francisco. They're only wealthy because they attract outside money and talent because of the existing money and talent, but they are massively self-destructive.
has anybody ever done the math on the amount of resource extraction/production/destruction that it took to move the ball in china over the last 30 years? that model can't lift the other 2/3rds of the chinese population up to the 10k annual income level. we can't create a 1st world status for another billion people with the the models we are currently using. these chinese cities aren't being built to last. once they start to age and a few sky scrapers topple, then what? i see massive depopulation in our future. they will get us there one way or another. the foreshadowing is there. it's that or pod living and no meat.
1) True. Though the powers that be are dragging us down to that point in the name of maximum profits. 2) Different countries have different needs. China has 4-5x the population of the US. Their population also undergoes massive annual migrations to observe holidays as many work very far from home. All forms of transportation are used to their maximum as a result. Americans do travel a lot, but that is handled by our airline sector for the past several decades. 3) US cities and towns aren't what they were before the 1950's. Cities in Asia now perform this function. Cities don't form for no reason. Cities grow because people noticed the economic activity through word of mouth and came from far and wide. And yes that's what cities and nations do all the time. They attract outside money and talent and gain power as a result. It's the #1 reason the US is the world's superpower and China is attempting to replicate that recipe to overtake the US.
@@vgernyc how much resource extraction will it take? is it possible? can it happen for india at the same time? my fear is that we are approaching a wall when it comes to energy and food. if energy goes into decline, food will soon follow. also, the model of production of goods in exchange for fiat that goes towards resource extraction. follow by resources consumed to make goods that are not needed. seems that this can't scale much larger. or sustain for those participating in the system much longer either. your thoughts?
@@gosnellktn I was replying specifically to George Ou's points. What you bring up is another kettle of fish. You have it backwards. Fresh water is in rapid decline around the world. Fanned by overuse, over population, pollution and climate change. Countries are steaking their claims over fresh water either for energy extraction or drinking or to extort their neighbors. Food and then energy scarcity will then follow.
@@vgernyc humanity is about to stall. it could be water, it could be oil, it could be food production. it could be any number of things that tips us into massive decline. covid may be an attempt to sort out what slowing down would look like and assess what to do next with a population that can't be sustained. your thoughts on the what the natural order of things looks like in 10 years?
I think the dance verbally is one that is encapsulated down to a velvet revolution. The transition from an older paradigm (industrial revolution/post etc) to one that actually incorporates modern temperments.
Lex should have someone on who has a deep knowledge of different Native American tribes. Many of these tribes were doing it right. A culture where it was shameful to put yourself before the community.
The book Adjustment Day by Chuck Palaniuk, most well-known for being the author of Fight Club, and Choke, Although my first Chucj P read happened to be the novel Lullaby, has a scene with a professor giving a lecture about youth bulges very near the beginning.
The family should have always remained the most powerful institution. That's where we went wrong. By the way, China built high speed rail. It loses money. I find the evaluation of China's capabilities excessively rosy.
I'll add to that: at 14:16 the notion that China is the closest to possibly being a closed society has no basis in the reality I adhere to. China can neither power itself nor feed itself with its own resources. It's completely reliant on globalization (cheap oil, safe transport of that oil, cheap and oppressed labor internally, cheap and safe export of finished goods to foreign markets, and foreign food, fertilizers, etc). Without a solid connection to foreign markets, as history has shown it is doomed to famine. I am almost done listening to all of the talk with Schmactenberger and am thoroughly enjoying it but he's very incorrect on this particular notion. I learned a ton listening to his ideas, and the focus on inter dependency between group and individual was really enlightening.
@@tysonkampbjj What he was referring to I imagine is that china is intentionally moving towards being as self reliant as possible where as most other countries don't even attempt to be self reliant. Being the closest to it doesn't mean you are already there.
@@pazz1038 China is not close to being "self" reliant. They use millions of slaves. In addition, North America is essentially self sufficient, not China. It produces food and energy surplus, and has nearly every possible mineral. China does none of those things. China also doesn't innovate. It burns money like kindling. It Cannot exist as it does now for much longer.
Intermediate structures are there. But they are unseen and unappreciated because higher levels (e.g., political parties) work hard to exacerbate differences and work against recognition of similarities. In general, we don't know or care about the political party of the checker at the grocery store. But, they are also kind of transparent to our concepts of what is important- which is a problem.
@13:27 this is a concept I find a lot in integral theory. When you pull the plug out of a sink full of water, the water chaotically begins to rush down the drain. But out of that chaos the structure of the cyclone forms, which is a form of order. This is also an idea portrayed in the Divergent series. Where they create so much chaos and friction among the different tribal factions that higher level thinking beings emerge and try to bring a new order into being. They later find out this was all an intentional experiment. Part of me looks at the state of the world today and wonders if that's what we are seeing around us now. Unintentional or even intentional.
I found myself, weirdly, becoming a little anxious when Daniel is developing his answer, which he does take a while to do, and thinking, God, interviewer, don't butt in with your "interjections". I lost the whole damn train of thought.
There are indeed people where Lex´s strategy might be beneficial to extract the most but with a sophisticated thinker and speaker like Daniel whos ability to transfer ideas and concepts that efficient its not the case.
This is roughly how I run manufacturing buisnesses. From 10 to 30 people you see people self recognize those with skill,knowledge, and leadership. The natural leaders are easy to identify and respected throughout on merrit. Between 30 to 50 people the group starts to change. People do not know each other well enough for natural merit based leadership to be self- recognizing. At this point you have to start looking to develop specialized team leaders. Companies are easily ran with a small management teams until you reach roughly the 150+ employee mark. At this point you.... its a whole different ball game. Much Respect David Dennis
This all leaves out LAND ownership systems, as some one who lives in very rural area, there is alway a unfair and corrupt big land owners that mess up any ideal small group system.
I think the local government should have a Congress where each seat represents 150 households. This way, you don't need to get a massive fortune to run for office, and the people who elect you can hold you accountable personally, and not elect you again if you wind up being incompetent or corrupt to the point you harm those who voted for you.
Hanging out around a campfire and talking for several hours illuminates all of the demons in your brothers and sisters around you, this is the first thing that must be done to create this emergent order; find out who you can trust and jive with comfortably. Everything else really just sorts itself out. For example, if you have some asshole playing the guitar on the other side of the party and he's constantly complaining that nobody is listening to him play or nobody likes his music, while everybody else is having a good time and just having a conversation with one another, he's not comfortable with that it's not enough to just be background music, he has to be the center stage and everybody has to look at him.... You know not to fuck with that guy and all of your friends don't want to fuck with them either. So you leave him alone, out of the campfire. If one cannot be cool with people doing their own thing, then they need to leave the tribe.
This is exactly the point Aristotle made in Politics, that no one ever seems to talk about. He said 1 person doesn't make a polis but neither does a 100,000. Then he goes on to say it's because the citizens have to know each other. Our confusion around polis size really comes to light when encountering something like a pandemic because it makes us realize that all the problems of ineffectiveness can be attributed to intergovernmental affairs. The feds are responsible. No, the state is responsible. Actually, it's the county, no wait, the fed kicks money to the state, the state develops standards, but the county administers the program, but they need permission from the city to setup in that city. The federal program becomes entirely ineffective, the feds get the blame. Meanwhile, the problem can be traced to permitting at the city level because, while everyone thinks the program would be great, just not in my backyard.
Application of game theory is a good way to predict emergent social phenomenon. Whether or not such phenomena (or attempts to dissuade such phenomena) destabilize the society is a different question, though. Also, understanding which parts of society lie in shadow, is a good way to predict emergent social phenomena (or, at least where it's likely to occur). I'm afraid that effective governance will always require the governors to read and react to the governed. So, it must be partly improvisational.
cellular automata comes to mind when I think of how we would appoint leadership. If the decision making could by preserved by implementing a very basic rule to the fundamental point where it manifests it could secure an infallible chain unreakable into the FUTURE!!!!! love ya lex! love ya Dan. Ya'll the best.
What if in an alternate timeline, every human followed Dunbar's Number throughout history? Including those with large harems of pretty women like Genghis Khan and Hugh Hefner(imagine if they only had 100 or less women)? And if I was the first in history to reach 150 girls at maximum? How'd that have been like?
As long as we maintain this sort of me first survivalist notion on an individual level, no amount of social engineering and planning is going to be very effective. Unless we are capable of teaching cooperative compassionate views regarding everything we will essentially end up in the same fighting bickering greed-based mode of behavior that we exhibit on a daily basis now. True social engineering is an inside job and is not something that can be enforced or legislated by a group of survivalist self-seeking minded individuals simply because the temptation of power will always lead those who think that way astray.
There's a place in the state of Georgia known as the Georgia Guidestones. It's a massive granite monument built in the 1980's, columns as big as Stoneheng, no one knows who built it. Carved into the stones are some "commandments" or "directives", and one of the directives is maintain a world population of no more than 500 million.
If anarchy is the creation of communities based on having similar views, then that would be a world separated according to ideology. That doesn't sound particularly stable to me.
I dont get how the anarchy idea can get that much credit. While theres certainly a case to be made for less and more efficient government the forming of social hierarchies is in our nature isnt it?
It's an interesting convo. I was just thinking about this a few days ago after visiting a smaller local town. I feel like too small and isolated is not good and too big is not good either, for many reasons which I won't go into now...but I'd say the goldilocks zone is cities of a few hundred thousand in population. They're just big enough to have a prosperous and stable economy but not too big where they are too large to manage. Look at most cities of this size in US and CAN and they're the one's that have the highest standard of living and everyone wants to move to.....which ofcourse, jacks realestate prices up and will eventually ruin them :(.....
A free market, constrained by natural rights (life, liberty, property), most closely resembles natural selection/evolution. There’s your spontaneous order. Minimal boundary conditions, freedom of individual choice (except theft and coercion are off the menu). You don’t need a watchmaker for that.
China was a bad example, especially for long term. They will have big problems on different levels (housing, water, workforce) in the next 30 - 50 years.
China has more potential than we think and mainly because they redeveloped their governance system and society BECAUSE they had their 4th turning already. Sure, they will decline over time like any other system that goes through the four stages, but for a while it will continue to get better in China and for China. For us the main goal is to do careful thinking while we go through our 4th turning and rebuild. Read Curtis Yarvin to see careful thinking (Maybe not the correct answer but the correct questions)
China has a Geography issue not fixable by changes in Government. Smaller Organizations are more Resilient to Environmental Changes because decisions can be made faster and more in tune to Local Environments.
They have us by our balls in debt and we fucking outsourced all of our major manufacturing jobs years ago. To think that China gives a shit about their people dying on their path towards becoming the most powerful nation in the world is hilarious. China literally has it's own people locked away in concentration camps, and its common practice for them to have to install huge nets around their taller buildings to keep all the employees from killing themselves- they have a massive and clearly dispensable workforce that they will utilize on their way to the top.
Having worked in a small company of less than 500 people that grew to 10k + people I strongly agree with this. When it was small everyone knew everyone else it's impossible to BS your way to the top. Everyone known what you do and if you are good at your job. Once the company grew and grew I started seeing more and more people who does nothing and just BS their way around and they get away with it because people/management just don't KNOW you any more.
And the BSers frequently have not a clue what they are.
I've seen this myself working for a large company that grew exponentially. Sooner or later, I found myself on another planet with no connection to a larger whole. Communication was greatly eroded, and employees engaged in the most awful behavior to get ahead, stepping on coworkers, using slander, etc. Just a horrible experience. But I moved on too much greener pastures.
@@friendlyone2706 You think they don't know they don't produce anything useful ?
@@monsieur_ I like to think they have been deluded into seeing busy-work as work. The alternative is too depressing.
You give upper management a lot of credit. Many times they create that culture and don't really care as long as the money is coming into their pockets
Government on the city and county level has the most direct effect upon your life, yet it is the most often ignored type of government.
Become a poll watcher. Count the votes.
Also the most incestuous
I think I learn as much in the comment sections of these videos as I do watching the actual content, thankyou all for having such informative and non combative conversations
I totally agree
Love reading the comments
I grew up in a town of less than 1,000 people. All of those advantages are true-input on local decisions, accountability, intermediate structures (schools, churches, etc).
How'd the world have looked like with only 1 million people? With only 1,000 cities with 1,000 residents each. And how well would everyone know each other? And would they all get along?
It’s just wild that we’re even having these sorts of conversations
When I hear the term "good for everybody" I release the safety on my Browning!"
Safety.? If i up it imma be on go or i wouldnt ever be in on street with a weapon? Livestream n rap about bodies. This aint hittin them folks
@@joeymurdazalotmore6355 Jesus Christ take the saftey off of your English.
Never even had it on
@@pureruckuspower2165 that was a good one but old dude just don't want to be thug
Why is your safety on in the first place
Best part….Lex’s self satisfaction and associated smirk with the John Mayer reference.
I chuckled too, that's my sense of humor. I normally have to explain the humor, and half the time I'd rather just keep the conversation moving without explanation. 😂
Followed by "...I apologize"
@@AIM-od9nr looks like someone didnt get into MIT
@@AIM-od9nr You should have your own Podcast clearly you have all the answers. Let me know pal when you start, love to listen to your brilliance
@@AIM-od9nr no, not at all, just making a joke 😂 I don’t think he lacks depth. You just seemed very bitter by your response, so I said something that I thought might be funny. It didn’t seem like you had an objective take, just you seizing an opportunity to criticize him.
Government needs accountability before it can ever bond with its peoples.
there's no accountability in democracies...america's accountability is democratic or republican's parties which were mostly the same until just recently....large groups of people elected by large groups....there's zero accountability in that.
@@DeathZeroTolerance true
why do people first jump to "government needs to be accountable!", how about start with individual accountability? oh yeah, because it's easier to blame "them" for everything instead of looking internally at your own choices.
So angry already, I have to read past all of the passive aggressive insinuations. 🤓
The constitution was designed to be that very thing, but the voters found out they could vote in people who would serve their interests, and enact their gross social controls on others. A republic, if they can keep it.
This must be why small towns are generally more moral than large cities.
Excellent comment!
But how were Japanese cities like Tokyo still more moral(as in crime-free) with 8.6 million residents?
What a brilliant and sensible response to the question! I would hope that Daniel could influence the direction of our order.
When I hear the term "good for everybody" I release the safety on my M16!
I've been an anarchist for over a decade and only just come across this guy in the last few months.
He articulates anarchism as good as anyone I've ever heard.
I would love to hear him have a conversation with either Bret Weinstein (to put Bret straight on his skewed fears of anarchy) or Jordan Peterson (to hear them overlap their thoughts on the 7 generation principle). Those conversations would be hugely beneficial for humanity right now
This was a fantastic conversation!
And I’m like, “whaaatt!” Very happy to see Daniel on Lex’s podcast. Watching the whole long thing when I get a chance.
when you work for a large company you start to lose the recognition that humans require to feel satisfied when they do a "good job" and selflessly strive for perfection. Self-satisfaction becomes the dominating force. The company itself doesnt exist, it cant pat you on the back.. only the representative in charge of you can give you that satisfaction, and that person doesnt want to lose their job to you.
True "the company" becomes entirely abstract at scale.
@@KevinJohnMulligan i would argue "the company" is abstract at any scale.
@@teiuq yes, the very idea of branding a name for a company creates this abstract concept of a company as a "thing", something that has an identity. It's also why companies feel obligated to be politically correct, image and appeal.
What do you all think of GameFreak(Pokemon developers) with its 150 employees? And their refusals to expand their company?
For the record, I was cracking up at "our body is a wonderland" even though it didn't land so straight in studio.
I really enjoy this show very educational and fun .
this dude is so precise w/ his word choice, and expression. impressive as fuk
What people are missing, including this discussion, is the diminishing returns in networking groups. You can tell this guest even wants to tie in networking groups, the ability to work from home, company zoom calls, Microsoft Teams, etc.. because we've been force fed that as our future. However, one of the basic principles he brings up initially is the negative return on lying, manipulation and sociopathic behavior for the individual in small groups because it's easy to see the effect that individual and activity has on the group as a whole. However, when it comes to online networking groups the day to day actions of each individual is not easily seen by all other members of the group. So the ability to build trust and self-regulation at the individual level for the betterment of the group as a whole is not created organically. This is why most workers today complain about the inability to make change, have an impact or see results at a company level. It's why you still feel empty even after achieving amazing results because you can't see the benefit your actions had on the company as a whole.
There is a balance in a worker wanting to make change and a tyrannical CEO. If everyone at the table is talented, then you need to listen to everyone's opinion no matter how much you disagree. A great manager will be able to recognize this. A great manager will also be able to recognize that some people really are incompetent and shouldn't have a voice at the table. Unfortunately, the current trajectory of most companies, especially in silicon valley is that everyone should pursue the power of making change in the company....even if it's a terrible idea by an incompetent employee.
Ron Swanson looks refreshed in this video.
It looks like he had a baby with a younger version of himself.
I really enjoyed Daniel's view on this and this discussion. I agree completely and have become very interested in the importance and leverage capacity of city governance since spending a bit of time studying municipalism/New Municipalism, Fearless Cities, the work of Murray Bookchin, participatory governance and democracy. I really think the lack of participation from the majority of citizens is a major part of the problem. It goes without saying that our representative democracies in the west are highly problematic and causing a lot of issues - since they're a fake democracy, not a democracy at all by any measure only in name. I think this fractal nature of governance in which the household, neighbourhood, community, and city all involve more active citizenry, more self-governance structures, direct democracy etc is the way to go. For technology and digital tools pol.is an open-source deliberative software created by Colin Megill in Seatlle is fascinating and has done great things in Taiwan along with other tools largely influenced by Audrey Tang their super-smart digital minister.
My body is a wonderland comment was awesome Lex!
Im almost wished i never knew what was actually going on, my stomach has been turning ever since. Evil & wickedness come from within all of us naturally, this is why the human race is damned. The only way out of our fate is to spread Love, Poetry, Beauty, Peace, and Transparency.
@k c search the definition.
Clash of ideologies creates conflicts. And that's why there will always be conflicts.
Whats going on?
@k c just keep swimming.. just keep swimming..
@k c fishy consciousness
The human animal is the only animal that struggles so hard with things other animals have no problems with because we have an objectifying mind. We think we can get somewhere to eliminate problems and discontent but it will never happen. 99.9% of our problems only exist as an idea.
Well said.
TCrob what does that mean? A bear doesn’t have an objectifying mind. I’m saying 99.9% of our problems exist in our head. The other .1% of our problems are real, bodily pain or discomfort.
@@zyxwfish “It Is Not What Happens To You It Is How You Respond To It”
-Epictetus
Or something like that…… I believe he said.
Dornish Red right but with humans you have to go through all kinds of mental gymnastics animals don’t. Crows communicate but I highly doubt they can hurt each other’s feelings through language. Most of the pain humans experience are from ideas and language, otherwise suicide or drug use wouldn’t exist.
@@zyxwfish yes, I wasn’t disagreeing. I thought the Epictetus quote supported what it was you were saying.
Maybe my quote wasn’t applicable, either way, I agree with the sentiments you were trying to convey.
I had an idea many years ago about a scaling up Dunbars number for a new kind of society. Everyone lives in self governing groups of approximately 100 people. Electing one of their number to represent the group on the next level up. That next level up is comprised of 100 representatives from the base level groups. They then elect one of their number to represent them on the third tier. This scales up very quickly. 100 people in the first tier. 10,000 in the second tier. 1,000,000 in the third tier. 100,000,000 in the fourth tier ect. No individual would ever be more than 5 steps removed from the grand council.
That would make an interesting book concept.
It's a good idea, but not sufficient. You also need to provide "binding energy" at each level, some form of interdependence, based on trade of goods and services, and maybe shared stories (aka religion or ideology or philosophy). And each level would need its own Dunbar number, they are not necessarilly all going to be equal to the tribal Dunbar number. For example a family probably functions best with a handful of people, and a tribe or village functions best with maybe 20-30 families, and a city might be best with 100s of villages/tribes/neighborhoods/companies (but neighborhoods that are interdependent based on trade and production of goods and services, not just based on proximity), and a bioregion might have a handful of cities, a nation a handful of bioregions, and a transnational federation might have 10s of nations. The higher levels would be concerned less with trade and more with keeping rogue parts under control (but not totalitarian control).
@@iuvalclejan i like it my original proposal was just a basic outline. What you offer is refinement. However I still want to limit the upward funneling because you want to limit the number of levels and thus detachment the common person has to the upper tiers. perhaps 100 at the family level 10 at top tier and 50 for all intermediary tiers. As far as shared stories go and a binder, in my fantasy or thought experiment, the citizens find a family as adults and take the family and clan names regardless of gender. Thereby assuming family pride and history as their own. The rogue family or clan is a problem ive thought of a lot. One idea was that a parallel government of peace keepers would be formed with every clan sending one of their own to train as a PK. The PK are organized in the same fashion as the civilian government. The scary possibility however is accidentally creating a Praetorian Guard of sorts.
@@iuvalclejan base level group is family next level up is clan. didnt realize that wasnt included in original post.
@@timothythomason1600 The whole point of a higher level is to be a pk for its warring parts, and to do this not only in response to hostilities, but prophylactically, by promoting trust and cooperation. This can be done recursively at all levels up to the hiighest. That's how nature does it... So we don't need separate pk groups.
Also, humans probably can't handle families with more than a handful of adults, at least as far as optimizing intimacy. Many intentional communities have faltered for not recognizing the difference between a family and a clan/village tribe.
...most of all, appreciate the apology for the John Mayer reference.
I long waited for Daniel to come on here. Glad you made this happen Lex.
A society that focuses on art, beauty, and the mastery of skills. This includes science. Science needs more art to truly balance the masculine and feminine energies that are inherit in us all. The Greeks understood this as a core philosophy for their society, at the moment the balance is out of whack.
No that's a rewriting of history. The Greeks understood the importance of "good-thinking" that's why we have Socratic dialogues and logic from Aristotle, but like any around the Mediterranean they were patriarchal and that's precisely what it is needed to have good thinking. Good thinking happen when we move from being mostly guided by our instincts to our cognitive functions and that's what open us modern civilization. There is no man-woman energy, it's Zen philosophy. There is the ability to manage tools to manage our cognitive functions and men are better at it therefore they manage the society.
@@petermaquine8173 Plato has two works on social and political organization: the Republic and the Laws. In the first, he argues that, although men as a group are superior to women, there are many women that are better than many men; for this reason, women should be given the chance to benefit from an education that could turn them into potential city governors. In the light of his notion that only practising philosophers could govern wisely, this proposal in the Republic implies that women (or at least some women) could arrive at the pinnacle of knowledge, as represented by philosophy, thereby enabling them to be queens of the just city. Even in utopian terms, it does not seem irrelevant that this idea once arose in Greece and that it is the object of debate in one of the best known works of western philosophy.
Maybe improve the description length if ya can
Seems easy and beneficial.
Seems like this is a channel for readers😎
How do we restructure humanity to be most efficient is the most important question we can be asking at every single moment. Is this efficient? How can we do better. Let's be better.
watching lex shows you how to think and ask questions. man great show
Lex fumbling for words makes him sound 90 IQ after Daniel's eloquence
This needs more views!
Just an idea, albeit completely off the cuff, what if we killed the possibility of a second term so that the president can actually focus on tasks for the full 4 years? The catch: in between every four year presidential term will be a one year term where the president elect and acting president preside over matters together in order to facilitate task continuity.
I guess that’s why the guy in dances with wolves was called Dunbar
This was a roller coaster of logic. One sentence makes sense and then the next contradicts it... Dunbar number and global governance in the same rant? He did it! Somehow, he did it!
These short clips are great!!
Some major problems with Schmachtenberger's analysis.
1) You can't compare abject poverty in China with US definition of the poverty line
2) High-Speed Rail is a very expensive solution in search of a problem. It barely works in extremely high-density urban environments and it doesn't solve the last mile problem.
3) The notion that mega cities are productive is commical. Go look at New York, LA, and San Francisco. They're only wealthy because they attract outside money and talent because of the existing money and talent, but they are massively self-destructive.
has anybody ever done the math on the amount of resource extraction/production/destruction that it took to move the ball in china over the last 30 years? that model can't lift the other 2/3rds of the chinese population up to the 10k annual income level. we can't create a 1st world status for another billion people with the the models we are currently using. these chinese cities aren't being built to last. once they start to age and a few sky scrapers topple, then what?
i see massive depopulation in our future. they will get us there one way or another. the foreshadowing is there. it's that or pod living and no meat.
1) True. Though the powers that be are dragging us down to that point in the name of maximum profits.
2) Different countries have different needs. China has 4-5x the population of the US. Their population also undergoes massive annual migrations to observe holidays as many work very far from home. All forms of transportation are used to their maximum as a result. Americans do travel a lot, but that is handled by our airline sector for the past several decades.
3) US cities and towns aren't what they were before the 1950's. Cities in Asia now perform this function. Cities don't form for no reason. Cities grow because people noticed the economic activity through word of mouth and came from far and wide. And yes that's what cities and nations do all the time. They attract outside money and talent and gain power as a result. It's the #1 reason the US is the world's superpower and China is attempting to replicate that recipe to overtake the US.
@@vgernyc how much resource extraction will it take? is it possible? can it happen for india at the same time?
my fear is that we are approaching a wall when it comes to energy and food. if energy goes into decline, food will soon follow. also, the model of production of goods in exchange for fiat that goes towards resource extraction. follow by resources consumed to make goods that are not needed. seems that this can't scale much larger. or sustain for those participating in the system much longer either.
your thoughts?
@@gosnellktn I was replying specifically to George Ou's points.
What you bring up is another kettle of fish. You have it backwards. Fresh water is in rapid decline around the world. Fanned by overuse, over population, pollution and climate change. Countries are steaking their claims over fresh water either for energy extraction or drinking or to extort their neighbors. Food and then energy scarcity will then follow.
@@vgernyc humanity is about to stall. it could be water, it could be oil, it could be food production. it could be any number of things that tips us into massive decline. covid may be an attempt to sort out what slowing down would look like and assess what to do next with a population that can't be sustained.
your thoughts on the what the natural order of things looks like in 10 years?
God this was such a satisfying discussion. Too many interesting points to pick one to namedrop here.
Daniel is on fire!
Excellent. Love the last line from Lex.
I have noticed that, ironically, the best interviews Lex does is when he doesn’t say a word
Pertinent: Leopold Kohr, Jacques Ellul and Robert Pirsig (quality/organization, in "Lila").
I think the dance verbally is one that is encapsulated down to a velvet revolution. The transition from an older paradigm (industrial revolution/post etc) to one that actually incorporates modern temperments.
plzzzz get Daniel to discuss with Michael
As soon as I seen his surname I knew he was legit
Lex should have someone on who has a deep knowledge of different Native American tribes. Many of these tribes were doing it right. A culture where it was shameful to put yourself before the community.
Very interesting and informative talk, a lot to think about!
The book Adjustment Day by Chuck Palaniuk, most well-known for being the author of Fight Club, and Choke, Although my first Chucj P read happened to be the novel Lullaby, has a scene with a professor giving a lecture about youth bulges very near the beginning.
The family should have always remained the most powerful institution. That's where we went wrong.
By the way, China built high speed rail. It loses money. I find the evaluation of China's capabilities excessively rosy.
Maybe losing or gaining money alone isn't what defines something as useful for the people who use it.
I'll add to that: at 14:16 the notion that China is the closest to possibly being a closed society has no basis in the reality I adhere to. China can neither power itself nor feed itself with its own resources. It's completely reliant on globalization (cheap oil, safe transport of that oil, cheap and oppressed labor internally, cheap and safe export of finished goods to foreign markets, and foreign food, fertilizers, etc). Without a solid connection to foreign markets, as history has shown it is doomed to famine. I am almost done listening to all of the talk with Schmactenberger and am thoroughly enjoying it but he's very incorrect on this particular notion. I learned a ton listening to his ideas, and the focus on inter dependency between group and individual was really enlightening.
@@tysonkampbjj What he was referring to I imagine is that china is intentionally moving towards being as self reliant as possible where as most other countries don't even attempt to be self reliant. Being the closest to it doesn't mean you are already there.
@@pazz1038 China is not close to being "self" reliant. They use millions of slaves.
In addition, North America is essentially self sufficient, not China. It produces food and energy surplus, and has nearly every possible mineral. China does none of those things.
China also doesn't innovate. It burns money like kindling. It Cannot exist as it does now for much longer.
@@timothyblazer1749 It can only be a good thing if you're right. It will be interesting to watch it all unfold.
Intermediate structures are there. But they are unseen and unappreciated because higher levels (e.g., political parties) work hard to exacerbate differences and work against recognition of similarities. In general, we don't know or care about the political party of the checker at the grocery store. But, they are also kind of transparent to our concepts of what is important- which is a problem.
@13:27 this is a concept I find a lot in integral theory. When you pull the plug out of a sink full of water, the water chaotically begins to rush down the drain. But out of that chaos the structure of the cyclone forms, which is a form of order. This is also an idea portrayed in the Divergent series. Where they create so much chaos and friction among the different tribal factions that higher level thinking beings emerge and try to bring a new order into being. They later find out this was all an intentional experiment.
Part of me looks at the state of the world today and wonders if that's what we are seeing around us now. Unintentional or even intentional.
This raises a question about what these local structures do with the mentally unfit.
Exactly, there's nothing but jail or the streets
@@Heavywall70 nice one 😂
Exposure to the elements.
love...obviously
@@DeathZeroTolerance probably not.
Excellent thought leaders evoking sense-making in the midst of collapse. The time of two paths, at last.
I found myself, weirdly, becoming a little anxious when Daniel is developing his answer, which he does take a while to do, and thinking, God, interviewer, don't butt in with your "interjections".
I lost the whole damn train of thought.
There are indeed people where Lex´s strategy might be beneficial to extract the most but with a sophisticated thinker and speaker like Daniel whos ability to transfer ideas and concepts that efficient its not the case.
The end had me laughing out loud
This is roughly how I run manufacturing buisnesses. From 10 to 30 people you see people self recognize those with skill,knowledge, and leadership. The natural leaders are easy to identify and respected throughout on merrit.
Between 30 to 50 people the group starts to change. People do not know each other well enough for natural merit based leadership to be self- recognizing. At this point you have to start looking to develop specialized team leaders.
Companies are easily ran with a small management teams until you reach roughly the 150+ employee mark. At this point you.... its a whole different ball game.
Much Respect
David Dennis
This all leaves out LAND ownership systems, as some one who lives in very rural area, there is alway a unfair and corrupt big land owners that mess up any ideal small group system.
....
"Your body is a wonderland!"
A governance, process, can be just as overreaching as a government.
Wonderful podcast.
Most dangerous people ever to walk this planet said "my idea is better than all others " .
im 3 people in my family and we still dont communicate and make decisions together
I think the local government should have a Congress where each seat represents 150 households. This way, you don't need to get a massive fortune to run for office, and the people who elect you can hold you accountable personally, and not elect you again if you wind up being incompetent or corrupt to the point you harm those who voted for you.
Wait, the end is nigh if we don't change our ways? OMG! Never heard that before in my whole entire life! What a shock!
Anarcho-capitalism is global governance. Focuses on strengthening the individual to prevent a state from forming.
I remember when I thought anarchism was feasible haha
@@arturravenbite1693 it is. You just set up a Sparta, and let the weak die. That's implied by ancap.
@@zerphase yes let me know how well that'll work out over the long term when 3% of the population enslaves the other 97%
By the way, how did that work for the Spartans? Where are they now?
@@Apjooz they're super hot beach bums living in Greece doing work outs, and living the lavish unemployed lifestyle.
Lex should simplify his questions to increase his speech speed. It's OK to ask incomplete questions. It's a conversation after all.
Human timeline off by a magnitude of logical factors.
Shall we return to knowing?
This man is absolutely brilliant
Dan’s a very intelligent man.
🤣 that ending though.
16:24 lex could make that platform
Hanging out around a campfire and talking for several hours illuminates all of the demons in your brothers and sisters around you, this is the first thing that must be done to create this emergent order; find out who you can trust and jive with comfortably. Everything else really just sorts itself out. For example, if you have some asshole playing the guitar on the other side of the party and he's constantly complaining that nobody is listening to him play or nobody likes his music, while everybody else is having a good time and just having a conversation with one another, he's not comfortable with that it's not enough to just be background music, he has to be the center stage and everybody has to look at him.... You know not to fuck with that guy and all of your friends don't want to fuck with them either. So you leave him alone, out of the campfire. If one cannot be cool with people doing their own thing, then they need to leave the tribe.
Get Mayer on
Why do certain people desire to control other people and rule over them? How could they find pleasure in oppressing other humans?
People get addicted to all sorts of things.
This is exactly the point Aristotle made in Politics, that no one ever seems to talk about. He said 1 person doesn't make a polis but neither does a 100,000. Then he goes on to say it's because the citizens have to know each other. Our confusion around polis size really comes to light when encountering something like a pandemic because it makes us realize that all the problems of ineffectiveness can be attributed to intergovernmental affairs. The feds are responsible. No, the state is responsible. Actually, it's the county, no wait, the fed kicks money to the state, the state develops standards, but the county administers the program, but they need permission from the city to setup in that city. The federal program becomes entirely ineffective, the feds get the blame. Meanwhile, the problem can be traced to permitting at the city level because, while everyone thinks the program would be great, just not in my backyard.
Application of game theory is a good way to predict emergent social phenomenon. Whether or not such phenomena (or attempts to dissuade such phenomena) destabilize the society is a different question, though.
Also, understanding which parts of society lie in shadow, is a good way to predict emergent social phenomena (or, at least where it's likely to occur).
I'm afraid that effective governance will always require the governors to read and react to the governed. So, it must be partly improvisational.
this dudes accent changes every time he retorts to Lex's inquiries
San Francisco
He just described Texas. Governance is at the local level specifically with taxation.
cellular automata comes to mind when I think of how we would appoint leadership. If the decision making could by preserved by implementing a very basic rule to the fundamental point where it manifests it could secure an infallible chain unreakable into the FUTURE!!!!! love ya lex! love ya Dan. Ya'll the best.
The only reasonable explanation I’ve heard about how one might get rid of the police and in the first few minutes.
What if in an alternate timeline, every human followed Dunbar's Number throughout history? Including those with large harems of pretty women like Genghis Khan and Hugh Hefner(imagine if they only had 100 or less women)? And if I was the first in history to reach 150 girls at maximum? How'd that have been like?
As long as we maintain this sort of me first survivalist notion on an individual level, no amount of social engineering and planning is going to be very effective. Unless we are capable of teaching cooperative compassionate views regarding everything we will essentially end up in the same fighting bickering greed-based mode of behavior that we exhibit on a daily basis now. True social engineering is an inside job and is not something that can be enforced or legislated by a group of survivalist self-seeking minded individuals simply because the temptation of power will always lead those who think that way astray.
Fully decentralized and fully centralized is bad.. we need balance.
There's a place in the state of Georgia known as the Georgia Guidestones. It's a massive granite monument built in the 1980's, columns as big as Stoneheng, no one knows who built it. Carved into the stones are some "commandments" or "directives", and one of the directives is maintain a world population of no more than 500 million.
Well, we're a few hundred years too late for that.
@@zinho9169 We sure are, interesting nonetheless
@@HigherPlanes true
If anarchy is the creation of communities based on having similar views, then that would be a world separated according to ideology. That doesn't sound particularly stable to me.
I dont get how the anarchy idea can get that much credit.
While theres certainly a case to be made for less and more efficient government the forming of social hierarchies is in our nature isnt it?
Too much attention placed on size of govt. Far too little attention focused on operational efficiency, financial transparency and digital optimization
Maybe the platform would be a decentralized autonomous organization (dao).
"My body is a wonderland"
It's an interesting convo. I was just thinking about this a few days ago after visiting a smaller local town. I feel like too small and isolated is not good and too big is not good either, for many reasons which I won't go into now...but I'd say the goldilocks zone is cities of a few hundred thousand in population. They're just big enough to have a prosperous and stable economy but not too big where they are too large to manage. Look at most cities of this size in US and CAN and they're the one's that have the highest standard of living and everyone wants to move to.....which ofcourse, jacks realestate prices up and will eventually ruin them :(.....
I like Pistachio flavored ice cream, thank you for asking.
A free market, constrained by natural rights (life, liberty, property), most closely resembles natural selection/evolution. There’s your spontaneous order. Minimal boundary conditions, freedom of individual choice (except theft and coercion are off the menu). You don’t need a watchmaker for that.
In which Daniel recapitulates Catholic point about hierarchy
China was a bad example, especially for long term. They will have big problems on different levels (housing, water, workforce) in the next 30 - 50 years.
China has more potential than we think and mainly because they redeveloped their governance system and society BECAUSE they had their 4th turning already.
Sure, they will decline over time like any other system that goes through the four stages, but for a while it will continue to get better in China and for China.
For us the main goal is to do careful thinking while we go through our 4th turning and rebuild.
Read Curtis Yarvin to see careful thinking (Maybe not the correct answer but the correct questions)
@@SelfishNeuron considering how china behaved in last 3 years i think it is safe to assume it aint good picture.
China has a Geography issue not fixable by changes in Government.
Smaller Organizations are more Resilient to Environmental Changes because decisions can be made faster and more in tune to Local Environments.
He clearly stated that it too has fail states . . .
They have us by our balls in debt and we fucking outsourced all of our major manufacturing jobs years ago.
To think that China gives a shit about their people dying on their path towards becoming the most powerful nation in the world is hilarious. China literally has it's own people locked away in concentration camps, and its common practice for them to have to install huge nets around their taller buildings to keep all the employees from killing themselves- they have a massive and clearly dispensable workforce that they will utilize on their way to the top.
So whats the solution?
Very interesting
Drops in the John Mayer reference. 😂
yes we can it's called holding people accountable for there actions
What is the number of this episode…??