Some while ago I opined the troubles with the notion of Lowest Denominators. I also wrote briefly on the concept of Superorganization. Today, I combine the two and reveal how these phenomena combine and conspire to create a trap that is likely impossible to escape, given our nature as humans.
In the first example, I pointed out that in the case of China, American manufacturers were presented with the choice of moving their operations to China's slave-labor economy, or be consumed by their competition. I noted how sporting footwear, for example, saw top-end products fall precipitously in price, in many cases from several hundreds of dollars per pair, to under $100. The near-zero labor costs drove this change and anyone who wished to remain in business, much less healthily so, was forced to go Chinese. The short-term results were fabulous, while those of the longer term have proven far less appealing, especially since those manufacturers now find themselves in the bind of economic manacles.
In the second example, I noted the advantages of superorganization, where sufficiently large numbers of people cooperate with sufficiently adept management to accomplish what in many cases are truly monumental goals as a single organism, the Superorganism as I like to call them. Corporations are prime examples of Superorganizations. Could a single man have launched another into earth orbit? No.
Armies may be the ultimate example of superorganization.
By now you may be putting two and two together, in case the deeper point still evades you, allow me to elucidate.
Superorganization tends to have large costs associated with it. Running a mom and pop sandwich shop does not carry the same resource requirements as, say, operating a large standing army, or a government. This in itself is not a particularly grave problem, save for the fact that the only way in which people have figured out how to finance such endeavors has been the forcible robbery of huge populations in the form of taxation.
The naive lover of freedom might render the knee-jerk response, saying "eliminate government!" Would that it were so easily done. The trap here is precisely the lowest denominator of establishing and creating a standing army. Once nation A does so, nations B, C, D, etc. become faced with the choice of whether to follow suit. If they don't, they stand the risk of being attacked and subdued by A. That is a risk few in the modern world are willing to assume. Therefore, they feel forced to establish and maintain armies of their own, which costs money and which in turn requires the further extorting of their populations for the funds to do so.
A great example of this came during the later nineteenth century as Great Britain foolishly undertool to build their first modern battleship, an economy-herniating endeavor whose net results were naught but trouble for everyone. Once they built their first such vessel, which arguably loaned them some advantage over the other navies of the world, the Germans, Americans, Austro-Hungarians, Russians, French, Italians, Japanese , and perhaps a few others all threw in, wasting endless resources that, in my opinion, might have been devoted to more profitable endeavors.
Superorganizations are neither good nor bad in themselves. When put to good purposes, they can accomplish magnificent things. When otherwise put, we get "cultural" revolutions, replete with tens of millions of corpses. Good or bad, in the context of an environment of hard adversarial competition such as that found between some nations, they become a trap away from which few see the possibility of a path that does not carry with it categorically unacceptable risks. They now find themselves unable to extricate themselves from the life-destroying burdens of maintaining such organizations.
Take the Centers for Disease Control, for example. As of recent times, their credibility has slipped precipitously in the wake of their blatant nonsense with regard to the so-called "pandemic" of the SARS Cov-2 virus. My gut impulse is to call for their immediate dissolution, and all who can be proven to have knowingly peddled the lies tried, convicted, imprisoned, and in some cases executed for crimes against humanity, a charge that remains on the books. But positive reality dictates I keep that notion in my pants, so to speak. Why? Because America's enemies, which include China among others, have created superorganizations such as the Wuhan bioweapons facility where bright but misguided people obediently continue exploring the possibilities of biological stoogery with viruses, bacteria, and other pathogenic agents. Being our enemies, they cannot be trusted not to one day actively engage in operations that would see some terrible plague foisted upon the world. In such an event, individuals sitting in their basements, hiding from the bugs with naught but hope and their prayers, seem unlikely candidates for coming up with cures against such assaults.
The only currently viable hope against such an attack would be our own superorganization with the resources to combat such an attack. Yes, we could establish private organisms, and perhaps we have, but "government" being what it is, will not be likely to relinquish the sort of power represented by establishments such as CDC, FDA, and so forth.
While in principle it would be a simple matter to walk away from such foolishness, the chances of that actually happening in the face of the colluding counterincentives of fear and the determination to maintain power, rapidly and intimately approach zero. The risks appear too great, and this is understandable.
This sort of circumstance applies to many cases, especially those where economic or political stakes are high and exist in adverse environments. We trap ourselves such that extrication becomes nearly impossible and almost always entails risks worse than those perceived to be keeping us in. How can one free himself from the burdens of structures that suck away his life so long as the threats they are intended to protect him from remain?
Yup, a trap and we're all stuck in it because of our mutual suspicions, fears, greed, and other manifold and raving stupidities.
Verily do human beings tend to be their own worst enemies.
Be well, and until next time please accept our best wishes.
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