[ExI] Trivia: what links Medea, Fermi and NSA?

Adrian Tymes atymes at gmail.com
Sat Jul 13 20:45:21 UTC 2013


On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 9:38 AM, Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:

> The more gentle way of wording it, is "Medea
> hypothesis" - just in case you want to report it to some, ehrm, gentleman.
> It says, the life's inherent properties drive it straight to screwing
> itself. After a while (better late than never, no?), it occurred to me,
> reason may have it the same way. I think there is a pattern here, with
> constant toppling of rigid control structures and reestablishing them over
> and over again. Thus a history reduces itself into circles - what a
> dissapointment.
>

Even realizing that this problem exists requires wisdom.  Designing
systems of control for society - or, at least, societies that are more
than mere anarchy - that acknowledge this problem, even take
advantage of it...yeah, that's rare.

But it's part of why republics, at least the ones that last for more than
one or two changes of power, appear to be more stable (and therefore
prosperous) than the alternatives.  Not that any existing example is
perfect, just that they've proven overall better.

Still, perhaps there are ways to refine the design further, to prevent
other modes of failure?
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