From: jimruttshow8596
The existing processes and institutional forms of current civilization are largely incapable of addressing the large-scale, complex problems facing the world today [00:03:17]. These problems span multiple generations and cultures, involve numerous actors, and operate in highly complex domains such as ecosystems [00:03:25]. Examples include ecological issues, global warming, pollution, and large-scale economic sustainability [00:03:46]. The level of human coordination required to solve these issues is currently neither implemented nor available [00:04:01].
Limitations of Traditional Governance Models
Traditional governance models—consensus, meritocracy (hierarchical), and democracy—each possess inherent weaknesses that make them unsuitable for solving complex, long-term problems or addressing existential risks [00:03:15]:
- Consensus: While producing high-quality choices, it demands very high communicative bandwidth. As a group grows, it may not have enough time to reach decisions [00:09:18]. The larger the group, the easier it is for conversations to be derailed by emotional dynamics and individual traumas [00:53:11].
- Meritocracy/Hierarchy: Offers quick response to many choices, is relatively simple, and robust in emergencies [00:09:39]. However, it is highly vulnerable to corruption, where individuals make choices for private interests rather than the group’s benefit, a phenomenon known as agency risk or the principal-agent problem [00:09:50].
- Democracy: Often seen as a superior alternative, but it suffers from hidden forms of power (e.g., control over ballot wording) [00:11:02]. Fundamentally, voting efficiently divides a group into two subgroups, limiting its overall effectiveness and resilience to external change due to political polarization [00:11:25]. This divisiveness leads to weaker groups [00:14:04].
These three archetypes essentially span the total space of how humans coordinate choices [00:06:29]. Historically, they are well-explored territories, and the notion of proposing something new in this space is surprising [00:15:39].
The Need for New Models
Attempting to introduce new, innovative solutions within existing, old structures is often a “prescription for failure” because the old structures were designed for different purposes [00:04:44]. Therefore, fresh thinking is essential for designing new systems [00:05:27].
An Integrated Approach: Balancing the Archetypes
One proposed solution involves combining all three governance archetypes, using each as a check and balance against the others [00:16:16]. This approach leverages the strengths of each model while compensating for their disadvantages [00:49:02]. For instance, a small group practice (up to 16 people) might use consensus for internal decisions (like values or membership) to ensure high coherence [00:19:18]. For external actions (like farming tasks), it would transition to a meritocratic structure, where specific individuals are empowered by consensus for defined roles [00:18:08]. Democracy’s role is narrowed to a “red button” function: to recall a meritocratic lead or team via a vote of no confidence if trust is lost, forcing a return to consensus for re-evaluation [00:27:54]. Democracy can also temporarily suspend the consensus process if it becomes unstable [00:36:17].
This specific limitation on how democracy operates is a key part of the solution, as democracy is “terrible at coming up with the kind of choices that consensus is really good at” [00:50:07].
The Challenge of Scale
The integrated small group model (6-16 people) does not directly scale up to larger collectives [00:56:16]. This is due to inherent instabilities arising from:
- Communication Complexity: The sheer number of communication paths and life experiences in larger groups quickly exceeds individual capacity to track relationships and understand shifting contexts [00:53:26].
- Evolutionary Biases: Biological evolution has instilled a strong propensity for hierarchically organized structures [00:57:22]. The “recombinatoric” effects of evolution (like mate selection) are exponentially more powerful in shaping information flow and decision-making dynamics than additive (mutation) or multiplicative (survival selection) effects [00:59:56]. This makes direct accretion of small groups into larger ones unstable [01:01:06].
- Uncanny Valley: There’s an “uncanny valley” between the optimal scale for small group governance (up to 16 people) and where new, stable large-scale governance architectures become viable (around 200 people) [01:02:10]. The intermediate range (Dunbar’s number, approx. 150) is a “no man’s land” for effective governance design using these principles [01:02:47].
Future Directions for Large-Scale Governance
Addressing existential risks and other complex systems and societal evolution requires a radically different approach to governance beyond existing institutional forms [01:03:00].
- Beyond Incrementalism: Solutions like blockchain/cryptocurrency, improved voting systems, or narrative control are insufficient because they do not address the fundamental, meta-systemic problems [01:06:03].
- Holographic Communication and Collective Wisdom: New architectures must enable “holographic communication” to achieve the necessary bandwidth for collective wisdom and discernment [01:07:11]. This involves understanding and balancing the relationship between change (evolution) and changelessness (sustainability) [01:08:09].
- Culture First: Effective large-scale governance must start with culture, not strategy or manipulation [01:11:14]. By fostering healthy human dynamics and local ecologies, a culture can become aware of its values, articulate a vision, and then implement strategies [01:11:21]. This allows strategy to emerge from the community rather than from a single individual [01:11:41].
- Addressing Fundamental Drivers: Understanding the deep-seated drivers of human behavior (going back hundreds of thousands of years) is crucial for designing governance that addresses causes rather than just symptoms [01:17:48].
The Wisdom Gap and AI as a Self-Leveraging Accelerator Posing Existential Risks
Humanity is potentially the “dumbest species capable of developing the tech that we currently have” [01:19:52]. There is a significant “uncanny valley” between the level of wisdom needed to manage advanced technology and the barely sufficient intelligence required to create it [01:20:20]. This gap cannot be filled by natural evolutionary processes, as this technological circumstance is a singular event for which evolution could not have prepared us [01:20:47].
The challenge is to design systems that enable “conscious sustainable evolution” [01:22:25]. This means cultivating a collective consciousness and conscientiousness within groups that allows for wisdom in balancing technology and evolution itself [01:22:58]. Nothing less than this level of communicative capacity and wisdom is adequate [01:23:08]. The objective is to ensure that contributions of time, effort, and capital are wisely invested towards long-term well-being at the species and planetary level, not diverted for private benefit [01:24:04].
The scope of this problem makes it arguably “the most difficult engineering or philosophical problem that has ever been possible to the species” [01:37:02]. Solving it requires recognizing that solutions based on current institutional or market forms are insufficient and must be discarded in favor of fundamentally new approaches [01:15:00].