From: jimruttshow8596
Societies have never been immortal, and understanding why involves examining the nature and function of institutions within them [01:06:00]. Institutions are fundamental to a society’s endurance and ability to manage knowledge and progress [03:07:00].
Defining Institutions
Samo Burja defines institutions as “automated instantiated coordination mechanisms” [00:00:00]. This includes bureaucracies, which are proceduralized approaches where tasks are broken into small steps, allowing for reliable output without individual participants needing to understand the whole process, much like an assembly line for paperwork [01:34:00]. However, Burja is more interested in self-correcting institutions, such as organized religions, where members deeply believe in the mission and actively work to maintain and remake the institution [01:03:00].
Institutions as Social Technologies
Institutions are best understood as social technologies – a type of software implemented in minds and society that can radically reshape societies over time [01:03:00]. This framing emphasizes the functional aspects of everyday interactions; for example, politeness can be seen as a communication protocol, and bureaucracy as a machine for a specific purpose [01:10:00]. The introduction of new social technologies, like capitalism in various countries, demonstrates their mechanistic difference and transformative power [01:42:00]. While social technologies can be copied and recombined, they also have trajectories and evolve, often through recombinations of pre-existing components [01:51:00].
Lowering Social Coordination Costs
A primary utility of social technologies is to lower social coordination costs [01:19:00]. Human behavior and evolution are primarily driven by other humans, necessitating complex social and economic arrangements [02:47:00]. Social technologies mediate these interrelations through specific mechanisms, such as market mechanisms for revealing information or systems that make individuals more intelligible to each other (e.g., national languages) [02:56:00]. Organized religions from the Axial Age also served this purpose, providing shared mythologies across large empires [03:20:00]. These mechanisms can be voluntary or invasive, terraforming human animals into something different [03:09:00].
Challenges and Decay of Institutions
Functional institutions are the exception, not the rule [01:46:00]. The appearance of functionality is easier to produce than the actual substance [01:55:00].
Loss of Knowledge and Information
When a civilization fails, the vast majority of its accumulated knowledge is lost [03:11:00]. For example, 94% of ancient Greek authors known by name have no surviving works [03:24:00]. Similarly, Roman concrete, a fundamental material, was lost after the Western Empire’s fall and not redeveloped until the 19th century [03:48:00]. In periods of intellectual decline, only the simplest works are likely to be preserved, as only what is still understood tends to spread [05:00:00]. Modern digital information faces similar risks due to file format obsolescence, making data preservation difficult over centuries [09:00:00]. The true value of information resides in communities of practice and the minds of people, not just textbooks [09:52:00].
Bias and Manipulation in History and Information
Historical accounts always contain selection bias [04:37:00]. History books can be inconvenient, leading to their suppression or destruction, as seen in the Roman Empire’s shift between emperors or the transition from paganism to Christianity [05:48:00]. High-integrity history recording is rare, emerging only a few times with the classical Greeks, classical Chinese, and early modern Europe [07:01:00].
In contemporary society, there’s a growing trend towards censorship and algorithmic management of public opinion, as evidenced by incidents like Facebook’s targeting of QAnon that accidentally banned unrelated groups [02:50:00]. This points to a decay in social technologies, where the ability of institutions to thrive under active critique has diminished [02:59:00]. There is a concern that the West is converging on similar online control methods as China, driven by opaque decisions in corporate committees [03:30:00].
There is a significant information asymmetry where individuals are transparent to organizations, but organizations remain opaque to individuals [03:30:00]. This allows institutions to engage in “noble lies,” misrepresenting reality for perceived public good, which can erode deeper cultural reservoirs and lead to internal defection from truth-telling norms [05:01:01].
Centralized Declining Empires
A classic dynamic for societal decay is the centralized declining empire, where a central power sustains itself by taxing or cannibalizing other parts of society [03:51:00]. If this center is not dynamic or creative, it leads to a slow, static burn where the society is hollowed out, even if legal structures remain unchanged [04:01:00]. The late Western Roman Empire serves as an example [04:32:00].
Institutional Failure and Lack of Adaptation
Societies can be maladapted to their circumstances, and an evolutionary process may not be strong enough to push them to a better state in time [01:27:00]. Many social norms and institutions, while once useful, can decay over time due to unforeseen consequences and entropy [01:52:00]. For instance, the original intention behind student loans was to increase education affordability, but it perversely led to skyrocketing tuition fees because universities had no incentive to reduce costs [01:00:00].
Institutions also face the challenge of “dead players” – those merely executing pre-existing scripts without active perception or responsiveness to their environment [02:21:00]. This contrasts with “live players” who operate in a responsive, creative way [02:22:00].
Successful Institutional Practices and Resilience
Great Founder Theory
When societies face maladaptation, a “great founder” can introduce a new social technology, leading to rapid social transformation [01:41:00]. This suggests that intentional social engineering plays a significant role in societal change, rather than purely evolutionary processes [01:21:00].
Ethical Moorings and Responsible Innovation
The purpose of technology and institutions is deeply intertwined with society and its predominant culture [05:51:00]. The “industrial Taylorist era” of the 20th century, focused on eliminating variance and increasing specialization (e.g., Six Sigma in management, standardized schooling), optimized for financial metrics but not necessarily human well-being [01:06:00].
The rise of psychology and figures like Edward Bernays in marketing led to the purposeful manipulation of human psychology to induce desires and promote consumption [01:11:00]. While this mass education in consumption helped roll out new economies, its long-term effects, especially when driven purely by profit without pro-social intent, are questionable [01:13:00]. The shift from “just because it’s profitable doesn’t mean you should do it” to “if it’s legal and profitable, you must do it” reflects a decaying moral framework in modern capitalism [01:16:00].
The Succession Problem and Institutional Longevity
The longevity of institutions relies on solving the “succession problem”: handing off functional organizations from one generation of founders to the next [01:28:00]. This involves both skill succession (knowledge transfer through mentorship) and power succession [01:28:00].
- Roman Adoptive Monarchy: A successful solution during the Five Good Emperors period (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius) involved emperors adopting their successors, often based on merit, rather than relying on biological inheritance [01:31:00]. This transferred political and social capital effectively.
- Japanese Mukuyoshi (Son-in-Law Adoption): In Japan, industrial dynasties like Suzuki and Toyota utilize mukuyoshi, where a daughter marries an outsider selected for business acumen, who then adopts the family name. This transfers intangible social capital, friendships, and reputation, maintaining strong family positions in business [01:34:00].
- Botswana’s Presidency: Botswana, despite being a resource-rich, landlocked African country (factors often associated with the “resource curse”), has maintained stability and growth. Every president has been the vice president of the previous one, allowing for learning on the job and smooth political transitions [01:46:00]. This system, with public assent and a degree of incumbency advantage, has enabled long-term planning [01:52:00].
- Corporate Succession Planning: Some large companies implement formal succession plans, going multiple levels deep, rating candidates, and prioritizing internal promotions for continuity [01:38:00]. However, even well-designed plans can fail due to exogenous events [01:40:00].
Live Players and Owned Power
Functional institutions allow for “live players” who are responsive and creative [02:21:00]. This contrasts with “dead players” who merely execute pre-existing scripts. The concept of “owned power” versus “borrowed power” is critical: owned power (like knowledge) cannot be taken away, unlike borrowed power, which is lent and can transform, allowing agents to eventually constrain their principals [02:51:00]. The history of the KGB in the Soviet Union, transforming from Stalin’s instrument of terror to a rival power to the Communist Party, illustrates this shift [02:59:00].
Cultivating Innovation and Adaptability
A true sign of institutional functionality is its ability to reorient and adapt to radical changes in circumstances—cultural, technological, or geopolitical [01:38:00]. This “self-re-engineering ability” is vital [01:19:00].
- Decentralization: Radical decentralization, with significant autonomy granted to lower-level entities and ample discretionary funding for experimentation, can foster generativity and innovation [01:44:00].
- Trading Money for Time: A willingness to “lubricate with cash” and accept a certain amount of “waste” (e.g., funding numerous small research projects knowing some will fail) can increase the pace of innovation, recognizing that time is a more critical resource than money [01:49:00].
- Addressing the Innovator’s Dilemma: Companies can implement strategies to fight internal dynamics that frustrate innovative ideas which threaten existing core businesses, such as by explicitly investing in or acquiring early-stage companies to cannibalize themselves rather than waiting for external disruption [01:43:00].
- Science and Critique: The scientific community demonstrates a valuable institutional culture of constructive critique. The “replication crisis” in psychology, for instance, is a positive indicator because it shows researchers are willing to challenge established findings [01:46:00]. Practices like pre-registration of experiments, where journals agree to publish results regardless of outcome, combat publication bias and promote genuine scientific progress [01:52:00]. Maintaining an accurate “epistemic commons” is vital for society’s long-term viability [01:49:00].
“Society is always like… an unfinished building… that requires active maintenance where maintenance is a reimagining… society as a whole is this… huge complex of semi-abandoned buildings… or a complex ecosystem of interdependent institutions.” [01:04:00]
The constant need for adaptation means that organizations must continuously readjust their machinery to achieve desired outcomes [01:00:00].