Except the majority of people will cede their share of the power to those who promise short-term gains. In theory, if people were perfectly rational, they would understand the full scope of their actions and act accordingly. They aren’t, though, so they don’t. They just wanna watch TV and play video games and let someone else worry about complicated stuff.
All power ultimately comes down to monopolization of coercion. People will be violent and vindictive. People will pollute if their personal benefit exceeds their personal consequences. They will offload those worries onto someone else, and bad actors will fill that void in a heartbeat. You don’t move forward by pretending people will spontaneously fill that gap of their own volition, you move forward by curating a system that makes the better choice the easy choice long enough to make the easy choice the right choice.
Except the majority of people will cede their share of the power to those who promise short-term gains. In theory, if people were perfectly rational, they would understand the full scope of their actions and act accordingly. They aren’t, though, so they don’t. They just wanna watch TV and play video games and let someone else worry about complicated stuff.
All power ultimately comes down to monopolization of coercion. People will be violent and vindictive. People will pollute if their personal benefit exceeds their personal consequences. They will offload those worries onto someone else, and bad actors will fill that void in a heartbeat. You don’t move forward by pretending people will spontaneously fill that gap of their own volition, you move forward by curating a system that makes the better choice the easy choice long enough to make the easy choice the right choice.