Rules Destroys Intelligence

Size alone does not a bureaucracy make, though it always helps (or hurts, looking at it from a rational perspective). Rules exist in the first place to benefit the group and its production. A bureaucrat is someone who has forgotten that simple fact, and worships the rules as ends in themselves, rather than means to getting the job done. This is one reason large organizations are more bureaucratic than smaller ones, the distance of most workers from the actual job.

The ultimate in rule-bound work is automated work.


A Web example:

On September 30 I was reading a well-established post on a web site I generally like, that already had lots of comments. Since it has a [reply] button, I naturally replied to comments that warranted it. I didn't even realize how many I had posted until I had gone back to the homepage and found I had 9 of the top 10 comments. I knew from a discussion a year before that the site owners "would prefer" people not post more than 3 of the latest 10 comments - but that was before one of them left and before the reply button, so I didn't know if it would be a problem, and it really didn't even occur to me as I was replying to those comments.

Apparently it did. On October 11, I tried to comment on a new post, my first comment since the 30th, and got an error page with "You are posting comments too quickly. Slow down." Outstanding stupidity on the part of the web site. What an outstandingly stupid contradiction between the site's name and action.

To Spread The Enlightenment and Western Civilization

From Scott Aaronson's "The Singularity Is Far"

And I can’t help thinking that, before we transcend the human condition and upload our brains to computers, a reasonable first step might be to bring the 18th-century Enlightenment to the 98% of the world that still hasn’t gotten the message.

No doubt lead by the sort of liberal halfwits that supported the Soviet Union and who try and fail to manage a couple dozen 9 year olds (ie, professional academics and teachers).

This is like the quote, which I can't find so can't attribute properly, that said intellectual supporters of revolutionaries expected to find themselves running things after the revolution, and in every real world revolution were unpleasantly surprised. But their intellectual descendants never seem to learn. Here what Scott wants to happen should happen; but most people don't want to become civilized, most in Western countries are actively or passively against the very civilization that they depend upon for their lives. The only reason civilization hasn't collapsed under the sheer weight of democratic arrogance and stupidity is that market forces have helped to counterbalance their incompetence and evil. And the only way to raise the rest of the world is by extending the market, and especially protecting it from gov't power, into the rest of the world.

Earlier in the post he wrote,

I see a few fragile and improbable victories against a backdrop of malice, stupidity, and greed—the tiny amount of good humans have accomplished in constant danger of drowning in a sea of blood and tears

Since destroying things is MUCH easier than building, if humans weren't substantially inclined toward helpful and constructive values, civilization would never have existed in the first place nor could it continue to exist at all. Of course, most of the world doesn't have much, largely because they aren't very civilized.

Law and Outlawry

Justification of Law (Mala in se)

Government law is "justified", really defended in the psychological sense, by claiming to be needed to enforce prohibitions of universally recognized wrongs (mala in se), such as robbery and murder.

Perversion of Law (Mala prohibita)

Government perverts the law (mala in se) by making laws (mala prohibita) which mainly favor specific groups - mainly to increase its own power over its subjects/citizens/serfs.

Obedience to Law as Prudential Rule

Breaking the law, or even appearing to do so, increases the risks to your values (especially life and freedom) from government agents and their hordes of unpaid informers that infest the country. Given the errors and arbitrary enforcement (and willing dishonety), everyone who is not themselves members of the government is at some risk of attack by government agents.

Living Outside the Law

Given the various risks and dangers, on both sides of the divide, your values may be more effectively served by living outside the law. I don't think so for various reasons, but it is arguable enough that I decided to include a section discussing it.

Historically, the outlaw was not necessarily a criminal - but one who for whatever reason lived outside of the limits and protections of the law. It was often used as a punishment, sort of an extension of shunning and ostracism, sometimes to an explicit withdrawl of the law's protection - where anyone who wanted to, and could manage it, could kill the outlaw. But it was sometimes used by those who simply wanted to be left alone, given human nature any outlaws usually became the scapegoats for anything that went wrong in the area.

The growth of government power and the use of mala prohibita is likely closely related to the decline of voluntary outlawry.

The only benefit today in living outside the law is reduction in tax burden. Most other possible benefits I have heard of you can actually get legally with a little thought and care. And even the benefit of tax avoidance is questionable since it is harder to earn income outside the law, than it is without the need to evade detection. If discovered, or even suspected, it would be dangerous for the outlaw/evader and with modern computer databases and communications it would be likely to be noticed, and ever more likely to be noticed in the future.

Trying to live outside the law is not generally worth it, but may be worth keeping in mind. The only way it would be cost-effective would be if you were interested in
an extremely low, subsistence-level life where you would need almost no income. In that case you could do handyman work and day labor for cash. The biggest problem with that is getting older. Long before retirement age, if you are doing physical labor, you are going to start aching, eventually more or less continuously. I
don't recommend it.