Supple Cow

But I imagine (based on your comments elsewhere) that you think these are comparable in their power to control people. I am having trouble getting into this discussion in a meaningful way because I think it ignores a very basic truth (truth to me, of course): that complex order can (and most often does) come from very simple rules.

I would agree with your assertions a lot more if I gave credit for the complexity of the current situation (society as we know it) to the people who created the simple rules that led to it. I'm almost positive that they would not deserve that credit. As I see it, this discussion is about changing the simple rules and watching what complex things happen as a result.

Nobody is capable of deliberately creating the kind of authoritarianism that exists and so I say that it hardly exists at all. The tools in charge just happened to pick the right rules to play with as deliberately as they chose to become part of the human species, which has so far been evolutionarily stable. It's the other side of the same coin, I think, Art. I don't think we have personal freedom... but I don't think other people are even capable of having made it that way. It's built into our nature as a society.

If I have managed to misread (or miss reading) something you have said that addresses this point, you have my apologies in advance.

__________________
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
(Michael Jordan)