What are rules for.

Just explain.
Be nice.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

to avoid chaos or if chaos is desired the let people know what is expected of them

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Its all a point of view.
Someone say you look back.
If you turn around you´re looking forward.

Maybe a little kind of zen here.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Rules exist because, deep down inside, we are evolutionary, biological creatures. Which means, at an instinctive level, we are concerned only with survival of ourselves as individuals and with procreation (survival of the species.)

At that level, we are pack animals, not unlike wolves. In a wolf pack there is a definite pecking order (rules, if you like) as laid down by the Alpha male and Alpha female. These rules are designed to look after the welfare of the pack and thus, ensure the survival of the individual within the pack.

Of course humans, being somewhat more complex intellectually than wolves, have somewhat more complex rules.

Anarchy (the lack of rules) while wonderful in theory will always fail because a certain percentage of the population (generally credited to be around 10%) are psychotic in that they completely lack empathy and would quickly impose their will (i.e. establish rules) for the rest of us.

This innate tendency towards corruption in a percentage of humans is, ironically, the main reason why Anarchy’s opposite, Communism, is also destined to ultimate failure.

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

Rules exist because, deep down inside, we are evolutionary, biological creatures. Which means, at an instinctive level, we are concerned only with survival of ourselves as individuals and with procreation (survival of the species.)

At that level, we are pack animals, not unlike wolves. In a wolf pack there is a definite pecking order (rules, if you like) as laid down by the Alpha male and Alpha female. These rules are designed to look after the welfare of the pack and thus, ensure the survival of the individual within the pack.

Of course humans, being somewhat more complex intellectually than wolves, have somewhat more complex rules.

Anarchy (the lack of rules) while wonderful in theory will always fail because a certain percentage of the population (generally credited to be around 10%) are psychotic in that they completely lack empathy and would quickly impose their will (i.e. establish rules) for the rest of us.

This innate tendency towards corruption in a percentage of humans is, ironically, the main reason why Anarchy’s opposite, Communism, is also destined to ultimate failure.

Wow. Such an amazingly well thought out reply. I don't necessarily subscribe to the Alpha (fe)male theologies, but I like the reasoning and I agree with the underlying conclusions.

Rules exist because, deep down inside, we are evolutionary, biological creatures. Which means, at an instinctive level, we are concerned only with survival of ourselves as individuals and with procreation (survival of the species.)

At that level, we are pack animals, not unlike wolves. In a wolf pack there is a definite pecking order (rules, if you like) as laid down by the Alpha male and Alpha female. These rules are designed to look after the welfare of the pack and thus, ensure the survival of the individual within the pack.

Of course humans, being somewhat more complex intellectually than wolves, have somewhat more complex rules.

Anarchy (the lack of rules) while wonderful in theory will always fail because a certain percentage of the population (generally credited to be around 10%) are psychotic in that they completely lack empathy and would quickly impose their will (i.e. establish rules) for the rest of us.

This innate tendency towards corruption in a percentage of humans is, ironically, the main reason why Anarchy’s opposite, Communism, is also destined to ultimate failure.

From an evolutionary perspective, Dawkins for one does not agree with your comment that procreation is for "survival of the species". For him "survival of the species" is a meaningless term, genes are not interested in species and at best direct the vessels that carry them to be unconditionally altruistic towards other vessels with a similar set of genes on the basis of kinship. Though he does accept that reciprocal altruism may explain other behaviors that may appear in isolation as altruistic.

In terms of social structure I'd suspect we're more likely to be closer to our evolutionary cousins in the Ape family, of which the closest is the Bonobo, than wolves.

Anarchy <> lack of rules, Anarchy = lack of rulers (from the Greek it is without ruler/leader), that second "r" is significant, and appears to cause a lot of confusion. Also, according to The Communist Manifesto, Communism is meant to result in Anarchy (under Communist rule the State withers away), so Marx and Engels wouldn't appear to think that Communism and Anarchy are opposites.

As for rules themselves, whether they are arbitrary and/or capricious is likely to be the result of who makes them, and how well they are described and understood. For example, queues are for the most part self-organizing and appear relatively fair. While the choice for left vs right hand side drive in cars may appear relatively arbitrary, in the UK I believe it stems from horse riders generally being right handed so passing with the right hand side in view reduced the chances of concealing a weapon, whereas in the US passing on the left comes more from internal layout of the car making it easier on right handed people to change gears. Neither reason makes much sense nowadays, most US cars have automatic transmissions, and being able to conceal a sword from an oncoming driver is generally not of primary importance to most UK road users.

As rules exist in a broad spectrum of human behavior, including architecture, law, language, math, and games, perhaps the OP could be more specific regarding the types of rules s/he would like to discuss.

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

From an evolutionary perspective, Dawkins for one does not agree with your comment that procreation is for "survival of the species". For him "survival of the species" is a meaningless term, genes are not interested in species and at best direct the vessels that carry them to be unconditionally altruistic towards other vessels with a similar set of genes on the basis of kinship. Though he does accept that reciprocal altruism may explain other behaviors that may appear in isolation as altruistic.

In terms of social structure I'd suspect we're more likely to be closer to our evolutionary cousins in the Ape family, of which the closest is the Bonobo, than wolves.

Anarchy <> lack of rules, Anarchy = lack of rulers (from the Greek it is without ruler/leader), that second "r" is significant, and appears to cause a lot of confusion. Also, according to The Communist Manifesto, Communism is meant to result in Anarchy (under Communist rule the State withers away), so Marx and Engels wouldn't appear to think that Communism and Anarchy are opposites.

As for rules themselves, whether they are arbitrary and/or capricious is likely to be the result of who makes them, and how well they are described and understood. For example, queues are for the most part self-organizing and appear relatively fair. While the choice for left vs right hand side drive in cars may appear relatively arbitrary, in the UK I believe it stems from horse riders generally being right handed so passing with the right hand side in view reduced the chances of concealing a weapon, whereas in the US passing on the left comes more from internal layout of the car making it easier on right handed people to change gears. Neither reason makes much sense nowadays, most US cars have automatic transmissions, and being able to conceal a sword from an oncoming driver is generally not of primary importance to most UK road users.

As rules exist in a broad spectrum of human behavior, including architecture, law, language, math, and games, perhaps the OP could be more specific regarding the types of rules s/he would like to discuss.

Points all taken and acknowledged. But, as Dawkins himself observed, getting atheists (as both he and I are) to agree is like herding cats. . . Pretty much impossible.

My point (if I had one) was that any organizational structure inevitably develops rules and the more complex the structure, the more complex the rules. My example of wolves applies equally well to a group of apes, lions, whales, whatever. For a complex structure of entities to work in a collective manner requires rules. (Same applies to us as individuals. The individual cells of our bodies, consciously or not, agree to abide by a set of genetically imposed rules. Thus, a human being results. Or a wolf. Or a bacterium. Whatever. Indeed, taken to extreme, a single electron ‘decides’ to abide by the rules of physics and circle a proton and thus is a hydrogen atom capable of existing.)

There are always rules.

I have not made any sort of study of Anarchy or Communist Theories so I have no counter argument to offer. Except to observe that, never, not even once, has Communism worked in the long term. And any society that has entered a condition where there were no rules or rulers (Anarchy, one ’r’ or two) has inevitably been a very, very ugly society. (I refer you to any particular daily newspaper on any particular day for proof of that.)

I do agree that, not knowing what Mike (the OP) was thinking, makes intelligent argument difficult since the scope of the debate becomes exceptionally wide.

My assumption was that he was referring to human governmental systems. And, without some sort of rules in place, such systems tend to become dictatorships of which there are countless examples throughout history. Few, if any, pleasant.

I would never invoke Godwin’s law, but will reference Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Joseph Stalin for examples of what happens in societies without the rules in place to prevent psychopaths from coming to power. (I would include George W Bush in this list but at least the US does have rules in place to evict psychopaths from power, even if after a very long 8 year tenure.)

I suspect that you are thinking that “If we could all just get to together and decide to ‘play nice’” then everything would be pretty and perfect. But that will not, and can never, work. Because 10% of the human race are highly functioning psychotics. And way faster than you can imagine, one of them will find a gun and will be deciding on his/her new rules.

Trust me on this if nothing else: you do not want someone like me standing there, a gun in her hand, making the new rules.

:)

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

My point (if I had one) was that any organizational structure inevitably develops rules and the more complex the structure, the more complex the rules. My example of wolves applies equally well to a group of apes, lions, whales, whatever. For a complex structure of entities to work in a collective manner requires rules. (Same applies to us as individuals. The individual cells of our bodies, consciously or not, agree to abide by a set of genetically imposed rules. Thus, a human being results. Or a wolf. Or a bacterium. Whatever. Indeed, taken to extreme, a single electron ‘decides’ to abide by the rules of physics and circle a proton and thus is a hydrogen atom capable of existing.)

There are always rules.

I have not made any sort of study of Anarchy or Communist Theories so I have no counter argument to offer. Except to observe that, never, not even once, has Communism worked in the long term. And any society that has entered a condition where there were no rules or rulers (Anarchy, one ’r’ or two) has inevitably been a very, very ugly society. (I refer you to any particular daily newspaper on any particular day for proof of that.)

I do agree that, not knowing what Mike (the OP) was thinking, makes intelligent argument difficult since the scope of the debate becomes exceptionally wide.

My assumption was that he was referring to human governmental systems. And, without some sort of rules in place, such systems tend to become dictatorships of which there are countless examples throughout history. Few, if any, pleasant.

I would never invoke Godwin’s law, but will reference Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein and Joseph Stalin for examples of what happens in societies without the rules in place to prevent psychopaths from coming to power. (I would include George W Bush in this list but at least the US does have rules in place to evict psychopaths from power, even if after a very long 8 year tenure.)

I suspect that you are thinking that “If we could all just get to together and decide to ‘play nice’” then everything would be pretty and perfect. But that will not, and can never, work. Because 10% of the human race are highly functioning psychotics. And way faster than you can imagine, one of them will find a gun and will be deciding on his/her new rules.

Trust me on this if nothing else: you do not want someone like me standing there, a gun in her hand, making the new rules.

:)

In answer to your last point I think it was Mao that said that "change will come through the barrel of a gun", wonder what type Obama will use :)

For a long lived functioning state w/o rulers Ancient Athens is an interesting example. It moved peacefully from an Oligarchy (rule by the wealthy) to a direct democracy, in which the chair of the Assembly was decided by lot. There were rules, and while the "chair" may appear to be a leader, his "rule" was short lived (I think it was a day). Seems if the "right" rules are in place Michel's Iron Law of Oligarchy may not apply ... (but then he was talking mostly about power structures in political parties, and his theory does appear to talk to the "failings" of the reality of Communism, when compared to the theory).

On the "pretty and perfect" comment, ummm, no. That's a tad naïve. While I may think there may be better ways to organize our political structures than what we have in place in western liberal democracies, I do believe that central to all functioning political systems is an assumption that we do all get together and play nice (be they a code of rights, morals etc), and how we handle those that do not subscribe to that assumption (a set of rules, laws, etc) characterizes the degreee of malevolence of the system in question. My "defence" of Anarchy or Communism, if indeed it was a defence, was meant as a clarification of their positions, and not a statement of my own.

On the 10% front, that figure seems to me to be a little high when discussing highly functioning socio/pyschopaths, though I'd agree that it wouldn't matter if the figure was as low as 0.001%, in most modern day societies, it doesn't make much difference, as even 1 in 100,000 is enough for such a person to sieze the reins of power and pervert it.

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

. . . i follow a very strict set of rules [i love Order]

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Sad enough.
When goverments brake a rule its their choise.
When a customer brakes a rule its simply illegal.

All a point of view.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

When goverments brake a rule its their choise.
When a customer brakes a rule its simply illegal.

But I do love my Akebono ceramics pads on the front.

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me@rescam.org