On the Centralisation of disputation

This is the first day in the history of political science. As yesteryear’s poli-cy is nothing more than an amalgamation of terms. That is, if anyone has ever had the displeasure of having taken a politics 101 course. One is immediately confronted with the terms liberalism and realism. These terms are presented as a dichotomy to be contrasted. 

This is a problem as liberalism and realism have nothing to do with each other. Realism is a theory regarding state formation.  Defensive realists define a country as an area that can defend itself. Offensive realists define a country to be an area over which it can project force. While liberalism is a theory which dictates inter-state relations.

Now when it comes to intra-state relations the term conservative and liberal literally convey no information from a political science perspective. Conservatism and liberalism are positions with respect to time. As a conservative in 1991’s Russia, for example, would be in favor of communism while at the same time in America it would be pro-markets.

The notion of scale as such is completely devoid from any political science course (inter-state vs intra-state). The closest corollary comes from multi-fractal localism. The notion of multi-fractal localism can be given a methodological foundation when combined with the notion of a renormalization group.

A renormalization occurs when there is greater internal than external communication. One can then define a country as the scaling of these various renormalization groups.

Family 

Tribe

Neighbourhood 

City

State 

Country 

Empire

The study of the relationship between these renormalization groups, is the study of political science. The best attempt to incorporate this idea of scale comes from the United States of America. The states are united. In the sense that each state is composed of individual governing bodies that delegate authority to the federal state through the interstate commerce clause (the 10th amendment).

Hegel’s notions of cultural and temporal relativism can be reinterpreted in an information theoretic/complex system: 

Volksgeist– (put his definition) can be reinterpreted as shared information communication over space.

Zeitgeist-shared  (put his definition) can be reinterpreted as information communication over time at a point in time.

Power Laws in political science (technical)

A volksgeist is formed when there is greater internal rather than external information communication (renormalization). This invokes the concept of a power law. As a power law occurs in nature when all local bonds are overridden in favor of a global bond. 

The alpha of the power law is the size of the power law . It is inversely proportional to the disparateness of the nodes over an area. Disparateness is measured by shared information communication (shared attention). The level of disparateness can then be reinterpreted as a roughness quotient invoking the fractal geometry of nature. 

In layman’s terms- societies which are less disparate are more homogenized. This model of state formation can be extended with the language of calculus.

The zeitgeist can be modeled as the first derivative of the volksgeist.  How much is the information over an area changing at a specific point in time.  A higher zeitgeist implies greater generational change. The second derivative of the volksgeist is also equal to the first derivative of the zeitgeist.How much does the zeitgeist change over time? It is equal to the intergenerational information differential.

Culture Wars-Why there are no hippies in the wild.

Furthermore, Hegelian terms can be given a methodological foundation when incorporated with Computationalism. Where one considers human intelligence to be a specific instance of intelligence as such. These nodes (information agents) can either cooperate (trade) or destroy (war).

When one node suggests a proposal to another node (a thesis) , if the other node proposes one back then it will be an antithesis. However, if they agree, it will become a synthesis. 

If the nodes do not agree, the cycle continues as long as there is a society to decide over. Each node can either engage in this process with their neighbor or centralize this process in a political body. Nodes can either go to war physically or culturally. The technical definition of a cultural war is when two separate volksgeist amalgamate into one.

Hippies do not fight when they disagree with each other. They voluntarily dissociate: one group of dorks goes one way, the other group goes another way. This can only happen within a state, as disputation is centralized. Because in the wild you cannot choose peace and love. Evil finds you. After all, the Communist Chinese did invade Tibet.

It is important to understand that the process of civilisation is the process of increasing a volksgeist. The greater the civilization is, the greater the areas where external communication is greater than internal communication.

The Nation State is a recent invention of modern history. The birth occurred during the French Revolution (one of the great tragedies in human history- but that is for another chapter of the Death of the Gods and the Revolt Against Reason). 

However, it is entirely worth understanding that the ‘French’ did not share a common language until the advent of the Napoleonic Nation State. Germany provides us with the most recent example of smaller states forming a larger one. Resulting in what you would call World War 1 but I call it the First War of the Stupids or Europe’s civil war (discussed in another chapter of this book).

The Mafia

The mafia acts as a state over the market of illicit goods-gambling, drugs and prostitution. If one wants to get rid of organised crime, the best option remains to legalise the markets that Mafia operates over.

Ancient Greece

Religion provides us with a robust means of measuring information dispersion. There are more Muslims in Iraq than in Japan. Because Iraq is closer to Saudi Arabia (the birthplace of islam) than Japan is. Ancient Greece provides us with an interesting example of how information topography affects society. Greece, so insular from land that three hundred Spartans could hold the largest army at the time, the Persians,  in the world.

This makes Greece, quite a unique civilization. Its religion, for example, is a lot more decentralized than their Asian counterparts. As anybody can bear witness to a sacrifice, not just centrally appointed religious figures.

Each Greek city, (local information cluster) emphasizes different aspects of the mythology. Athens was named after Athena. The Spartans were bigger fans of the huntress-Artemis. Each city, with its own unique form of government and values. The Athenians valued wisdom and democracy. The Spartans power and autocracy. Nonetheless, they consider themselves Greek. In the language of information theory, there was greater information communication between Greek cities than the rest of the world.

Judah

At the time, however, most cities weren’t part of a network of city states. Each city was a city on its own, with each city state boasting its own religion. In the language of information theory, there was greater information communication within a city than between cities.

Cyrus (the great)

The reason why they call him Cyrus the Great, is because Cyrus did not kill them (for once). He instead will patronize their God, assimilate them rather than disseminate them. Unlike the other great men of history, when people call Cyrus the great they actually mean it. He actually deserves that title for he introduced the power of markets to the world.

The fundamental difference between Persian and pre-Persian rule, is that war was completely a zero-sum game. A contest of wills, to be exact. In pre-modern times, the winner will be better off for having conquered as he receives the spoils of victory. The loser is obviously worse off having had the winner take his stuff. But fundamentally, this represents simply a shift of resources from one group to the other.

Under paganism, the zero-sum nature of reality is taken for granted. The Babylonians literally took your God after they conquered you. The name of the game was decimation, not assimilation. Nor, wealth creation by any respect. One’s benefit must come at the expense of another.

Cyrus, by contrast, just wanted people to stop “lying” as, for the persian, lying is the ultimate crime. He was not interested in stealing your God in glorious combat. In fact, he paid homage to the gods of the conquered people. Although war is the opposite of economic growth, it, however, established security. Security, established along trade routes allowed for the establishment of economic interconnectivity. Which in turns established Empires that populated the word.