In this post, I start from the observation that humans throughout history and across the Earth have tended to organize into societies of various sizes. I then explore two different perspectives on how these societies should be viewed and may have come to exist.
The two perspectives sometimes seem like opposites but may end up being entirely compatible. They are kind of like a creationist and evolutionist perspective on societies.
Top Down Perspective
I once had dinner with Gavin Wood of Ethereum and Polkadot fame. We discussed what he suggested would be an ideal way to organize society. It is as follows in my own words and to the best of my memory.
At the top is the central government. Something like the United Nations, or the Galactic Federation in Rick and Morty. The job of the top level is to prohibit the most egregious and universally disliked crimes. They should very few laws and leave all specific laws to other levels of government.
The central government is sovereign over some number of constituents in the same way that the United States Federal government is sovereign over its states. This organization was very intuitive to me having grown up in the United States.
At the second tier there are more specific laws about big picture societal issues. Maybe some states prohibit censorship. Maybe others prohibit carrying weapons or using drugs.
The structure is recursive. There is no fixed number of tiers or strict organization. Near the bottom tiers there are very specific laws about very boring things. For example, no driving faster than 50km/h on Main St. Or No chewing gum on public sidewalks. Maybe some prohibit kissing in public or gambling on Sunday.
TODO Hierarchical Diagram - This is left as an exercise to the reader 🤣
At all levels, the job is to prohibit crimes, not to enshrine rights. All things are assumed to be rights unless they are prohibited. The job of good government is to only prohibit the right things, and leave the remaining territory as rights. If a citizen finds themselves wanting a right that is prohibited as a crime, one practical option is to move to a different part of the society where the laws are more to their liking. This part was less intuitive to me having grown up as an American because I consider the bill of rights to be fundamental.
Some other good names for this perspective might be the a priori perspective or the planned city perspective or the cathedral perspective or the creationist perspective.
Bottom Up Perspective
The second perspective does not come endorsed by any celerity acquaintance.
Central to the Bottom Up Perspective is the sovereign individual. A person with the sole authority over their values and actions. A person who is constrained only by the laws of nature and the voluntary restraint that they choose on their own. The individual is solely responsible for defending their own rights.
Often individuals will value the same rights and will find it useful to work together to defend those rights. For example, some small groups may defend their right to be nude at all times in their community. These small local alliances form the next level of the society. In any small group, the set of rights that all members collectively want to defend, will be a subset of rights that any individual member wants to defend.
Other values will be shared to a moderate extent. Germans consider it a god given right to drink beer in the public park. Mormons in Utah feel differently. The split between the pro-drinking, anti-drinking, and dont-really-care-about-drinking groups wil lbe more even than the split between the nudists and non-nudists. These more evenly split groups form the next tier of society.
Some values, like not murdering each other, will be nearly universal, and everyone can band together to defend their mutual rights to not be murdered against the minority individuals who occasionally want to protect their right to murder. These groups form the upper tiers.
TODO Venn Diagram - left as an exercise to the reader 🤣
Some other good names might be the ad hoc perspective or the shanty town perspective or the bazaar perspective or the evolutionary perspective.
Similarities
Both perspectives represent a reasonable model for how society actually works today.
Both perspectives result in the same result of having local communities with very similar values, and larger global communities united by fewer but very fundamental values. Communities are likely to stay locally homogeneous because children tend to value the things their parents do, and true outliers are free to move away.
Differences
The top down perspective is very prescriptive. It is expected that everyone understands the structure of the government, knows what crimes are prohibited, and respects the laws. It requires some governmental process to set the laws and enforce them. Whereas is very descriptive. It assumes no such universal understanding. An individual may not ally with anyone and that is fine. Two individuals may be compatible to ally on many things but simply not know each other and that is also fine.
The need for buy-in is a significant limitation of the first perspective. What happens when wild animals, or Aliens, or AIs want to join society? The bottom up perspective handles these cases perfectly, by treating the laws of nature and individual choice as fundamental.