When children play on a playground, they sometimes play “king-of-the-hill” — where one person stands at the top of a hill and the others attempt to knock him off the top in order to take his place, becoming the “new” king-of-the-hill (until being knocked off). If the hill is steep, then the game becomes more “exciting” and “dangerous.”
When adults organize into communities, because they have intelligence and free will, they get to come up with their own special plan regarding how much power asymmetry will by allowed to exist. As long as there is no steep asymmetry of power (no very large benefit to holding office), the people remain happy and at peace:
You might notice from the visual that approximately one in every 13 people — or almost 8% of humankind — has unique characteristics (yellow-highlighted). The special nature of “The 13th Man” is that he or she has the potential to become what is known in Game Theory as a spiteful competitor, one who measures gain relatively.
When you only measure your person gain relatively, then it becomes important to you that you “do better than others.” With the minority of human beings who only measure gain or worth on a relative scale, it becomes of primary importance. This means it becomes more important than personal success, come hell or high water.
In other words, spiteful competitors will burn things down if they can’t be in charge.
They are willing to make everyone stagnate and suffer, even themselves, if they cannot have power over other people. These are not simply selfish people, they are worse. Because they make up anywhere from 2% to 8% of each generation, it’s important to acknowledge their existence when making plans for a level of power asymmetry.
Look at this next society, which has centralized more power into the government:
The hill has become more steep and there is more benefit to holding government office. Notice how this has now got the attention of that 8% of humankind which only ever measures personal worth and personal gain on a relative scale. After witnessing a little bit of concentration or centralization of power, that minority starts scheming.
Even if not in power yet, that minority of human beings irremediably attracted to power over others will begin to campaign for even more centralization of power. And though you likely do not need to see the next image — because you can probably already guess what the future holds, here it is:
When power has been centralized past a certain point, then it guarantees that people who you would characterize as “thugs” will gain control of the Ship-of-State. You can’t have highly-concentrated power without corruption of that power. But therein lies the solution:
You won’t have poverty, war, strife, sickness, and death if you don’t concentrate power.
It’s the concentration of power that is the problem: The hill can only be allowed to get so steep, and then no more (only limited government can be allowed).
Examples
In what is called the Crisis of the Third Century, 26 Roman emperors came and went within 50 years. The “hill” had gotten too steep (power had centralized too much) and, instead of a Roman emperor reigning for over 9 years on average, these emperors reigned for less than 2 years on average — often being killed by their own people.
It was a “policy mistake” for ancient Rome to centralize power as much as it did, and the bloodshed and the poverty and the starvation and the pain are the punishment that the ancients had to endure because of their mistake in human governance. Life in Rome sucked for at least 50 years in a row.
On a recent Joe Rogan episode, it was revealed that contemporary Mexico has beaten Rome’s record of corruption and power-lust: 37 political assassinations during this election cycle, along with 828 attacks on candidates.
Again, the solution is to chop down the hill — to reduce the power asymmetry between human beings so that that 8% of us who will become willing to cause great suffering to obtain that kind of power have nothing to fight for. Only when the hill is steep will they come out from the shadows in order to make our lives a living hell.
This also means that we should push back against a Great Reset, which sets the entire world up to one giant game of King-of-the-Hill. We can’t let the USA fall to a globalist empire. We have to remain the holdouts, even if we are the last ones left.
We have to decentralize instead of trying to “clean house” — i.e., instead of trying to remove those government magistrates, both elected and not, who have become compromised by foreign agents working for a globalist syndicate. This is no longer a playground. Less (not more) government is the solution.
Reference
[record political assassinations in current election cycle in Mexico] — Mexican candidate assassinations hit grim record ahead of Sunday's election. By Lizbeth Diaz. May 31, 2024 10:41 PM CDT. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexican-candidate-assassinations-hit-grim-record-ahead-sundays-election-2024-06-01/
[when anonymity is guaranteed (city survey), then almost 8% of people are “spiteful competitors” who simultaneously demand half of windfall gains when you make the offers to split it, but then turn around and stiff you (giving you nothing) when they make the offers] — Brañas-Garza P, Espín AM, Exadaktylos F, Herrmann B. Fair and unfair punishers coexist in the Ultimatum Game. Sci Rep. 2014 Aug 12;4:6025. doi: 10.1038/srep06025. PMID: 25113502; PMCID: PMC4129421. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4129421/