High Modernism Isn't Necessarily Bad, It's Authoritarian

Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, Nat and Neil are joined by Adil Majid to discuss their key takeaways from Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott. This book discusses how states seek to make the territory more legible in order to guide its functioning. However, this planned social order often disregards vital features of any real, functioning social order. How do certain schemes to improve the human condition end up failing?

We cover a wide range of topics including:

• Government’s desire for legibility vs. local control and power
• Infinite coastline paradox
• The importance of feedback loops and adaptability in a system
• How high modernism has been implemented and why those implementations have failed
• Connections between the book and cryptocurrency

And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Adil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode.

Links from the Episode:

Mentioned in the show:

• High modernism (5:58)
• Window tax (20:25)
• The Blind Cafe - San Francisco (35:32)
• The Infinite Coastline (43:22)
• Rise Roar Revolt (1:07:14)
• India’s Economy Hinges on the Return of Workers Who Fled to Their Villages (1:14:58)
• Stepn (1:31:38)
• Will STEPN Bring Crypto to the Masses? (1:36:23)
• Slate Star Codex Book Review (1:40:57) 
• A Big Little Idea Called Legibility (1:42:25)
• The Intellectual Yet Idiot (1:42:36)

Books Mentioned:

• Seeing Like a State
• Extreme Ownership (22:31) (Nat’s Book Notes)
• Scale (23:19) (Book Episode) (Nat’s Book Notes)
• Four Thousand Weeks (37:47)
• Merchants of Doubt (49:49) (Nat’s Book Notes)
• The Fourth Turning (1:08:55) (Book Episode) 
• The Dictator’s Handbook (1:20:43) (Book Episode) (Nat’s Book Notes)
• The Conscience of a Conservative (1:39:43)

People Mentioned:

• Nassim Taleb (9:06)
• Jocko Willink (22:32)
• Geoffrey West (23:19)
• Arthur Hayes (1:26:28)
• Barry Goldwater (1:39:44)

Show Topics:

1:04 Today we’re joined by Adil Majid (previously in episodes #7, #33, #34, #35, #71, #74) to cover Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott. There’s often an assumption that it’s the fault of the people when planned systems fail, when really it’s the fault of the governing body implementing these rigid systems.

5:58 There are a few major concepts in the book. One of these main concepts is legibility. A state needs to understand what’s happening on the ground and also needs a way to measure it. Scientific forestry as a way to produce timber more efficiently.

11:56 “Thus, plants that are valued become "crops," the species that compete with them are stigmatized as "weeds," and the insects that ingest them are stigmatized as "pests."” 

Scott argues that there’s more variables than any of the high modernists can understand. A high modernist cannot acknowledge that there are more variables than they know, and that they are not in full control of those variables. You can’t adjust one variable and be able to fully predict all the effects.

15:01 One of the mistakes of the high modernist desire for legibility is confusing the visual external order with internal underlying order and structure. Things can have a deep sensible underlying order that doesn’t make sense from the outside. Trees as an example; The distribution of roots, stems, and leaves is efficient in capturing light and water but if a human designed a tree, it may look real different. This same idea can be applied to cities.

17:10 The systemization of last names. 

19:48 There are consequences of implementing these rigid systems. Many times, the systems put in place end up changing the exact thing that they’re supposed to regulate. 

21:31 The government uses legibility to make things easier to understand, and it’s how they gain control. The amount of control you have can depend on how many levels are within your system. This ties into Extreme Ownership where the military has different levels of hierarchy, but on the ground, you get a lot of individual freedom to execute the mission. If you try to maintain strict order all the way down, things can go poorly. If you allow things to spread out and have variation at the ends, the system tends to be more resilient.

25:11 Authoritarianism is high modernism without feedback loops and democracy is high modernism with feedback loops. Adil describes metis (local knowledge) and techne (mathematical absolute truths). Things naturally float to the top, and you have to fight to keep the local knowledge at the local level.

29:10 High modernism is suitable for techne. You need to have these slightly chaotic systems where you can experiment and fail in order to better develop. The beauty of the local knowledge is that it’s experimental. Feedback loops and being able to adapt.

34:11 How did our five senses evolve to be the way they are? Our visual life is very stimulating. We lock on to things that are bright, surprising, fast-paced. Screens give us so much of that novelty that other things can appear boring to look at.

39:18 The book talks about grouping people, and they lose their individual characteristics by being dropped in the buckets based on non-representative characteristics. The map vs. the terrain.

43:08 The infinite coastline. The more you zoom into it, the more you have to add variations which makes it longer and longer. Theoretically as you zoom into something so deeply, you have an infinitely long coastline. Nat, Neil, and Adil discuss: What are the implications of higher fidelity?

46:30 High modernism works if you can convince people it’s the best way forward. The element of authoritarianism; the more you try to force people to go along with an idea the more negative pushback you’ll get. The recycling and no smoking movements.

51:37 Complex systems can get wrecked by very small changes. Some systems need every moving part in order to run efficiently, and just the absence of one part can throw the system for a loop. 

55:22 Adding chips to farm equipment. What was the efficiency improvement? These highly industrialized systems can be good at increasing output, but one little ding in the system and it can fall apart.

1:03:45 India and their legibility efforts. Neil talks about the national ID card for banking and other purposes. A lot of underground stuff goes on in order for people to avoid getting their ID card. The government has gone as far as banning the largest paper currency note overnight and issuing a new one in hopes to get people to go to a bank to switch it or deposit it. 

1:08:58 Would India be a country if the British had never come there? India was originally made up of hundreds of individual states, so there are many regional identities still today.

1:11:17 National languages and global languages: How do they come to be, and is it even possible to change them now that they're established?

1:14:48 During Covid, people in India who moved to cities for jobs ended up moving back to their villages as the cost of living wasn’t worth it. Within the village is their support system. This move from a legible system back to an illegible system is a good thing for the individual, but not necessarily for a government that wants more legibility.

1:17:27 Nat summarizes the core ideas of the book. Highly authoritarian states such as China and North Korea and censorship on the internet. How North Korea has been so authoritarian for so long and has been able to keep it that way.

1:21:35 Work-to-rule: This is where employees do just the minimum that is required from them and follow all regulation and safety guidelines. This in turn can lead to a decrease in productivity as workers are no longer working during weekends, breaks, etc. 

1:23:31 How does this book tie back into crypto? A lot of the early crypto crowd is inherently anti-legibility. 

1:32:42 Stepn is a lifestyle app that encourages its users to “move-to-earn”. Nat shares 3 ways you can tell that it’s time to exit the project so you don’t lose your investment. 

1:39:20 Thanks for listening! Got any book suggestions for a future episode? Hit us up on Twitter!

If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! You can say hi to us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS and @nateliason and share your thoughts on this episode.

You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain or Breez) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We’ll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads.

Thanks for listening. See you next time!