Perhaps a problem lies in your framing of “Get paid”? Immoral mazes stresses the fact that in these mazes there is a tremendous amount of rent-seeking. Its not so much that people value your behavior enough to pay you, but that you and others have made it so that if anyone else offers those paying you a better product, that person will be fined to oblivion, put in jail, fired, or have some other nasty event happen to them (when you find yourself in a maze that is. Mazes aren’t everything, so you do see people offering better products than each other). The net result of actions ends up being negative even though (or because) you are maximizing monetary profit.
Oh, rather agreed. My point is that the vast majority of humans are just fine with rent-seeking, and in fact are complicit in wanting those rents. And we generally prefer to hide this under the guise of providing value and being rewarded justly.
My question is a search for counterexamples. Do we know of any large-scale endeavors where this kind of protectionism of valueless activity and rent-seeking is absent (or at least minimal)?
I’m trying to distinguish between two possible realities: a) If a project requires cooperation of thousands of people who are NOT mostly in the top decile or so of capability and alignment, a hierarchical structure is necessary, and will always have prominent maze-like qualities. b) Mazes are a current equilibrium, and near-universal because of reinforcement and expectations, but there are better ways, and it may only take one or two successes to seed this better way in the collective behavior set. b—alternate framing) Mazes are fairly common, but not necessarily guaranteed, and it’s feasible to build an organization of significant size without much maziness if the core is careful about it.
Perhaps a problem lies in your framing of “Get paid”? Immoral mazes stresses the fact that in these mazes there is a tremendous amount of rent-seeking. Its not so much that people value your behavior enough to pay you, but that you and others have made it so that if anyone else offers those paying you a better product, that person will be fined to oblivion, put in jail, fired, or have some other nasty event happen to them (when you find yourself in a maze that is. Mazes aren’t everything, so you do see people offering better products than each other). The net result of actions ends up being negative even though (or because) you are maximizing monetary profit.
Oh, rather agreed. My point is that the vast majority of humans are just fine with rent-seeking, and in fact are complicit in wanting those rents. And we generally prefer to hide this under the guise of providing value and being rewarded justly.
My question is a search for counterexamples. Do we know of any large-scale endeavors where this kind of protectionism of valueless activity and rent-seeking is absent (or at least minimal)?
I’m trying to distinguish between two possible realities:
a) If a project requires cooperation of thousands of people who are NOT mostly in the top decile or so of capability and alignment, a hierarchical structure is necessary, and will always have prominent maze-like qualities.
b) Mazes are a current equilibrium, and near-universal because of reinforcement and expectations, but there are better ways, and it may only take one or two successes to seed this better way in the collective behavior set.
b—alternate framing) Mazes are fairly common, but not necessarily guaranteed, and it’s feasible to build an organization of significant size without much maziness if the core is careful about it.