Came where it originally was located, significantly later in the post, after these sections:
The ants start to receive dozens of requests for food, then hundreds—and while many are fraudulent, enough are real that they are moved to act. In order to set incentives correctly, the ants decide to only give food to those who can prove that they lost their own food supplies through no fault of their own, and set up a system for vetting claims.
This works well for a time—but as fraudsters grow more sophisticated, the ants’ bureaucratic requirements grow more onerous. In order to meet them, other creatures start to deposit their food in large group storehouses which can handle the administrative overhead. But now the food supply is exposed to systemic risk if the leaders of those storehouses make poor decisions, whether from carelessness or greed.
One year several storehouses fail; in trying to fill the shortfall, the ants almost run out of food for themselves. To avoid that ever happening again, they set up stringent regulations and oversight of permissible storehouses, funded by taxes levied throughout the year. At first this takes only a small proportion of their labor—but as their regulatory apparatus inevitably grows, they need to oversee more and more aspects of the ecosystem, and are called upon to right more and more injustices. Eventually the ants—originally the most productive of all creatures—stop producing any food of their own, so busy are they in tending to the system they’ve created.
...
“And therefore, to reduce risks from centralization, and to limit our own power, we can’t give you any food”, the ants conclude. And they turn away and go back to their work, with a quiet sense of satisfaction that they’ve given such legible and defensible reasons for focusing on their own problems and keeping all the food for themselves.
Firstly, if the grasshopper was just unlucky, then there’s no “deviation” to forgive—it makes sense only if the grasshopper was culpable. Secondly, the earlier parts are about individuals, and the latter parts are about systems—it felt more compelling to go straight from “centralized government” to “locust war” than going via an individual act of kindness.
But, what I find particularly meaningful about it is that even when giant systems have evolved that are turning grotesque with their burueacratic weight… and when maybe those systems are necessary or inevitable or something… individuals can still choose to just… do a nice thing, when they have local knowledge suggesting it’s the right thing to do in this case. (And meanwhile, I had no problem backfilling and appropriate history for this particular snippet. I can imagine a grasshopper who slacked off a bit, and also got a bit unlucky, and also seems to have earnestly learned and will make better choices next time)
This story is moved me a lot, and I am giving it a substantial vote,
But… I do still really wish this line...
Came where it originally was located, significantly later in the post, after these sections:
In it’s original positioning, the “We can preserve the law and still forgive the deviation” line felt like the climax of a mini-arc. Previously Richard had said he moved it for two reasons:
But, what I find particularly meaningful about it is that even when giant systems have evolved that are turning grotesque with their burueacratic weight… and when maybe those systems are necessary or inevitable or something… individuals can still choose to just… do a nice thing, when they have local knowledge suggesting it’s the right thing to do in this case. (And meanwhile, I had no problem backfilling and appropriate history for this particular snippet. I can imagine a grasshopper who slacked off a bit, and also got a bit unlucky, and also seems to have earnestly learned and will make better choices next time)
I have thought about this on and off for several years and finally decided that you’re right and have changed it. Thanks for pushing on this.