Beautiful analogy! I’d say introducing the high-level concept of “controlling an interface” is the most useful next step in this chain of reasoning.
Between you and the horse is the standardized interface known as “tack,” a system of leather, cloth and/or ropes literally harnessing a horse’s might and speed. Variations of tack have been evolved by horse controllers over millennia to eke out every bit of control and usefulness a horse can reasonably provide a human, for various purposes: racing, farming, ranching, hunting, battling, and so on. You can reinvent the wheel if you wish, but at the end of the day, your kludged-together horse interface will probably recapitulate one of the stages of tack that other humans have already invented, some stages more humane to the horse than others.
But what is the combination of human and tack controlling on the horse? Its instincts and training. The horse was already a system, and now you’ve gone and added levers to its body and mind. And now you and the horse and the tack in-between are a system harnessed to your will imperfectly.
Back to taking over the world. Examining what interfaces already exist for the people who control the world is the first step. How can they be improved, and made more responsive? Whose purposes do they serve? What aspects of the world are directly or emergently controlled by those interfaces and which aspects are left alone?
Emperors are the rulers of kings, whatever their actual titles, and the interface of empire is delegation, negotiation, and self-marketing. Let the world run itself, but steer it a bit here and there. Sometimes, give it a little free rein and see how fast it can run.
The most useful examination I’ve seen of the interfaces of would-be masters of nations is the Rules For Rulers video, which details the spectrum of political will applied to various countries, and why countries tend toward either Enlightenment and democracy or dictatorship and misery. Simply put, there are countries that are like a horse that must be ridden with spurs, or else it will try to buck you off and smash in your head with its great hooves.
Beautiful analogy! I’d say introducing the high-level concept of “controlling an interface” is the most useful next step in this chain of reasoning.
Between you and the horse is the standardized interface known as “tack,” a system of leather, cloth and/or ropes literally harnessing a horse’s might and speed. Variations of tack have been evolved by horse controllers over millennia to eke out every bit of control and usefulness a horse can reasonably provide a human, for various purposes: racing, farming, ranching, hunting, battling, and so on. You can reinvent the wheel if you wish, but at the end of the day, your kludged-together horse interface will probably recapitulate one of the stages of tack that other humans have already invented, some stages more humane to the horse than others.
But what is the combination of human and tack controlling on the horse? Its instincts and training. The horse was already a system, and now you’ve gone and added levers to its body and mind. And now you and the horse and the tack in-between are a system harnessed to your will imperfectly.
Back to taking over the world. Examining what interfaces already exist for the people who control the world is the first step. How can they be improved, and made more responsive? Whose purposes do they serve? What aspects of the world are directly or emergently controlled by those interfaces and which aspects are left alone?
Emperors are the rulers of kings, whatever their actual titles, and the interface of empire is delegation, negotiation, and self-marketing. Let the world run itself, but steer it a bit here and there. Sometimes, give it a little free rein and see how fast it can run.
The most useful examination I’ve seen of the interfaces of would-be masters of nations is the Rules For Rulers video, which details the spectrum of political will applied to various countries, and why countries tend toward either Enlightenment and democracy or dictatorship and misery. Simply put, there are countries that are like a horse that must be ridden with spurs, or else it will try to buck you off and smash in your head with its great hooves.