I think an important distinction is that wizards create and kings allocate; if you have a bunch of wizards, they can all wield their powers mostly without interfering with each other and their results can accumulate, whereas if you have a bunch of kings then (beyond some small baseline amount) they basically compete for followers and the total power being wielded doesn’t increase.
On my model, the strongest individual people around are kings, but adding more kings doesn’t typically make civilization stronger, because kings basically move power around instead of creating it. (Though kings can indirectly create power by e.g. building schools, and they can reveal hidden power by taking a power that was previously being squandered or fighting against itself and directing it to some useful end.)
I do think it’s pretty unfortunate that the strategies that make civilization stronger are often not great strategies for maximizing personal power. I think a lot of civilizational ills can be traced back to this fact.
On my model, the strongest individual people around are kings, but adding more kings doesn’t typically make civilization stronger
I don’t think this is true, at least when generalizing “King” to “manager”. One of the major ways societies develop is by getting better at coordination and resource management. Not every manager in e.g. Costco is a king, in the sense of having singular total authority, but they are all making decisions about the allocation of resources that are conveyed to those below them in the heirarchy, that adds together to a complex supply chain network that can achieve material prosperity that farmers alone couldn’t manage.
Interesting distinction to draw out. I some what come away with a view that wizards get to play in the positive-sum game world while kings are stuck in a zero- to negative-sum game. I’m not completely sure that is a good modeling though might see the game of thrones hitting it’s equilibrium at a lower number of kings than one might expect to occur with wizards (resources are not infinite so at some point wizards will also just be competing against one another for stuff—and possible followers for their own parades).
So maybe the bit is that we will tend to find ourselves in a world where kings are at, or past, the equilibrium level, but the market for wizards will still support expansion and growth. I suspect there is likely some interaction here such that as wizards “create” and more wizards then create more, this activity produces some scope for increasing the kingdoms.
So perhaps it’s not really about king power or wizard power but identifying where the greatest lack resided.
I’m not sure that is the whole story here though as some of John’s post seemed to point at purely personal aspect—where that lost part went and why. I’m not sure that the king/wizard framing gets to the core of that.
So maybe the bit is that we will tend to find ourselves in a world where kings are at, or past, the equilibrium level, but the market for wizards will still support expansion and growth.
Maybe, but I don’t feel like it’s a coincidence that we find ourselves in such a world.
Consider that the key limited resource for kings is population (for followers), but increasing population will also tend to increase the number of people who try to be kings. Additionally, technology tends to increase the number of followers that one king could plausibly control, and so reduces the number of kings we need.
Contrariwise, increasing population and technology both tend to increase the number of available wizard specializations, the maximum amount a given wizard can plausibly learn within any given specialty, and the production efficiency of most resources that could plausibly be a bottleneck for wizardry.
(Though I feel I should also confess that I’m reasoning this out as I go; I hadn’t thought in those terms before I made the root comment.)
Perhaps it is more terminology as I didn’t mean to suggest some existing tendency was merely coincidental. I suspect, and would agree with the points you make, that some underlying structures will produce that fewer king opportunities and more wizard opportunities world.
I see a lot of complications in the interactions here related to the kings and wizards framing that can muddy things up. But was really just observing that these are not quiet as simple as choose wizard power over king power. I think one finds more wizard opportunities (to be found within all parades, between parades and even before/after/separate from parades), but think that sometimes we’ll have new parades that want to do their thing but existing kings are able to see that path so a new king (not really competing with other kings as the parade will not follow them far) will add a lot of value. That then opens up more wizard opportunities. Plus, I suspect many wizards would be poor kings and many kings poor wizards—so think about who you are when looking for you “power”.
Choosing the wrong option or choosing one at the wrong time will be low/negative value (probably both personally and systemically). But if you’re unsure about it, choosing wizard is probably the smarter choice.
There’s a technical sense in which writing a piece of computer software consumes electricity and calories and so it’s not “from nothing”, but I think that that framing does more to obscure than to illuminate the difference that I’m pointing to.
If the total value of everything in the wizard’s workshop is higher when they finish than it was when they started, then I think it makes sense to say that the wizard has created value, even if they needed some precursors to get the process started.
Software is kind of an exceptional case because computers are made to be incredibly easy to update. So the cost of installing software can be neglected relative to the cost of making the software.
Most wizards (1)do not develop particularly strong powers, (2) the powers they develop are often pretty useless at society level, and (3) on their own usually don’t use those powers very efficiently, and (4) most (?) wizards do not naturally work well together without direction.
King power is pretty similar, but :
you naturally get higher levels of power than in wizards, but you can only have so many people with so much king-power (based on number of people and available resources);
(2) does not apply much (once you get past a certain level of power being a bully to your own family is pretty irrelevant) directionally, but as with (3) there is a subset of skills for actually being a good manager/executive which are less incentivized
(3) is exacerbated, as the way to gain more power is often different from being effecient, especially for society
(4) is mitigated, except when working together well is sub-optimal for gaining power
One of the major issues for humanity in building something like this is king-power players developing and using the wizardry of getting things done, organizational rot and weakness are a massive issue in society
I think an important distinction is that wizards create and kings allocate; if you have a bunch of wizards, they can all wield their powers mostly without interfering with each other and their results can accumulate, whereas if you have a bunch of kings then (beyond some small baseline amount) they basically compete for followers and the total power being wielded doesn’t increase.
On my model, the strongest individual people around are kings, but adding more kings doesn’t typically make civilization stronger, because kings basically move power around instead of creating it. (Though kings can indirectly create power by e.g. building schools, and they can reveal hidden power by taking a power that was previously being squandered or fighting against itself and directing it to some useful end.)
I do think it’s pretty unfortunate that the strategies that make civilization stronger are often not great strategies for maximizing personal power. I think a lot of civilizational ills can be traced back to this fact.
I don’t think this is true, at least when generalizing “King” to “manager”. One of the major ways societies develop is by getting better at coordination and resource management. Not every manager in e.g. Costco is a king, in the sense of having singular total authority, but they are all making decisions about the allocation of resources that are conveyed to those below them in the heirarchy, that adds together to a complex supply chain network that can achieve material prosperity that farmers alone couldn’t manage.
Gut instinct is that the number of kings needed to maximally coordinate a number of wizards is somewhere around logarithmic.
Interesting distinction to draw out. I some what come away with a view that wizards get to play in the positive-sum game world while kings are stuck in a zero- to negative-sum game. I’m not completely sure that is a good modeling though might see the game of thrones hitting it’s equilibrium at a lower number of kings than one might expect to occur with wizards (resources are not infinite so at some point wizards will also just be competing against one another for stuff—and possible followers for their own parades).
So maybe the bit is that we will tend to find ourselves in a world where kings are at, or past, the equilibrium level, but the market for wizards will still support expansion and growth. I suspect there is likely some interaction here such that as wizards “create” and more wizards then create more, this activity produces some scope for increasing the kingdoms.
So perhaps it’s not really about king power or wizard power but identifying where the greatest lack resided.
I’m not sure that is the whole story here though as some of John’s post seemed to point at purely personal aspect—where that lost part went and why. I’m not sure that the king/wizard framing gets to the core of that.
Maybe, but I don’t feel like it’s a coincidence that we find ourselves in such a world.
Consider that the key limited resource for kings is population (for followers), but increasing population will also tend to increase the number of people who try to be kings. Additionally, technology tends to increase the number of followers that one king could plausibly control, and so reduces the number of kings we need.
Contrariwise, increasing population and technology both tend to increase the number of available wizard specializations, the maximum amount a given wizard can plausibly learn within any given specialty, and the production efficiency of most resources that could plausibly be a bottleneck for wizardry.
(Though I feel I should also confess that I’m reasoning this out as I go; I hadn’t thought in those terms before I made the root comment.)
Perhaps it is more terminology as I didn’t mean to suggest some existing tendency was merely coincidental. I suspect, and would agree with the points you make, that some underlying structures will produce that fewer king opportunities and more wizard opportunities world.
I see a lot of complications in the interactions here related to the kings and wizards framing that can muddy things up. But was really just observing that these are not quiet as simple as choose wizard power over king power. I think one finds more wizard opportunities (to be found within all parades, between parades and even before/after/separate from parades), but think that sometimes we’ll have new parades that want to do their thing but existing kings are able to see that path so a new king (not really competing with other kings as the parade will not follow them far) will add a lot of value. That then opens up more wizard opportunities. Plus, I suspect many wizards would be poor kings and many kings poor wizards—so think about who you are when looking for you “power”.
Choosing the wrong option or choosing one at the wrong time will be low/negative value (probably both personally and systemically). But if you’re unsure about it, choosing wizard is probably the smarter choice.
I think it would be more accurate to say that wizards transmute. “Creation” actually requires resources, so it’s not creation from nothing.
There’s a technical sense in which writing a piece of computer software consumes electricity and calories and so it’s not “from nothing”, but I think that that framing does more to obscure than to illuminate the difference that I’m pointing to.
If the total value of everything in the wizard’s workshop is higher when they finish than it was when they started, then I think it makes sense to say that the wizard has created value, even if they needed some precursors to get the process started.
Software is kind of an exceptional case because computers are made to be incredibly easy to update. So the cost of installing software can be neglected relative to the cost of making the software.
Wizard power well-directed can do amazing things.
Most wizards (1)do not develop particularly strong powers, (2) the powers they develop are often pretty useless at society level, and (3) on their own usually don’t use those powers very efficiently, and (4) most (?) wizards do not naturally work well together without direction.
King power is pretty similar, but :
you naturally get higher levels of power than in wizards, but you can only have so many people with so much king-power (based on number of people and available resources);
(2) does not apply much (once you get past a certain level of power being a bully to your own family is pretty irrelevant) directionally, but as with (3) there is a subset of skills for actually being a good manager/executive which are less incentivized
(3) is exacerbated, as the way to gain more power is often different from being effecient, especially for society
(4) is mitigated, except when working together well is sub-optimal for gaining power
One of the major issues for humanity in building something like this is king-power players developing and using the wizardry of getting things done, organizational rot and weakness are a massive issue in society