OT: Hierarchies (was Re: Possibly better loop construct, also labels+goto important and on the fly compiler idea.)

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 1:53 PM,  <rurpy at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Your hierarchy is particularly unappealing to me.  We all
> know that such hierarchies exist in the real world, but
> there is a question: should they be promoted as a natural
> and desirable state of society to be encouraged?
>
> There are people like Ayn Rand who have argued they are
> natural and should be encouraged.  But I, having grown
> up with the concepts of democracy, egalitarianism, and
> individualism in which treatment I ask for I should also
> extend to you, don't accept those views.  In fact I
> think they have a somewhat fascist odor.  I don't wish
> to participate in a culture or sub-culture in which such
> "worth" hierarchies are promoted.

Yes, I think they *should* be promoted... because that's simply how
the world works. Democracies don't, fundamentally, work - they will
always devolve into some form of hierarchy (maybe with the elected at
the top, maybe with them at the bottom, maybe something else
altogether). In most country-sized democracies, what you actually have
is a hierarchy with a few elected people purportedly above it -
consider the layers of bureaucracy between you and your elected leader
(assuming you're in a democratic country - if you're not, imagine you
were).

The simplest way to be at the top of a branch of the tree is to create
that branch. If I deploy a server, I own it and I can choose who's
allowed to use it. Let's suppose I plonk down an instance of vBulletin
or PHPBB or something, and get a discussion forum going. I can choose
who's allowed to create accounts, who's allowed to post, who's allowed
to read. Nobody would deny me the right to ban anyone I choose -
right? It's my server, my forum, and I have the power to ban people.
In fact, it's my job to ban the abusive users; normally that means
only the bots and spammers, but it might mean someone who deliberately
messes things up in other ways. I have to be king of that server. Of
course, if I abuse that power, the community will quickly dissipate;
nobody wants to stay under a tyrant.

The second simplest way to get power is to be given it by someone who
has it. Again in the example of a forum, I can appoint a moderator for
some section, giving him/her the power to ban people, delete posts,
etc. Both I (admin) and my moderators have the responsibility to use
our power wisely; I'm responsible to the community as a whole, the
mods are responsible to me, but otherwise it's the same thing.

As a citizen, the power you have is to leave. That has a cost;
sometimes that's a low cost, sometimes rather higher. Your power to
"vote with your feet" is, ultimately, the thing that keeps the leaders
in check - unless they want to be king of nothing, they have to entice
people not to leave.

Is it fascist to want control over my own server? Nope. You wouldn't
expect that, as a user of www.google.com, you have an equal say in how
it gets used - you wouldn't expect to be able to vote on IP bans. It's
fundamentally NOT democratic. That's not to say that your views aren't
respected - the best monarchies will always listen to their citizens -
but you don't have a *vote*.

Extending this to whole countries is a little harder, though, because
of the problem of geography. It makes good sense for various laws to
be instituted across a particular geographic area (say, whether you
drive on the left or right hand side of the road), so you don't have
the freedom to choose whose rule you'll be under. Broadly it still
works the same way, though; if I create a new country (maybe by
seceding from the one I'm geographically in - I believe that's legal
according to Australian law, and there are other countries that make
that an option), then my neighbours should be free to correspondingly
secede and join my new country. Leaving has a cost, as above, but it
happens to be a greater one when it means moving your whole life to a
new location. As we see all the time in the world, people DO leave
countries that become untenable; it just takes a stronger impetus than
it would online, so people tend to feel more bound.

The world is hierarchical. There's nothing wrong with that, except a perception.

ChrisA