The Rule of Law — Letter #5
Dear Francisco,
Thank you for your answer to my letter. This theme is very appealing, I believe.
Well, you definitely started with a good point. I think consensus is harder to establish as societies scale. And the reason is simple: we can’t even agree on football games’ tackle fairness, so why would it be easy to reach a consensus on Economic or Natural policies nationwide?
And this problem can lead us out of topic: what is the ideal size of a society? I believe we will talk about later on our blog! Specially after you mentioning citadels!
About those “Rules” I mentioned, I’m curious too. And… It’s not a joke, really.
I mean, we’re living under the “Rule of Law”, which has significative advantages but also some disadvantages (we’ve been pointing out specially the inefficiency of its implementation). But is it all we have?
We’ve been somehow living under the Rule of Law/Scriptures almost since forever and maybe it’s the right time to try something new. I’m not sure what that new thing would look like, but a few examples can help light up a new path.
One thing Engineering is about is solving problems.
So, what if the way our interactions in a society were based on this paradigm instead of that of Law. Because the “Rule of Law” means that if you don’t act within the Law, you’ll face consequences. But if you live under the “Rule of Engineering”, the consequences of not solving a problem would be that the problem would remain active in society. You would be incentivizing solving problems, instead of obeying laws. Does this make any sort of sense?
Or what if there is a Rule of Math in every society aspect? Imagine solving a mathematical equation for everything…
All in all, I’m not quite sure what this would mean, but I hope my point is not too blurred as I feel it is still in my head :)
Hope this letter finds you well and I look forward to hearing back from you,
Ricardo
