There’s a jetty near where I live that people like to jump and dive off of. One morning, I was on the jetty and overheard a conversation between a man nicknamed Bigode (Portuguese for moustache), and another man. Bigode was telling him about when the jetty used to have two long planks at its end that allowed people to jump and dive easily, landing in a sandy patch amid the rocks below. Back then, Bigode told the man, many more people came to the jetty, and, naturally, among these people were some idiots. Occasionally, one of these idiots would jump off without knowing how to swim, how to dive, or maybe while drunk, and have an accident. Eventually these accidents motivated the local government to have someone saw off the planks.
Despite this attempt at stopping idiots from having accidents however, Bigode says he still see’s these accidents happen, and suggests that instead, the local government should station two guards at the jetty to watch for idiots. With all due respect to Bigode, this is a stupid idea.
What makes it stupid isn’t having someone guard the jetty and take care of those who dive from it, that’s actually a much better idea than sawing off the planks. What makes it stupid is the notion that such a function needs to be delegated to a pair of specialized professionals and be made official through public policy. Heaven forbid that we (I and the afore mentioned characters, of which there is at least one present on the jetty at literally every hour in the day) take it upon ourselves to look after newcomers. No no no, ordinary people cannot be trusted to do such a thing, these matters need to be handled properly by ”experts“ appointed by the shining members of the ”Professional Managerial Class“
This attitude is quite pervasive nowadays, especially where I live. It’s the attitude of those who haven’t ever created anything by themselves, for themselves. Those who are passengers in their own lives. Those who grew up inside carefully structured environments that handed them goals and motivation on a silver platter, and were taught that the right thing was to stay within the structure, and that everyone outside is either a dreg or just plain unsuccessful—that without that structure things just don’t work, because people can’t be trusted to govern themselves. Thus, due to their upbringing, they’re unable to fathom that people can in fact be self-driven and would be able to thrive outside such an environment. Any suggestion of such a possibility is dismissed as being naive. The funny thing is that, in their case, they’re actually right. People like this are in fact incapable of self-government, due to how they’ve been molly-coddled their whole lives. And it’s not even that these people are lazy in some way, many are actually quite hard working, but they don’t do anything unless told or forced to do so externally. After work they go home to Netflix and Chill, simp for Twitch streamers, go to the bar and have a beer, or engage in some other passively consuming activity. They toil only for the purposes of others, never their own. And if there’s no direct or immediate reward in something you can forget about them doing it, even if it would benefit them indirectly or in the future. Their Time Preference is much too high for that.
Not just any structure can bring this out in people. Only those that systematically punish production and innovation, and reward non-production and stagnation, that continually deprive individuals of their responsibility for the upkeep of society and the pursuit of adventure.
A good rule of thumb for escaping this mindset: whenever you think ”Wouldn’t it be nice if blah blah blah existed“ or ”Things would be so much better if someone did such and such“, don’t wait for anyone—go and do it.
Also, for a red pill on the decivilising effects of these structures and idea of Natural Order, read the first two chapters of Democracy: The God That Failed.