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comment by ioannes (ioannes_shade) · 2018-09-06T16:01:18.588Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
The creation of functional institutions is the means by which people are hugely impactful.

Curious what you think of hugely impactful people who didn't create institutions:

  • Gautama Buddha
  • Socrates
  • Jesus
  • ...
  • Gauss
  • Wittgenstein
  • Gödel

It seems like the catalyst for impactful change often comes from a person who is at best indifferent to institution-building.

Maybe you're arguing that the bulk of the impact should be attributed to the institution-builders who followed? (the Sangha, Plato, Paul...)

Replies from: gjm
comment by gjm · 2018-09-06T22:08:52.299Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It could easily be true both that (e.g.) nothing like Christianity would exist without Jesus, and that Christianity wouldn't have developed into the hugely impactful thing it is now without Paul. In some sense all the credit or blame for that goes to both of them: take away either of them and you have no impactful institution at all.

Of course none of that applies to people whose (it would seem) highly impactful work didn't create institutions but "merely" contributed hugely to existing ones, or perhaps helped knock them down. Gauss, Wittgenstein and Gödel are all in that category.

comment by Davis_Kingsley · 2018-09-06T13:25:13.093Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It... sorta feels like you've reinvented the (broadly discredited) Great Man theory of history? The focus on institutions mitigates one of the problems with that theory, but I think it may just be kicking the can down the road a bit.

While there are some highly effective and influential organizations and institutions that seem to have greatly benefited from strong leadership from founders (Naval Reactors Branch under Rickover), there are others where this story is much more dubious (Bell Labs).

Replies from: Thrasymachus, Raemon
comment by Thrasymachus · 2018-09-06T15:08:16.242Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'd be hesitant to defend Great Man theory (and so would apply similar caution) but I think it can go some way, especially for defending a fragility of history hypothesis.

In precis (more here):

1. Conception of any given person seems very fragile. If parents decide to conceive an hour earlier or later (or have done different things earlier in the day, etc. etc.), it seems likely another one of the 100 million available sperm fuses than the one which did. The counterpart seems naturally modelled by a sibling, and siblings are considerably different from one another.

2. Although sometimes (/often) supposed Great Men are mere errands of providence, its hard to say this is always the case. It seems the 20th century would have been pretty different if Hitler was not around to rise to power, the character of world religions would be different with siblings of Jesus, Muhammad etc. and Tolstoy's brother probably wouldn't have written War and Peace anyway. (Although maybe in some areas ramifications are less pronounced - Great Scientists may alter the timing of discoveries a bit, but it looks plausible that we'd have Relativity by now even without Einstein).

3. 1 and 2 suggests you could get a lot of scrambling of who is around. Even if it was inevitable there was a Mongol expansion, the precise nature of this seems sensitive to who is in charge, and so whether Ghengis Khan or his sibling was born. The precise details of this expansion (where gets encroached on first, which battles are fought, etc. etc.) does horizontally perturb whether, when (and with who) other people conceive children. These different children go on to alter vertically and horizontally who else is conceived, and so the conceptive chaos propagates. I'd semi-seriously defend the thesis that none of us would be here if Ghengis Khan's parents decided to wait an hour before having sex.

4. This wouldn't mean the world is merely putty to be sculpted by great men. But even if the stage (and dramatis personae) of history is set by broader factors, which actors take on the role might still have considerable effects on the performance.

comment by Raemon · 2018-09-06T19:28:06.931Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think earlier posts by Samo specifically talked about the Great Man theory, so I was assuming it was intended to be a play on it. (edit: here it is [LW · GW])

Replies from: Samo Burja
comment by Samo Burja · 2018-09-06T20:20:02.043Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Yes. Opened the recent series of articles with it. I talked about Great Man theory in Functional Institutions are the Exception.

comment by romeostevensit · 2018-09-05T20:52:11.754Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Since the fidelity of transmitting intricate social technologies is so low, complex adaptations cannot arise.

Environments can be more or less conducive to high fidelity transfer. The break down of common law, spiking contract risk and other liabilities, would seem a somewhat hidden (common law premium well understood by economists but never discussed otherwise) parameter.

comment by ioannes (ioannes_shade) · 2018-09-06T15:54:10.105Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
The term institution is not synonymous with the concept of<a href="https://medium.com/@samo.burja/empire-theory-part-1-competitive-landscape-b0b1b3bbce9e"> empire, though they can overlap in some cases.

FYI broken link

Replies from: Samo Burja
comment by Samo Burja · 2018-09-06T20:18:07.968Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Hm. I tried the link and it seems to work?

Replies from: habryka4
comment by habryka (habryka4) · 2018-09-06T20:19:08.367Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I fixed it yesterday. It broke because of an editor bug. He might have had an old version of the page open.