CounterChaos wrote:You have basically described PoFo here Smertios. That is exactly what we have here. You see traditional hierarchy where you live just as I see it here in the Philippines. In the first world though, traditional hierarchy is disappearing. Look at TCR for an example. He is a twenty something college educated young man and I'm a 59 year old retiree. In your world, I would be the hierarchical leader - that is not what you see here though is it? He is a moderator with control over me.
Traditional hierarchy is disappearing everywhere, including here. What you don't understand is that I'm not talking about traditional hierarchy at all. I'm talking about hierarchy in general. It appears in the human society because humans are autonomous animals. So a few individuals will
always be more popular, more talented, more influential, more charismatic etc. And other people will always orbit around those.
Your age is irrelevant. In
"my world", you wouldn't be the hierarchical leader simply because you are older. There is a better chance a younger person is more talented and competent, actually, considering we are in a post-information revolution world. Information and knowledge are much more accessible to people in their formative years than it was when you were in your 20s, for example.
Except in gerontocracies - which have never existed in a large number -, age is not a factor for determining who is on top. Life experience never meant much, really...
He is correct. Today, human knowledge and intelligence is more of a factor in hierarchy. Even though I may have more wisdom and life experience than TCR does - that is rarely measured as valuable these days. That is unfortunate in my opinion and does not present a fair playing ground for older people. However, the same is true for the young - if we followed traditional hierarchy here, their voice would be labeled as immature silliness most of the time.
He is incorrect. Like I said in my example, leaders appear spontaneously in any human group, independent of their age. Read my example with a school project again. A teacher doesn't select a group leader, and they don't take a vote either. But, in the process of realizing the work needed, one or a few leaders will appear. Someone will organize the project, distribute chores, lead the project. Even if this leadership ends up being a bad one, the hierarchy will appear. Not by design, not influenced directly by the human intelligence, but because human groups are naturally hierarchic.
And no offense, but there is a better chance TCR is more qualified to be in a position of leadership than you. We just passed through the main phase of the information revolution. We have a weird situation now in which younger people know more stuff and are more able to deal with complicated situations than older people. It is not a matter of what is fair and what isn't. It is a matter of how
liberal hierarchies work.
Life experience doesn't mean a thing nowadays, so it is natural that it won't be very effective on who is going to be on top and who isn't. I certainly would rather pay a young guy with proper education to be a manager in a company than an old guy with lots of life experience, but without proper education in management.
—“Human pyramid-building schemes have elaborate hierarchies that don't respect age or physical strength at all. Often, what leads to a "controlling" position on the pyramid is... being in the same club as other higher-ups.”
So, in modern industrial society in this computer age of text - he is right.............
Except that is exactly it. physical strength and age are not relevant anymore. Nobody cares if one was born in 1876 or if he can carry a ton of metal in a few hours. That is not going to take him anywhere. What matters is charisma, money, talent, looks, intelligence etc.
Human hierarchies were only about age and physical strength in the stone age, when the ability to protect the tribe with brute force was needed (there was no military technology) and the experience of elders was needed to keep the society working (there was no science to tell what is better and what isn't, so they had to accept that life experience was the best way to go).
After that, hierarchies have never been about age or strength...
And I'm afraid the two of you don't have a good idea of what a pyramid scheme is, by the way...
A solution I think would be to - disallow human beings as avatars here - as I believe by design it was done to give advantage to a younger audience. If not be design - it does turn out to be the case.
Funniest thing I ever read on PoFo.
PoFo ethnic party statistics: http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8&p=14042520#p14042520