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Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 30, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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is that really a model that is scaleable to society?

It's possible that one or more of their philosophies is a model that is only scaleable to society. Perhaps if you instead only implement it on a small scale, without nearly-omnipresent support for your preferred culture along with a high-trust and long-time-horizon view toward it, it becomes impossible to rely on the benefits of that culture, because external forces will eventually break whatever you've tried to build on it, which creates a vicious cycle when even your allies stop seeing benefits to that culture and trust and long-term outlook. But, if you could somehow manage to create a whole world where the vast majority of your fellows are on your side, then you wouldn't have to worry so much about you or your family falling to temptations that all your peers are also trying to help you avoid.

On the other hand, I can't help but notice that this explanation sounds like exactly the same bullshit that incorrigible Communists use to explain why their predecessors only trashed their half of the world (because we cruelly didn't give them the whole world to play with!). So even if it's true in some case(s) it probably still means the philosophy is unachievable, as well as unstable even if it could be temporarily achieved.