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14 Jan, 6 tweets, 2 min read
Competition for power unfolds over a strategic landscape.

As I explained in Empire Theory Part I, we can split this landscape into three power classes: high, mid, and low. In Part II, I illustrate how these classes vie for power:

samoburja.com/empire-theory-…

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Even those aligned on overall ends may choose to compete over power.

But with competition comes coordination; the dance between the two defines the landscape. Even unaligned actors may be induced to coordinate against others.

2/n
I go into detail about each interaction in the piece, but the tense interaction between mid and high is the most important part of the analysis.

The main variable is resources. High must incentivize mid not to raid the resources concentrated at the top.

3/n
Resources change over time. In order to maintain control, high must continuously introduce new resources into its empire. Growth leads to imperial health, and scarcity to decay.

Growth and decay play out differently depending onthe degree of centralization:

4/n Image
An empire might be centralized or decentralized depends on if high can buy off and coordinate mid with resources, or is too weak to control mid’s own expansion. Each type of empire also contracts differently.

Read the piece for details as well as historical examples!

5/n
These types of empires then have interesting consequences for bureaucracies as well as coordination among live players. To see how they fit the bigger picture, read Great Founder Theory.



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More from @SamoBurja

Samo Burja Profile picture
17 Jan
When an institution fails, nobody seems to have seen it coming. The collapse of the Soviet Union came as a shock even to the Soviet dissidents.

Why exactly are we always caught off guard? Because we have a poor understanding of institutions:

samoburja.com/institutional-…

1/n
Institutions are full of automated systems—bureaucratic procedures—which dominate outward institutional appearance. More often than not, these systems persist far longer than their designers do. Focusing on them obscures the true, underlying sources of institutional health.

2/n
Moreover, institutions often lean on outside institutions. That a bank branch is able to pay a utility to keep its lights on tells us nothing about the bank’s own functionality; we should generalize this observation to a broad range of core features that may be outsourced.

3/n
Read 8 tweets
Samo Burja Profile picture
6 Nov 20
If the government openly regulated speech on the Internet, we would experience this as an increase, not a decrease, in our personal freedom.

One of manymideas to come out of my discussion with @wolftivy of @palladiummag last week. Listen here:

We’ve been expecting a truly decentralized Internet for nearly 30 years, yet every year the Internet gets more obviously centralized.

I explained why this is happening in the article that prompted this podcast. Catch up here:

palladiummag.com/2020/10/19/the…
The flip-side of the Internet being a surveillance technology is that the Internet is also a communications technology.

In 2020, it is obvious how much personal, social, and political life has been thoroughly subsumed into the Internet. At scale, we have a new social world.
Read 8 tweets
Samo Burja Profile picture
6 Nov 20
HTTP is the operating protocol for the web. Politeness is one of many operating protocols for social interactions.

Like HTTP, politeness can be documented and taught. Disregard the protocol, and bad things happen.

samoburja.com/social-technol…

1/n
Although it sounds similar, “social technology” does not mean social *media* technology, like Facebook or Reddit.

The Reddit software and servers are material technologies. But Reddit’s use of human moderators is a social technology.

2/n
Social and material technologies often act symbiotically, but they are functionally distinct.

As I have argued before, the difference between a curious invention and a broadly adopted technology is the right feat of social engineering:

palladiummag.com/2020/05/28/how…

3/n
Read 13 tweets
Samo Burja Profile picture
31 Oct 20
How do you change the world?

In this essay, I argue that the most impactful individuals in history all did so by founding functional institutions. Great Founder Theory proceeds from this:

samoburja.com/great-founder-…

1/n
Most institutions are non-functional. This does not necessarily mean that the buildings are on fire or that layoffs are expected. Rather, most non-functional institutions are merely inadequately imitating functional institutions.

2/n
In a non-functional institution, everyone works towards the same socially-rewarded goals, rather than doing specialized work that combines to achieve the institution’s nominal function, such as winning wars or generating profits.

3/n
Read 8 tweets
Samo Burja Profile picture
17 Oct 20
China's mass surveillance and digital dystopia have been exaggerated or just made up in many pieces of Western reporting.

Is there anything worth reading on which of these have been debunked? I remember reading on the Chinese social credit score system for example.
Article on the social credit score

brookings.edu/blog/order-fro…
Good article on the limits of China's supposed surveillance state.

palladiummag.com/2018/11/29/a-w…
Read 4 tweets
Samo Burja Profile picture
17 Oct 20
Article Super-Thread 📲

Many new followers largely miss the essays that brought us here, as these things fall victim to the passing of time.

To combat this, here is a super-thread of all of my essays, which are also always online at: samoburja.com/essays/

1/n
Why was Obama elected president in 2008? Social media? Cultural changes? His personal fortitude?

To answer this question is to reveal your implicit theory of history: samoburja.com/on-building-th…

2/n
My research focuses on the people who have had the most impact on society and history.

We call those people Great Founders, those who founded exceptionally functional and long-lived institutions, affecting society long after they are gone: samoburja.com/great-founder-…

3/n
Read 9 tweets

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