How the success of any organization causes corruption and ignorance

[Kriminal99]

Here organization means an entity that persists across across multiple generations of people, such that the ideas that have been impressed upon the earlier generations can lack meaning to later generations. This includes corporations, countries, small groups or clubs etc.

 

In the beginning, any new (not a copy of a well established organization) organization faces difficulty. These difficulties require rational minded approaches to solve, and the entire organization structures itself around the type of rational minded thinking that can solve such problems. This stucturing is very detailed and spans the entire operation of the organization. When children observe these difficulties affecting adults, their minds can become structured in a similar manner. That is, they are trained to automatically think in a way that is fundamentally geared towards understanding and solving real world problems instead of in a way that is fundamentally geared towards communicating with and gaining acceptance from others. Arguments that are likely to fail to solve real world problems are easily recognized by these people. Thinking that is likely to lead to solutions is automatic to these people. These young minds then grow up and use their intelligence and knowledge to solve the problems that caused the difficulties they witnessed from a young age.

 

Then, inevitably, the organization faces some degree of success. And with this it seems, comes a downward spiral toward corruption, ignorance and ultimately failure.

 

With a degree of success comes a degree of comfort, which begets a desire for more comfort. This desire for comfort is of the shortsighted sort however, and the details of the structuring that allowed for better solving of real world problems are questioned. Even worse, the influx of rational minds is replaced by an influx of minds who look only to others for support and understanding. Eventually it becomes less of an issue of people questioning the need for the structuring, and more of an issue of not understanding it at all.

 

Those seeking comfort think themselves pioneers of knowledge as they tear down the delicately designed structuring that allowed for the success of the organization in the first place. Rational arguments between members of the organization are replaced with buzzwords and catch phrases. The ability to entertain is seen as a more important skill than the ability to understand. Those people experiencing the first and the worst of the difficulties caused by such a movement towards corruptiton and ignorance are cast aside by the rest for the intolerability of their rational mindedness.

 

As the comfort seekers use arguments of the sort (and can recognize no other kind) which could just as easily support one side of a claim as the other, only existing social structure is deemed worthy of determining who should be listened to. Those presenting truth out of turn are deemed arrogant more and more, as the open minded sort are outnumbered by those who feel empowered by the apparent successes and encouragement of their ignorant behaviors.

 

Until finally the world can tolerate such an organization no longer, and it collapses, making way for the next group of rational minded problem solvers.

 

To give an example of such an organization, imagine a start up company and the measures it must take in order to succeed. The unproven "leaders" are afforded no special credit apart from any clever ideas they can provide. Every member of the organization must be considered a valuable resource in terms of problem solving. In order to encourage full employee investment into the company and that ideas can be channeled from any pereson straight to the top, there may be a "open door" policy such that mistreating your subordinates is just as likely to get you fired as mistreating your boss.

 

Upon the success of the company, such a policy might come into question because it appears to "undermine the authority" of a supervisor - as if such an authority existed apart from the abililty of that supervisor to solve and motivate the solving of real world problems.

[Buffy]

So dish: what *did* your stupid boss do to you?

 

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution, :Exclamati

Buffy

[Moontanman]

Well IMO both politics and religion are current proofs of your premise.

[Kriminal99]

So dish: what *did* your stupid boss do to you?

 

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution, :)

Buffy

 

Laff, I don't have a boss I have lots of money instead. Furthermore I have demonstrated that whenever I need more I can simply use to my unique understanding of probability theory to get it in the stock market...

[Moontanman]

Laff, I don't have a boss I have lots of money instead. Furthermore I have demonstrated that whenever I need more I can simply use to my unique understanding of probability theory to get it in the stock market...

 

Well, it's heartening to know some one has plenty of money. I'm sure your unique understanding has contributed to your success. From the recent events on Wall Street it's easy to see we need as many like you as we can get.

[questor]

Here is my take on this subject. After the business gets underway and becomes prosperous, the principals have more time for contemplation. What do they think about? How to ''game'' the system to make more money or gain more power. You can see this happening in many endeavors. For instance, take ENRON, some members of the US government, the participants in the sub-prime debacle, many stock analysts, and some unions. They form a ''good ole' boy''incestuous network to protect each other while they line their pockets. I don't think this has anything to do with a specific business or organization. It happens in all organizations because of the greed of the paticipants.

[questor]

Kriminal, How do you use probability theory in the stock market? Do you trade options?