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danielmarkbruce • yesterday at 6:07 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

You could make this statement about any group at all. And then once you realize people are in multiple groups, the whole thing devolves into chaos.

Replies

godelski • yesterday at 6:22 PM

  > You could make this statement about any group at all.
Yes, that's the point

  > And then once you realize people are in multiple groups, the whole thing devolves into chaos.
You have bad priors. That would only happen if groups could only have singular and simple goals. It requires those goals to be mutually exclusive. Because as soon as they overlap, even just a little, cooperation becomes an effective strategy.

Hell, history shows us enemies often cooperate. Mostly to defeat a mutual enemy, so they can go back to fighting each other, but that's still cooperation

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iamnothere • yesterday at 6:19 PM

To a degree, yes, it’s why looking at people on the level of groups is not that useful for predicting individual behavior and beliefs, only aggregate behavior and beliefs.

However, some groups do have identifiable leadership, rules, membership rosters, etc. Political parties for instance, or governmental bodies. Decisions from groups like this often have an identifiable lineage (from proposal to vote) and are considered binding. This contrasts with the sort of emergent decisions I was discussing in the context of the very wealthy. There was no vote, there was no formal coordination, and the “decision” is not binding, yet everyone can see its effects. Opposing something like this is like boxing with a shadow.