Quote from: FredericBastiat on August 29, 2011, 04:58:36 PM

I have no confusion about society. Society, used as an analogy, is just like a forest. A forest is comprised of trees just like society is comprised of people. Society is just an abstract term. I'm not confused about the role of society, if there even is such a thing. The "role" society "plays" is just a measure of the sum total of actions the individuals contribute to the whole. So what? I'm not a collectivist and never will be. I believe I have basic human rights, I don't believe in societal rights. I'm not beholden to society (other than non-aggression) to do anything for them. "Society" cannot, or more accurately should not, force me to do their bidding (I hope you weren't implying this).

Beg your pardon, but this is also pretty ridiculous. I work in the field of complexity and, believe me, there are many many situations where the whole is more than the sum of the parts. To say that society is just a sum of individuals is like saying a brain is just a sum of neurons, traffic is just a sum of vehicles, a DNA strand in a cell is just a sum of genotypes, an economy is just a sum of 'rational' traders, an ecology just a sum of species and so on. It ignores the sheer complexity of the interactions between the individual agents in the system. Interactions which are often very unpredictable and counter-intuitive.

Traffic is perhaps the easiest system to give a simple example. Obviously every driver in isolation will try to go as fast as possible - they will search to minimise their transit time. This does not translate well to the overall traffic system. When a person reduces their transit time, it generally increases the transit time for everyone else such that the overall flux is reduced. Benefit obtained is less than overall cost.

Similarly in, let's say, an ecology. You might think that killing the tigers would help the deer thrive. But then something else (e.g. leopards, whatever), no longer checked by the tiger, will step into the tigers' shoes and be even more effective at killing deer. And that's an example with just a couple of degrees of separation: tiger-deer-leopards, and it would be hard enough to predict. Imagine trying to predict an effect with 5 or 10 degrees of separation.

Society is a complete description of it's members. And the laws it makes are those rules by which the society, at some point, agreed it's members shall be bound. I remember there was a similar discussion some time ago, and I proposed the question: what if, in Libya, the interim government should propose a new constitution and set of laws, and this was greeted with cheering in the streets and general popular approval all over the country. Do you then think that the children, and grand children, of those expressing their approval now, should be bound by those laws even after 100 years or more? (bearing in mind that laws should and can be changed from time to time, in order to reflect changes in culture, technology etc). Even more importantly, do you think that those who do not approve of some or all of the new government's proposed constitution and legislation, should be bound by it anyway?

I didn't get a reply to that at the time...