Ending Moloch

Epistemic status: this is not as developed as its title calls for.

Moloch is the tendency for competitors to sacrifice delicate values so they can compete more effectively. It's a drift of uncoordinated beings. Competition naturally escalates to the point where there is nothing but Dominance.

Can there ever be an end to Moloch? An easy way would be through a one-world government. But these are dangerous because they can become totalitarian, and then also throw away delicate values.

Is there some way to tame international competition while putting up roadblocks to totalitarianism?

Maybe through "friendship". The US and Mexico are friendly nations. They don't want to go to war with each other. So they don't. As long as that prevails, they don't have to compete. Instead, they can cooperate. (Maybe I have an overly rosy view of the US and Mexico in this post, but I think it's at least directionally true.) They don't have to be one government, because they can work together while being separate political entities.

It would be easy for the governments of the US and Mexico to work together to benefit the people of either or both nations. But it would be hard (ideally) for the US to do anything to affect who was in charge in Mexico, and vice versa. But importantly, the US generally wouldn't even want to interfere with Mexican government. Just like, if you are good friends with someone, you don't want to interfere with their self-trust, agency (ability to secure their decision-making ability), or that they govern themselves. You trust them, and are trustworthy to them, and vice versa.

Maybe two countries can only be friends under certain circumstances. Then, we should try to have those circumstances obtain. If a friend gets addicted to a powerful drug, maybe in some ways I can't trust them like I used to. Maybe there is an analogue with countries. How do we prevent addictions, or treat them (and the equivalents internationally)?

Governments already have too much on their hands to do some of the really important work. Governments are also the wielders of coercion and threats. They have blood on their hands. But the "regular people" of a country can take the initiative to engage in cultural exchanges, not only with "rival" countries, but within their borders, across class divides. The elites who run the country may still be accessible to people within the country, and even people in other countries. If the elites find the "rival" elites trustworthy, then "friendship" may ensue.

The process of cultural exchange will be very difficult sometimes. When people don't want to listen, they resist hearing, and the really interesting work is to talk to the people who don't want to listen, so that they may listen. Perhaps what I have in mind is a cross between Jesus (in a humanly-repeatable sense -- an altruist with the personality of Jesus, who had to die for his altruism) and some of the sensibility or methods of Buber.

We have protests, where the people wield their own coercion and threats, but the comparative advantage of the people ("regular people") is their relative weakness, naivety, and freedom from agendas, strategies, etc. (It's easier to trust a weak, naive, agendaless, strategy-less person, and easier for such people to dare to seek reconciliation between established warring camps.)

Some people are partway between "regular people" and "elites" and can enter into elite circles, while still being in some sense virtuously weak, naive, and agenda-free. Other "regular people" can lay groundwork of friendship between them and the "regular people" of other countries. Elites may absorb values from "regular people" sometimes, and may wish to stay on the good side of their own "regular people" for both real human reasons (a friendship of its own) or for strategic-political reasons (fear of the people).

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(The division between coercive-threat-wielding government and weak, naive, agenda-free people connects to how I would handle the liberalism / post-liberalism question. There should be many checks and balances and liberties imposed on and exacted from coercive-threatening governments of all sorts, preserving liberalism in that sphere, while the people counteract the corrosive cultural effects of liberalism in the world of the social order and voluntary behavior. All it takes is for it to become an indigenized and decentralized value for regular people to promote religion, develop non-violent national identities (and "friendship" alongside them), fill in the relational gaps that the government can't fill with welfare (and perhaps replace government welfare or prevent people from needing to apply for it). So, maybe for short: "top-level liberalism, bottom-up post-liberalism".)

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Once all the countries are friendly, they can relax their drive to compete, and Moloch is ended. Or, it can be, and if friendliness then sufficiently pervades all levels of society, there may be no more threatening competition left, and no one needs to sacrifice anything because of that threat.

But this state of friendliness could be threatened by people who don't believe in it, individuals taking power over nations and organizations. To some extent, we can filter out people like that already, but to some extent, we can't. We would need better ways to keep those people out of power, to keep Moloch from restarting, and that mechanism itself would have to not be abusive. So, this idea is not complete.