The Culture: Accept That They Will Never Just

Since I linked to it yesterday, here's Devon Eriksen's epic post about "They Will Not Just".

"I have a plan for GoodThing!"

"Great, let's hear it."

"First of all, everybody has to just —"

"Okay, pump the brakes, there, smart guy. How do you plan to get people to just?"

"Well, they should just —"

"Perhaps, but how are you going to get them to just?"

"They should!"… https://t.co/Blol3PKkRj

— Devon Eriksen (@Devon_Eriksen_) May 5, 2025

That post continues:

"They will not. They will not just. Never in the history of humanity have they just. They did not just in antiquity, they did not just in the Bronze Age or in the Iron Age.

"The Egyptians did not just, the Hittites did not just, Romans did not just, nor did the Chinese. The Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Huns were united solely in that they did not just.

"Europe did not just in the Dark Ages. The Mongols did not just, nor did the Bulgars or the Cossacks or the Turks.

"The Muslims have never just. The Plantagenets did not just, or the Tudors. Nor did the Royal House of WIndsor. The Spanish did not just in the New World, or the Dutch, or the English, and the natives did not just, either.

"Thomas Paine did not just, and no one just on Punkatasset Hill, nor did they just at Miriam's Corner.

"Napolean did not just at Austerlitz and Wellington did not just at Waterloo. And the Tsars have never just.

"The South did not just, before or after the Civil War, and the North did not just, either.

"South America has never just at any point in its history, nor has Africa in its lack thereof.

"The Memsheviks and the Bolsheviks and the Marxist-Leninists and the Stalinists and the Maoists and the practitioners of People's Glorious Revolutionary Juche Idea said they would just, but they never did. Pol Pot did not just when he was executing people for wearing glasses or not having a husband, and Sendero Luminoso never just because they were too busy boiling children alive.

"Otto von Bismarck and the Second Reich did not just, the Third Reich did not just, either, and after that, the Jews certainly weren't going to just, not that they ever did.

"Some Americans wanted to just, but they didn't, because they couldn't, because only a few of them wanted to, and so even the ones who wanted to had to stop.

"The Chinese will not just, the Russians will not just, the Americans will not just, the Martian colonists and Belters of the 22nd century will not just, either.

"Genetically engineered post-humans will not just, Artificial Intelligences will not just, and the Ascended Hive Consciousness of Conjoined Minds at the center of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud will not just, no matter how much they manipulate time and space the way we shape plastic and steel.

"No one will just, perhaps ever again.

"Why? Because it is suicidal to just unless everyone just, and they will not. Don't you get it?"

"Well, I can see you want, because you are a —"

"No you can't see what I want! We are not discussing what I want! I want Helen of Troy to return from antiquity in all of her radiant and legendary beauty, and give me a foot massage! I want Jesus, Moses, Mohammad, Siddhartha Gautama, and Elvis Presley to visit Los Angeles in a flying pink Cadillac and announce to the world once and for all if god is real, and if so, which one, and what he, she, or it wants from us.

"It does not matter what I want! I am not the God Emperor of Mankind, with teeming billions of soul desperately eager to hear my slightest whim so they can work to make it real!

"It does not matter if I am a, because we are not talking about what I want. I am telling you FACTS. This is what will and will not happen, regardless of whether or not everyone should, or whether or not I am a, or whether or not it would nice if the moon was made of cheese!

"Don't you get it? If you want people to just, you need a plan to incentivize them to just, and it has to be something that has NEVER, NOT ONCE, in the history of the world, ever been tried before, because every single thing anyone has ever tried in order to get people to just has failed!

"So what do you have? What is your brilliant scheme, how are you going to get everyone in the world, everywhere, every single living thing to agree to simultaneously just?"

"I'm going to write a comment. Telling them they should. On Twitter."

"Oh, will you? How nice."

"It's going to be three whole sentences."

Incentives matter.

You are a fucking retard if you design any system where the results you desire are not incentivized. You must use both the Carrot and the Stick, in both obvious and subtle ways, to get what you want out of others.

This is what Game Design is about. This is what Coding is about. This is what Lawmaking is about: What uses of Carrot and Stick will most reliably get the results that I want out of the users?

And you're going to find out that you've got hard limits to what you can do to make that happen.