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[Tack]

So I've been reading into political economy, and this one artist summarised it as: "More humans = more awful"

I guess anecdotal evidence co-incides what with crime rates in country towns being far lower, and trust levels in a community following that trend.

So given that currently most cities are pretty full of trash humans, what would be the maximum sustainable population in a community?

Or is it just the fewer people, the more a accountable each individual is?

[Helgoland]

Depends on what you call sustainable. Are you asking for the equilibrium point at which adding more people leads to as many more people being killed?

[Frumple]

... own anecdotal experience says that the less people there are, the less likely they are to turn to an outside group to deal with problems. Crime's never really seemed particularly out of whack between cities and small towns, t'me, it's just that things are significantly less likely to be publicized or pursued in the latter. Know for a fact any official numbers on rural/small town crime rates, at least insofar as actual convictions and arrests and whatnot go, are completely fucked, though. I'd probably guess half or less of shit that would see a cop in a city ever reaches one out in the boonies, never mind all the stuff that does but gets dropped or ignored or dealt with off the record. Rural areas are still damn full of "trash humans", they're just better at hiding it from outsiders.

[TD1]

Errrm.

Possibly. However, I would also say that obligations are different in cities and small towns. People know each other - School, Church, Clubs. Less likely to steal from someone you know, for example.

Also the case of anonymity. In a city if you're a thief that reflects badly on you. In the country, if you're a thief then everyone will soon know, including potential employers, regardless of whether you were convicted by police.

People don't change, but that many people together does tend to effect a person's sense of consequence...

[Frumple]

... you do know that familiarity of some degree actually increases the chance of quite a number of crimes, right? Not sure how much theft is among 'em, but "knowing each other" also makes it a lot more likely someone (either a direct relation or someone familiar with them) will know exactly where you're going to be and where your shit is.

Out here, you may be a thief and people may know it, but it's also damn likely you know someone that's willing to employ you if it comes down to that regardless, or at least someone that has enough clout with a workplace to get you in. Family, someone you've got blackmail on or illicit bonds with, etc., etc., etc. Reputation is one thing but corruption likes to run damn deep in these places. And among other things it's real damn easy to exploit the kinds of closeness that likes to build up in these shitholes to happily roll along having a good reputation with one set of folks while shitting on another, and playing off the blandishments of the latter as various sorts of lies and slander. Half the town might know you're scum but the other half'll know you're a saint and the first half is bugnuts for one reason or another. Crap like that is bloody common, and that lessened anonymity means any particular person is going to be a lot less likely to call another a liar to their face and, more importantly, treat them like one. So even if you know they're scum it's not terribly unlikely you're not going to act like it, just 'cause the effect that'll have on your reputation with folks besides said scum.

[TD1]

....Sorry, I couldn't follow that.

[Frumple]

Which part? As small town politickin' goes most of that was fairly straightforward

[sprinkled chariot]

What is some good book for getting like most basic basic basic understanding of what philosophy is.( in english)( also would be quite preferable, if it is possible to obtain without any money involved)

[TD1]

Frumple: Ah, get you now. My mind had a hiccup.

sc: philosophy is a veeeeery broad category..... I'd suggest some of the English writers, though, as they (in my experience) don't tend to garble what they're saying with needlessly complicated phrases. Unlike the German writers such as Kant, that is.

Personally I started with Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion," it was easy to read and had some interesting thoughts (especially on memes and the evolutionary nature of ideas) but philosophy is, as I said, a very large area. At the moment I'm reading up on the philosophy of science, for example, but then there's also more abstract thought.

[Frumple]

One of the better centralized, free, resources for philosophy.

[Helgoland]

If you go for a book that claims to explain basic philosophy, there's a good chance you'll end up with complete bullshit. If I were you I'd get a rough timetable of philosophical thought, Ancient Greece to maybe around 1970, and then start reading Wiki articles - they're very good a lot of the time, and pay a lot of attention to cross-referencing.

Three bits of advice:
- Restrict yourself to Western philosophy. Eastern philosophy may be all hip and mystical and exotic and shit, but trust me on this. 19th century German philosophy digested most of what they had to offer and put it into a Western context; Schopenhauer is especially notable in this regard.
- Don't get too hung up on Scepticism or Utilitarianism. They're both simple, appealing, and somewhat elegant ideas, but lots of people just stop there and refuse to think any further, thinking this is what philosophy is all about. It's not.
- Be careful about Nietzsche. He's easily misunderstood, misrepresented most of the time, and hard to spell.

E: Dwarfy, Kant has a very clear way of writing! You just have to keep in mind that he's writing in Latin, but using German words. His phrases aren't needlessly complicated, they're as simple as they can be for the level of precision that is intended. If you want an example of unintelligible rambling, go for Hegel.
EE: Also restricting yourself to English philosophers makes you prone to a certain... flatness. The analytical school was a reaction to the Hegelei of the German Idealists, and a completely necessary one, but there's great value to be found in other traditions.

[TD1]

What little I've done of Hegel was bad, true, though he seemed more bitchy than anything

As for Nietzsche being misunderstood, I agree. However, he's also not to be considered an absolute authority - whilst his ideas are innovative and often brilliant, he makes mistakes or bad judgements. Such as stating that all thought is confined to the limits of language, which is one I read recently.

Kant is not clear. I refuse to accept it. Lately I've been going over his political writings, which are clearer than others, but he still often clouds what he means almost deliberately.

Edit to accompany your edit: I don't suggest restricting yourself to English philosophy (the horror!), but I do think it's a good starting point for relatively easy to understand ideas and writing.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Re: Human population and harm, I think there's two big factors that change how things are. Firstly there's meta-stability. We know examples of both small communities that are almost entirely peaceful and ones that are caught up in almost constant conflict up to and including genocidal aspirations. So, what gives? I think in this context it's best to think of society as composing of social "bubbles" formed by the empathetic connections between people ala Dunbar's number. If properly mixed around you can functionally go much higher than the individual's 150 limit through friends of friends. If this is the case you're unlikely to see conflict because anything you do will directly harm at the least someone who is cared about by someone you care about. That also makes it harder to get away with, because you will always have an indirect witness to your crimes in the form of the intermediary person who knows about your life well enough to put two and two together.

The other version happens when you have few connections between groups, that is a metastable arrangements of the bubbles that just causes them to become larger bubbles themselves. Bam, you've invented tribalism, rape and murder are now rampant and have dehumanized targets.

The second factor is social ideology. Obviously we don't see the above kind of thing in say, cities, and while cities tend to have crime the severity widely varies. Instead of empathetic connections this is maintained through intellectual ones. The precepts and incentives of society hold everyone with only a few paths to go down, and violating them leads to the whole Hobbesian certainty of punishment. Since these are inherently universal if they need to be and not restricted by the 150 of empathetic connections, that's how the billions of us mostly manage to not all murder each other.

[Helgoland]

Edit to accompany your edit: I don't suggest restricting yourself to English philosophy (the horror!), but I do think it's a good starting point for relatively easy to understand ideas and writing.

That I can fully agree with. Your bit on Nietzsche, too: One has to be careful with the chap in all sorts of manners. On Kant, however, I shall have to thrown down the gauntlet:

Kant is not clear. I refuse to accept it. Lately I've been going over his political writings, which are clearer than others, but he still often clouds what he means almost deliberately.

I propose we settle this question like men of honour: With a Kant-off to the second blood, at dawn tomorrow. The choice of passages is, of course, up to you, but I guarantee I shall be able to show that he wastes neither his breath nor his reader's time.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

On philosophy, I have only this. If you want to suffer, read Paul Virilio. Literally old man yelling at clouds the man: the book: the movie.