# How bad systems decline

The only cure to avoid bad systems starting is a [completely free market](economics.md) combined with *tons* of focused [public attention](stories-storytellers.md) on those systems. By permitting the public to freely [decide](people-decisions.md), every organization must devote *all* their [effort](purpose.md) to improving the group's [quality](values-quality.md) or [image](image.md) to stay competitive. Without that external pressure, the organizations will instead [redirect](purpose.md) their [effort](results.md) to funneling and consolidating [power](power.md) upward.

At a certain point, though, a bad system will eventually emerge if they can amass enough alliances with other organizations, especially through pervasive [media](stories-storytellers.md) presence that [redirects the truth](image-distortion.md).

APPLICATION: The greatness of a nation is its own [trend](trends.md), but eventually they try to make everyone around them adopt that trend. When that happens, they [imagine](imagination.md) they're migrating their [culture](people-culture.md) across a vast domain, but they're also importing the cultures they're trying to influence at the same time. The byproduct of this is that the [quality](values-quality.md) that made them great becomes inferior relative to what it once was. Eventually, the entire culture becomes such a bad system that another culture will adopt the best parts and supersede it.

Several situations can, however, prolong or enhance a monopoly's presence:

1. A government can legally establish a monopoly for itself (i.e., make it illegal for private businesses to sell something).
2. A government can authorize only specific organizations to perform an activity (e.g., [patents](legal-ip.md), permits).
3. An organization funnels its control from a relatively unrelated domain to gain power in an otherwise under-served marketplace.
4. An organization can grow large enough where they can act beyond the scope of any government's control (e.g., multinational corporation, flouting government [rules](people-rules.md) while [politicizing](stories-storytellers.md) that they're "too big to fail").
5. Sometimes, they can get public opinion on their side through groups they privately control that advance their agenda (e.g., conveying an [image](image.md) that a group must be "free of political influence" to stop the big system).

The only solution to fixing a bad system from the inside is revolutionary [change](people-changes.md) on every level:

- Against [human nature](humanity-universals.md), the system dramatically sheds a huge chunk of its [power](power.md), giving it more control over its smaller remaining base.
- New management that throws out [convention](habits.md) and large portions of the organization's established [culture](people-culture.md). They'll introduce a new culture by promoting a few [easily distinguishable](understanding.md) and [influential](influence.md) [values](values.md).
- Massive reorganization of members and roles, with a significant portion of the group getting promoted or removed from the group.
- Adoption of a key [trend](trends.md) or [idea](values.md) that gives everyone more [reason](purpose.md) to be legitimately [virtuous](morality.md). This, however, can backfire if it's only [feigned](image-distortion.md) virtue (e.g., [leftism](politics-leftism.md)).
- Complete destruction of the group, often by removing the massive central authority and dividing the group into smaller components.

APPLICATION: All systems become bad eventually, at some point. They must then be rebuilt through a change in leadership or will be replaced by another system. Thus, all systems run through a relatively predictable [cycle](trends.md):

1. Establish themselves as a new [trend](trends.md).
2. Members question their leaders' [wisdom](understanding.md).
3. The leaders start abusing the group's [power](power.md) to maintain control.
4. [Strong](power.md) leaders are appointed more than [wise](understanding.md) or [good](morality.md) leaders.
5. The group becomes a bad system, ready for restructuring or another system to take its [power](power.md) away.

People don't typically like [change](people-changes.md), so the only way to make *all* the necessary changes is when the system is already disrupting everyone's [habits](habits.md). A crisis is the best trigger for this, but a [manufactured crisis](image-distortion.md) can [work just as well](results.md) if [people will buy it](influence.md).

APPLICATION: In a large organization that's become a bad system, *all* the leadership is partially responsible, as well as all the individual participants who contributed to their power. It's difficult to tell how much for each, though, since most committee-based leadership [decisions](people-decisions.md) are opaque, and they'll each blame everyone and everything but themselves. The only solution to reliably tell is to remove the leaders, one by one, put them in another situation, then closely watch the [changes](people-changes.md) to both the system they were removed from and the system they were placed in.

The more likely scenario, though, for most bad systems, is decay through tribalism:

1. Within a [group](groups-large.md), the [selection](people-decisions.md) for members' [promotions](power-types.md) will be defined [intuitively](mind-feelings.md) by aptitude, at least at first.
2. Eventually, the leadership will introduce a [bias](mind-bias.md), often presented as enforcing [fairness](morality-justice.md). This bias (often [leftism](politics-leftism.md), but doesn't have to be) will over-emphasize a people group, typically racial or ethnic, and will naturally pick a "losing" subgroup.
3. The individuals, in individually-defined acts of self-preservation, will [identify](identity.md) (at least publicly) as anything *but* the scapegoat group.
4. The group's and leadership's judgments will slowly base on secondary characteristics to aptitude, which may include racial or ethnic domains, or may branch into another division (e.g., [ideology](values.md)).
5. By the time any of the above expresses explicitly, the group is mostly beyond restoration, and its success will follow its most effective factions.

Ironically, the [middle-class](classes.md) people in a group become that organization's hope. The upper-class are too concerned with [power](power.md) (and will do whatever it takes to get more of it) and the lower-class are too concerned with [survival](mind-feelings-fear.md) (and will take short-term [promises](people-contracts.md) without considering their viability or long-term benefit). In particular, the lower-class opinion will become "tyranny of the majority".

Of course, this will often be met by [dramatic conflict](people-conflicts-war.md) from members who had more power, as well as risks from outside groups who may [influence](influence.md) the new leadership. However, they won't have the means to build the skills necessary for a critical [trend](trends.md) that comes from [what they can't know](unknown.md). For that reason, every large group leader always persists only for a season, even when they can extend it with many more [rules](people-rules.md) and [restrictions](rules-methods.md).

Fixing a bad system is unlikely, and the better solution is to tear it down and start again entirely. Generally, they can only be defeated by implosion through their incompetence (and thereby motivating people to do *anything* else) or through defeat by something [stronger](power.md) than it. In the event of an attack, they'll [fight](people-conflicts-war.md) desperately to maintain their [power](power.md), so the implosion from inside is preferable for everyone else.

The destruction of a bad system is very near when more effort is spent on things that don't add value to the organization's [purpose](purpose.md), and there is a public image that that is the case.

## Trended destruction

On the way down, every bad system will at least partially destroy its [legacy](legacy.md) through corruption.

A bad system can become permanently hampered, which opens the path for other groups to intervene:

- Unionized workers who require higher pay but with no incentive to work harder (since unions are based strictly on length of time existing in the [group](groups-member.md)).
- Government [laws](people-rules.md) that prohibit expansion into new related territories (e.g., AT&T's lack of expansion permitted [computers](computers.md) to exist separately from AT&T).
- People who die using their service or product, or die while trying to publicize the organization's failings. If the deaths are [advertised](stories-storytellers.md) severely enough (which means the system didn't bribe media outlets enough), the organization can incur a [long-term mark](image.md) on its reputation. This can be extra effective if the story is [interesting or symbolic](symbols.md).

There's no easy way to replace a bad system, either:

1. Present, chronic issues use specific resources that bad systems capitalize on. The only way to resolve the problem requires [creative](mind-creativity.md), new solutions with resources that aren't technically [useful](purpose.md) yet.
2. In civilized society, people are typically [habituated](habits.md) to the present system by the time they're aware it needs fixing. The entire culture around a specific [purpose](purpose.md) often becomes a toxic, [incompetent](purpose.md), or [evil](morality-evil.md) [culture](people-culture.md).
3. Frequently, [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) of the [unknown](unknown.md) keeps people tethered to a bad system, a bit like an abusive [family](people-family.md) relationship.

A bad system will often be replaced by a much more efficient, newer system that doesn't have quite as much [bureaucracy](bureaucracy.md) or [corruption](morality-evil.md). However, the [personalities](personality.md) of *that* system's leaders may be more ruthless or extreme.

One of the most significant ways a bad system loses public favor is when they *completely* fail the [trust](understanding-certainty.md) of the public who had placed faith in them:

- Violate private individuals' [rights](people-boundaries.md), usually in a way that people die. This gets worse if they try to bury or destroy the evidence of their actions, and can be *much* worse if it's a new [technology](technology.md) (since it'll magnify everyone's [fears](mind-feelings-fear.md) of the [unknown](unknown.md)).
- Suffer a [logistical](logistics.md) failure that creates a supply chain disruption, often in a way that people are permanently injured or die.
- Create something and [advertise](marketing.md) it as a dramatic new [trend](trends.md), but it's [poorly designed](results.md) to make them the object of [ridicule](humor.md) or the trend is absolutely [taboo](morality-taboo.md).

In fact, most large-scale bad systems are an existing optimization of a *previous* bad system (e.g., more efficient, affordable, economical, [fair](morality-justice.md), et al.). However, this came at the expense of sacrificing very intimate [human needs](humanity.md) in the process. The [deals](people-contracts.md) were more ruthless, everyone became more [specialized](jobs-specialization.md), collectively more [powerful](power.md), systems became more [standardized](mgmt-1_why.md), and each person became less individually [important](meaning.md) compared to the [organization](groups-large.md).

However, between stopping the old system and starting the new one, even *basic* tasks can be spectacularly troublesome for a short time.

Depending on their [scope of power](politics-monopolies.md), both governments and corporations have differing competitive elements that could erode a bad system's [influence](influence.md):

- A gigantic corporation can be subdued or divided on the outside by a government, often by labeling them as a "common carrier" and requiring they stay autonomously separate.
- In the absence of government intervention, a corporation must be starved by *another* corporation that serves [members'](groups-member.md) interests better.
- A government or political party can only be stopped by another government/party with more [power](power.md) or in another country, assuming they haven't oppressed the people enough to make them [revolt](people-conflicts-war.md) or break the [rules](people-rules.md).
- Any terrible government or corporation, however, will fall apart quickly if the public finds a reliable way to live without it, though governments may overstep their power to keep their control.

APPLICATION: If anyone deems an organization as "too big to fail", the more accurate description is "so big it'll inevitably fail".

Generally, large private organizations fall apart through public resentment that fosters a [trend](trends.md) that empowers the [risk-averse](safety.md) people in power to act (who tends to work within a government). Then, the void created by that government entity gives enough power for [risk-taking](socialrisk.md) private individuals to fill that void.

Government divisions of corporations never work well, though. The barriers to growing larger tend to create [corporatocracy](politics-systems.md) in that domain, and [legal definitions](people-rules.md) can be massaged over time by many [lawyers](legal-safety.md) to permit subversive tactics.

Often, our [human nature](humanity-universals.md) makes *every* system bad in some way, so it's not always wise to trust the enemy of an enemy.

APPLICATION: Don't trust an organization as "bad" or "good" simply by their size. Sometimes, smear campaigns come from people who are bitter at their opponents' success. The only way to discover [the truth](reality.md) is to judge between the opposing viewpoints.

APPLICATION: A political revolution is often a bad system, especially when run by [extremist groups](politics-leftism.md). This is because most [political systems](politics-conservativeliberal.md) are bad systems. They tend to blame the opposition more than [getting things done](results.md), and this will likely never change.

Bad systems will always decay until they're brought down or rebuilt into something else through the inevitable deterioration and rebalancing of [trust](trust.md) by its members. However, people are happy to permit a slightly [evil](morality-evil.md) leader if that leader still serves the individuals' self-interests, and long-term leadership will create enough [precedent](habits.md) that everyone will feel [safe](safety.md) with the existing order, even if the leadership starts killing people.

APPLICATION: Every large, bad system will eventually collapse. They will be replaced by another one of comparable [effectiveness](purpose.md). We must find [meaning](meaning.md) despite these perpetual, looming [threats](safety.md), which may or may not include directly confronting those systems, and might occasionally mean risking [dying](legacy.md) from it.

Over time, if a bad system is left unmaintained, but stays connected to the social [networks](https://gainedin.site/networks/) around it, the traits of that bad system will represent onto the larger system. Over time, *that* entity will become a more disturbing reproduction of the first one.

APPLICATION: We don't like oppressive dictators, but there are *always* worse alternatives. Consider who's dethroning someone from [power](power.md) before endorsing it, especially with extreme groups like [hard leftism](politics-leftism.md).

## The solution

One of the most powerful forms of destroying a bad system comes through mandatory transparency. It's impossible for bad systems to present the openness that more effective organizations could provide. If enough competing entities give that openness, the older systems will be required to divulge more information, which makes corruption harder to perform.

Transparency is technically impossible to completely attain, since some information must be private to avoid harming [reputation](image.md). However, transparency is an absolute concept in comparison with other entities' openness of information. There are many [creative](mind-creativity.md) ways to state the blatant truth without using names.

APPLICATION: Society will never work its issues out without massive, [large-scale transformation](politics-perfectsociety.md) of human [purpose](purpose.md) and [motivation](humanity.md). We'll always have a "deep state" inside every [large system](groups-large.md) waiting to abuse their [power](power.md) until another system of a new generation [takes its place](trends.md).

It takes years to develop a [cultural](people-culture.md) expectation of transparency, but it guarantees *all* future systems will be better for it.

APPLICATION: There is one certain way to destroy a bad system, or at least injure it:

1. [Sell](marketing.md) your product as a superior [quality](values-quality.md), and make sure it really is (likely through a superior [technology](technology.md)).
2. Engage in *complete* information transparency and [advertise](stories-storytellers.md) that fact as well, including of that technology.
3. Others will imitate and steal ideas, but the horde of improved products with extra transparency will make that bad system irrelevant by comparison.
4. You won't get a reputation for it among the public, but will amass tremendous power through the [influence](influence.md) with the people who took your ideas, which you can summon later from their gratitude.