scratching at .8, just hopin'
The topic was "Leadership: Nature, Nurture, or Both?" It diverged for a while into what could be boiled down to "Human Hierarchies: Nature, Nurture, or Both?"
The latter sort of pivoting around the impact of altruism on political structures. The case has been made well enough by W.D.Hamilton, Richard Dawkins, et al. that humans are predisposed to be altruistic, at least to a degree. Systems which do not account for this impulse are just as incorrectly formed, I think, as systems which are over-reliant on altruism.
What would be cool is if you could be certain of a person's predisposition to altruism, then train them up to be rational about it — I mean to be good and evenhanded about altruism. That would be a good "monarch."
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Lost in Space
It would also help if you had some sort of external, preferably supernatural, Morality Chain that could tangibly and reliably indicate the fitness of the ruler. Unfortunately, we don't have Companions in real life.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Nope. A) We obviously need technology to survive now, everyone going hunter-gather wouldn't work and B) If we use technology appropriately, we can solve a lot of our problems. But that requires social change and won't happen automatically.
Also, I personally don't see leadership and hierarchy as equivalent. Search "leadership styles".
I vowed, and so did you: Beyond this wall- we would make it through.
V
@ Fighteer: I was thinking, perhaps the Sybil System?
Keep Rolling On
Lost in Space
On first impression, reading only the description, that sounds a bit too dystopian for my tastes. Not that I haven't, from time to time, thought that some form of personality detector wouldn't make a great way to screen candidates for public office, but I have never managed to figure out a system for doing so that could be trusted.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
V
More than that: the Sybil system selects what career someone* can take, based on their abilities, and indeed does act as a Culture Police — for example, bands have to be licensed and make suitable music. And of course, compulsory therapy if anything goes wrong. If not, in come the Enforcers*.
edited 22nd Jan '13 2:40:38 PM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
Lost in Space
It strikes me as the first half of An Aesop about eliminating difficult choices. Take away the need to make moral decisions, and people will gradually lose the capacity to make them.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Unchanging Avatar.
The Sybil system seems cartoonishly bad...
Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.
Can you still have a parliament and be called an absolute monarchy?
France had parlements during even Louis IV's reign. Granted, they certainly did not have the teeth (or powers) of their British cousin, but they were a thing even to the end of the French monarchy.
It behoves a monarch, even an absolute one, to allow those they govern a talking shop or shops. Even if they don't come to anything much. At the very least, they can act as barometers and pressure valves — even if you only throw the odd scrap their way for appearance's sake only.
At worst, of course, the damn things turn into Westminster and claw real power from you over time. 
Magna Carta: don't underestimate the impact of that.
When you think about it, Norman and Frankish law bit off more than it could chew when it looked over the Channel at Anglo-Saxon and Celtic modes of administration and started drooling. It took centuries to become obvious, though.
edited 3rd Jan '15 7:13:36 AM by Euodiachloris
Jupiterian Local
Oh hi there, necrobump.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
I never said mainstream. I said strong. Strong isn't necessarily mainstream.