Is a country's relationship to truth, the ultimate indicator of its success ?

[Majed]

When you see the worst countries to inhabit, like north Korea, or Afghanistan. It's clear they have a problem in their relationship to truth. In north Korea for instance there's all sorts of propaganda going on. As well as in Afghanistan, where they do not understand Islam to be a human construct. But rather they treat it as objective reality, which in turn they oppress women, and minorities like homosexuals. On the inverse secular democracies like the us, or northern and western Europe, tend to be rather good places to live, since there's a separation between church and state, information can flow easily... 

Even if we look historically, nazi Germany, or fascist Japan committed atrocities because they were so ego centered and narcissistic, they believed they were superior... 

The equation is simple: truth= lack of corruption = prosperity and success of a nation.

Edited yesterday at 12:51 PM by Majed

[No1Here2c]

Truth≠Survival

[No1Here2c]

Do not forget that The Third Reich reigned supreme in europe for a decent ~12 years. Ultimately, as all falsehood does, it came to a collapse. Though we recognize that oftentimes, corruption puts an ego ‐ individual or collective - at a survival advantage.

If you feel that modern America or Europe are free of corruption, you'd be gravely misunderstood. It is all still there, simply much better well hidden. Separation of church & state is like a single card of the house of them we've built. The trends come back around. Corruption is self seeking and self reinforcing.

[No1Here2c]

There will always be oppositional parties. If a Nation were free of corruption it would not survive. It would be torn apart by a pack of wolves.

Edited yesterday at 06:05 PM by No1Here2c

[No1Here2c]

If we lived in a perfect world of clarity and consciousness unimpeded by the devious works of survival's mastercraftsmanship, maybe then there would be plausibility to your theory.

It just isn't so simple.

[shenanigans]

Truth wins, but over the long run. You've just got to build up to it with stable infrastructure relating to and explaining things to where people are at, and ideally set up systems to maintain it over time, etc.

Although corruption is like water and will find a way to destroy the sandcastle eventually, no matter how much you work to manage its integrity, etc. 

However, the destruction of one system allows one to set a new precedent with a new system—there's a certain power in newness. It allows the opportunity for the heroes who have been waiting on the sidelines to steal the show and enact the policies that need creating, etc. This is the essence of a disaster leader, or how some people can only truly grow after hitting rock bottom, etc. Not in an accelerationist sense, but rather complete destruction breads the way for new creation. Death is half of how life gets done and is able to innovate on itself over generations.

Death is essential to Growth, etc.

Note: This is not an excuse for accelerationism. That shit's brain cancer. I'm just saying everythings good in moderation, including death and destruction, etc. 

Edited 4 hours ago by shenanigans

[Basman]

You need a certain amount of it, but you also need some flexibility relative to truth. Politicians make decisions that kill people all the time. Survival isn't a saintly affair.

[Willy Phallicus]

Success is determined by the amount of respect the population gets from the powers they put in place.

[Bjorn K Holmstrom]

Rather than "truth = success," I'd reframe it through the lens my series of country reports has built:

Observability (can the system perceive reality without the perception threatening its own stability?) is the precondition for adaptive capacity. Adaptive capacity (can the system reconfigure itself as conditions change?) is the mechanism of success. Success itself remains undefined until a system specifies what it's optimizing for, and the highest-order success is the capacity to redefine the optimization target as collective understanding evolves.