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A comment on U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation. Parent comment

Re:U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native Americ... by dredmorbius on Thursday July 09, 2020 @04:03PM (#23784476)
A conclusion I'm leaning toward is that any sufficiently large and complex political system evolves to a focus on veto as the principle means of power. The etymology, direct from Latin, for "I forbid", is insightful.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/veto

This even appears in technical projects, e.g., Linus Torvalds, who's for years been the Linux kernal's "no" man:

[I]n the end, my job is to say no. Somebody has to be able to say no to people.

https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/07/03/2133201/linus-torv...

Smaller, simpler systems, with greater levels of trust, or greater inequalities of power, seem to avoid this. Large ones, not.

I'm sure there's some discussion of this in political theory, though I'm unaware of it. Listing out a typology of other loci of power would also be interesting.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native Americ... by 082349872349872 on Friday July 10, 2020 @06:10AM (#23789879)
Interesting ... a "focus on veto" would give a more nuanced role to the permanent members of the UN Security Council than just "those who hold the nuclear umbrellas."
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native Americ... by dredmorbius on Sunday July 12, 2020 @01:23AM (#23809066)
Poking around, UN veto does seem to feature strongly in the literature.
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