On Hierarchy

While reading a textbook on computer networking for work, I came across an interesting observation that encapsulates the intersection between science, mathematics and social organization. Specifically, it connects the way Internet data flow is structured with the way human society is itself constructed.

The scaling problem is largely solved by a hierarchical organization of the routing infrastructure...It is interesting to note that this principle has been applied throughout the ages to many other disciplines besides computer networking, including corporate, government, religious, and military organizations.

Source: Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach Featuring the Internet

What makes this intriguing is that it gives us a model for why hierarchy, and by extension much of the issues of oppression, power dynamics, etc, is fundamental to all large organizations. Social levels are necessary in order for the mind to group individuals, enact government, for otherwise we would have no way to deal with the incredible size of our increasingly global culture today. This is also why communism failed and will continue to fail outside of small societies founded on a common belief/religion - because where there is a large number of social creatures, there will be the scaling problem, the need for directed communication (much in the way autonomous systems are composed on the Internet), and with that a hierarchy which brings out the age old struggles of man.

Furthermore, studies have shown that empathy drops with increasing size of the population afflicted, a seemingly paradoxical phenomenon until you consider how much easier it is to identify with the single lost child (consider all the coverage of these types of stories on CNN) than the abstract numbers of troop deaths in Iraq, or victims of genocide in Darfur. It is a conflict between our "gut" experiential system versus the analytic, coupled with Weber's Law, the logarithmic decrease of sensory perceptions of change in even such simple cases as light and sound.

It is interesting to ponder whether this solution of hierarchy to our problem of scale constitutes an objective necessity, independent of those individuals involved - or whether it is simply the result of the limitations of the human mind.