Population has an inverse relationship with general well-being. You can actually see a simple example of that...on any internet forum. As the number of subscribers goes up, the overall quality of the posts goes down. When there are few subscribers, it's easy to keep tabs on everyone. The shit posters can be and are easily recognized and singled out. As individuals, they can't overcome the disapproval of the rest of the community. They can keep plugging away, being shit posters, but it's neither pleasant nor simple, so it's rare for them to stay around. As the population grows, the number of shit posters increases alongside every other demographic. It reaches the point that they can establish a subculture of shit posters - that there are enough of them that they can join forces and affirm each other, and thereby ride out the disapproval of the rest of the sub. At that point, lots of things change rapidly. The more marginal shit posters no longer feel a need to restrain themselves since the standards demanded by the community are being driven downward, more shit posters move in more rapidly since they already have a community to join, and many of the better posters move out, unwilling to put up with the shit any more. Things very rapidly go from bad to worse, and you end up with r/anarcho_capitalism. The only solution is to have so few shit posters in the first place that even when the population grows, the number of shit posters doesn't reach that critical mass at which it becomes self-sustaining. Or, in broader terms, the solution is to have a better overall set of humans. And it's not for nothing that I regularly stress that anarchism demands exactly that - that humanity in general is going to have to advance philosophically, intellectually and psychologically before widespread anarchism will even be a possibility.
BobCrosswise
