This is probably too much of a tangent on which to take this discussion, but the fact that big entities are a tool for evil might give rise to the further question: so why are there invariably people in big institutions who will try to use them as such tools? I would suspect that it such people exist in all institutions, almost regardless of size, but that there will simply be more of them in a bigger institution, and that they are more likely to be able to hide their wrongdoing from the sight of those who would promote a more idealistic mission (or else that they gain sufficient control of the culture that they have no need to hide).

You're right... this is a tangent, and I've been debating whether or not to respond for that reason. That said, a couple thoughts.

First: you focused on the 'evil' part of my statement at the exclusion of the 'good'. Is this intentional? I don't think it's possible to have a reasonable discussion if you exclude half of the 'domain'.

I don't really think that people within large corporations have a higher likelihood of intent to do evil than people within small corporations. However, given that a larger entity is a more effective way to effect change, I do think that both evil-doers and good-doers can be more evident in large organizations. There's also more of a network effect, etc. An evil-doer in a large corporation is more likely to have a spectacular impact and in a small. (ie: the collapse of Enron vs the collapse of the local propane shop.)

Coming back around to the good, I also think that modern civilization owes its continued existence to entities that are larger than we might be comfortable with. Providing energy, etc. for 7B people is just too big a problem to leave in the hands of something like a vast number of local propane shops, even if a bunch of local propane shops are somehow 'safer'. It's a lack of effectiveness that makes those shops safer and it's the same lack of effectiveness that makes those shops less likely to be able to address large-scale problems.

> You're right... this is a tangent, and I've been debating whether or not to respond for that reason. That said, a couple thoughts.

Hmm. You bring up good points, which I don't want to ignore, but I also don't want to be responsible for prolonging the tangent indefinitely. Let's say that I'll say my piece, and then you say yours if you like, and then we'll leave it at that, no matter how good your response is. :-)

> First: you focused on the 'evil' part of my statement at the exclusion of the 'good'. Is this intentional? I don't think it's possible to have a reasonable discussion if you exclude half of the 'domain'.

No, it was not intentional per se; it's just that the discussion prior to your post had been about evil, and that's what was on my mind.

> I don't really think that people within large corporations have a higher likelihood of intent to do evil than people within small corporations.

I think that this is pretty close to what I was trying to say here:

> I would suspect that it such people exist in all institutions, almost regardless of size, but that there will simply be more of them in a bigger institution ….

I meant to, but did not clearly, emphasise that I was not imputing a higher likelihood of evil to members of a bigger organisation; rather, it is just that the same probability in a larger sample space will produce more hits (of evildoers as well as "gooddoers").

> An evil-doer in a large corporation is more likely to have a spectacular impact [than] in a small.

I thought that I'd said something like this, but I find on reading my post that the closest I got was this:

> they are more likely to be able to hide their wrongdoing from the sight of those who would promote a more idealistic mission ….

Your way of putting it is better.

> Coming back around to the good, I also think that modern civilization owes its continued existence to entities that are larger than we might be comfortable with.

This is an interesting point, and probably true, although (largely out of inherent bias) I have a problem thinking of a large organisation as 'good'. I guess my belief is that people are basically selfish (evil is too strong), and that this selfishness in a large organisation is likely to act against me (at least if I don't belong to the organisation); and that the only principle that I give a chance against basic selfishness is personal ties and bonds, which are more likely to inform the actions of a small than of a large organisation.

Whenever you have a communication or resource bottleneck, you have the potential for corruption - either malicious or unintentional. Bigger institutions just have bigger bottlenecks.