# The Real Philosophical Underpinnings of Conservatism (Part 2 of 2)
Date: 2023-12-09
Previous Part: https://disrael.github.io/blogs/raw/the-real-philosophical-underpinnings-of-conservatism.part1.md

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What happens as Denmark’s economy becomes more and more about drug sales? And what effect will obesity drugs have on the world? Denmark may be just as much along for the ride as Silicon Valley is with computers, Detroit was with cars, or [Britain with slave trading](https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/price-of-britains-slave-trade-revealed) — immature Alice before the magic mushroom gave her control of her size.

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### Generational Change

In a world of that much uncertainty hierarchical systems are popular because time invested in committee analysis doesn’t pay off. Societies are more swarms reacting to technological stimuli than organizational units. Membership in a society is marked as much by the type of career as it is by citizenship.

However even when much more information on a technology is available, say gasoline cars and climate change, the pace of decision making is [anemic](https://www.motortrend.com/news/automakers-finding-smart-ways-to-keep-gasoline-powered-cars-alive/). Copenhagen might manage to ban gas cars [by 2030](https://cphpost.dk/2023-05-08/news/copenhagen-looking-to-ban-fossil-fuel-vehicles-by-2030/).

Generational pace decision making is crippling to both “We should make the world a better place” and “Men should earn and provide for baby making machines” organized societies. For the former it means “we” won’t know if the world became a better place and for the latter it means trying to time machine dispute decisions made a hundred years or more ago.

“Wait women aren’t baby making machines anymore?”, say conservatives. “When did that happen?”

“So if we put in a tremendous effort now our children or grandchildren will see zero carbon emission?”, say liberals. “Hmm.”

Sentience across generations still counts as growth beyond original programming but it’s very difficult to organize a society around it. The effect of younger people having [fewer and fewer children](https://medium.com/@disrael/side-effects-of-conquering-the-earth-aa7a4a6a9e59) won’t be known for certain until some time next century.

So “Which statement is easier to organize a society around?” is a trick question. Our societies are **not** organized — they are either frozen in place for hundreds or thousands of years or racing ahead blindly.