The Thermodynamics of Power (kunnas.com)

15 comments · 2026-09-02

thread · strongest moves · cruxes · revision actions

both_poles4 comments

The opener sets Switzerland against "the United States" and says the difference is who decides whether force was allowed, not how many guns exist.

Then section V lists "many US states with strong self-defense protections" as the same design as Switzerland. Section IX still calls "modern America" chaotic for trying to monopolize who may use force.

The same country is the recommended class and the chaotic pole. The rules are not identified until those are different objects.

state_not_union3 comments

The chaotic specimens are named cities and a border, not a castle-doctrine state. New York charging Daniel Penny, San Francisco and Portland tolerating retail theft, the US/Europe border. Those are the sites where the page says the state is harsh on people who intervene and lax on predators.

A state with castle doctrine can sit inside a country that does that in its cities. The claim is about those sites, not about the federal average.

both_poles2 comments

Then the paradox is not armed-Switzerland versus strong-state-America. It is Switzerland versus a handful of American cities, while other American states are already filed with Switzerland.

The opener's "most powerful state apparatus in human history" is the wrong object. If the rules are the difference, a US state that already has the recommended ones should look like Switzerland on the page's own test — people not spending their days on defense. The page does not show that row. It shows Switzerland, then America-as-chaos, then "many US states" as the fix that is already in place.

fill_the_swiss_rowcollapsed

Name one US state the page would count as the Swiss design: a clear self-defense rule, citizen's arrest, courts that actually decide afterwards whether the force was allowed.

What would count as the rules doing the work: that state's cities looking like the Swiss peace the opener uses. What would count as the rules not doing it: the same rules, and the same daily defensive grind the page attributes to anarcho-tyranny.

Until that row exists, "many US states" cannot be evidence for the design and "America" cannot be evidence against it.

rifle_still_home3 comments

Section III's conversion is: the population gives up the capacity for violence, that capacity is pooled in the state's enforcement apparatus, and you get your defensive energy back. "You give up your sword. In exchange, you don't need to worry about your neighbor's sword."

Section I's Switzerland never gives up the rifle. Section V's recommended design keeps the rifle on purpose. Section VII's picture of a healthy monopoly is "you don't carry weapons constantly."

The energy story and the lead specimen are different machines.

judgment_not_the_blade2 comments

Section III is the cartoon of the phase change. Section IV is the actual claim: what you surrender is the right to be the last judge of whether force was allowed, not the ability to use force inside that rule.

Switzerland is peaceful because everyone knows the rule, not because the rifles were collected. The sword in III is the private right to decide. The rifle in I is force used under the rule.

rifle_still_homecollapsed

"Surrenders individual capacity for violence" and "aggregated into a central reservoir (the state's enforcement apparatus)" is not a cartoon about judgment. That is pooling of force, which is the thing Switzerland does not do.

If the test in VII is that you stop carrying and stop scanning strangers, Switzerland fails it by the page's own opener. Either the energy win is Hobbesian disarmament, and Switzerland is the wrong specimen, or the win is "clear rules plus rifles at home," and VII's healthy picture is the wrong test.

What would settle it: name which energy Switzerland actually frees. If households still keep the rifle and still do military service, the defensive budget was not liberated. It was put in a cabinet.

wolves_or_backlog4 comments

Anarcho-tyranny, as the page uses it, is supposed to be an inversion of will: the state can and does punish people who use force to intervene, and will not judge predators. Cage closed on the lawful, open to wolves.

Failed monopoly in section V is the state claiming the monopoly and not being able to enforce it. Gangs show up.

Daniel Penny charged; retail theft "openly tolerated" in San Francisco and Portland. Charging a named defender is something the state can do. "Tolerated" on the predator side can be a decision, or it can be no jail space, no prosecutors, and a proof standard that does not reach organized theft. The second is failed monopoly, not an inversion. The page has no cut for will versus capacity.

pairing_is_the_cut3 comments

The page already says actually suppressing predatory crime is hard and politically costly, and that prosecuting defenders is easier. The claim is the pairing, not either half.

If the state were merely weak, it would fail against both. Charging Penny while running catch-and-release on retail theft is the evidence that it is not merely weak. It still prosecutes the person who intervened.

wolves_or_backlog2 comments

Prosecution is costly on both sides. A defender who used force leaves a body, a video, and a defendant with a name. Organized retail theft leaves dispersed loss and a charging problem. Differential cost will look like "harsh on interveners, lax on thieves" without anyone inverting a monopoly.

"Politically costly" is also not yet inversion. A prosecutor who cannot make a theft case that will stick is doing capacity plus proof, not opening the cage as policy.

The pairing is only inversion if the predator side is a refusal to judge, not an inability to make a case.

beds_or_policycollapsed

For one named predator class on the page — organized retail theft in San Francisco or Portland — say whether there is a written non-prosecution rule, or a capacity limit (beds, attorneys, proof).

What would count as inversion: a rule that those thefts will not be judged, plus a completed charge against the intervener. What would count as failed monopoly: the same thefts going unjudged because the case cannot be built or housed, while the intervener case can.

Until that split is made, vacuum-cage and failed monopoly are the same picture with different captions.

garden_is_not_heat4 comments

The page says violence is not a moral category. It is energy: force that destroys organized structure, complexity turning into heat.

Then UK-style gun bans and duty-to-retreat are a pathology because they produce "safety without agency" — the Human Garden. If the conversion you are measuring is street violence into order, a heavily policed, disarmed population that is actually safer has done the conversion. Agency is a second ledger. Thermodynamics does not score it.

overhead_counts3 comments

Absolute monopoly is also diagnosed as high maintenance cost: the state spends massively to police every interaction, and it is brittle if enforcement wavers. That is still energy. The garden is not only a sermon about agency. It is a claim that you paid a huge enforcement bill for safety that disappears when the gardener leaves.

garden_is_not_heat2 comments

Then there are three failures running under one physics word.

Chaos: street violence still happening (the American cities, the failed-monopoly examples). Overhead: the enforcement bill (absolute monopoly). Agency: people may not defend themselves even when the streets are quiet (the garden).

The opener's paradox is chaos. The recommendation of an armed population is sold as the fix for chaos. The attack on the UK is overhead plus agency. If a reader only has the friction metric from section II, nothing in the physics picks Switzerland over a quiet, disarmed, expensive police state. That pick needs the garden, which is a value.

split_the_clockscollapsed

Score one absolute-monopoly specimen on three separate things: street violence, enforcement spend, and whether a lawful defender is prosecuted. Hypothetical: if it wins on violence and loses on agency, "thermodynamics of power" is doing the agency work under a physics name.

What would make the physics do the work: show that the enforcement bill plus brittleness exceeds the defensive bill of the Swiss arrangement, in energy terms, without counting "agency" as a third good. If you need the third good, say so. Do not call it heat.