A few choice quotes from Meditations on Moloch:
Things are easy to solve from a god’s-eye-view, so if everyone comes together into a superorganism, that superorganism can solve problems with ease and finesse.
The two active ingredients of government are laws plus violence – or more abstractly agreements plus enforcement mechanism. Many other things besides governments share these two active ingredients and so are able to act as coordination mechanisms to avoid traps.
The only way to avoid having all human values gradually ground down by optimization-competition is to install a Gardener over the entire universe who optimizes for human values.
This line of thinking also forms the basis for neo-reactionary (pro monarchy, pro CEO style governance) thought. See dark-enlightenment.
Other related meanderings: malthusian-traps many-problems-are-coordination-problems