A child’s invented game reveals how quickly a world can acquire laws.

Children inventing a game will produce rules, exceptions, and enforcement within minutes. Nobody instructs them to; the impulse to formalise appears as soon as there is something to be fair about. Watching it happen shows how quickly and naturally people build law out of play.

The same instinct is running in every group you belong to, mostly unannounced. Norms about who speaks, what is acceptable, how disputes are handled form quickly and then feel permanent. It is worth occasionally asking who made a rule you are following. Often the answer is that it assembled itself, which means it can be changed the same way.