Indeed! Modern liberals don't usually think *obvious *eugenics is ok... so I wasn't going to saddle uǝlƃ with that one... but it certainly* is* another option.
<[email protected]> On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 11:48 AM Marcus Daniels <[email protected]> wrote: > Disincentivize reproduction, you didn’t mention that option. > > On Oct 11, 2020, at 8:37 AM, Eric Charles <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Much delayed reply.... > > I'm not sure I'm overly obsessed with deduction. If anything, I probably > think formal logic is overrated. In its place I prefer a rough notion of > coherence. For example, let's say you had asked to evaluate the following > argument: > > - Two plus five times ten is an even number and is greater than 100. > - Trump hasn't started a war, which makes him the greatest president > ever. > - If the Twin Towers had been built with wooden-high-rise technology > <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvHx_NS9wWw> they would have held up > longer, allowing more people to escape, which means the Bush conspiracy > started in the early 1970s, because why else would steel have been used? > - And that's why I conclude that everyone should have a front yard > garden. > > In the face of that, I would say that I *agree *more people should have > front yard gardens, so the thrust of the conclusion seems ok. But also: 1) > "Everyone" seems ok if we acknowledge it's hyperbole, but for sure not > literally everyone. 2) Each sentence before the conclusion is a weird mix > of stuff that is right and wrong, and the transitions make no sense, and > put together as a whole it isn't any better. 3) So, if you are asking what > I think of *the argument*, then the answer I am going to tell you "it's > crap." > --- ---- ---- ---- ---- > *"But what about the state dependencies part?", you ask. Which is good, > because I still assert that is the much more interesting thing to discuss. * > > You claim that libertarianism is "at odds with reality" because human > activity has path dependence and historicity. I would say that > libertarianism is not at odds with that reality, it is at peace with it. > Let's go with a concrete example - concrete for me, at least, because I > dealt with directly for about 6 years. > > > - Around 150 years ago a bunch of young adult's > great-great-great-great grandparents decided to move from more rural parts > of Appliacia to Altoona Pennsylvania, because it was a thriving train town > and they didn't want to "waste their lives" milking goats like their > parents had (while others stayed and took over the goat farms). > - For 3 or 4 generations the families were solidly middle class > laborers in the locomotive industry, and hardly anyone left Altoona (but > some did). > - By the 1930's the train jobs had finally dried up for good, and the > modest fortunes fell (unless key family members had shifted to other jobs > already). > - Nevertheless, the families decided to stay in Altoona (except the > ones that didn't). > - Let's say that your father ended up a trucker driver, bossed around > by a guy with a Penn State business degree. In fact, every one of your > father's friends didn't have a degree, and spent most of their lives in a > job where they were bossed around by someone who had a degree and made at > least double what the workers made. So your dad and all of his friends told > you that for sure you were going to college, because that was the golden > ticket. > - Most (most) of your friends were told the same thing, and most > (most) who were told that did go to college. > - Of the friends that headed that advice, most (most) ended up at the > glorious Penn State Altoona, because you grew up hearing what a great > college it was, and you could save money by living at home while you go > there (i.e., by historic accident, it is the close). And you and your > friends picked a wide variety of degrees, influenced by all sorts of path > dependencies. And, of course, you can graduate with good grades from Penn > State Altoona without really learning much, so for the vast majority of > students you can't even make an "education for education's sake" > argument (although a small number in every graduating class did manage to > get a good education). > - And when you graduated you found out that the local area generally > doesn't have many jobs (something that would have been obvious at any time > in your life had you chosen to look, but you didn't). Worse, even the few > jobs that are around aren't paying top dollar for theater or psychology > majors. And even for your two friends who picked business and engineering, > respectively, while there are some prospects, they aren't nearly as > glorious as your parents expected them to be, because unlike when your > parents were kids, the area is now flooded with people who have 4-year > college degrees. > - And now you and your parents are $120K in debt (because they > co-signed), and you need to decide whether to leave the Altoona region, > where you can draw upon the support that exists by the historicity of 7 > generations of your extended family staying put, and which you have never > been more than 50 miles from in your whole life, in order to gamble for a > better job and life elsewhere, or whether to stay in Altoona and take a job > you could have had straight out of high school and be in crippling debt for > your entire "young adult" life. > - And 70% of the kids from your elementary school are in basically the > same situation, which is 60% of the grandkids of the last prosperous > generation of city residents, which is 40% of the > great-great-great-great grand kids of those who moved to Altoona in the > 1880s. > - And out of all the choices that exist across all people in the > country, by the time you are in your 30s, only 0.001% of those choices are > available to you. > - And a decent chunk of the constraints on your choices were > predictable based on your great-great-great-great grandfather's decision to > leave the goat farm for Altoona. > > There is *nothing *about any of the details in that example that is "at > odds" with libertarianism. Because nothing about that is at odds with > libertarianism, nothing about it is evidence that libertarianism is > "false". We can only start to touch upon libertarianism when we try to > figure out what to do about the bad situation those people find themselves > in. Generally speaking, libertarianism is the position that the dilemma > described is not a problem the government (particularly not the federal > government) should be working to solve. It isn't kids starving to death > because their families are destitute, it isn't fascism threatening to take > over Europe, it is a large number of young adults finding themselves in a > frustrating situation due to path-dependencies, historicity, and their own > choices. > > But we COULD try to fix it using federal intervention I suppose. What kind > of policies could we have put in place to provide more options? If I was > thinking about policies that had a serious chance of being effective, they > would be things like this: > > - We could have made your college free. That would relieve you of the > crippling debt, but also make college attendance even easier such that even > more people in the area who had a degree in hand would be doing jobs they > didn't need degrees for (with the associated personal frustration, and the > associated family strife because their truck-driver parents don't > understand how that is possible). It also wouldn't fix the problem that > most of your friends got through college not knowing much more than they > did out of high school. But the lack of debt would be better, in some > important sense, for you. > - We could federally mandate that colleges be more rigorous (by making > more hard-core use of the existing college-accreditation system). If we did > that, several of your currently "college educated" friends wouldn't have > gotten in, and several of those who got in wouldn't have graduated, but > also a greater number of your friends would have stepped up to the > challenge and gained from the experience, at least education-wise. Their > lack of job prospects would remain the same (unless they were willing to > leave the area). > - We could have required an agreement that you would leave the area in > pursuit of work, as a condition for college attendance. > - If the presence of family support is really as crucial as it seems, > we could pass a rule that mandates that a minimum of 50% of each generation > move away from the Altoona region, so your support network would be spread > out more. > - We could do none of that and just go the Nick-Thompson route of > randomizing babies at birth throughout the nation. Under that plan we would > still have the same number of people facing the exact same constraints, but > it would be the result of *someone else's* great-great-great-great > grandfather's decision. I'm not sure how that helps anything, but several > people on FRIAM seems to think it does. > - We could use federal funds to ensure that no industries fail, in > which case Altoona could still have a thriving coal-locomotive-repair > industry, providing the same jobs the great-great-great-great grandparents > were happy to have. > - We could go the Soviet Russia route of guaranteeing all people > (except the ruling oligarchs) get the same pay no matter what they do. > - We could also limit people's choices of degrees to things wise > members of a federal committee deem useful, and then have a wise > bureaucratic system that informs people which job they will be doing > post-graduation, no matter where in the country the job is or who they > would be working for. And we could design such a system to maximize the > income-based opportunities available to people on average. > > Are any of those the type of federal regulation you are thinking of? If > not, what government-run programs would you suggest we implement in order > to fix this very real predicament faced by a large number of 5th, 6th, and > 7th generation Altoonans? > > Out of all of those, I would be most in favor of stepping up the college > accreditation rigour. Un-accredited colleges could still exist, but would > have to make that reality clear in their promotional material, and they > wouldn't be eligible for federally-backed student loans. > > Eric C > > > <[email protected]> > > > On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 10:31 AM uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Well, the reason I titled the post "ideas are lies" was in part due to >> our faith in deduction. If only we could hammer out the credibility of each >> sentence, we could automatically transform one truth into another truth. >> But we cannot. So, your radical skepticism regarding each sentence >> *facilitates* motivated reasoning. You can doubt the conclusion solely >> because you hold up deduction as ideal. >> >> But that's not how humans work. Human deduction is a dangerous idea. And >> it's just as much a lie as the free market or the orthogonality of social >> systems. Deduction is nicely computational. And many of us would love to >> live in a computational Utopia. >> >> Instead, humans are driven by consequence, constraint solving, as opposed >> to deduction. We arbitrarily (not randomly) *sample* the spaces in which we >> find ourselves. In this context, too, the assumptions of libertarianism are >> at odds with reality because libertarianism assumes a well-behaved *space* >> for us to explore. It's not a matter of individual free will. It's a matter >> of path dependence and historicity. Joe Sixpack's available space, like >> everyone else's, was bound by constraints before he ever *had* free will in >> the first place. Yes, the choices he makes at age 30 constrain/guide the >> possible choices he can make at age 50. But similarly, the choices he makes >> at age 0.1 constrain/guide the choices he can make at age 30. >> >> Most importantly for libertarianism's falsity, the choices Joe Sixpack >> can make at age 0.1 are constrained/guided by choices made by those in his >> various communities (geographic, informational, etc.), 30 years before Joe >> was ever born. Socialist systems like anarcho-syndicalism attempt to >> *design* society to optimize for freedom and competence. Individualist >> systems like libertarianism abdicate any responsibility to design society >> and then blame the victim for not solving problems it never had the chance >> to solve. >> >> If you want individuals to spend less time in space X, then *minimize* >> the size of space X. Don't blame the individuals born inside space X for >> their failure to escape that space. Buck up and start *designing* the >> world. Even Hayek would advocate that *where* you know how to do it, then >> do it. That's what justified his naive arguments that where you *don't* >> know how to do it, don't do it. >> >> Of course, because we only have 1 world, we have limited protocols by >> which to experiment. And most experiments are unethical. So we have to a) >> be manipulationist/perturbationist and b) quickly admit mistakes and >> re-manipulate when our actions cause more pain. Or we can simply plunge our >> heads in the sand, rationalizing our luck with post-hoc delusions about our >> own competence and "well-made decisions" while the unlucky riffraff suffer >> in droves around us. >> >> >> On 9/28/20 5:33 PM, Eric Charles wrote: >> > To Glen's point.... it's hard to evaluate the overall argument of a >> piece when almost every factual claim seems factually wrong, and a decent >> chunk of those claims are in my area of ostensible expertise... The entire >> "evolutionary psychology" part is just bunk... I've also had enough >> training in economics, anthropology, philosophy, and other areas to suspect >> that much of the coverage of that is bunk..... so even if I could wade >> through enough to judge the conclusion, there is definitely no world in >> which I agree with the argument. When I say I'm suspicious of most >> sentences, that includes the transition sentences that create "the >> narrative." He says "X. And X therefore Y. So Y, and if Y we should >> definitely Z", and I not only think X is wrong, but also that even if X >> were true it would /not /necessitate Y; and even if Y was necessitated, >> that wouldn't mean we should Z. >> > <mailto:[email protected]> >> > >> > I think the comment about Libertarians assuming decoupling is /much >> /more interesting than all points in the original article put together. >> Well worth breaking out into a different thread, level interesting. That >> would be a way, way better discussion.... in contrast with trying to figure >> out what it would mean for evolution (?) to favor (?) a >> massive-fiction-masquerading-as-a-Machiavellian-lie that either originated >> in the 1770s or in the late 1940s (unclear which). >> > >> > You said: Libertarians aren't "even questioning why Joe Sixpack would >> prefer to watch The Voice and drink Budweiser over inventing mouse traps in >> his basement, after having spent the last 8 hours being ordered around by >> someone half his age in a flourescent lit cubicle." >> > >> > And, like, yeah, clearly those are related. But I would phrase the >> issue slightly differently. I would say that one fundamental issue with >> Libertarian thinking is that it assumes something akin to old fashioned >> "free will." It would point out that SOME people do work on the mouse >> traps, and that while watching The Voice and drinking Budweiser might be an >> understandable response to cubicle drudgery, it is also "a choice the >> person makes." Some libertarians will go all abstract in their claims about >> what someone could or could not choose to do, that's very true. However, >> more grounded ones are referencing actual people doing the things they are >> talking about, to push back against claims that such behavior is somehow >> impossible. >> > >> > It is quite possible that such a claim is functionally identical to >> acknowledging "dependencies" or "coupling", we'd have to dive in deeper for >> me to figure that out. Maybe "free will" isn't the issue as much as some >> notion of "self-directedness." We all know that some percentage of poor >> people get out of poverty. A larger percentage don't. Out of those who >> don't, we have a lot who seem to be perennially making bad choices, which >> isn't very interesting in the context of this discussion (but could be in >> the context of other discussions). More interestingly, we also know that >> some percentage of poor people seem to make similar decisions to those who >> get out of poverty, but the dice never quite roll in their favor. So there >> is coupling, and there are probabilistic outcomes, and all that stuff. But >> even after acknowledging all that, the question remains to what extent the >> choices made by the individuals in question affect their outcomes. >> > >> > And, of course, none of that is closely related to whether the cost of >> tree trimming is made cheaper by there being more than one person offering >> such services (a basic free market issue), nor whether or not a wealthy >> baron of industry should support random moocher relatives in luxury when it >> doesn't even make him happy to do so (a classic Rand example) >> >> -- >> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ >> >> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam >> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >> FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> >> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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