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> Now — does it make me left or right? I think it makes you confused. :-) Which is an OK state to be in, and it's up to you if you want to change that. Let me

by js8 11y ago

> Now — does it make me left or right? I think it makes you confused. :-) Which is an OK state to be in, and it's up to you if you want to change that. Let me explain. I think left vs right means how much you care about people when it comes to their relative power and social status in society. If you don't like power inequality, then you're on the left. If you enjoy it or are indifferent to it, then you're on the right. Now democracy is a distinctly leftist concept, because it explicitly gives everybody the same political power. Gay rights, well, it's a little aside from this classification but basically equal rights for everybody is in the same ballpark (that's why most equal rights movements are considered leftist). On the other hand, supporting flat tax is somewhat alluding to the idea that money do not influence power relationships in society. Which is AFAICT empirically false. I do however think that you can recognize flat tax as being just under that assumption. You do seem to care about distribution of power in society, which makes you leftist. So I think the question is, do you believe in that assumption, that income has no influence on political power (and it cannot, for instance, limit personal freedom of other people)?

Canada 11y ago
> Now democracy is a distinctly leftist concept This one dimensional left vs. right can't accurately describe anything. Even the subject of wealth redistribution is too nuanced to be properly described or debated with this oversimplified left/right paradigm.
- js8 11y ago
  They are broad categories, I agree, but my definition is consistent with the historical usage. Left/right originated in the French parliament, where on the left were proponents of political equality (you could perhaps, with a stretch, call them democrats), while on the right were proponents of keeping the hereditary privileges of the nobility. The definition of left/right I gave describes a very general moral principle. Of course there are many flavours of left and right, depending on the exact interpretation, and they don't agree in many things. However, you didn't give any argument why is democracy not leftist, according to the above, historically accurate, definition. GP asked if he is left or right, I gave an answer.
  - Canada 11y ago
    > my definition is consistent with the historical usage Like with the historical usage of the term "hacker" I think we have to accept that the real world usage is now so muddled that on a general forum such as this you can't fall back on that anymore. Left is whatever they say on MSNBC and right is whatever they say on FOX NEWS (or your local equivalents) And I hope we can agree that whatever those they is completely partisan. Totally disconnected from any political, social, or economic philosophy. Utterly devoid of intellectual honesty. > The definition of left/right I gave describes a very general moral principle. I don't know that it does. For example, compare the modern American libertarians (see Murray Rothbard) vs the left libertarians who predate them. (see Mikhail Bakunin) Both see the state as evil. Their morals are pretty much the same. Their only difference is in how to structure government to protect the interests of the individual. One is right while the other is left. And whether or not the state itself is inherently evil is not a left/right debate either. There's obvious examples of authoritarians on both sides.
    - js8 11y ago
      > I think we have to accept that the real world usage is now so muddled that on a general forum such as this you can't fall back on that anymore I don't want to accept it. I don't accept it with respect to other words either, such as hackers or democracy (despite GDR calling itself democratic). > Both see the state as evil. Their morals are pretty much the same. Their only difference is in how to structure government to protect the interests of the individual. One is right while the other is left. I am not really all that familiar with them to be the judge here, but if their morals are pretty much the same, then one can hardly be left and the other hardly right according to my definition. I think this may be a case of misapplied labels, but I am not sure. > There's obvious examples of authoritarians on both sides. That doesn't mean anything. Just my opinion - left/right moral distinction is used within your ingroup, but authoritarianism resolves to what the ingroup is.
  - walshemj 11y ago
    erm Democracy Is wider than that and wasn't developed during the French revolution. You could reasonably say that modern Democracy is an enlightenment project.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
> I think left vs right means how much you care about people when it comes to their relative power and social status in society. If you don't like power inequality, then you're on the left. If you enjoy it or are indifferent to it, then you're on the right. But why assume that one's opinion on it has to be scalar? What if I enjoy power inequality in some places (say I prefer a small group of smart people to be in charge of energy policy) but abhor it in other (say I believe politicians should not be above the law, or that corporations should not have so much power over ordinary people, or that many issues should be decided by as direct vote as possible)? Does it make me more left? More right? Or a Schrödinger's cat? That's the problem with labels. They reduce the multidimensional space of ideas to one-dimensional space and ask you to pick a range on the axis - while what we need to do is to focus on single data points.
- js8 11y ago
  I think it's up to you, it's a moral principle, you can apply it (or not) in myriad of ways. And people do.. and then they are called out as hypocrites. :-) I am not actually sure if what we disagree on has a name. You seem to think that we should not seek and follow unifying moral principles and strive for consistency, but I do. And for sure I am hypocritical in that, too.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    No, I agree that we should seek and follow unifying moral principles - but we also need to constantly check them against the real world and see if they work. They are supposed to help us lead good life together, and be an optimization - not a replacement for reason. So far the best unifying moral principle I've found is "don't be a douchebag". The world is complicated, and the more one learns about it, the better their "unified moral principles" will be - conversely, the less they know, the more their moral principles will be inadequate and possibly harmful. That person who is totally 100% against government dictating anything may change their mind when they learn about things like coordination problems, tragedy of the commons, etc. But then again, they might not. Still, their opinion will be more nuanced and better calibrated with the reality because they took into consideration the complexity of human interactions. There are countless gems like that. Did you know that people's minds can really be different? That some people believed everyone can do mental images in their head[0]. Others believed that it's bullshit. Everyone called each other liars for centuries until eventually we've figured out that some people can do that, and others can't. There are other examples too; knowing that should affect one's empathy and view of their opponents. Maybe they're not evil people, maybe they genuinely don't think in the same way you do? Etc. My point is - it's not hypocritical to seek underlying unifying moral principles. It's actually good science, it's pragmatic, and it's what scientists are doing in other fields. But the most important thing is that those principles have to correspond to observable reality, because that's their only value - the value of prediction. Will following them make people happy? Reality is under no obligation to follow our imaginary political ideologies. And generally, it doesn't. [0] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/
golergka 11y ago
> I think left vs right means how much you care about people when it comes to their relative power and social status in society. If you don't like power inequality, then you're on the left. If you enjoy it or are indifferent to it, then you're on the right. So, you not only think that there's a universal definition of left vs right in politics but also that it's all about one single problem? > On the other hand, supporting flat tax is somewhat alluding to the idea that money do not influence power relationships in society. I don't support flat tax, it would be an insane and idiotic idea. I just think it's the most fair and just tax scheme. But I don't even remotely support it. > So I think the question is, do you believe in that assumption, that income has no influence on political power (and it cannot, for instance, limit personal freedom of other people)? You intertwined a lot of very complicated issues with your comment. First of all: 1) Power inequality is not good or bad; it's too broad of a definition. In order to attach moral value to it, you have to look at a concrete example in context, not an abstract concept. For example, I think you would prefer for a few of leading climate scientist to have more power over environmental policy than of people who don't believe in evolution, right? But this is power inequality, too. 2) Taxes are, in theoretically just world, should be a form of payment for government services. Government is an entity that provides us with invaluable services like justice system and other perks, from certification of medication to protection from foreign threats. It's good stuff, worth paying for. But in theory, I don't see any moral reasons for some people to pay more for these services than others. You, on the other hand, want to use taxes as a tool to solve power inequality, because you decided that it's a bad thing. Not only this decision is rather strange (as I already discussed in point 1), but you're using a hack to implement a unrelated requirement with the help of a feature that was implemented for completely different reason. Once again, _in theory_ this makes no sense at all. 3) And finally, when you involve terms like "personal freedom" into equation, I can almost guarantee that we will end up arguing about what "personal freedom" really is, where it starts and where it ends, and will not able to come to a conclusion. However. You might have guessed that I separate the political theory of what just and what is not from political reality. In political reality that we have, democracy did not appear because of theoretical considerations of what is the best form of government: it evolved as a compromise between different parties who would've otherwise kill each other to determine who's right. So were the taxes. And our discussions about what is good and bad, in theory, have very little dent on reality, which is shaped by power struggles of millions of people acting of their self-interest; all we can hope to achieve is to solve these conflicts in the most peaceful way possible. Trying to construct the perfect government system out of theoretical considerations is futile if you're lucky, and if you're not, you get North Korea or Pol Pot's Cambodia.
venomsnake 11y ago
Athenians and Romans were definitely on the left.
- golergka 11y ago
  What era? Or you think that through hundreds of years of Greek and Roman civilizations all their members expressed the same political views?
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    the internet needs sarcasm tag
    - js8 11y ago
      Maybe you need a better sarcasm.

by js8 11y ago

Canada 11y ago

> Now democracy is a distinctly leftist concept This one dimensional left vs. right can't accurately describe anything. Even the subject of wealth redistribution is too nuanced to be properly described or debated with this oversimplified left/right paradigm.

js8 11y ago
They are broad categories, I agree, but my definition is consistent with the historical usage. Left/right originated in the French parliament, where on the left were proponents of political equality (you could perhaps, with a stretch, call them democrats), while on the right were proponents of keeping the hereditary privileges of the nobility. The definition of left/right I gave describes a very general moral principle. Of course there are many flavours of left and right, depending on the exact interpretation, and they don't agree in many things. However, you didn't give any argument why is democracy not leftist, according to the above, historically accurate, definition. GP asked if he is left or right, I gave an answer.
- Canada 11y ago
  > my definition is consistent with the historical usage Like with the historical usage of the term "hacker" I think we have to accept that the real world usage is now so muddled that on a general forum such as this you can't fall back on that anymore. Left is whatever they say on MSNBC and right is whatever they say on FOX NEWS (or your local equivalents) And I hope we can agree that whatever those they is completely partisan. Totally disconnected from any political, social, or economic philosophy. Utterly devoid of intellectual honesty. > The definition of left/right I gave describes a very general moral principle. I don't know that it does. For example, compare the modern American libertarians (see Murray Rothbard) vs the left libertarians who predate them. (see Mikhail Bakunin) Both see the state as evil. Their morals are pretty much the same. Their only difference is in how to structure government to protect the interests of the individual. One is right while the other is left. And whether or not the state itself is inherently evil is not a left/right debate either. There's obvious examples of authoritarians on both sides.
  - js8 11y ago
    > I think we have to accept that the real world usage is now so muddled that on a general forum such as this you can't fall back on that anymore I don't want to accept it. I don't accept it with respect to other words either, such as hackers or democracy (despite GDR calling itself democratic). > Both see the state as evil. Their morals are pretty much the same. Their only difference is in how to structure government to protect the interests of the individual. One is right while the other is left. I am not really all that familiar with them to be the judge here, but if their morals are pretty much the same, then one can hardly be left and the other hardly right according to my definition. I think this may be a case of misapplied labels, but I am not sure. > There's obvious examples of authoritarians on both sides. That doesn't mean anything. Just my opinion - left/right moral distinction is used within your ingroup, but authoritarianism resolves to what the ingroup is.
- walshemj 11y ago
  erm Democracy Is wider than that and wasn't developed during the French revolution. You could reasonably say that modern Democracy is an enlightenment project.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

> I think left vs right means how much you care about people when it comes to their relative power and social status in society. If you don't like power inequality, then you're on the left. If you enjoy it or are indifferent to it, then you're on the right. But why assume that one's opinion on it has to be scalar? What if I enjoy power inequality in some places (say I prefer a small group of smart people to be in charge of energy policy) but abhor it in other (say I believe politicians should not be above the law, or that corporations should not have so much power over ordinary people, or that many issues should be decided by as direct vote as possible)? Does it make me more left? More right? Or a Schrödinger's cat? That's the problem with labels. They reduce the multidimensional space of ideas to one-dimensional space and ask you to pick a range on the axis - while what we need to do is to focus on single data points.

js8 11y ago
I think it's up to you, it's a moral principle, you can apply it (or not) in myriad of ways. And people do.. and then they are called out as hypocrites. :-) I am not actually sure if what we disagree on has a name. You seem to think that we should not seek and follow unifying moral principles and strive for consistency, but I do. And for sure I am hypocritical in that, too.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  No, I agree that we should seek and follow unifying moral principles - but we also need to constantly check them against the real world and see if they work. They are supposed to help us lead good life together, and be an optimization - not a replacement for reason. So far the best unifying moral principle I've found is "don't be a douchebag". The world is complicated, and the more one learns about it, the better their "unified moral principles" will be - conversely, the less they know, the more their moral principles will be inadequate and possibly harmful. That person who is totally 100% against government dictating anything may change their mind when they learn about things like coordination problems, tragedy of the commons, etc. But then again, they might not. Still, their opinion will be more nuanced and better calibrated with the reality because they took into consideration the complexity of human interactions. There are countless gems like that. Did you know that people's minds can really be different? That some people believed everyone can do mental images in their head[0]. Others believed that it's bullshit. Everyone called each other liars for centuries until eventually we've figured out that some people can do that, and others can't. There are other examples too; knowing that should affect one's empathy and view of their opponents. Maybe they're not evil people, maybe they genuinely don't think in the same way you do? Etc. My point is - it's not hypocritical to seek underlying unifying moral principles. It's actually good science, it's pragmatic, and it's what scientists are doing in other fields. But the most important thing is that those principles have to correspond to observable reality, because that's their only value - the value of prediction. Will following them make people happy? Reality is under no obligation to follow our imaginary political ideologies. And generally, it doesn't. [0] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/

golergka 11y ago

> I think left vs right means how much you care about people when it comes to their relative power and social status in society. If you don't like power inequality, then you're on the left. If you enjoy it or are indifferent to it, then you're on the right. So, you not only think that there's a universal definition of left vs right in politics but also that it's all about one single problem? > On the other hand, supporting flat tax is somewhat alluding to the idea that money do not influence power relationships in society. I don't support flat tax, it would be an insane and idiotic idea. I just think it's the most fair and just tax scheme. But I don't even remotely support it. > So I think the question is, do you believe in that assumption, that income has no influence on political power (and it cannot, for instance, limit personal freedom of other people)? You intertwined a lot of very complicated issues with your comment. First of all: 1) Power inequality is not good or bad; it's too broad of a definition. In order to attach moral value to it, you have to look at a concrete example in context, not an abstract concept. For example, I think you would prefer for a few of leading climate scientist to have more power over environmental policy than of people who don't believe in evolution, right? But this is power inequality, too. 2) Taxes are, in theoretically just world, should be a form of payment for government services. Government is an entity that provides us with invaluable services like justice system and other perks, from certification of medication to protection from foreign threats. It's good stuff, worth paying for. But in theory, I don't see any moral reasons for some people to pay more for these services than others. You, on the other hand, want to use taxes as a tool to solve power inequality, because you decided that it's a bad thing. Not only this decision is rather strange (as I already discussed in point 1), but you're using a hack to implement a unrelated requirement with the help of a feature that was implemented for completely different reason. Once again, _in theory_ this makes no sense at all. 3) And finally, when you involve terms like "personal freedom" into equation, I can almost guarantee that we will end up arguing about what "personal freedom" really is, where it starts and where it ends, and will not able to come to a conclusion. However. You might have guessed that I separate the political theory of what just and what is not from political reality. In political reality that we have, democracy did not appear because of theoretical considerations of what is the best form of government: it evolved as a compromise between different parties who would've otherwise kill each other to determine who's right. So were the taxes. And our discussions about what is good and bad, in theory, have very little dent on reality, which is shaped by power struggles of millions of people acting of their self-interest; all we can hope to achieve is to solve these conflicts in the most peaceful way possible. Trying to construct the perfect government system out of theoretical considerations is futile if you're lucky, and if you're not, you get North Korea or Pol Pot's Cambodia.

venomsnake 11y ago

Athenians and Romans were definitely on the left.

golergka 11y ago
What era? Or you think that through hundreds of years of Greek and Roman civilizations all their members expressed the same political views?
- venomsnake 11y ago
  the internet needs sarcasm tag
  - js8 11y ago
    Maybe you need a better sarcasm.