4 ms·

> but I just want to know who actually is on the "right" side? What is the “right” side? Trump is quintessentially American and a nationalist. Is that good?

> but I just want to know who actually is on the "right" side? What is the “right” side? Trump is quintessentially American and a nationalist. Is that good? I guess it depends on who you are and what you want.

orev 8y ago
The “right” side is the one supported by evidence. There are some things maybe people can never agree on, but for the vast majority of issues, there is evidence that supports one side more than the other.
- sheepmullet 8y ago
  > but for the vast majority of issues, there is evidence that supports one side more than the other. I’m not so sure that is true. In my experience there is propaganda everywhere and politicians are trying to build a narrative instead of trying to find the truth.
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    > there is propaganda everywhere The propagandists would love you to throw up your hands and believe this; their goal is to paralyze you, sow chaos and despair. It's like a liar saying to you, after they lie to your face for the 10th time, 'everyone lies'. It's a false attempt to justify and normalize their bad behavior. Technically yes, but it's meaningless; some people are far more trustworthy than others. The trustworthiness of information and politicians varies greatly.
    - sheepmullet 8y ago
      > The trustworthiness of information and politicians varies greatly. Yes it does - and we are hopeless at determining who is trustworthy and who isn’t. For example I am a well educated, well paid, and politically aware person and I trust Trump. Other equally educated, paid, aware, etc people distrust Trump. > throw up your hands I think we need techniques to move in a positive direction even in the face of propaganda. Techniques to ensure politicians are worse off when we the people are worse off. E.g. Salary capping for life at say 2x median state pay. Techniques that help us risk adjust decisions based on how easy it is to back out of them. E.g. It’s far easier to add more immigrants if we find out we have taken in too few than it is to kick out immigrants if we find out we have taken in too many. Techniques that ensure negative consequences of voting a particular way are felt by the voters. E.g. if you vote to ban private schools and it goes through then your kids are assigned to a bottom 25% public school. Etc.
      - forapurpose 8y ago
        > we are hopeless at determining who is trustworthy and who isn’t We are not at all hopeless. We're not perfect, but we do pretty well. Just because people make mistakes sometimes doesn't at all mean that everyone is hopeless. Bad software is written, but we can produce good software. People trust the wrong person, but democracy and human rights has blossomed and spread. Your proposals about politicians are interesting in that Trump likely wouldn't agree to facing the consequences of his actions.
        sheepmullet 8y ago
        > Bad software is written, but we can produce good software. Great example! How do we make our political system more robust like software dev? Even good software developers make plenty of mistakes and the system overall manages to keep trucking on. It’s because we have a whole host of techniques to limit our losses - for example at work we have systems in place to automatically roll back recent changes if we detect a problem. We could apply this technique to legislation by putting in a set of conditions under which the legislation would be automatically revoked. > Your proposals about politicians are interesting in that Trump likely wouldn't agree to facing the consequences of his actions. It is not just politicians - we all have an aversion to taking responsibility for our actions and beliefs.
- x220 8y ago
  I disagree. Political questions are matter of choice, not fact. Values will always be a matter of debate.
  - skummetmaelk 8y ago
    Absolutely true. The only problem is that rarely are actual values being debated in politics.
    - x220 8y ago
      And that's a shame. People are scared to debate values because they don't want the value structures that their lives center around to crumble. Without debating values, you might end up spending a huge proportion of your life on something that later doesn't matter to you...
forapurpose 8y ago
> Trump is quintessentially American I and many other strongly disagree. They might say that George Washington is quintessentially American, and Trump is similar to populist fascists in Europe such as Mussolini. A point of evidence is that he varies so greatly from every other American president and almost all other political leaders. > nationalist. ... Is that good? I guess it depends on who you are and what you want. It's not just a matter of opinion - not every option is the same - it's a very serious choice and a matter of outcomes. If nationalism leads to war, death, loss of liberty, loss of democracy, and loss of prosperity, it's bad. Many leaders during WWII, including Churchill, thought nationalism was a significant cause of it, and many have continued to think so since then.

orev 8y ago

The “right” side is the one supported by evidence. There are some things maybe people can never agree on, but for the vast majority of issues, there is evidence that supports one side more than the other.

sheepmullet 8y ago
> but for the vast majority of issues, there is evidence that supports one side more than the other. I’m not so sure that is true. In my experience there is propaganda everywhere and politicians are trying to build a narrative instead of trying to find the truth.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > there is propaganda everywhere The propagandists would love you to throw up your hands and believe this; their goal is to paralyze you, sow chaos and despair. It's like a liar saying to you, after they lie to your face for the 10th time, 'everyone lies'. It's a false attempt to justify and normalize their bad behavior. Technically yes, but it's meaningless; some people are far more trustworthy than others. The trustworthiness of information and politicians varies greatly.
  - sheepmullet 8y ago
    > The trustworthiness of information and politicians varies greatly. Yes it does - and we are hopeless at determining who is trustworthy and who isn’t. For example I am a well educated, well paid, and politically aware person and I trust Trump. Other equally educated, paid, aware, etc people distrust Trump. > throw up your hands I think we need techniques to move in a positive direction even in the face of propaganda. Techniques to ensure politicians are worse off when we the people are worse off. E.g. Salary capping for life at say 2x median state pay. Techniques that help us risk adjust decisions based on how easy it is to back out of them. E.g. It’s far easier to add more immigrants if we find out we have taken in too few than it is to kick out immigrants if we find out we have taken in too many. Techniques that ensure negative consequences of voting a particular way are felt by the voters. E.g. if you vote to ban private schools and it goes through then your kids are assigned to a bottom 25% public school. Etc.
    - forapurpose 8y ago
      > we are hopeless at determining who is trustworthy and who isn’t We are not at all hopeless. We're not perfect, but we do pretty well. Just because people make mistakes sometimes doesn't at all mean that everyone is hopeless. Bad software is written, but we can produce good software. People trust the wrong person, but democracy and human rights has blossomed and spread. Your proposals about politicians are interesting in that Trump likely wouldn't agree to facing the consequences of his actions.
      - sheepmullet 8y ago
        > Bad software is written, but we can produce good software. Great example! How do we make our political system more robust like software dev? Even good software developers make plenty of mistakes and the system overall manages to keep trucking on. It’s because we have a whole host of techniques to limit our losses - for example at work we have systems in place to automatically roll back recent changes if we detect a problem. We could apply this technique to legislation by putting in a set of conditions under which the legislation would be automatically revoked. > Your proposals about politicians are interesting in that Trump likely wouldn't agree to facing the consequences of his actions. It is not just politicians - we all have an aversion to taking responsibility for our actions and beliefs.
x220 8y ago
I disagree. Political questions are matter of choice, not fact. Values will always be a matter of debate.
- skummetmaelk 8y ago
  Absolutely true. The only problem is that rarely are actual values being debated in politics.
  - x220 8y ago
    And that's a shame. People are scared to debate values because they don't want the value structures that their lives center around to crumble. Without debating values, you might end up spending a huge proportion of your life on something that later doesn't matter to you...

forapurpose 8y ago

> Trump is quintessentially American I and many other strongly disagree. They might say that George Washington is quintessentially American, and Trump is similar to populist fascists in Europe such as Mussolini. A point of evidence is that he varies so greatly from every other American president and almost all other political leaders. > nationalist. ... Is that good? I guess it depends on who you are and what you want. It's not just a matter of opinion - not every option is the same - it's a very serious choice and a matter of outcomes. If nationalism leads to war, death, loss of liberty, loss of democracy, and loss of prosperity, it's bad. Many leaders during WWII, including Churchill, thought nationalism was a significant cause of it, and many have continued to think so since then.