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> Am I the only one that sees an irony with the deep blue states with this article? There’s a vast chasm between the government being used as a tool for collec

> Am I the only one that sees an irony with the deep blue states with this article? There’s a vast chasm between the government being used as a tool for collective action (like when forcing human-friendly business regulations) and government being used as a tool for control.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Would you mind if I borrowed this as a political talking point in public forums?
- mcphage 8y ago
  Sure, that's fine—it's probably not my original thought, either.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I would agree with you in general, but at the same time I think there is key nuance of perspective here. "Human friendly rules" can be seen as unwelcome authoritarianism in different cultures, or even by different people within the same culture. In other words "human friendly" is an expression of your own personal views and values, which are subjective and well... personal. Let's create an example, which is not all that hypothetical. There seems to be an increasingly large body of evidence indicating that social media is simply a net ill, potentially quite a severe one, on society. Do you begin to censor/prohibit it, or do you allow it to run mostly as it will? In our culture the answer is clear. We value freedom as something in and of itself, even when the outcomes it produces are not desirable. Yet it's certainly not particularly hard to imagine that another culture might see that eliminating these sort of events would be something that would contribute towards a 'healthier' society, even if we remove any notion of government control from however 'healthier' is defined. The actors making decisions in both cases would believe they're acting in a 'human friendly way' yet come to completely different conclusions.
Proven 8y ago
Since when is increasing the price (via a tax) or making a product unavailable "human-friendly"? And "collective action" my ass. There is no collective action. If the government acted through collective action there would be no measures that hurt anyone in the collective.
ArchTypical 8y ago
> There’s a vast chasm between the government being used as a tool for collective action and government being used as a tool for control. Doesn't matter how deep. It's a short jump. The former is a characterization of the latter. They achieve the same goals and someone is awaiting their turn to use that tool.

toomuchtodo 8y ago

Would you mind if I borrowed this as a political talking point in public forums?

mcphage 8y ago
Sure, that's fine—it's probably not my original thought, either.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

I would agree with you in general, but at the same time I think there is key nuance of perspective here. "Human friendly rules" can be seen as unwelcome authoritarianism in different cultures, or even by different people within the same culture. In other words "human friendly" is an expression of your own personal views and values, which are subjective and well... personal. Let's create an example, which is not all that hypothetical. There seems to be an increasingly large body of evidence indicating that social media is simply a net ill, potentially quite a severe one, on society. Do you begin to censor/prohibit it, or do you allow it to run mostly as it will? In our culture the answer is clear. We value freedom as something in and of itself, even when the outcomes it produces are not desirable. Yet it's certainly not particularly hard to imagine that another culture might see that eliminating these sort of events would be something that would contribute towards a 'healthier' society, even if we remove any notion of government control from however 'healthier' is defined. The actors making decisions in both cases would believe they're acting in a 'human friendly way' yet come to completely different conclusions.

Proven 8y ago

Since when is increasing the price (via a tax) or making a product unavailable "human-friendly"? And "collective action" my ass. There is no collective action. If the government acted through collective action there would be no measures that hurt anyone in the collective.

ArchTypical 8y ago

> There’s a vast chasm between the government being used as a tool for collective action and government being used as a tool for control. Doesn't matter how deep. It's a short jump. The former is a characterization of the latter. They achieve the same goals and someone is awaiting their turn to use that tool.