4 ms·

What is 'best' if not ideological?

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Whatever actually works to make things better. The difference is applying science and rational thinking vs. soundbites and reasoning from ideology.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  I was going to write up a big essay explaining my thinking but you've summed it up pretty neatly. Ideologies are always based on some level of faith that "if we achieve X, that will make everything better". Id rather use rational techniques to track the outcome of individual policy proposals against some sensible definition of better that could come from a rough consensus. Ideology offers easy answers but rational practises could offer answers that can be proven to work.
  - JetSpiegel 8y ago
    > Id rather use rational techniques to track the outcome of individual policy proposals against some sensible definition of better that could come from a rough consensus. That's the problem, the definition of "better" is the whole point. Say for USA, setting the marginal tax rate of 1M dollars to 100%, including for company revenues, and redistributing that money to the poor greatly increases the Gini coefficient. That's just increasing a number that is widely agreed to be a "sensible definition of better", can't get more "rational" than that. You can write a bulletproof proposal that can't be rationally argued against. Ideology is not just a series of individual policies, it's a lens through which you can evaluate every possible policy proposal.
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      You're talking at a higher level of "better" than I am. Your example falls squarely under a left ideology where narrowing the income gap is an inherent good. I'm saying I don't think that is a nuanced goal and it doesn't match reality, because we've tried totally minimising the income gap with communism and it didn't work. The other extreme doesn't work either, which leaves us with trying to find the right middle ground. Instead of looking for the mid point it just swings rapidly in either direction as the left or right get into power.
      - JetSpiegel 8y ago
        I would argue Communism tried to minimize the income gap, but failed to evolve into something other than a dictatorship. Not to mention "we" tried is subjective, Marx was expecting Communism to be implemented in Germany or England, societies with a developed capitalist classes. I would argue the current western societies are more similar to his predictions than 1918 Czarist Russia, the outcomes could be different. "Finding the middle ground" is the Third Way popularized by Blair and Macron now, that has also failed, because it maintains the status quo.

Whatever actually works to make things better. The difference is applying science and rational thinking vs. soundbites and reasoning from ideology.

beaconstudios 8y ago
I was going to write up a big essay explaining my thinking but you've summed it up pretty neatly. Ideologies are always based on some level of faith that "if we achieve X, that will make everything better". Id rather use rational techniques to track the outcome of individual policy proposals against some sensible definition of better that could come from a rough consensus. Ideology offers easy answers but rational practises could offer answers that can be proven to work.
- JetSpiegel 8y ago
  > Id rather use rational techniques to track the outcome of individual policy proposals against some sensible definition of better that could come from a rough consensus. That's the problem, the definition of "better" is the whole point. Say for USA, setting the marginal tax rate of 1M dollars to 100%, including for company revenues, and redistributing that money to the poor greatly increases the Gini coefficient. That's just increasing a number that is widely agreed to be a "sensible definition of better", can't get more "rational" than that. You can write a bulletproof proposal that can't be rationally argued against. Ideology is not just a series of individual policies, it's a lens through which you can evaluate every possible policy proposal.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    You're talking at a higher level of "better" than I am. Your example falls squarely under a left ideology where narrowing the income gap is an inherent good. I'm saying I don't think that is a nuanced goal and it doesn't match reality, because we've tried totally minimising the income gap with communism and it didn't work. The other extreme doesn't work either, which leaves us with trying to find the right middle ground. Instead of looking for the mid point it just swings rapidly in either direction as the left or right get into power.
    - JetSpiegel 8y ago
      I would argue Communism tried to minimize the income gap, but failed to evolve into something other than a dictatorship. Not to mention "we" tried is subjective, Marx was expecting Communism to be implemented in Germany or England, societies with a developed capitalist classes. I would argue the current western societies are more similar to his predictions than 1918 Czarist Russia, the outcomes could be different. "Finding the middle ground" is the Third Way popularized by Blair and Macron now, that has also failed, because it maintains the status quo.