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>Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them. I didn't read that in GP. Currently we seem to be very reluctant to a
by bittercynic 7y ago
>Now imagine for a moment that you're not better than everyone else at thinking for them.
I didn't read that in GP. Currently we seem to be very reluctant to admit that we're all vulnerable to being manipulated, and it might actually increase the total amount of agency available to individuals if we could restrict the ways we're allowed to manipulate each other.
- microcolonel 7y agoThe problem is the line between preventing manipulation, and imposing on people's private thoughts. Poorly-conducted industry-funded research? That's pretty straightforward; and in some sense it is not that different from other forms of fraud. I'm okay with punishing people for acting with intent to knowingly mislead. On the other hand, you look at lending, and it becomes a little bit difficult. There are illegal interest rates in many places, and for setting an upper bound, that works fine; but people throw around a lot of dubious allegations about lenders. At some point, if you deny the existence of agency, you end up telling people things you can't know, because you don't have the imagination to consider that they might know what they're doing. That is tyrannical.
- bittercynic 7y agoI didn't intend to deny the existence of agency, only to point out that it's often unclear exactly how much agency we have in different situations, and it could be useful to acknowledge that this is a thorny subject.