4 ms·

Do any of these statements apply in particular to socialism? Seems to me you could find/replace "socialism" here with any political system and make the same arg

Do any of these statements apply in particular to socialism? Seems to me you could find/replace "socialism" here with any political system and make the same argument.

anm89 7y ago
A more hands off political system is less manipulatable. The more complicated systems that are created, the more there is to gamify. I'm advocating for more limited government. A simple clear rule set is much harder to gamify. This is an equalizer, not the reverse in my opinion.
- einpoklum 7y ago
  You're not advocating for more limited government. Your intended government enforces private ownership of the means of production, with police, courts, and a military when necessary. You're only advocating for a different representation of class interests in the state, i.e. it would do most of what capital is interested in, but little or none of what labor is interested in. Not that a more interventionist state is pro-labor - it's just somewhat less unbalanced.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    You're telling him what his position is?!? Unless you can demonstrate your opinion of his position from his comments, you're putting words in his mouth, which is very much a jerk move. To me, it also looks like you're putting words in his mouth that are very much not his position...
  - anm89 7y ago
    I mean, I very literally am advocating for a more limited government. I'm advocating for them to stop doing something they are currently doing. Any definitional gymnastics here are yours
- a_wild_dandan 7y ago
  1. It's not clear to me that system complexity always correlates with manipulability. One may easily construct circumstances where the inverse is true -- dead simple political systems which are neatly gamified or exploited, and sophisticated systems that are fairly robust. To me, what counts is how well the system is designed, not necessarily its complexity level. But suppose it's true that a more involved government always implies more manipulation. 2. Are we better off by optimizing for minimal political manipulation over anything else? For hyperbolic examples: in complete anarchy, we'd have zero system manipulation, and yet I would unhappily die in The Purge. Likewise, in some Roaring '20s capitalistic caricature, I might have my small business destroyed by a monopoly, or die a child laboring away in unsafe conditions. Optimizing for being manipulatable seems far less palatable than living in modern day Denmark or something.
  - anm89 7y ago
    Valid critiques. 1) Yes this could be true in some cases but a lot of the way in which the "haves" exploit these kind of systems is by throwing man hours of attorneys and accountants at them because the rules are super verbose and complicated and so you hire profesional loop hole finders. If I simple piece of legislation is obviously exploitable, that will be more obvious from the get go and will less heavily favor the peoe who can pay the loophole finders. Also you cant exploit things that don't exist. 2) no, I agree you have to draw your line in the sand somewhere. I'm not an anarchist. I could take your argument in the same direction to absurdity as well. If redistribution solves all problems, let's create comittees to redistribute on a person to person basis until we reach a fair utopia. We don't do that because we acknowledge that the cost benefit of doing that gets hyperbolically negative at a certain point. What I'm advocating is that the line where that happens is actually much earlier, and that the last 10 years have shown that we are already on the wrong side of that line and that our approach to legislating away complex issues can at best handout money to certain interest in a fairly dumb way, and those groups are always going to be the ones that have a say in the legislation process via lobbying or direct involvement. So no, I'm not arguing against child labor laws, I'm arguing against complicated redistribution programs. Nothing less, nothing more

Do any of these statements apply in particular to socialism? Seems to me you could find/replace "socialism" here with any political system and make the same argument.

anm89 7y ago

A more hands off political system is less manipulatable. The more complicated systems that are created, the more there is to gamify. I'm advocating for more limited government. A simple clear rule set is much harder to gamify. This is an equalizer, not the reverse in my opinion.

einpoklum 7y ago
You're not advocating for more limited government. Your intended government enforces private ownership of the means of production, with police, courts, and a military when necessary. You're only advocating for a different representation of class interests in the state, i.e. it would do most of what capital is interested in, but little or none of what labor is interested in. Not that a more interventionist state is pro-labor - it's just somewhat less unbalanced.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  You're telling him what his position is?!? Unless you can demonstrate your opinion of his position from his comments, you're putting words in his mouth, which is very much a jerk move. To me, it also looks like you're putting words in his mouth that are very much not his position...
- anm89 7y ago
  I mean, I very literally am advocating for a more limited government. I'm advocating for them to stop doing something they are currently doing. Any definitional gymnastics here are yours
a_wild_dandan 7y ago
1. It's not clear to me that system complexity always correlates with manipulability. One may easily construct circumstances where the inverse is true -- dead simple political systems which are neatly gamified or exploited, and sophisticated systems that are fairly robust. To me, what counts is how well the system is designed, not necessarily its complexity level. But suppose it's true that a more involved government always implies more manipulation. 2. Are we better off by optimizing for minimal political manipulation over anything else? For hyperbolic examples: in complete anarchy, we'd have zero system manipulation, and yet I would unhappily die in The Purge. Likewise, in some Roaring '20s capitalistic caricature, I might have my small business destroyed by a monopoly, or die a child laboring away in unsafe conditions. Optimizing for being manipulatable seems far less palatable than living in modern day Denmark or something.
- anm89 7y ago
  Valid critiques. 1) Yes this could be true in some cases but a lot of the way in which the "haves" exploit these kind of systems is by throwing man hours of attorneys and accountants at them because the rules are super verbose and complicated and so you hire profesional loop hole finders. If I simple piece of legislation is obviously exploitable, that will be more obvious from the get go and will less heavily favor the peoe who can pay the loophole finders. Also you cant exploit things that don't exist. 2) no, I agree you have to draw your line in the sand somewhere. I'm not an anarchist. I could take your argument in the same direction to absurdity as well. If redistribution solves all problems, let's create comittees to redistribute on a person to person basis until we reach a fair utopia. We don't do that because we acknowledge that the cost benefit of doing that gets hyperbolically negative at a certain point. What I'm advocating is that the line where that happens is actually much earlier, and that the last 10 years have shown that we are already on the wrong side of that line and that our approach to legislating away complex issues can at best handout money to certain interest in a fairly dumb way, and those groups are always going to be the ones that have a say in the legislation process via lobbying or direct involvement. So no, I'm not arguing against child labor laws, I'm arguing against complicated redistribution programs. Nothing less, nothing more