10 ms·

Imagine there's a society at the bottom of a valley. Every 10 years, there's a flood which means everyone will have to move to the mountains for 3 months and ea

Imagine there's a society at the bottom of a valley. Every 10 years, there's a flood which means everyone will have to move to the mountains for 3 months and eat stored food. So the wise old men make a flood council, to be populated with responsible people who ensure there's huts in the mountains and plenty of food. Except it doesn't flood like a clockwork every 10 years. It's more like an annual dice roll. It can happen more often, but it can also happen less often. It's entirely within the scope of probability that kids are born and grow to be adults without a flood. After a three decades, what has happened? Someone will have the brilliant idea of using the spare food. Initially it will seem necessary, as hard times have arrived due to other circumstances. Eventually, people forget about filling it up. Someone else will decide the flood huts are a waste, a bunch of empty homes with great views that nobody ever lives in. Why not sell it? The flood council's work becomes undermined by their cost. People see there's all these highly educated people working on a plan that nobody's ever used. They see fat cats flying around to flood conferences, big flood taking a tax on everyone, and fearmongering whenever the flood council reminds people to be prepared. So the flood eventually happens, people are drowned and the survivors starve. "But there was no way to see it coming."

chimprich 6y ago
And even when the flood is actually occurring, people will shout it down as a hoax, or argue that any countermeasures have been a massive overreaction because only x people have drowned so far. Any scientific work that produces an uncomfortable prediction will be written off as doom-mongering and any proposal that would impact people's personal comfort level will be declared as unworkable and unreasonable.
gherkinnn 6y ago
One of the benefits of a state is that it does not need to operate like a business. It can and should maintain these refuges and keep them stocked. Perishables get replaced and consumed in the valley. A state has the ability to stand above current whims. At the very least, contingency plans don’t go stale. The second aspect is us facing the pandemic. Playing it down, calling it a hoax, refusing to wear a mask. Stomping around with guns. Making it a partisan issue. War rhetoric. It’s utterly insane. A few calm generations in the flood valley don’t quite explain this.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > At the very least, contingency plans don’t go stale. They do if not maintained, especially when there are major changes in population size or spatial distribution, or changes in the infrastructure and its usage (e.g. hospital spinups and closures, traffic/transport). To make it worse, Trump outright gutted the pandemic response team, and Germany hasn't done well in that regard either although we were quick to listen on experts, which mitigated that at least a bit. > A few calm generations in the flood valley don’t quite explain this. They do, actually. In the US, but also in parts of the EU, "science denial" has been moved from "whacko nutjob" territory to outright mainstream, with constant cuts in education funding doing the rest. Democracy requires a demos, especially a demos able (both intellectually and in terms of time) and willing to participate in the democratic process, to work.
- karmelapple 6y ago
  > It can and should That last word is the problem: there are many people, without a drop of sarcasm, irony, or smiling, who think government should indeed be run like a business. A public information campaign on why that’s not the case certainly seems important to greatly reduce this idea’s popularity. Are there any groups doing this?
- KajMagnus 6y ago
  > "benefits of a state ... can and should maintain these refuges ..." Real life example: "The Japanese mayor who was laughed at for building a huge sea wall - until his village was left almost untouched by tsunami" https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386978/The-Japanese-mayor-laughed-building-huge-sea-wall--village-left-untouched-tsunami.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386978/The-Japanes... But that mayor was (he died long before the tsunami), I'd think, a rare person.
Marazan 6y ago
Brilliant example. At the core, in a capitalist society, a company with no capital 'wasted' on distaster planning will out compete a company that has invested capital in disaster planning in the short term And "short term" can mean quote long periods of time in practise. As a result we end up with this incredibly fragile system and society.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  This can't be emphasised enough: capitalism is systemically biased against rational survival strategies. It's fundamentally an irrational system which uses emotion and political leverage - with a bit of innovation - to maximise short-term individual gain. But it has surrounded itself with a self-serving cloud of rhetoric about how it's "efficient" and "rational", when in fact it's astoundingly bad at dealing with planet-scale collective threats that could be easily handled with genuinely rational management.
  - rewoi 6y ago
    Communism has a systemic bias towards causing catastrophes :-)
  - ben_w 6y ago
    I would say that anarchy, rather than capitalism, is biased in that way. I would not expect anarcho-capitalism to do any better or any worse than anarcho-communism. Reason being, some rules just don’t make sense unless you have a deep understanding of the part of the world they interact with; and if you are free to flout those rules, it can be very tempting when you have no salient examples of the consequences of breaking them. Lead was added to gasoline for improved performance, not to cause systemic increases in violence after 30 years of widespread use; CFCs were chosen because of their low toxicity, reactivity and flammability, not to catalytically destroy the ozone layer; antibiotics are used by meat farmers to increase growth rate and allow more intensive farming, not to trigger the evolution of MRSA. There are almost certainly other things which I could not even describe accurately that follow the same pattern. I have no idea how to protect against disasters that only experts can comprehend without also allowing obsolete ideologies and standards organisations to crystallise against progress. But then, I’m only superficially familiar with political philosophy — I was about 30 when I learned of Chesterton’s Fence.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Mirioron 6y ago
Imagine there are two societies like this. One invests in building huts and storing food, the other one doesn't. They don't have to maintain the food storage and huts. The labor is spent on something else that advances society. Let's say this gives them a 1% advantage in advancing society every year. After 100 years the 1% advantage turns into 1.001^100 = 2.7. The society that didn't invest in the disaster plan advanced much more. When you tie up your resources you can't invest it into something else. Governments know this very well. That's why they borrow money to invest it into projects that will have a higher payoff than the interest. At some point in disaster planning you need to ask what the impact of the preparation is vs the impact of the disaster itself. Obviously officials can't say after a disaster that the reason they didn't prepare was that they calculated that the cost to prepare was higher than the likelihood of the disaster times the cost of the disaster. If the officials admitted that then they would seem heartless. They say instead: "There was no way to see it coming." If you think this line of thinking by officials is unreasonable, then I'd like to ask you: do you have a bomb shelter at home? Why not? The Swiss do: [0] >"Every inhabitant must have a protected place that can be reached quickly from his place of residence". >"Apartment block owners are required to construct and fit out shelters in all new dwellings". >(Articles 45 and 46 of the Swiss Federal Law on Civil Protection). Obviously this is an expensive law. The Swiss can afford it, because they're one if the richest countries in the world. In the case of disaster the Swiss are prepared. The rest of us are not. [0] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/always-be-prepared_how-ready-is-switzerland-for-a-nuclear-disaster-/43570374 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/always-be-prepared_how-ready-is...
- landryraccoon 6y ago
  I don't think the numbers work out though. Say Pandemic response preparation costs $10 billion a year, and the event occurs every hundred years. That means the total cost is $1T over 100 years. Has the Pandemic caused more than $1T of damage to the United States? We've spent more than $1T just on the government bailout, which doesn't even come close to covering the damage to individuals and the economy as a whole. I'd say it easily exceeds $1T. Far more was spent on the Iraq war than on Covid preparation, yet the latter would have paid massive returns. Frankly, pandemic response would be a rounding error compared to the defense budget. Even $2B a year in pandemic preparation might have saved us. That's only $200B per hundred years, far less than Covid has cost the US this year.
KajMagnus 6y ago
> "... using the spare food ... Someone else will decide the flood huts are a waste" Also, those politicians, get more votes — they can use the money they save when they sell the spare food, to lower the taxes or give people welfare money, and build and give away free houses in the valley. Any politicians who want to keep the houses on the hills, are pretty powerless.

chimprich 6y ago

And even when the flood is actually occurring, people will shout it down as a hoax, or argue that any countermeasures have been a massive overreaction because only x people have drowned so far. Any scientific work that produces an uncomfortable prediction will be written off as doom-mongering and any proposal that would impact people's personal comfort level will be declared as unworkable and unreasonable.

gherkinnn 6y ago

One of the benefits of a state is that it does not need to operate like a business. It can and should maintain these refuges and keep them stocked. Perishables get replaced and consumed in the valley. A state has the ability to stand above current whims. At the very least, contingency plans don’t go stale. The second aspect is us facing the pandemic. Playing it down, calling it a hoax, refusing to wear a mask. Stomping around with guns. Making it a partisan issue. War rhetoric. It’s utterly insane. A few calm generations in the flood valley don’t quite explain this.

mschuster91 6y ago
> At the very least, contingency plans don’t go stale. They do if not maintained, especially when there are major changes in population size or spatial distribution, or changes in the infrastructure and its usage (e.g. hospital spinups and closures, traffic/transport). To make it worse, Trump outright gutted the pandemic response team, and Germany hasn't done well in that regard either although we were quick to listen on experts, which mitigated that at least a bit. > A few calm generations in the flood valley don’t quite explain this. They do, actually. In the US, but also in parts of the EU, "science denial" has been moved from "whacko nutjob" territory to outright mainstream, with constant cuts in education funding doing the rest. Democracy requires a demos, especially a demos able (both intellectually and in terms of time) and willing to participate in the democratic process, to work.
karmelapple 6y ago
> It can and should That last word is the problem: there are many people, without a drop of sarcasm, irony, or smiling, who think government should indeed be run like a business. A public information campaign on why that’s not the case certainly seems important to greatly reduce this idea’s popularity. Are there any groups doing this?
KajMagnus 6y ago
> "benefits of a state ... can and should maintain these refuges ..." Real life example: "The Japanese mayor who was laughed at for building a huge sea wall - until his village was left almost untouched by tsunami" https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386978/The-Japanese-mayor-laughed-building-huge-sea-wall--village-left-untouched-tsunami.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386978/The-Japanes... But that mayor was (he died long before the tsunami), I'd think, a rare person.

Marazan 6y ago

Brilliant example. At the core, in a capitalist society, a company with no capital 'wasted' on distaster planning will out compete a company that has invested capital in disaster planning in the short term And "short term" can mean quote long periods of time in practise. As a result we end up with this incredibly fragile system and society.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
This can't be emphasised enough: capitalism is systemically biased against rational survival strategies. It's fundamentally an irrational system which uses emotion and political leverage - with a bit of innovation - to maximise short-term individual gain. But it has surrounded itself with a self-serving cloud of rhetoric about how it's "efficient" and "rational", when in fact it's astoundingly bad at dealing with planet-scale collective threats that could be easily handled with genuinely rational management.
- rewoi 6y ago
  Communism has a systemic bias towards causing catastrophes :-)
- ben_w 6y ago
  I would say that anarchy, rather than capitalism, is biased in that way. I would not expect anarcho-capitalism to do any better or any worse than anarcho-communism. Reason being, some rules just don’t make sense unless you have a deep understanding of the part of the world they interact with; and if you are free to flout those rules, it can be very tempting when you have no salient examples of the consequences of breaking them. Lead was added to gasoline for improved performance, not to cause systemic increases in violence after 30 years of widespread use; CFCs were chosen because of their low toxicity, reactivity and flammability, not to catalytically destroy the ozone layer; antibiotics are used by meat farmers to increase growth rate and allow more intensive farming, not to trigger the evolution of MRSA. There are almost certainly other things which I could not even describe accurately that follow the same pattern. I have no idea how to protect against disasters that only experts can comprehend without also allowing obsolete ideologies and standards organisations to crystallise against progress. But then, I’m only superficially familiar with political philosophy — I was about 30 when I learned of Chesterton’s Fence.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Mirioron 6y ago

Imagine there are two societies like this. One invests in building huts and storing food, the other one doesn't. They don't have to maintain the food storage and huts. The labor is spent on something else that advances society. Let's say this gives them a 1% advantage in advancing society every year. After 100 years the 1% advantage turns into 1.001^100 = 2.7. The society that didn't invest in the disaster plan advanced much more. When you tie up your resources you can't invest it into something else. Governments know this very well. That's why they borrow money to invest it into projects that will have a higher payoff than the interest. At some point in disaster planning you need to ask what the impact of the preparation is vs the impact of the disaster itself. Obviously officials can't say after a disaster that the reason they didn't prepare was that they calculated that the cost to prepare was higher than the likelihood of the disaster times the cost of the disaster. If the officials admitted that then they would seem heartless. They say instead: "There was no way to see it coming." If you think this line of thinking by officials is unreasonable, then I'd like to ask you: do you have a bomb shelter at home? Why not? The Swiss do: [0] >"Every inhabitant must have a protected place that can be reached quickly from his place of residence". >"Apartment block owners are required to construct and fit out shelters in all new dwellings". >(Articles 45 and 46 of the Swiss Federal Law on Civil Protection). Obviously this is an expensive law. The Swiss can afford it, because they're one if the richest countries in the world. In the case of disaster the Swiss are prepared. The rest of us are not. [0] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/always-be-prepared_how-ready-is-switzerland-for-a-nuclear-disaster-/43570374 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/always-be-prepared_how-ready-is...

landryraccoon 6y ago
I don't think the numbers work out though. Say Pandemic response preparation costs $10 billion a year, and the event occurs every hundred years. That means the total cost is $1T over 100 years. Has the Pandemic caused more than $1T of damage to the United States? We've spent more than $1T just on the government bailout, which doesn't even come close to covering the damage to individuals and the economy as a whole. I'd say it easily exceeds $1T. Far more was spent on the Iraq war than on Covid preparation, yet the latter would have paid massive returns. Frankly, pandemic response would be a rounding error compared to the defense budget. Even $2B a year in pandemic preparation might have saved us. That's only $200B per hundred years, far less than Covid has cost the US this year.

KajMagnus 6y ago

> "... using the spare food ... Someone else will decide the flood huts are a waste" Also, those politicians, get more votes — they can use the money they save when they sell the spare food, to lower the taxes or give people welfare money, and build and give away free houses in the valley. Any politicians who want to keep the houses on the hills, are pretty powerless.