4 ms·

It feels really unfair that all anti-gov / taxation arguments are just fatalistic "this will fail" and we're okay with that as if entropy isn't the default stat

It feels really unfair that all anti-gov / taxation arguments are just fatalistic "this will fail" and we're okay with that as if entropy isn't the default state of the universe. No use building this bridge it'll just rust. Why eat! you're gonna die anyways. Why bother with a wealth tax, they'll out smart you anyways.

0dayz 4y ago
This has nothing to do with defeatism, OP points out the flaw with idealising regulations willy nilly without having a mechanism to make sure it doesn't get exploited (that mechanism often being the people understanding the issue and thus having a stake in it). A good example is direct democracy in Switzerland, the key reason to why it works is that people are 2 things, Switzerland big focus on education and the vast information of the for, against, status quo option the citizens are presented with. Without these things the Swiss would be very vulnerable to demagoguery.
roenxi 4y ago
I would make that argument, but I didn't today. There is a real chance in the next decade that the public will be voting on how to respond to Russia with consequences that may doom us all. That may not even be the biggest issue, depending on how these famines and supply issues resolve. That same election will also be deciding how to handle potential corruption in some Board of the Internet. Are you going to put aside the threat of nuclear war for another day and vote with the #1 issue being whether you feel your internet is too expensive and/or suitably available? Do you want to encourage others to do the same? That would be beyond reckless in my humble opinion. Internet regulation isn't going to make top 5 for me personally for a long while yet. It isn't reasonable to talk about a public internet putting control into the hands of the Many. The Many don't have that many hands, their hands are already full. They cannot grapple with this issue as well. This will just result in some random committee of people, probably paid off by corporate interests, who will be even fewer than the theoretical few that the article complains of. They will not listen to you either. And that isn't defeatism, it is pointing out that this solution takes a reasonably good thing and makes it worse by applying woolly thinking to a real situation. The complaint is that power is too centralised, then it is proposing to centralise power further.
- uncomputation 4y ago
  > Are you going to put aside the threat of nuclear war for another day and vote with the #1 issue being whether you feel your internet is too expensive and/or suitably available? You could make this same argument with literally anything though, as if the only priority of the government is nuclear war. Are you going to put aside the threat of nuclear war and vote on food and drug regulation? Are you going to put aside the threat of nuclear war and vote on voting rights? Are you going to put aside the threat of nuclear war and vote on tax reform? This argument reduces the government to a worst-case scenario committee.
  - roenxi 4y ago
    Enumerating the implications is a bit different from a counterargument. I do argue that food & drug regulation has done a lot of damage by centralising power into the hands of the few. You can't really look at the healthcare system after government gets involved and argue that power has been pushed into the hands of the many, it is very centralised and best-case controlled by a small number of technocrats, worst case blatant corruption by big corporations. The lesson in COVID times was that individuals have basically no control over their health choices when the technocrats make a decision. That was hardly "the many" in action. I think voting & taxes are ultimately inseparable from government, but yeah - I would prioritise foreign policy above those two issues right now and encourage others to do the same. If a big war breaks out there may not be much left to tax.
Georgelemental 4y ago
culi was not engaging in vague doom-and-gloom, he was referring to the specific phenomenon where highly committed minority interests tend to win out over apathetic majorities. If you want to avoid this outcome, you need to come up with a solution specifically designed to combat this tendency.

0dayz 4y ago

This has nothing to do with defeatism, OP points out the flaw with idealising regulations willy nilly without having a mechanism to make sure it doesn't get exploited (that mechanism often being the people understanding the issue and thus having a stake in it). A good example is direct democracy in Switzerland, the key reason to why it works is that people are 2 things, Switzerland big focus on education and the vast information of the for, against, status quo option the citizens are presented with. Without these things the Swiss would be very vulnerable to demagoguery.

roenxi 4y ago

I would make that argument, but I didn't today. There is a real chance in the next decade that the public will be voting on how to respond to Russia with consequences that may doom us all. That may not even be the biggest issue, depending on how these famines and supply issues resolve. That same election will also be deciding how to handle potential corruption in some Board of the Internet. Are you going to put aside the threat of nuclear war for another day and vote with the #1 issue being whether you feel your internet is too expensive and/or suitably available? Do you want to encourage others to do the same? That would be beyond reckless in my humble opinion. Internet regulation isn't going to make top 5 for me personally for a long while yet. It isn't reasonable to talk about a public internet putting control into the hands of the Many. The Many don't have that many hands, their hands are already full. They cannot grapple with this issue as well. This will just result in some random committee of people, probably paid off by corporate interests, who will be even fewer than the theoretical few that the article complains of. They will not listen to you either. And that isn't defeatism, it is pointing out that this solution takes a reasonably good thing and makes it worse by applying woolly thinking to a real situation. The complaint is that power is too centralised, then it is proposing to centralise power further.

uncomputation 4y ago
> Are you going to put aside the threat of nuclear war for another day and vote with the #1 issue being whether you feel your internet is too expensive and/or suitably available? You could make this same argument with literally anything though, as if the only priority of the government is nuclear war. Are you going to put aside the threat of nuclear war and vote on food and drug regulation? Are you going to put aside the threat of nuclear war and vote on voting rights? Are you going to put aside the threat of nuclear war and vote on tax reform? This argument reduces the government to a worst-case scenario committee.
- roenxi 4y ago
  Enumerating the implications is a bit different from a counterargument. I do argue that food & drug regulation has done a lot of damage by centralising power into the hands of the few. You can't really look at the healthcare system after government gets involved and argue that power has been pushed into the hands of the many, it is very centralised and best-case controlled by a small number of technocrats, worst case blatant corruption by big corporations. The lesson in COVID times was that individuals have basically no control over their health choices when the technocrats make a decision. That was hardly "the many" in action. I think voting & taxes are ultimately inseparable from government, but yeah - I would prioritise foreign policy above those two issues right now and encourage others to do the same. If a big war breaks out there may not be much left to tax.

Georgelemental 4y ago

culi was not engaging in vague doom-and-gloom, he was referring to the specific phenomenon where highly committed minority interests tend to win out over apathetic majorities. If you want to avoid this outcome, you need to come up with a solution specifically designed to combat this tendency.