5 ms·

Awesome calling it a "gross misunderstanding" and then using a book mostly considered fiction history as a source for the definition. (Sapiens is not highly reg

Awesome calling it a "gross misunderstanding" and then using a book mostly considered fiction history as a source for the definition. (Sapiens is not highly regarded by anyone with a history background, its nice laymans reading though). I think you are ignoring the larger point he is making though. Lets say society agrees on "We want less crime". Scientifically we can make models of human behaviour, do analysis of what causes crime, what prevents it from becoming epidemic etc. We do have all that data. Poverty, lack of education and healthcare and punitive judiciary with little help for mental health and drug issues are the main causes. So if the left says "lets reduce poverty, do needle sharing programs, detox clinics, and defund the police in exchange for neighbourhood cops and mental health helpers at shelters and poorer schools" and the right says "lets give cops a tank and a more dangerous looking outfit". One is aligned with the scientific consensus on the solutions that would help, the other is just idealising violence as a solution to a complex problem. This is reproducible in other areas where there is social consensus on the problem (economy not growing, housing being expensive, cleaning the environment). Technocratic solutions aren't always the best and a number of opinions and plans are good, but it is quite crazy seeing people disregard solutions that work in every other country on the simple basis of ideology.

onos 4y ago
Don’t agree.. The rights main argument to reduce crime is to promote stable family units as stats consistently show that controlling for single motherhood, children of all races show similar rates of criminal activity. This is not popular with some on the left, which is generally committed to a view that people should be free to do what they want in their relationships. This is N example where the right is pursuing a view consistent with the data and the left is not. There are of course many examples going the other way.
- scarface74 4y ago
  When it came to drug use in the “inner city” that was the right’s talking point. But when drug use started happening in “rural America” it was a “disease”. But one of the largest cause of the lack of the cohesive family unit is the “War on Drugs” that was statistically more harshly applied to minorities. But when it comes time for police reform and criminal Justice reform, the right bristles. Yes I know that the Clintons were the major architects of the tough on crime movement in the 90s.
- Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
  I think you are being a bit disingenious. I do not think anyone on the left is defending single motherhood as the best environment to raise children, specially when many of those single mothers do not do it by choice. Considering about 50% of black amle americans spend time in jail (most of which for drug offenses) and the drug war is a complete and utter failure, I would argue that the lefts proposed solutions of decriminisalising drugs like weed, and encouraging inner city rehab programms would have a better and faster return on investment to stop "single mothers" than "promote stable family units" which has no policy attached to it other than add more christianity in school. Thats just my view point.
  - onos 4y ago
    The drug war argument is compelling. If this is the main driver we have a pretty unpleasant trade off to consider: accept drug addiction which ruins lives or send people to jail which also ruins lives. Some drugs aren’t so bad so the trade off is not there. Definitely one suggestion from the right is promote their view of social morality, Christianity but also a la carte statements: no infidelity, no sex out of wedlock etc. Another of their arguments is that welfare payments from the state have made it easier for the poor to not stick together and this has been a driver of single parent households. Ie however well motivated there is a potential harmful unintended consequence here.
    - Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
      > the right is promote their view of social morality, Isn't it patently obvious that their view of social morality is relativistic? Considering they endorsed multiple men who have openly paid for abortions, cheated on all their partners etc. If you believe in social morality you do not put a man like Hersel Walker anywhere near a ballot. Or you would suspend candidates with serious allegations like Gaetz being investigated over dating a minor. If the proposal is social morality, why not lead by example? > no sex out of wedlock etc if the right wing view about economics is that the right incentives will fix the market. Having tax benefits for married couples is already an economic incentive, therefore either their economic policy is wrong, or they shouldn't complaint about this as time will correct the market. > Another of their arguments is that welfare payments from the state have made it easier for the poor to not stick together and this has been a driver of single parent households. This might hold water on paper. But in reality every country with stronger social nets has lower crime. Even small experiments with universal credit have been fairly promising in lifting everyones living standards. In my opinion the lip service to "strong on crime" and "welfare disincentivices people working harder" is done because the consequences on those policies reinforce the status quo. They do not want more police or less welfare because its good for society, they want it because it keeps social mobility from happening. And considering how many people in the right are investing in rent-seeking instead of aggresive and innovative capitalistic ventures I think their actions speak louder than their words. If the entire Republican party moved to back AI and venture investment, and put forward absolute paragons of business with large perfect families I would believe them. But so far all I see is sketchy car used salesman energy millionaries with legacy degrees promoting business loans and rescues for companies that haven't been competitive in 3 decades.
Sebb767 4y ago
> So if the left says "lets reduce poverty, do needle sharing programs, detox clinics, and defund the police in exchange for neighbourhood cops and mental health helpers at shelters and poorer schools" and the right says "lets give cops a tank and a more dangerous looking outfit". One is aligned with the scientific consensus on the solutions that would help, the other is just idealising violence as a solution to a complex problem. That's were you mix politics and science. Both sides (generally) agree that less crime, better healthcare and more education is good. One just just says that private healthcare leads to better results and that defunding the police just leads to an even less organized force that is even worse at preventing crime. Given how few samples of large societies we have and how different each country is, we are very far from a scientific consensus on how those issues are best solved.
- Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
  > One just just says that private healthcare leads to better results And this is a clear case of ideological, not scientific thinking. From an example prespective, the next 23 richest countries behind America, all have public healthcare. From a mathematical prespective, healthcare is a natural monopoly and therefore not bound by market forces. From a legislation prespective, free laissex faire medical practice is dangerous and impractical therefore regulation is needed, once you interced to that level, you benefit from integration and monolithic procedural systems. And from a larger economic view, by tying employment to healthcare you reduce labour strength, which means uncompetitive companies can run for longer by keeping their workers hostage, if they could leave for another company the economy at large would benefit. Other than believe on paper that gubernamental overreach is inefficient, there is no angle you can justify private healthcare as the sole means of addressing a public need. Even the few arguments that are still used to defend the system such as "wait times" hold little wait when you look at the 40% of Americans who skip recommended surgeries due to cost. Wait times are lower because tons of people are not being provided a service. Which is inarguably much worse than waiting, hence why America has lower living standards and lifespan than the countries they bemoan the waits of.
  - kaba0 4y ago
passwordoops 4y ago
>Sapiens is not highly regarded by anyone with a history background Thanks for illustrating the point about paradigm shifts being tough and entrenching bias. This is especially true for soft fields such as history. Doubly so when researchers show cracks in the soft field with physicochemical data that does not agree with the prevailing view.
- Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
  I hope you are not implying that anyone disagreeing with a consensus is right by virtue of disagreeing? Sapiens is bad because the author has a limited background. He is the best historian in terms of military dairies, a super cool niche subject. he made great points about it being the original precussor to the modern novel and did some fantastic research into this small lit genre. He was then forced to take a class of Hisotry 101 in uni, a subject he didn't know or care about. While preparing the class, with material for 18 year olds, he wrote the book. He did not contrast a lot of his findings. And the book became famous because people like Bill Gates and Obama praised it. They praised because the book is well written and it largely has a nice humanitarian angle. But they miss the problems the book has, because neither of them has a history background. Many of the problems are not in the facts but in the correlations, threads relating them etc, where the author essentially writes abeaautiful chain of causality that is entirely non existant. In other words, he wrote a fantastic story about the history of humanity, not a true one. It has academic value in so far highschoolers and 101 students can get some interesting facts explained really well. But as a presentation of rigurous historical facts, event sequences or terminology, its not a good resource, at all. There is a reason there is largely cynicism in the "Scholarly review" quotes that are used on the wikipedia page of the very book

onos 4y ago

Don’t agree.. The rights main argument to reduce crime is to promote stable family units as stats consistently show that controlling for single motherhood, children of all races show similar rates of criminal activity. This is not popular with some on the left, which is generally committed to a view that people should be free to do what they want in their relationships. This is N example where the right is pursuing a view consistent with the data and the left is not. There are of course many examples going the other way.

scarface74 4y ago
When it came to drug use in the “inner city” that was the right’s talking point. But when drug use started happening in “rural America” it was a “disease”. But one of the largest cause of the lack of the cohesive family unit is the “War on Drugs” that was statistically more harshly applied to minorities. But when it comes time for police reform and criminal Justice reform, the right bristles. Yes I know that the Clintons were the major architects of the tough on crime movement in the 90s.
Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
I think you are being a bit disingenious. I do not think anyone on the left is defending single motherhood as the best environment to raise children, specially when many of those single mothers do not do it by choice. Considering about 50% of black amle americans spend time in jail (most of which for drug offenses) and the drug war is a complete and utter failure, I would argue that the lefts proposed solutions of decriminisalising drugs like weed, and encouraging inner city rehab programms would have a better and faster return on investment to stop "single mothers" than "promote stable family units" which has no policy attached to it other than add more christianity in school. Thats just my view point.
- onos 4y ago
  The drug war argument is compelling. If this is the main driver we have a pretty unpleasant trade off to consider: accept drug addiction which ruins lives or send people to jail which also ruins lives. Some drugs aren’t so bad so the trade off is not there. Definitely one suggestion from the right is promote their view of social morality, Christianity but also a la carte statements: no infidelity, no sex out of wedlock etc. Another of their arguments is that welfare payments from the state have made it easier for the poor to not stick together and this has been a driver of single parent households. Ie however well motivated there is a potential harmful unintended consequence here.
  - Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
    > the right is promote their view of social morality, Isn't it patently obvious that their view of social morality is relativistic? Considering they endorsed multiple men who have openly paid for abortions, cheated on all their partners etc. If you believe in social morality you do not put a man like Hersel Walker anywhere near a ballot. Or you would suspend candidates with serious allegations like Gaetz being investigated over dating a minor. If the proposal is social morality, why not lead by example? > no sex out of wedlock etc if the right wing view about economics is that the right incentives will fix the market. Having tax benefits for married couples is already an economic incentive, therefore either their economic policy is wrong, or they shouldn't complaint about this as time will correct the market. > Another of their arguments is that welfare payments from the state have made it easier for the poor to not stick together and this has been a driver of single parent households. This might hold water on paper. But in reality every country with stronger social nets has lower crime. Even small experiments with universal credit have been fairly promising in lifting everyones living standards. In my opinion the lip service to "strong on crime" and "welfare disincentivices people working harder" is done because the consequences on those policies reinforce the status quo. They do not want more police or less welfare because its good for society, they want it because it keeps social mobility from happening. And considering how many people in the right are investing in rent-seeking instead of aggresive and innovative capitalistic ventures I think their actions speak louder than their words. If the entire Republican party moved to back AI and venture investment, and put forward absolute paragons of business with large perfect families I would believe them. But so far all I see is sketchy car used salesman energy millionaries with legacy degrees promoting business loans and rescues for companies that haven't been competitive in 3 decades.

Sebb767 4y ago

> So if the left says "lets reduce poverty, do needle sharing programs, detox clinics, and defund the police in exchange for neighbourhood cops and mental health helpers at shelters and poorer schools" and the right says "lets give cops a tank and a more dangerous looking outfit". One is aligned with the scientific consensus on the solutions that would help, the other is just idealising violence as a solution to a complex problem. That's were you mix politics and science. Both sides (generally) agree that less crime, better healthcare and more education is good. One just just says that private healthcare leads to better results and that defunding the police just leads to an even less organized force that is even worse at preventing crime. Given how few samples of large societies we have and how different each country is, we are very far from a scientific consensus on how those issues are best solved.

Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
> One just just says that private healthcare leads to better results And this is a clear case of ideological, not scientific thinking. From an example prespective, the next 23 richest countries behind America, all have public healthcare. From a mathematical prespective, healthcare is a natural monopoly and therefore not bound by market forces. From a legislation prespective, free laissex faire medical practice is dangerous and impractical therefore regulation is needed, once you interced to that level, you benefit from integration and monolithic procedural systems. And from a larger economic view, by tying employment to healthcare you reduce labour strength, which means uncompetitive companies can run for longer by keeping their workers hostage, if they could leave for another company the economy at large would benefit. Other than believe on paper that gubernamental overreach is inefficient, there is no angle you can justify private healthcare as the sole means of addressing a public need. Even the few arguments that are still used to defend the system such as "wait times" hold little wait when you look at the 40% of Americans who skip recommended surgeries due to cost. Wait times are lower because tons of people are not being provided a service. Which is inarguably much worse than waiting, hence why America has lower living standards and lifespan than the countries they bemoan the waits of.
- kaba0 4y ago

passwordoops 4y ago

>Sapiens is not highly regarded by anyone with a history background Thanks for illustrating the point about paradigm shifts being tough and entrenching bias. This is especially true for soft fields such as history. Doubly so when researchers show cracks in the soft field with physicochemical data that does not agree with the prevailing view.

Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
I hope you are not implying that anyone disagreeing with a consensus is right by virtue of disagreeing? Sapiens is bad because the author has a limited background. He is the best historian in terms of military dairies, a super cool niche subject. he made great points about it being the original precussor to the modern novel and did some fantastic research into this small lit genre. He was then forced to take a class of Hisotry 101 in uni, a subject he didn't know or care about. While preparing the class, with material for 18 year olds, he wrote the book. He did not contrast a lot of his findings. And the book became famous because people like Bill Gates and Obama praised it. They praised because the book is well written and it largely has a nice humanitarian angle. But they miss the problems the book has, because neither of them has a history background. Many of the problems are not in the facts but in the correlations, threads relating them etc, where the author essentially writes abeaautiful chain of causality that is entirely non existant. In other words, he wrote a fantastic story about the history of humanity, not a true one. It has academic value in so far highschoolers and 101 students can get some interesting facts explained really well. But as a presentation of rigurous historical facts, event sequences or terminology, its not a good resource, at all. There is a reason there is largely cynicism in the "Scholarly review" quotes that are used on the wikipedia page of the very book