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> Some planned states (or even state-planned states) are preferable to other planned states Sure, but that's not what we're talking about. The question is: How

> Some planned states (or even state-planned states) are preferable to other planned states Sure, but that's not what we're talking about. The question is: How do you arrive at an unmolested state: that is, how do we steer society and AI away from real and perceived racism without ourselves being racist? Rothbard puts it in terms of central planning, but the idea is the same. To deal with the devil we must, ourselves, be a tiny bit evil. We cannot fix racism as social engineers by saying "out with yee, white men!", without ourselves being racist. Note that I'm not saying we should do nothing - just that there is no "morally clean" way of "fixing" these issues.

majormajor 3y ago
I still don't think I agree. And "arriving at an unmolested state," to me, doesn't seem like a reasonable goal. I think intervention is often necessary and preferred because humans otherwise tend to create "molested states" through independent action anyway. In most any sport I can think of, the response to an infraction of the rules is a penalty. Many times those penalties hurt those not directly involved in the rulebreaking too (especially ones that hit at the organization-level). Generally this is seen as "fair" still. I think the affirmative action example plays out morally in the same way. Particularly since it was not an "out with white men" action but was a future-looking plan to try to re-level things. I think it could be done more effectively - many of today's interventions happen way too late in life to truly be transformative - but I completely disagree with the "that's just reverse racism" crowd that wants to use purely "statistical" measurements. Can you truly ascribe more moral guilt to affirmative action than you can to "we know this group is starting from a worse place due to concrete, evil acts, and we choose to say that's just the way it is"?
- erulabs 3y ago
  You're still missing my point. Let's consider murder. Of course "murdering a murderer" is less morally culpable than "murdering an innocent person", but it is still murder! We're not comparing the cost of one to the other, we're suggesting that there is no morally clean way of fixing the issue! Either we allow the murderer to go free (bad!) or we murder the murderer (also bad, but possibly less bad? Objectively, we've increased the murder rate!). You keep suggesting that I am saying we should take no actions. All I am saying is that one cannot engineer society without committing at least a few sins. Society cannot be rightly compared to a sports game. There is no referee in society. You may assume that is the state, but you would be incorrect. There are only players in this game.
  - majormajor 3y ago
    > You keep suggesting that I am saying we should take no actions. All I am saying is that one cannot engineer society without committing at least a few sins. I would characterize my position more like: I'm rejecting your definition of sin.
    - erulabs 3y ago
      That is fair enough for me! This is sometimes called "The Exceptional Man". The one who can murder murderers without committing a crime. I strongly recommend "Crime and Punishment" - the investigation of the exceptional man who is morally strong enough to "set society in order" is the entire subject of the book. I have lived long enough to know that I am not the exceptional man. I suspect that he does not exist, or at least, has not yet existed.
      - majormajor 3y ago
        I would replace Raskolnikov with a state-sanctioned executioner, and ask what sin their religion or society would ascribe to them? Often the answer has been "none". There's a certain "turtles all the way down" weakness there, of course - how legitimate is the government, how aligned morality-wise is the society, do we hit absolutes at some point instead? When is the revolutionary actually justified? etc. But I feel that generally a democratic state has a wide latitude to take action without needing to feel guilt over sin. EDIT: And that a tendency towards excess guilt-feeling causes other problems of its own (which itself can be seen in some of the more extreme current liberal-white-person responses to the racial situation in the US). That's the particular point that originally got me on this thread.
        erulabs 3y ago
        One assumes that this line of reasoning might easily lead one to, say, storm a capital? I mean, if you thought you could side-step moral problems in the name of the greater good - wouldn't it just be a matter of convincing yourself? If you were 100% convinced society was a great evil, and you also were told that exceptional men do not concern themselves with small evils, and to not feel "excess guilt", could you not imagine committing horrendous evil? I guess my question is: do you think the Nazis justified their actions differently than how you've explained one can justify small immoralities? I hate to invoke the Nazis or Stalin, but it seems totally justified to me. I assume plenty of Nazis thought their government was legitimate, which in turn made their job as executioner legitimate. They were only following orders in the name of the greater good after all! Raskolnikov, you have to remember, was a member of a terribly corrupt society. There were no state executioners and the justice system was terribly rigged. No one was coming to punish Alyona Ivanovna - it was up to our "exceptional" hero.

majormajor 3y ago

I still don't think I agree. And "arriving at an unmolested state," to me, doesn't seem like a reasonable goal. I think intervention is often necessary and preferred because humans otherwise tend to create "molested states" through independent action anyway. In most any sport I can think of, the response to an infraction of the rules is a penalty. Many times those penalties hurt those not directly involved in the rulebreaking too (especially ones that hit at the organization-level). Generally this is seen as "fair" still. I think the affirmative action example plays out morally in the same way. Particularly since it was not an "out with white men" action but was a future-looking plan to try to re-level things. I think it could be done more effectively - many of today's interventions happen way too late in life to truly be transformative - but I completely disagree with the "that's just reverse racism" crowd that wants to use purely "statistical" measurements. Can you truly ascribe more moral guilt to affirmative action than you can to "we know this group is starting from a worse place due to concrete, evil acts, and we choose to say that's just the way it is"?

erulabs 3y ago
You're still missing my point. Let's consider murder. Of course "murdering a murderer" is less morally culpable than "murdering an innocent person", but it is still murder! We're not comparing the cost of one to the other, we're suggesting that there is no morally clean way of fixing the issue! Either we allow the murderer to go free (bad!) or we murder the murderer (also bad, but possibly less bad? Objectively, we've increased the murder rate!). You keep suggesting that I am saying we should take no actions. All I am saying is that one cannot engineer society without committing at least a few sins. Society cannot be rightly compared to a sports game. There is no referee in society. You may assume that is the state, but you would be incorrect. There are only players in this game.
- majormajor 3y ago
  > You keep suggesting that I am saying we should take no actions. All I am saying is that one cannot engineer society without committing at least a few sins. I would characterize my position more like: I'm rejecting your definition of sin.
  - erulabs 3y ago
    That is fair enough for me! This is sometimes called "The Exceptional Man". The one who can murder murderers without committing a crime. I strongly recommend "Crime and Punishment" - the investigation of the exceptional man who is morally strong enough to "set society in order" is the entire subject of the book. I have lived long enough to know that I am not the exceptional man. I suspect that he does not exist, or at least, has not yet existed.
    - majormajor 3y ago
      I would replace Raskolnikov with a state-sanctioned executioner, and ask what sin their religion or society would ascribe to them? Often the answer has been "none". There's a certain "turtles all the way down" weakness there, of course - how legitimate is the government, how aligned morality-wise is the society, do we hit absolutes at some point instead? When is the revolutionary actually justified? etc. But I feel that generally a democratic state has a wide latitude to take action without needing to feel guilt over sin. EDIT: And that a tendency towards excess guilt-feeling causes other problems of its own (which itself can be seen in some of the more extreme current liberal-white-person responses to the racial situation in the US). That's the particular point that originally got me on this thread.
      - erulabs 3y ago
        One assumes that this line of reasoning might easily lead one to, say, storm a capital? I mean, if you thought you could side-step moral problems in the name of the greater good - wouldn't it just be a matter of convincing yourself? If you were 100% convinced society was a great evil, and you also were told that exceptional men do not concern themselves with small evils, and to not feel "excess guilt", could you not imagine committing horrendous evil? I guess my question is: do you think the Nazis justified their actions differently than how you've explained one can justify small immoralities? I hate to invoke the Nazis or Stalin, but it seems totally justified to me. I assume plenty of Nazis thought their government was legitimate, which in turn made their job as executioner legitimate. They were only following orders in the name of the greater good after all! Raskolnikov, you have to remember, was a member of a terribly corrupt society. There were no state executioners and the justice system was terribly rigged. No one was coming to punish Alyona Ivanovna - it was up to our "exceptional" hero.