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> Uh, you did: No. You are reading my words through the lens of your own opinions and prejudices. When you re-stated my positions, you changed the words, and

by lisper 3y ago

> Uh, you did: No. You are reading my words through the lens of your own opinions and prejudices. When you re-stated my positions, you changed the words, and when you did that, you changed the meaning in significant ways. > Nobody in politics is ethical What I said was that type 1 corruption is ubiquitous. I took no position on whether or not it is ethical. This is a complicated question. The only reason I'm using the word "corruption", with all of its pejorative connotations, to describe it is because English doesn't have a better word. I could call it "campaign finance". Private campaign finance is ubiquitous. Is it unethical? Reasonable people can disagree. Personally, I would prefer to have publicly financed campaigns, but we have this annoying First Amendment that makes it tough to implement. > nobody in business is ethical I didn't take a position on that either. What I said was to pose a rhetorical question: if a business person is unethical, how would you know? Because if a business person does something unethical they will generally try to conceal it. There probably are ethical people in business, but I think they are probably rare. But that is neither here nor there. What matters is that you would have a very hard time demonstrating their existence since you would have to somehow demonstrate that they were not successfully concealing their unethical behavior. I think there are probably ethical people in politics too, and I think Joe Biden is probably about as close to that as you're going to get, at least at the national level. Do you have a better example? > no market is competitive. What I said was that there are no free competitive markets. The operative word was "free", not "competitive". Obviously there are competitive markets, and politics is one of them. There is no substantive difference between the dynamics of political markets and the dynamics of any other market where the nature of the product is such that there can be only one winner (e.g. large construction projects).

lapcat 3y ago
> You are reading my words through the lens of your own opinions and prejudices. Have you considered that you just don't write very clearly? > I could call it "campaign finance". Private campaign finance is ubiquitous. No, it's not just about campaign finance. Of course every politician raises campaign funds, an empirical fact beyond dispute. The corrupt, unethical aspect of it is buying influence, trading campaign donations for access, favors, and votes. This is not an essential requirement of campaign finance, but it's a sadly common occurrence. I said way back at the beginning "As far as I've seen, which is a lot, he's been a paid tool of the Delaware financial industry for his entire career" and "I'm baffled that some people don't consider it corruption when politicians are owned by campaign contributors." I wasn't talking about the fact that Joe Biden has raised campaign funds; by itself, that's not interesting or worth noting. My point was that Biden has consistently, persistently served the interests of his big money donors rather than his constituents. That's corruption. Type 1 corruption, if you insist on using those terms. It doesn't personally enrich politicians, but it advances their political careers and power. > What I said was to pose a rhetorical question: if a business person is unethical, how would you know? Because if a business person does something unethical they will generally try to conceal it. This is ridiculous, absurdly cynical, even by my own standards of cynicism. Are you skeptical of the existence of true love too? Is everyone in your life just lying to you about everything? I'm in business myself, and I know myself. I don't think I'm unique in the world. I've dealt with plenty of honest people. Moreover, in general, people are not particularly good at covering up their misdeeds and bad intentions. It's usually pretty obvious, if you're observant. > The operative word was "free", not "competitive". You still haven't stated what you mean by "free". Or "competitive", for that matter. (Have you considered that you just don't write very clearly?) > Obviously there are competitive markets, and politics is one of them. I wouldn't consider a duopoly to be very competitive. What do you even mean by "competitive"? Is any market except a monopoly competitive to you? Maybe we should call it "type 1" competitive... In any case, whatever you mean by those words, I simply don't agree with this: > Even in commerce the vast majority of industries are dominated and controlled by a very small number (often just two, sometimes one) of major players. You can cherry-pick examples, but I see plenty of markets that aren't so dominated.
- lisper 3y ago
  > Have you considered that you just don't write very clearly? Sure. But I'm writing for an HN comment thread, not a submission to a peer-review journal. My standards are lower here. Have you considered the possibility that you don't read very carefully? > trading campaign donations for access, favors, and votes This is not nearly as black-and-white as you are making it out to be. Consider these scenarios: 1. Joe Politician campaigns on a pledge to vote for a bill you support. You donate to Joe's campaign. Joe wins and votes for the bill. 2. Joe campaigns on a pledge to vote AGAINST the bill you want to see passed. He calls you on the phone asking you to donate. You refuse, explaining that you don't agree with his position. He asks you to explain why you support the bill. You do, and persuade Joe to change his mind. You then change your mind about donating. Joe wins, and votes for the bill. 3. Like scenario 2 above in all respects that are visible to you, except that unbeknownst to you Joe is not actually persuaded by your argument, he only pretends to be. In fact he has decided to make his vote contingent on your contribution. Does that change your answer? 4. Like scenario 3 except that Joe is honest with you and tells you he will vote for the bill if you make a large enough donation. In which of these, if any, have you traded a campaign contribution for a vote? Because the net of the interaction is exactly the same in all four cases: you write Joe a check, Joe votes for your bill. > Are you skeptical of the existence of true love too? That depends on what you mean by "true love". [UPDATE] I asked my wife of 27 years that question and her answer was exactly the same as mine. I guess that's one reason I love her :-) > Is everyone in your life just lying to you about everything? No. You don't understand how deception works. Have you ever played poker? Bluffing doesn't work if you do it too often. Deploying unethical behavior effectively is a skill, and a big part of that skill is making people think you're not doing it. (Donald Trump is the absolute master of the craft. He is so good at it that he doesn't even have to hide it any more.) > You still haven't stated what you mean by "free". You're the one who introduced the word into the conversation, not me. You wrote: > What differentiates politics, in large part, is that it's not a free, competitive market So you made a claim that there is something that distinguishes politics from business, and that this thing has something to do with the words "free and competitive". It doesn't really matter what you actually meant because my counter-claim is that there is no salient distinction between business and politics at all, and so you can't distinguish between them based on "freedom" or "competitiveness" no matter what those words mean. In any case, the onus is on you as the one who made the claim to demonstrate that these words actually have a referent that allows business and politics to be distinguished, otherwise you have made a vacuous claim. > I wouldn't consider a duopoly to be very competitive. It isn't. But it's more competitive than a one-party system. Competitiveness is a continuum, not a a dichotomy. But the natural tendency of markets is to consolidate as they grow, and so most large markets trend towards duopolies (if you're lucky or have government intervention) or monopolies. > I see plenty of markets that aren't so dominated. Name one.

by lisper 3y ago

lapcat 3y ago

> You are reading my words through the lens of your own opinions and prejudices. Have you considered that you just don't write very clearly? > I could call it "campaign finance". Private campaign finance is ubiquitous. No, it's not just about campaign finance. Of course every politician raises campaign funds, an empirical fact beyond dispute. The corrupt, unethical aspect of it is buying influence, trading campaign donations for access, favors, and votes. This is not an essential requirement of campaign finance, but it's a sadly common occurrence. I said way back at the beginning "As far as I've seen, which is a lot, he's been a paid tool of the Delaware financial industry for his entire career" and "I'm baffled that some people don't consider it corruption when politicians are owned by campaign contributors." I wasn't talking about the fact that Joe Biden has raised campaign funds; by itself, that's not interesting or worth noting. My point was that Biden has consistently, persistently served the interests of his big money donors rather than his constituents. That's corruption. Type 1 corruption, if you insist on using those terms. It doesn't personally enrich politicians, but it advances their political careers and power. > What I said was to pose a rhetorical question: if a business person is unethical, how would you know? Because if a business person does something unethical they will generally try to conceal it. This is ridiculous, absurdly cynical, even by my own standards of cynicism. Are you skeptical of the existence of true love too? Is everyone in your life just lying to you about everything? I'm in business myself, and I know myself. I don't think I'm unique in the world. I've dealt with plenty of honest people. Moreover, in general, people are not particularly good at covering up their misdeeds and bad intentions. It's usually pretty obvious, if you're observant. > The operative word was "free", not "competitive". You still haven't stated what you mean by "free". Or "competitive", for that matter. (Have you considered that you just don't write very clearly?) > Obviously there are competitive markets, and politics is one of them. I wouldn't consider a duopoly to be very competitive. What do you even mean by "competitive"? Is any market except a monopoly competitive to you? Maybe we should call it "type 1" competitive... In any case, whatever you mean by those words, I simply don't agree with this: > Even in commerce the vast majority of industries are dominated and controlled by a very small number (often just two, sometimes one) of major players. You can cherry-pick examples, but I see plenty of markets that aren't so dominated.

lisper 3y ago
> Have you considered that you just don't write very clearly? Sure. But I'm writing for an HN comment thread, not a submission to a peer-review journal. My standards are lower here. Have you considered the possibility that you don't read very carefully? > trading campaign donations for access, favors, and votes This is not nearly as black-and-white as you are making it out to be. Consider these scenarios: 1. Joe Politician campaigns on a pledge to vote for a bill you support. You donate to Joe's campaign. Joe wins and votes for the bill. 2. Joe campaigns on a pledge to vote AGAINST the bill you want to see passed. He calls you on the phone asking you to donate. You refuse, explaining that you don't agree with his position. He asks you to explain why you support the bill. You do, and persuade Joe to change his mind. You then change your mind about donating. Joe wins, and votes for the bill. 3. Like scenario 2 above in all respects that are visible to you, except that unbeknownst to you Joe is not actually persuaded by your argument, he only pretends to be. In fact he has decided to make his vote contingent on your contribution. Does that change your answer? 4. Like scenario 3 except that Joe is honest with you and tells you he will vote for the bill if you make a large enough donation. In which of these, if any, have you traded a campaign contribution for a vote? Because the net of the interaction is exactly the same in all four cases: you write Joe a check, Joe votes for your bill. > Are you skeptical of the existence of true love too? That depends on what you mean by "true love". [UPDATE] I asked my wife of 27 years that question and her answer was exactly the same as mine. I guess that's one reason I love her :-) > Is everyone in your life just lying to you about everything? No. You don't understand how deception works. Have you ever played poker? Bluffing doesn't work if you do it too often. Deploying unethical behavior effectively is a skill, and a big part of that skill is making people think you're not doing it. (Donald Trump is the absolute master of the craft. He is so good at it that he doesn't even have to hide it any more.) > You still haven't stated what you mean by "free". You're the one who introduced the word into the conversation, not me. You wrote: > What differentiates politics, in large part, is that it's not a free, competitive market So you made a claim that there is something that distinguishes politics from business, and that this thing has something to do with the words "free and competitive". It doesn't really matter what you actually meant because my counter-claim is that there is no salient distinction between business and politics at all, and so you can't distinguish between them based on "freedom" or "competitiveness" no matter what those words mean. In any case, the onus is on you as the one who made the claim to demonstrate that these words actually have a referent that allows business and politics to be distinguished, otherwise you have made a vacuous claim. > I wouldn't consider a duopoly to be very competitive. It isn't. But it's more competitive than a one-party system. Competitiveness is a continuum, not a a dichotomy. But the natural tendency of markets is to consolidate as they grow, and so most large markets trend towards duopolies (if you're lucky or have government intervention) or monopolies. > I see plenty of markets that aren't so dominated. Name one.