4 ms·

It's not a linear relationship where you trade one for the other. You don't just get a more competent government by giving up freedoms.

by elmomle 9mo ago

threethirtytwo 9mo ago
There is a relationship here. It is not a perfect one, but it is real, and pretending otherwise just avoids the tradeoff. Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. No one wants an eyesore in their backyard. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets a lawsuit. Everyone gets a veto in practice, if not in theory. The result is predictable. I will never see a functioning high speed rail system in California in my lifetime. Neither will anyone alive today. Not because we lack money or engineering talent, but because the accumulation of individual rights makes collective action nearly impossible. Now look at China. They decide to build it, and it gets built. If you are in the way, you move. If persuasion fails, coercion follows. Freedoms are not part of the equation. That contrast is uncomfortable, but it is real. Freedom buys dignity and protection from abuse. It also buys paralysis. China sacrifices individual rights and gets infrastructure. California preserves individual rights and gets endless meetings, delays, and nothing on the ground. You can argue which system is morally superior. You cannot argue that they produce the same outcomes.
- macintux 9mo ago
  Autocracy can (and perhaps usually does) produce corruption, and there's no guarantee that progress will be beneficial. I agree there are tradeoffs, but it's worth pointing out that sacrificing freedom does not reliably produce useful results.
- angled 9mo ago
  But what of the culture? For years now the art and music has felt like poor cousins to what is in the west, similar to what we see generated by AI now, and consumed be people doomscrolling on WeChat moments while they wait for their didi to deliver their food from the shop down the street. Every time I visit SZ now it feels like the scooters are misrouted neurons firing in any which direction, with no respect for pedestrians, parking, or the rest of the city.
- verdverm 9mo ago
  What do N Korea vs S Korea or Poland vs Belarus tell us about the forms of government and their relative outcomes?
  - bmitc 9mo ago
    Those are unique situations not solely born out of differences of forms of government.
    - verdverm 9mo ago
      China seems to be the more unique situation or exception to the rule Has there been any autocracy in the last century that has had better outcomes when compared to liberal democracy? (other than China)
- elektronika 9mo ago
  >Now look at China. They decide to build it, and it gets built. Look up "Nail Houses". The USA used eminent domain heavily in the same situation back when they were still building new infrastructure. >Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. It's not the result of many individuals objecting. It's the largely the result of a few wealthy individuals objecting. Elon Musk has admitted to publicizing hyperloop largely to take the wind out of the sails of the proposed high speed rail. American democracy is for the rich.
  - threethirtytwo 9mo ago
    >Look up "Nail Houses". The USA used eminent domain heavily in the same situation back when they were still building new infrastructure. Yeah. China is not THAT strict. But still building the rode around the nail house is something that wouldn't happen in the US. Eminent domain for other people is something I believe in for a better society. >It's not the result of many individuals objecting. It's the largely the result of a few wealthy individuals objecting. Elon Musk has admitted to publicizing hyperloop largely to take the wind out of the sails of the proposed high speed rail. American democracy is for the rich. Still it is freedoms + capitalism that enables this. Rich people objecting can get silenced. Jack Ma for example.
- eli_gottlieb 9mo ago
  > Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. No one wants an eyesore in their backyard. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets a lawsuit. Everyone gets a veto in practice, if not in theory. That has absolutely nothing to do with civil liberties and everything to do with the adversarial legalism of the Common Law code and with property rights, which are quite a different matter. There are any number of Western countries in which individual or household property rights are not taken to constitute an arbitrary veto on otherwise legal state action: if a train is scheduled to get built, it gets built, and compensation is paid but vetoes cannot be exercised.
  - threethirtytwo 9mo ago
    Every additional "right" you have is a "freedom" you can choose to execute or not execute on. A right is an additional freedom. If you have no rights, you have no freedom, if you have unlimited rights, you have unlimited freedom. I agree there's things like eminent domain. I'm just saying China leans more in the direction of less rights overall which in turn leads to a more productive society.
    - AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
      > Every additional "right" you have is a "freedom" you can choose to execute or not execute on. A right is an additional freedom. If you have no rights, you have no freedom, if you have unlimited rights, you have unlimited freedom. Suppose there is one city where everyone has the right to build new housing on any piece of land they own and another city where everyone has the right to prevent anyone else from building new housing. These things are the opposite of one another, so they can't both be increasing the "freedom" of the public at large. Now which city actually has more freedom?
      - threethirtytwo 9mo ago
        I guess the keyword is "individual freedom." Technically, freedom can be expanded in the way you're implying but usually in common parlance they are referring to individual freedoms. That is what people mean when they say the US is "more free" than China. Under your expanded definition it's not clear which one is more free. Extreme individual freedom is often called anarchy.
- AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
  > Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. No one wants an eyesore in their backyard. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets a lawsuit. Everyone gets a veto in practice, if not in theory. If there was actually freedom and you wanted to build high speed rail, you would solicit investors, go negotiate for some land -- the power company has a bunch of transmission lines up the coast that run approximately parallel to the highways, maybe get that land, your trains were going to need power anyway -- and then you hire some people and start laying tracks. "Everyone gets a veto" is the thing where you can't do it because the government won't let you even when you have the wherewithal and inclination to do it. That's the opposite of freedom.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]

It's not a linear relationship where you trade one for the other. You don't just get a more competent government by giving up freedoms.

by elmomle 9mo ago

It's not a linear relationship where you trade one for the other. You don't just get a more competent government by giving up freedoms.

threethirtytwo 9mo ago

There is a relationship here. It is not a perfect one, but it is real, and pretending otherwise just avoids the tradeoff. Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. No one wants an eyesore in their backyard. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets a lawsuit. Everyone gets a veto in practice, if not in theory. The result is predictable. I will never see a functioning high speed rail system in California in my lifetime. Neither will anyone alive today. Not because we lack money or engineering talent, but because the accumulation of individual rights makes collective action nearly impossible. Now look at China. They decide to build it, and it gets built. If you are in the way, you move. If persuasion fails, coercion follows. Freedoms are not part of the equation. That contrast is uncomfortable, but it is real. Freedom buys dignity and protection from abuse. It also buys paralysis. China sacrifices individual rights and gets infrastructure. California preserves individual rights and gets endless meetings, delays, and nothing on the ground. You can argue which system is morally superior. You cannot argue that they produce the same outcomes.

macintux 9mo ago
Autocracy can (and perhaps usually does) produce corruption, and there's no guarantee that progress will be beneficial. I agree there are tradeoffs, but it's worth pointing out that sacrificing freedom does not reliably produce useful results.
angled 9mo ago
But what of the culture? For years now the art and music has felt like poor cousins to what is in the west, similar to what we see generated by AI now, and consumed be people doomscrolling on WeChat moments while they wait for their didi to deliver their food from the shop down the street. Every time I visit SZ now it feels like the scooters are misrouted neurons firing in any which direction, with no respect for pedestrians, parking, or the rest of the city.
verdverm 9mo ago
What do N Korea vs S Korea or Poland vs Belarus tell us about the forms of government and their relative outcomes?
- bmitc 9mo ago
  Those are unique situations not solely born out of differences of forms of government.
  - verdverm 9mo ago
    China seems to be the more unique situation or exception to the rule Has there been any autocracy in the last century that has had better outcomes when compared to liberal democracy? (other than China)
elektronika 9mo ago
>Now look at China. They decide to build it, and it gets built. Look up "Nail Houses". The USA used eminent domain heavily in the same situation back when they were still building new infrastructure. >Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. It's not the result of many individuals objecting. It's the largely the result of a few wealthy individuals objecting. Elon Musk has admitted to publicizing hyperloop largely to take the wind out of the sails of the proposed high speed rail. American democracy is for the rich.
- threethirtytwo 9mo ago
  >Look up "Nail Houses". The USA used eminent domain heavily in the same situation back when they were still building new infrastructure. Yeah. China is not THAT strict. But still building the rode around the nail house is something that wouldn't happen in the US. Eminent domain for other people is something I believe in for a better society. >It's not the result of many individuals objecting. It's the largely the result of a few wealthy individuals objecting. Elon Musk has admitted to publicizing hyperloop largely to take the wind out of the sails of the proposed high speed rail. American democracy is for the rich. Still it is freedoms + capitalism that enables this. Rich people objecting can get silenced. Jack Ma for example.
eli_gottlieb 9mo ago
> Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. No one wants an eyesore in their backyard. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets a lawsuit. Everyone gets a veto in practice, if not in theory. That has absolutely nothing to do with civil liberties and everything to do with the adversarial legalism of the Common Law code and with property rights, which are quite a different matter. There are any number of Western countries in which individual or household property rights are not taken to constitute an arbitrary veto on otherwise legal state action: if a train is scheduled to get built, it gets built, and compensation is paid but vetoes cannot be exercised.
- threethirtytwo 9mo ago
  Every additional "right" you have is a "freedom" you can choose to execute or not execute on. A right is an additional freedom. If you have no rights, you have no freedom, if you have unlimited rights, you have unlimited freedom. I agree there's things like eminent domain. I'm just saying China leans more in the direction of less rights overall which in turn leads to a more productive society.
  - AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
    > Every additional "right" you have is a "freedom" you can choose to execute or not execute on. A right is an additional freedom. If you have no rights, you have no freedom, if you have unlimited rights, you have unlimited freedom. Suppose there is one city where everyone has the right to build new housing on any piece of land they own and another city where everyone has the right to prevent anyone else from building new housing. These things are the opposite of one another, so they can't both be increasing the "freedom" of the public at large. Now which city actually has more freedom?
    - threethirtytwo 9mo ago
      I guess the keyword is "individual freedom." Technically, freedom can be expanded in the way you're implying but usually in common parlance they are referring to individual freedoms. That is what people mean when they say the US is "more free" than China. Under your expanded definition it's not clear which one is more free. Extreme individual freedom is often called anarchy.
AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
> Take California’s high speed rail. Every individual has the right to object. No one wants an eyesore in their backyard. Everyone gets a hearing. Everyone gets a lawsuit. Everyone gets a veto in practice, if not in theory. If there was actually freedom and you wanted to build high speed rail, you would solicit investors, go negotiate for some land -- the power company has a bunch of transmission lines up the coast that run approximately parallel to the highways, maybe get that land, your trains were going to need power anyway -- and then you hire some people and start laying tracks. "Everyone gets a veto" is the thing where you can't do it because the government won't let you even when you have the wherewithal and inclination to do it. That's the opposite of freedom.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]