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It's an association fallacy - Musk may be a radical extremist on the right, and a technology mogul, you may find yourself aligning with some of his world views

by smaudet 6mo ago

It's an association fallacy - Musk may be a radical extremist on the right, and a technology mogul, you may find yourself aligning with some of his world views (not all of them, remember he is an extremist relative to yourself). So when people support EFF's technological goals (freedoms for users on technology platforms), if they are themselves possibly on the right, they project their own values onto the organization or system (which here is the EFF). Never-mind if some of those values are incompatible with the values you think you hold (being authoritarian generally is incompatible with being not being authoritarian about technology). When someone points out the (otherwise obvious) contradiction to you, you're surprised that your set of values is incongruous. Now this can happen to anyone coming from any political starting point, they agree with something but find it doesn't quite fit with their world views. If you are deeply religious about it, you tend to hold on for dear life and either decide to "pick" on set of values over another (suddenly you realize, actually, yes you would like to enslave everyone) or engage in some form of hypocrisy or another (authoritarians are good, but for some reason or the other I'm going to make an exception for technology).

Brendinooo 6mo ago
I dunno. My understanding of coalition building is "we disagree about a bunch of stuff, but we agree on this one thing, so let's work together on it". You seem to be saying: "if you disagree with me on the other stuff, your agreement on this thing is rooted in a contradictory value system you haven't fully examined". Is that correct?
- smaudet 6mo ago
  Not exactly. Values have a hierarchy. You can't (effectively) agree to painting everything the color blue, if you can't agree what the color blue is. And you will run into a very similar issue when everyone starts objecting to the pink you have spread everywhere, despite supposedly agreeing to the color scheme.
  - dvt 6mo ago
    > Not exactly. But then you go on to describe exactly what @Brendinooo described, just under the guise of your system of "value hierarchy." The problem is that you can always default to "our values are hierarchically misaligned" and then never have to do any coalition building ever. So how do you solve that? Because it seems that you can't.
    - smaudet 6mo ago
      > if you disagree with me on the other stuff This part is too broad. Hierarchical values are just that. Not wholesale. We call that nonsense, e.g. I believe pigs can fly, therefore the sky is red. They are making an ontological error.
      - dvt 6mo ago
        For a Christian, a top maxim in their value hierarchy would be rooted in Jesus' famous commandment: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind." Now, if you're an atheist, this might be nonsense to you. You might not believe that Jesus was resurrected or that God even exists. To you, these are fundamentally irrational statements ("pigs can fly," etc.). Under your system, if you were an atheist and your opposition was a Christian, you could never possibly build a coalition because there's a disagreement at the top of the value hierarchy. But this seems wrong because people of different creeds and value systems do stuff together all the time. Or am I misunderstanding your point? What I understand @Brendinooo to be saying is: "we may not share the same moral framework (or value hierarchy, using your term), but we do agree on X, so let's do X."
        megamalloc 6mo ago
        I think you confuse beliefs with values by placing that at the root. I'd have a problem with it if my tax bracket were determined by whether I loved the Christian Lord rather than any other deity. People of different faiths band together because of shared values that actually make a difference as long as they are happy to live and let live on matters of belief. It is true that a lot of values sit on a foundation of beliefs, via the teachings we think are inextricably associated with our beliefs. A Christian's values (e.g. "you are born a boy or a girl') might conflict with a trans person's beliefs ("I was not born with the body that matches my gender identity"). Meanwhile another Christian's values ("God has a plan and your body and gender identity must by definition be a part of that plan") might be entirely compatible. Beliefs are absolutely foundational but all the values built on them are just received wisdom, interpretation etc. Of course, it is easy to confuse these things, and people who rise to power are often those who do. Keeping an open mind requires time and mental energy. CEOs and world leaders rarely have time to examine their values, and refraining that act as "questioning my beliefs" reframes a rational act into an invitation to have a crippling crisis of faith - which is much easier to tell yourself is a temptation of the devil that you must not indulge. By shying away from such examination they have much more time and mental energy and deciseness to execute effectively on their agenda. The obvious downside is that this lack of reflection means the agenda they execute so effectively on is potentially not what they actually would have chosen if they'd really thought it through in a rational way.

by smaudet 6mo ago

Brendinooo 6mo ago

I dunno. My understanding of coalition building is "we disagree about a bunch of stuff, but we agree on this one thing, so let's work together on it". You seem to be saying: "if you disagree with me on the other stuff, your agreement on this thing is rooted in a contradictory value system you haven't fully examined". Is that correct?

smaudet 6mo ago
Not exactly. Values have a hierarchy. You can't (effectively) agree to painting everything the color blue, if you can't agree what the color blue is. And you will run into a very similar issue when everyone starts objecting to the pink you have spread everywhere, despite supposedly agreeing to the color scheme.
- dvt 6mo ago
  > Not exactly. But then you go on to describe exactly what @Brendinooo described, just under the guise of your system of "value hierarchy." The problem is that you can always default to "our values are hierarchically misaligned" and then never have to do any coalition building ever. So how do you solve that? Because it seems that you can't.
  - smaudet 6mo ago
    > if you disagree with me on the other stuff This part is too broad. Hierarchical values are just that. Not wholesale. We call that nonsense, e.g. I believe pigs can fly, therefore the sky is red. They are making an ontological error.
    - dvt 6mo ago
      For a Christian, a top maxim in their value hierarchy would be rooted in Jesus' famous commandment: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind." Now, if you're an atheist, this might be nonsense to you. You might not believe that Jesus was resurrected or that God even exists. To you, these are fundamentally irrational statements ("pigs can fly," etc.). Under your system, if you were an atheist and your opposition was a Christian, you could never possibly build a coalition because there's a disagreement at the top of the value hierarchy. But this seems wrong because people of different creeds and value systems do stuff together all the time. Or am I misunderstanding your point? What I understand @Brendinooo to be saying is: "we may not share the same moral framework (or value hierarchy, using your term), but we do agree on X, so let's do X."
      - megamalloc 6mo ago
        I think you confuse beliefs with values by placing that at the root. I'd have a problem with it if my tax bracket were determined by whether I loved the Christian Lord rather than any other deity. People of different faiths band together because of shared values that actually make a difference as long as they are happy to live and let live on matters of belief. It is true that a lot of values sit on a foundation of beliefs, via the teachings we think are inextricably associated with our beliefs. A Christian's values (e.g. "you are born a boy or a girl') might conflict with a trans person's beliefs ("I was not born with the body that matches my gender identity"). Meanwhile another Christian's values ("God has a plan and your body and gender identity must by definition be a part of that plan") might be entirely compatible. Beliefs are absolutely foundational but all the values built on them are just received wisdom, interpretation etc. Of course, it is easy to confuse these things, and people who rise to power are often those who do. Keeping an open mind requires time and mental energy. CEOs and world leaders rarely have time to examine their values, and refraining that act as "questioning my beliefs" reframes a rational act into an invitation to have a crippling crisis of faith - which is much easier to tell yourself is a temptation of the devil that you must not indulge. By shying away from such examination they have much more time and mental energy and deciseness to execute effectively on their agenda. The obvious downside is that this lack of reflection means the agenda they execute so effectively on is potentially not what they actually would have chosen if they'd really thought it through in a rational way.