5 ms·

Right, but... what if the reality is that there's a mix of better and worse-intentioned people in government, as well as emergent structural inefficiencies and

by md224 13y ago

Right, but... what if the reality is that there's a mix of better and worse-intentioned people in government, as well as emergent structural inefficiencies and competing ideologies? I understand that we need a good narrative to comprehend the world, but I think we can do better than the "government = bad" one. The truth seems like it would be more nuanced.

TausAmmer 13y ago
How would you help punch of people? Why would you? Why would you imprison them and tell them it is for they own good. So that some of them do not turn evil and kill rest. Keeping people in prison, saying that if they are let out of prison, fear and danger will emerge. But if you want to leave prison on your own, you are shot. There is no one who cares about you, if he is looking for power to control you. Eat, shit, reproduce, obey. Ah yeah, vote something, haha.
snitko 13y ago
The thing to look at is incentives. What behavior the system incentivizes? People are elected for some n years and it is very difficult to fire them even if they don't keep their promises and are doing a crappy job. More importantly, they take away taxes by force from the population, then redistribute those money and pretend they are doing something useful. "We built those roads, we gave you education". Yes, except you didn't. When you take someone else's money by force, for whatever reason, even if you intend to give it to the poor, it is theft. But when a government does it, it suddenly becomes taxes. It can be argued that in a democracy people generally agree that taxes should be payed, but when you actually ask people whether they want to fund wars and NSA spying, turns out they really don't want that. It is sold as a package and people are tricked and forced (whichever is needed) into financing horrible things with their own money. Finally, you see, if a politician does a bad job, he still gets paid and keeps his job at least until the next election. If a private company messes up, people leave in droves and it goes bankrupt. There might be some good people in the government, who truly believe they are doing some good. That doesn't make the system good and they have zero chances to make it a good system.
- nemothekid 13y ago
  I don't think this supports that the government is bad or inherently bad, its just inefficient. The question you have to ask yourself, can you run a country (not even America, take a small country first like Belgium, less than a 10th the pop. of America), and can you run that country efficiently. Like it or not, most government systems humans have invented so far are woefully inefficient and provide perverse incentives from time to time. However it seems our current democratic/republican system works the best, if not on any objective scale, but for the fact is the most relatively stable and proven. Now, anyone can see that our current government has issues, much like the ones you pointed out. And most people have known that for ages, the hard part is can you devise a better system, and how would you go about testing it without ruining a generation? How do you go about minimizing corruption. Sure the "lets-all-live-in-the-forest" and "burn-down-the-institutions-and-the-rich" route is nice and ideal, but its a pipe dream that will fall apart instantly (some people like to point out examples of small villages living without electricity and money - but you simply cannot scale that "lifestyle" to 300 million people). I'm not a political philosopher or an economist so I won't assert that the system we have now is greatest and you are wrong. I just want to see more expanded thought on the idea that "politicians are crooks and we should get rid of the system."
  - snitko 13y ago
    Why do you need to "run a country"? What does it really mean? What is it about a government that only it can do certain things, while private enterprises and persons are claimed to be incapable of accomplishing it? But the fundamental question is not whether we can make our system better or worse. The fundamental question is, is it okay to steal from others? When government takes taxes, it steals. You may call it a "perspective", but if I disagree to pay, you and I know very well I'm gonna be at the very least intimidated by the government agents and may possibly go to jail. If all people in a given country indeed agreed that taxes are good, you wouldn't need to enforce collecting it, you would just let people donate, like on kickstarter. If, however, some disagree, you can't claim it's fair simply because the majority is sort of okay with it. The majority supported a lot of horrible things throughout history, yet now we don't see them as being on the right side of it.
thenerdfiles 13y ago
We don't need a good narrative to comprehend the world.
snitko 13y ago
Furthermore, I think what you're doing here (and I say this only because I used to do the same, no disrespect) is trying to find an excuse to make the system look acceptable, with a potential to become better. That way, you wouldn't have to face the harsh reality and you wouldn't have to change your worldview and feel uncomfortable. So, Matrix is a nice movie, but it's fiction. The truth is that it's all complicated and not all black and white, so I don't have to worry about it... That's understandable. But dangerous.
- md224 13y ago
  I never said I don't have to worry about the state of the world.

by md224 13y ago

TausAmmer 13y ago

How would you help punch of people? Why would you? Why would you imprison them and tell them it is for they own good. So that some of them do not turn evil and kill rest. Keeping people in prison, saying that if they are let out of prison, fear and danger will emerge. But if you want to leave prison on your own, you are shot. There is no one who cares about you, if he is looking for power to control you. Eat, shit, reproduce, obey. Ah yeah, vote something, haha.

snitko 13y ago

The thing to look at is incentives. What behavior the system incentivizes? People are elected for some n years and it is very difficult to fire them even if they don't keep their promises and are doing a crappy job. More importantly, they take away taxes by force from the population, then redistribute those money and pretend they are doing something useful. "We built those roads, we gave you education". Yes, except you didn't. When you take someone else's money by force, for whatever reason, even if you intend to give it to the poor, it is theft. But when a government does it, it suddenly becomes taxes. It can be argued that in a democracy people generally agree that taxes should be payed, but when you actually ask people whether they want to fund wars and NSA spying, turns out they really don't want that. It is sold as a package and people are tricked and forced (whichever is needed) into financing horrible things with their own money. Finally, you see, if a politician does a bad job, he still gets paid and keeps his job at least until the next election. If a private company messes up, people leave in droves and it goes bankrupt. There might be some good people in the government, who truly believe they are doing some good. That doesn't make the system good and they have zero chances to make it a good system.

nemothekid 13y ago
I don't think this supports that the government is bad or inherently bad, its just inefficient. The question you have to ask yourself, can you run a country (not even America, take a small country first like Belgium, less than a 10th the pop. of America), and can you run that country efficiently. Like it or not, most government systems humans have invented so far are woefully inefficient and provide perverse incentives from time to time. However it seems our current democratic/republican system works the best, if not on any objective scale, but for the fact is the most relatively stable and proven. Now, anyone can see that our current government has issues, much like the ones you pointed out. And most people have known that for ages, the hard part is can you devise a better system, and how would you go about testing it without ruining a generation? How do you go about minimizing corruption. Sure the "lets-all-live-in-the-forest" and "burn-down-the-institutions-and-the-rich" route is nice and ideal, but its a pipe dream that will fall apart instantly (some people like to point out examples of small villages living without electricity and money - but you simply cannot scale that "lifestyle" to 300 million people). I'm not a political philosopher or an economist so I won't assert that the system we have now is greatest and you are wrong. I just want to see more expanded thought on the idea that "politicians are crooks and we should get rid of the system."
- snitko 13y ago
  Why do you need to "run a country"? What does it really mean? What is it about a government that only it can do certain things, while private enterprises and persons are claimed to be incapable of accomplishing it? But the fundamental question is not whether we can make our system better or worse. The fundamental question is, is it okay to steal from others? When government takes taxes, it steals. You may call it a "perspective", but if I disagree to pay, you and I know very well I'm gonna be at the very least intimidated by the government agents and may possibly go to jail. If all people in a given country indeed agreed that taxes are good, you wouldn't need to enforce collecting it, you would just let people donate, like on kickstarter. If, however, some disagree, you can't claim it's fair simply because the majority is sort of okay with it. The majority supported a lot of horrible things throughout history, yet now we don't see them as being on the right side of it.

thenerdfiles 13y ago

We don't need a good narrative to comprehend the world.

snitko 13y ago

Furthermore, I think what you're doing here (and I say this only because I used to do the same, no disrespect) is trying to find an excuse to make the system look acceptable, with a potential to become better. That way, you wouldn't have to face the harsh reality and you wouldn't have to change your worldview and feel uncomfortable. So, Matrix is a nice movie, but it's fiction. The truth is that it's all complicated and not all black and white, so I don't have to worry about it... That's understandable. But dangerous.

md224 13y ago
I never said I don't have to worry about the state of the world.