Oceans Yet to Burn

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[anarchyinblack]

Liberty is not a means; it is an end. One does not defund the program to balance the budget; one resists taxation in order to abolish the programs. The object of property is property. The object of resistance is resistance. The object of liberty is liberty.

[ranma-official]

Since taxation is actually good, it sounds you’re advocating for a bad thing as a means to a bad thing

[lordpatiii]

I kind of figure that taxation is a good or as bad as what it’s funding

[anarchyinblack]

Alas my friend you are wrong as it is theft.

[mitigatedchaos]

Why is theft universally wrong?

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

Anonymous asked:

RE: Centrists: The question then becomes, how does real change become possible? Revolution isn't a good option, since it tends to kill lots of people without much actually-good change.

diarrheaworldstarhiphop answered:

i legitimately dont know, because it seems any democratic option is instantly suppressed

maybe a mass uprising like in tunisia or egypt demanding politicians step down or make reform.

but reform to what?

[mitigatedchaos]

“Suck less” isn’t a good option, since the people will disagree dramatically on just what, exactly, that means and how to accomplish it.

However, the system will produce the candidates that the incentives within the system make possible, so it seems to me that a new system, something beyond liberal democracy, that hasn’t been invented yet, is necessary for something lasting and good.

Even in my damaged state, cruising with multiple engines non-functional, I’ve been pondering a system in which the legislature is replaced with think tanks that voters delegate their votes to across multiple categories, funded by public funding according to their votes and percentile standing in a prediction market based on the outcomes of the legislation.  (Edit: After all, we can conceive of political policy having two axes - values and effectiveness - and many policies that suck have okay values but are ineffective.)

But the question then becomes, who prevents the prediction market and the state’s instruments of measure for outcomes from being sabotaged by political operators, who notoriously don’t care for empiricism?

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

To put the culture post another way: Muslim countries get Muslim laws.  

This isn’t just under democracy, but also dependent on raw ability to wield force, which is also impacted by how big and willing to fight the dominant cultural group is.

If you want a Liberal country, with Liberal laws, then either you need to have a Liberal culture, or someone strong enough and with enough backing to impose Liberal laws.  

If an imported culture gains ground until it replaces the dominant culture, then it will replace the dominant culture’s laws.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

Anonymous asked:

"Beliefs? Ideals? Nah bruh, I'm a centrist. People who have actual convictions beyond their base desires are FUCKING IDIOTS" -t. You.

diarrheaworldstarhiphop answered:

very true, u FUCKING IDIOT

[mitigatedchaos]

As always, becoming too attached to any one ideology is dangerous, in case it turns out to be wrong.  That’s how one ends up talking about how HRC is the best candidate in history, or that the USSR did nothing wrong, or …

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[memecucker]

wow i guess france just isnt ready for a woman president

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

Anonymous asked:

I wonder what you'd get out of a survey that was structured like voting is--i.e. *guaranteed* anonymous, without having to say your answers to a person, just marking your answers and putting it in a box--and offered to all registered voters. Actually, it seems like a good idea to have something like that anyway--having an actual legally binding vote be people's main forum for ~expressing their opinions~ is far from ideal.

argumate answered:

Current representative democracy doesn’t give voters any direct influence over specific policy questions, literal direct democracy makes them vote on every issue, and most people suggest a sensible hybrid where everyone votes on every issue but you can delegate your vote to representatives at varying levels of pickiness.

[mitigatedchaos]

Scrap the existing legislature and replace it with a legislature of think-tanks to whom voters delegate votes across twelve categories.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[mitigatedchaos]

The existence of immune system overreactions does not mean that immune systems are a bad thing.

[mitigatedchaos]

@flowingblades​

I mean, I agree, but also “immune systems” are bad wrt nationalism. A country is not an organism. A body needs to keep the body safe; a culture does not need to keep itself safe, rather it needs to keep the people in it safe.

The culture doesn’t need to be preserved if “culture” is just hot dogs vs sushi, ballet vs rap, basketball vs rugby.  In other words, if it’s just aesthetics.  Falling below a certain level of Nationalism makes it infeasible to field an army - but fielding an army to defend sushi would indeed be overkill.  However…

1. Consider FGM.  We now have it in Michigan, apparently.  For now, it’s still considered a criminal activity.  But what happens when 5% of the population supports it?  10%?  15%?  Eventually, it becomes more normalized and the political will to legalize it will materialize and be captured by some political party.  FGM is actively harmful and unironically bad.
   
2. However, that still only affects one group.  What about long runs of repeated first cousin marriage?  That’s a cultural thing, and the effects stack the longer it goes on, putting a disproportionate burden on the healthcare system.
3. But even then, you could hypothetically force the entire medical system to be ‘free market’ to make individuals pay for the burden of that instead.  So let’s step it up again.  What about who deserves the fruit of the economy?  Is the society individualist or collectivist?  Should we help each other or is it smart to screw each other over at the earliest opportunity?  Differences on this matter impact the political will to perform redistribution - either with no redistribution, some redistribution, or proceeding to Venezuela-tier “bordering on a failed state” botched Socialism.  That has a HUGE effect.  
4. What religion should be the dominant one, and should it have control over what to do with heretics and “degenerates”?  You know, like LGBT people are considered in some countries and territories, like, say, Chechnya.

Ultimately, culture is not actually individual and not actually escapable at the national level.  To keep the people safe, it is actually necessary to keep the culture some level of safe, particularly if that culture involves not becoming Venezuela or Saudi Arabia.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

Anonymous asked:

What do you think is the rationality community's fatal flaw? I want to hear yours before you hear mine, so as not to influence your thinking

argumate answered:

I’m not sure if it makes sense to talk about communities having fatal flaws, and I’m not actually involved in this community, so I couldn’t really say.

[mitigatedchaos]

Argumate’s too polite, but I’ll give you a flaw, Anon. Right as I’m about to sleep.

There’s sort of a “can’t see the forest for the trees” thing, where they aren’t always modelling the collective effects of individual behavior.

1. Polygamy. A lot of them identify as polyamorous. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them support legalizing polygamy. However, the effect of a bunch of weird nerds doing this, many of whom are literally some degree of autistic, is very different from what happens if it become normalized at the level of society. Effects like child brides and poor mental health outcomes for women and children.

2. FGM. FGM isn’t the only one like this. The effects of immigration are non-linear, and depend on the cohesiveness and size of the group. If you have no community, you must integrate. That changes at n=2, n=4, n=20, n=150, etc. So it becomes possible for a practice like FGM to reach the US and have an underground ring.

Whatever error is responsible for both of these, that’s the fatal flaw.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

The existence of immune system overreactions does not mean that immune systems are a bad thing.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

abcnews.go.com

France chooses centrist Macron over far-right Le Pen as next president: exit polls

ABC News

[slartibartfastibast]

http://www.cbr.com/pepe-frog-creator-kills-white-supremacist-icon/

[mitigatedchaos]

This is bad. Le Pen was supposed to be leverage to get the rest of these people to wake up and fix the giant holes in Liberalism. Instead, honor killings, FGM, and burkhas will be politically unremovable in France in 30 years or, left to boil over with no real solution, FN will be back after winning more mayorships for a showdown.