Oceans Yet to Burn

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

Although, if anything, that post about healthcare costs is perhaps a better summary of my current politics than any.

Efficiency - in government, in the private sector, anywhere - doesn’t just mean some nice bonus that lets rich people we don’t care about have more sports cars.  

As efficiency and production increase, you stop having to triage.  If one unit of sovereign services costs $1.00 to deliver and you have $1.00, then you can purchase only one unit.  If one unit of sovereign services costs $0.50, then you can purchase two.  

If there were two of you and you collectively only had one dollar to spend, then in the first case you have to fight about who gets that one unit of sovereign services, and in the second case you don’t.  

The adequate planning of cities and efficient distribution of resources are absolutely vital.  Surplus regulations don’t just have a cost in corporate bureaucrat annoyance, but in bus stops.  

Private property, government regulations, wealth redistribution… these are tools, not moral imperatives.

Now I know many people would say “sure, but my politics is about using them correctly as tools,” and for some people that’s true.  But a lot of the time that’s not what we see in practice.

So the great question, I think, is how we can make systems of governance better, to promote better and more accurate approaches to policy that more effectively accomplish what will benefit people.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[mitigatedchaos]

@slartibartfastibast

So then can’t we just leave [the Japanese] be?

In a competitive environment, we should expect that only the ideologies that replicate themselves and spread will survive, much like animals in nature.  Most encounters will therefore be with virulent ideologies.

Globalist Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and so on, including their ideologies of “human rights”, are no exception to this.

So no, they can’t well just leave Japan alone.  That would be an admission of failure and that Globalism/Neoliberalism/etc is not universal in value.

Edit: Also, “different ways are optimal for different countries” is a very Nationalist, and thus Villainous, way of seeing the world.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

Liberals who aren’t liberal enough

[mitigatedchaos]

<various posts>

<bambamramfan discussing lackluster enthusiasm among people for Liberalism vs harder ideologies>

I think part of the challenge here is that Liberalism has to ignore certain truths, which, like the careful balance of an immune system, is okay when an animal is healthy, but becomes a serious problem when it becomes unhealthy.  So yes, there are ideological contradictions, but those only come out when the system is under stress.

Genes matter.  Even just the difference in lactose tolerance can make a difference in some cases (though not much in the developed world), even if the other stuff is heavily confounded and is probably more driven by the environment than by genetics.  

Culture matters.  Not everything that is bad is outside the realm of culture.  FGM is cultural.  Cultural tolerance as a virtue is cultural.

Religion matters.  The content of the instructions in a religion has an effect on the behavior of religious adherents, much like the content of the Communist Manifesto has an effect on the behavior of Communists.

Atomic Individualism is not what humans are “designed” for.  We actually have to live in societies and cannot all hole up into libertarian autarchic fortresses which are immune to changes in the broader society’s culture and ideology.

When the various groups under Liberalism are sufficiently close, this can all be glossed over, and generally is in order to suppress racism, xenophobia, and so on.  The typical example of violence driven by fighting about genes/culture/religion attacks someone who hasn’t done anything personally.

However, the same ideological tools used to suppress this bad behavior also prevent dealing with larger risks that loom on the horizon.  You cannot have someone saying “Liberalism, except for Islam” - though I’ve seen someone say it quietly - even though the rise of various Ethnonationalists and Nationalists in Europe would probably not be happening if Europe had taken this stance.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

@bambamramfan

To be sure, but we have to decide whether we think those tactics are just strategically ineffective, or actually ethically wrong. If you try to say “both”, then you’re going to face some hard choices on the day it looks like a nasty tactic can get you a victory (and that day always comes.)

Well, there is not only a question of effectiveness and morality, but there is also a question of trust.

Brutal tactics can backfire, but they can also work.  And there are times and places that even I might be willing to engage in those tactics.

But those tactics are costly, and there is far too much temptation to use them in situations where it is not warranted - in part because political ideologies thrive on a siege mentality and treating themselves as the underdog, even when they are actually quite popular or are even in the middle of going Full Overdog and bulldozing everything and everyone in their path.  

A lot of actual, literal Nazis had to be shot during the second World War to put an end to the Nazi regime.  Since the alternatives were worse, I would say it was correct - and perhaps even praiseworthy - to do so.  

However, lots of people have been tricked into killing and dying for terrible political ideologies over the years, so my bar for when to use these sorts of tactics is a lot higher.  And, here’s the trust part - I don’t trust the kinds of people who are hyped about this latest punching incident to keep that bar high.  And ironically, exactly the sorts of people who are saying “hey, wait a minute” instead of cheering are the people I would trust more on when to initiate political violence.

If we could actually have a nice clear line at “it’s okay to punch people who openly call for genocide or certain genocide”, that might be okay.  But let’s be realistic.  That isn’t going to happen.  Politicals will deliberately blur the boundaries in order to be allowed to punch people they want to punch.  They already distort definitions of words like “violence” and “racism” for their own ends.  There is no reason to believe they would stop.  …and then the counter-punching would begin.

Thus I’m stuck opposing punching Nazis even though under other circumstances I might permit it.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

@ranma-official

I’m not the biggest anarchist either, but anarchism is really important for the same reason libertarianism is: you need people constantly questioning “do we really need this regulation?” and nitpicking everything you do or you just cede a bunch of power to the state for no reason and won’t get it back.

Oh, I came around to a view not so different from that one a few years ago.  The vast majority of states are not so… let’s call it “technocratic” as to say “let us regularly prune regulations that are ineffective and put mandatory sunset provisions into all of our laws”.  Nor, for that matter, is the typical government as careful as it should be about making laws in the first place.  And quite frankly, the typical voter isn’t going to make them behave like that.  So it’s useful to have Anarchists and Libertarians around.

I just still don’t like Anarchism, even if it’s useful.  Of course, you won’t see me calling for punching, firing, doxxing, etc Anarchists.  Sometimes you might see me argue with them on the Internet.