non_radical_centrist
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User ID: 1327
non_radical_centrist
4hr ago
I think children hold the good teachers in high regard. Most teachers aren't good. I think if we broke teachers unions and empowered school choice, we could quickly see a great deal of very good teachers teaching. Everyone loves a good teacher in the right circumstances, from students to parents to administrators to the good teacher themselves because it's such a fulfilling job. But in public schools where the principals receive the same salary regardless of performance, and powerful unions dedicated to preserving jobs over teaching children, good teachers are secondary to minimally risky teachers who don't get the school bad press.
non_radical_centrist
4hr ago
I could see Poland getting close if they had ideal policies and conditions and pulled of something similar to the east Asian tigers. I doubt they would but I'd give it maybe a 1% chance. Especially since they, and their neighbors the Baltics, appear to have had some pretty good economic policies post-communism and are growing pretty fast.
non_radical_centrist
3d ago
I don't think that's normally how American law is applied, but admittedly I don't know much about it. But where most people seem to blame an anti-Trump conspiracy, I blame him for losing his case. He intimidated witnesses on social media, so the judge gave him a gag order, then he violated the gag order repeatedly. He didn't stand for the jury like the rest of the court. He's been terrible to many previous lawyers so he was pulling from the bottom of the barrel for his defense.
I think Trump deserved to be proclaimed Not Guilty. But the adversarial legal system is designed around the defendant actually putting a half decent effort into defending themselves. I can sympathize with all the poor folk out there who don't understand what the legal system expects them to do and get screwed on that front, but I have no sympathy for a billionaire. If Trump wasn't a narcissist, I think he could've won the trial.
non_radical_centrist
3d ago
There's a great deal of productive work people can do with very little abstract thinking skill. I went through basic training recently. I was probably the smartest, or at least close to it, at stuff like algebra and writing essays and reading comprehension. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people there would have trouble with those sorts of problems and would need to go through a couple hours of lessons to consistently get those problems correct, and even then would probably forget those lessons after a few months.
But that didn't matter at all. In boot camp, the things that mattered were how well you polished boots, folded clothes, made it to the place you were supposed to be on time, could do the multi-step safety check on your rifle, could put together a lean-to to sleep under, and all the fitness stuff. Almost all those people with lower IQs could blow me out of the water at those tasks(although there were a couple people that I expect would be especially bad at math and were even worse than me at basic skills). For regular life skills, stuff that wasn't abstract, they could do great- they weren't some barely conscious apes that barely managed not to kill themselves, like I feel like we'd both expect after hearing they couldn't answer 100-17 with mental math.
non_radical_centrist
3d ago
I think you're making good and accurate points and it's a shame you're getting downvoted. But there's one point I disagree on.
The unlawful means in question were Cohen making a payment to Stormy Daniels in order to conceal her story from the public in order to prevent it from damaging Trump's election chances.
I don't think this should actually be considered a crime. As I understand it, Cohen pled guilty to it. I think that was part of a plea deal and he just took it because the way plea deals work is that he wouldn't actually receive a better outcome by trying to insist that one, but only one, of the things he was being charged with was false.
But looking at the actual law, the idea that concealing information which could damage Trump's campaign is a campaign contribution is silly. If you're that loose with the standards, practically anything would be a campaign contribution.
non_radical_centrist
4d ago
Say what you like about what the CCP did to Hong Kong (and believe me, I do), but it demonstrated their ability and patience to execute a multi-decade plan.
I don't think it was particularly likely to be a multi-decade plan secretly passed down. I think decades ago Chinese leadership wanted at least partial control of Hong Kong as a matter of national pride, but didn't think they could get away with total control. And then more recently they felt they could get away with total control, so they went ahead and enforced more control.
non_radical_centrist
4d ago
But what do you think he actually did?
He was a settler, did hate speech, supported a far right terrorist group. If those aren't enough for you or you want specifics I can get them but you seem to agree that he's a criminal scumbag.
I’m not passing judgement on it, I mean that the way it’s portrayed by some outlets is ridiculous and over-hyped.
It's over hyped in that it isn't literally the worst thing ever, but it's still pretty terrible and Trump is going to trial over it, and it's a major factor in why I think Trump is literally one of the worst major Republicans ever. Similarly, I think the stuff Ben Gvir did was terrible and he has gone to trial and I don't know many Israeli politicians but he sounds like he's one of the worst. In my ideal world both Trump and Ben Gvir would have no public support, and instead more centrist leaders like Romney and Benny Gantz would have popular support.
non_radical_centrist
4d ago
LOL. Shortening Ben Gvir to ‘Gvir’ is like shortening ‘McDonald’ to ‘Donald’. You’re betraying a ridiculous lack of familiarity.
Yeah I'm not that familiar. If you want to provide a good defense of why his actions are acceptable instead of just criticzing my familiarity, go ahead.
The analogous act would be that republicans tried to overthrow American democracy on January 6th, and that your former president told you to grab women by the pussy.
Those were pretty bad too. Better or worse than Ben Gvir's? I'm not sure.
non_radical_centrist
4d ago
It lines up with what I've read about the Israeli far right too. MAGA supporters aren't literally like, settling parts of black communities or Mexico to create their own little villages and occassionally killing black people or Mexicans in the process. That's what the Israeli settlement movement is. Ben Gvir, one of the actual most important politicians in Israel and not just a fringe lunatic, is a settler himself. He has faced criminal charges from Israel over hate speech. He was convicted of supporting Kach, which Israel itself classifies a terrorist group. It's not just Gvir, there are other far right politicians like Smotrich too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_Ben-Gvir
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezalel_Smotrich
Claiming that all Israelis support them, or that 50% of Israelis support them, would be wrong I think. Claiming 10% of Israelis support them, I think is accurate.
Maybe you think the Palestinians are all barbarous demons and that the Israeli far right is justified. But the descriptive parts of the NYT article would still be accurate about describing the far right's actions.
non_radical_centrist
4d ago
https://manifold.markets/news/chinataiwan
More markets where people put their (play) money where their mouth is with regards to their predictions, and I encourage everyone with strong opinions to do the same.
Personally I think the only factor that really matters is the mind of Xi Jinping. China will not invade Taiwan without his approval, and they'd likely immediately invade if he decided he did want to. Any weighing of the costs and benefits for China only matter to the extent that Xi Jinping actually cares about China instead of just his own personal benefit.
I expect Xi has many sycophants around him telling him that China is increasingly ascendant and that the US is on a downward spiral and that the Taiwanese masses actually want to be unified under a glorious greater China. That's a standard situation for a great many dictators.
On the other hand, Xi probably isn't totally isolated from reality. There are some major issues even the biggest information bubble I doubt could hide from him. He can see that the Ukraine war, while it's debatable just how well Russia is doing, definitely wasn't the 1 month stomp campaign many expected. He can see that the Chinese economy has had some major setbacks with their housing market having a crisis and Evergrande collapsing.
The benefits to invading Taiwan are basically two: To appeal to the nationalistic ego of the masses, and to inflate his own personal ego, with military conquest. My understanding is that the Chinese masses do have nationalist egos and like being the big scary country on the block, as do most masses(until they get into a brutal war for no real benefit like WW1, WW2, Vietnam, Iraq 2, and get reminded painfully of the downsides. But I don't think they're extremely jingoistic, they're not Germans in 1938 or Americans in 2002.
As for Xi's internal psyche and how eager he personally is for war, it's very hard to know. China generally hasn't been that militant in recent years. Their last major conflict was the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, long before Xi. They're had some grandstanding around the South China Sea, and some skirmishes with India. Maybe he is more on the pacifist side and doesn't want conflict with no tangible benefit. Maybe he's just biding his time until he has the largest possible advantage over the USA to strike. Maybe he personally isn't that into war, but wouldn't back down or disavow an overeager admiral who escalates tensions during a patrol around Taiwan and that leads into war.
In conclusion, I really don't know. I just feel like focusing on what benefits China is a mistake, the focus should be on what Xi is thinking.
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
Sometimes you need to slow roll people into your shocking conclusion not to turn them away immeadiately. Often books need to really stretch out the distance to their conclusion to get people to actually read them. But in general I agree. I find it especially annoying when books and long articles don't actually even clearly state their conclusions anywhere, let alone in the preface!
non_radical_centrist
5d ago
I recognize. A willingness of the larger state to keep petri dishes going for a while is necessary.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
Biden can't pardon Trump for state crimes. He could pardon Trump for the federal crimes.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
Goodhart's law. You're only optimizing for the ability to game a prediction market, not the ability to be a wise ruler.
I think it's harder to game a prediction market than to game any other method of selecting wise rulers.
Why not?
I believe that if a competent absolute ruler implemented my proposed system, like Napoleon at his height did so instead of invading Russia, governmental and economic systems like socialism, communism, fascism, and liberterianism could've been tested without the genocide. And that'd have been a much better outcome for humanity as a whole. Today, I'd prefer if we could set up lots of charter cities that implement different ideologies, each mostly free from state influence, to see which methods are most succesful.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
What determines the nation's values considering your hypothetical?
Through some sort of democratic process.
Since such values might need to be established and maybe through time a system with condemned values, might perform better.
If ultimately a super majority of the population decides they really like slavery or genocide, I don't think really any system has a good defense against that. I'm kind of relying on slavery and genocide actually being bad ideas, so a system that rewards good ideas won't have anyone do those things.
And how do you stop areas which have similar ideologies from ganging up on groups they are ideologically opposed to?
It does take buy in from people and leaders. That's why I proposed the hypothetical of a good spirited monarch who wants to do better, and this being the solution I think the good hearted monarch should arrive at. In a scenario more resembling real life, I don't think any real world executive actually has the power to implement such experiments without also getting the masses and other elites to buy in. Ultimately people have to be willing to prove the success of their ideology through creating good conditions on the ground instead of conquering their neighbors, which is a limitation, but I don't think there's a way around that. But I don't think this is a fatal flaw; it's decently rare in developed countries at least for one province to try to impose their ideology on another province by force.
In real life, I'd really just first try to encourage prediction markets more. For every important decision the government makes, such as passing bills or spending 300 million on building an aid pier for Palestine, I'd want there to be a few prediction markets trying to measure whether it's a good idea. My hypothetical was more prompted by thinking about what I'd want to do in a time like 1920, when there were many ideologies and little evidence of what I'd actually do.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
Perhaps. But I don't think so.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
Well sure, but some systems make more mistakes than others. A prediction market as I view it is ultimately just a systematic way to keep track of who makes errors the most and who makes them the least, so you can put the people who make them the least into power.
Calling something like the USSR or Nazi Germany just a regular human mistake isn't an acceptable conclusion to me. I want a systemized method of how we can go about designing better governance and economic systems, since I don't think anyone's completely happy with any systems anywhere, without risking making a USSR.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
Just being smart and virtuous isn't enough to prevent being taken in by honest mistakes, and when you have absolute power an honest mistake can be very devastating.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
Any institution where the leaders get too selfish will naturally lose power from its people just leaving, that's part of why freedom of movement is so necessary. And hopefully the prediction markets can more clearly evaluate who's actually done a good job, such that people trying to uphold a flawed institution will have little credibility.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
There is an issue when some of the petri dishes go down a route the rest of the country finds abhorrent, like slavery or crimes against humanity. I think against that, there needs to be some democratic calibration of the nation's values, and some careful questions posed to prediction markets about what initiatives are worth taking. And if a region rebels against the system and starts doing things against the nation's fundamental values, hopefully the rest of the nation hasn't neglected their militaries and can put a stop to it.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
I agree, especially in practice that's probably how you'd do it instead of slicing a country up into radically different country types. But I think some division to do experiments would be good still, for when X and Y both have small changes to implement but in opposite directions.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
https://josephheath.substack.com/p/a-critical-theory-of-or-for-america
I think Canada is moving to build more housing, despite Trudeau's lip service to protecting housing prices. There's just a delay between realizing there's a crisis and actually getting housing built.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
I admittedly underestimated the amount of continuing Irish terrorism then. I would still predict that the amount of continuing Palestinian terrorism after any Ireland-like peace deal would be far greater and at a level that would make decreasing tensions impossible.
non_radical_centrist
6d ago
The two problems I see there is a) figuring out who exactly is virtuous and wise, and b) protecting the state from the virtuous and wise making well intentioned mistakes. As I laid out, something like socialism can seem quite appealing even to a wise and virtuous person, but have disastrous consequences.
There are tons of drag-and-drop educational programming apps that teach stuff like loops and functions.
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