ControlsFreak
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User ID: 1422
ControlsFreak
6d ago
You're getting a lot of push back, rightfully so, on grounds that you almost certainly support Democratic party actions that similarly raid the public purse for their preferred spoils. And sure, complaining about when the other guy does it is as gay as the day is long, but it appears an observable truth to me that such mere complaining in this form has not been beneficial for either side. Nor are the discussions that tend to follow, as they mostly descend into finger-pointing.
I don't know that I've entirely given up on finding a true solution, and perhaps there are others, but let me suggest that there might be one. The core problem is a credible commitment problem. Both sides see each other complain when they're out of power, but cannot believe that they will commit to not doing likewise once they regain power. If FC's particular brand of doomerism is not controlling (and it might be), then perhaps the most suitable tool in our Constitutional Republic for the task would be a Constitutional amendment.
So draft a suitable amendment. Provide a text. Argue convincingly that this draft text, if adopted, will actually constrain Democrats when they're in power as well as Republicans (this will be a hard task). Show that you can garner enough Democratic votes (in Congress and the States) to adopt an amendment that will almost certainly gore many future Democratic party oxen as well. Honestly, you will probably have to gore some current Democratic party oxen, too. Do some productive herethetics and show that if you split the issue differently, there can be more people on the side of, "Both of these parties need to knock it the hell off," than on the side of, "We'll gleefully do it for our team and constantly complain when it's their team." I'm personally happy to be on the side of, "Both of these parties need to knock it the hell off," but I probably doubt that you are. So just show me a draft text to make it apparent which group you're in.
If you find this unpalatable and cannot bring yourself to credibly commit to goring enough Democratic party oxen in the process, then the answers to most of your questions become readily apparent. The same goes for the other side.
Matt Levine has written lately that AI labs have a fundamental problem about compensation and motivation. You have to pay an AI researcher so much money to hire them that they could, if they wanted, approximately immediately retire and never work again. How do you even retain them in the first place? He remarks on how certain parts of the financial industry also have this problem, and they've historically had some 'solutions' to it (e.g., acculturating people to having strong desires for otherwise minor positional goods WRT a small group of peers), but how those solutions don't quite yet apply to the AI folks. He writes:
It is not entirely clear to me that if a person becomes convinced of that, then they should either spend all their time working on it or quit. I would also imagine that there would be a variety of motivations, probably similar to what one sees in the financial industry. I wouldn't be surprised in the least to discover that there are a decent number of people in the financial industry who ended up eschewing minor positional goods and just retiring off of the bank they made in a few years. Yet clearly others (e.g., the top leaders of investment banks) want more money. I don't think there is any contradiction here.
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