FtSoA
5mo ago
Have you ever heard the phrase "the plural of anecdote is not data"?
I'm not trying to convince you that your particular eyes are lying to you. But Europe is a pretty big place. In most of it, AC is not very common even as heat waves increase.
There is objective data on this fact. In my essay, I linked to such information. This is not, to my knowledge, a contested set of facts. You could, with the language skills and internet access you have go forth and rapidly find out that either I am right in my characterization, or show data that would force me to reconsider my statements.
But you standing outside of a building and telling me I'm wrong will not cut it because 1) I've been to a bit of Europe and 2) I can read sources describing the overall situation in the U.S. vs. Europe.
FtSoA
5mo ago
but yeah the idea of being slavery being efficient overall is something I've never understood
Indentured servitude fixes this. I'm half kidding, but I think at least two of my ancestors were indentured at Jamestown.
Unions are bad, in my view. Should not be legally empowered by the government as they have been.
The abrupt end with little chance for handover to a different org/funding source.
How something is ended can matter quite a lot. This was not done gracefully. Or constitutionally, but that's a procedural issue.
I don't think PEPFAR and home construction training programs are a worthwhile comparison.
You really, really don't have to sell me on the downsides of humanitarian interventions as a general rule.
FtSoA
5mo ago
My recommendation would be to read the article and view the source cited therein as a good starting point.
Honestly I'm surprised this is something someone wants to contest. Do you have a lot of iced beverages in your part of Europe too?
FtSoA
5mo ago
What sounds good vs. what is effective is a common problem, yes.
As a matter of basic logic and follow through, I get a little peeved that if one agrees with the stance that "we, via the coercive power of the state, need to do something" then by god one should make sure it actually is effective. Frequently, this evaluation step is skipped. Homelessness, for example, remains a big problem, and it's typically worse in areas controlled by progressives doing so many things. Just this evening my wife did not want to use our nearby park to put the baby in a swing due to the homeless being all over the playground area (normally they're more broadly dispersed). The city wants to spend millions of dollars on renovating this park but they won't keep the drug-using vagrants away. A homeless man just tried kidnapping a baby out of a stroller at a public transportation station this week, too.
What's funny is that someone like Noah Smith will unironically write that public parks are (in the strict economic sense) public goods. I'd like to show him how easily taxpayer-funded spaces are excludable and rivalrous. Don't even get me started on libraries.
In short, fuck progressivism for being both expensive and ineffective.
FtSoA
5mo ago
I think the typical EA isn't that far off of the typical Western liberal/progressive tradition in terms of their views on human rights?
I'm sure someone somewhere has done polling on this.
I do not believe that Effective Altruists would oppose vaccine mandates categorically under grounds of bodily autonomy, for instance.
Ah well, even my own libertarian instincts allow exceptions for bodily autonomy violations under crisis conditions. No, Covid-19 didn't meet that threshold, but plenty of historic plagues would if we had a modern outbreak. The optimal level of coercion is not zero.
I understand those as fair arguments, but they are the same fair arguments Khrushchev made for Stalin and that Marx made for Guesde.
I very much do not think those are very similar things in kind or scale. To my knowledge, no one in EA leadership was encouraging or validating Ziz or SBF with awareness of their actual behavior/intent and denounced it all upon discovery. Any kind of interesting new ideological movement that grows is at risk of attracting crazies and grifters; what matters is how that's handled and I think at worst EA was fooled by SBF like many others.
Of course. And I denounce them all as capable of the same horrors.
I suppose one can commit to a very, very strong stance on individualism. Are you an anarcho-capitalist?
FtSoA
5mo ago
I think one can simultaneously believe that perhaps PEPFAR should not exist forever as a U.S.-funded program and believe that the way DOGE handled it was an unnecessary travesty that caused needless suffering.
But also you seem to be conflating "effective" with "solves something permanently" when those are not always the same thing. Sometimes the latter is not possible via charity but an effective band aid of sorts is feasible.
But really I'm not the guy to defend EA because I'm not one myself on several fronts.
FtSoA
5mo ago
Well, yes. That was true of much of the northern U.S. until more recent times.
The problem is that the Europeans can't quite seem to get AC now that they probably ought to have it. It's kind of banned in many places.
FtSoA
5mo ago
Slavery was legal and then made illegal in the West. As a matter of classic liberalism in terms of morality, it was never great to treat some humans as property since that's pretty darn coercive. Economically, coercion usually is not very efficient.
At no point do I or would I say a policy intervention is never called for. I am not an anarcho-capitalist. Some externalities demand government intervention. We should tax carbon and price congestion, for example.
FtSoA
5mo ago
Well, there is no one "EA"; but broadly speaking EA exists within the liberal democratic view of human rights. So "unbounded consequentialism" isn't actually on the menu for policy interventions.
I'm personally a rule utilitarian / classic liberal, so I care about specific classic (negative) human rights and fostering material progress. So I like a lot of what EA is all about, but I have my differences. I do not like philosophical ignorant veils and ponds of kids, for example. In terms of rhetorical utility though, I very much enjoy using EA as a hammer to bludgeon progressives/leftists with.
I do not think it is fair to directly fault EA at large for Ziz and SBF. In the former case, they literally disavowed the individual and their ideas. In the latter case, they were too trusting (I just assume all crypto is a scam by default) and deserve some demerits for that, but SBF also fooled a great many worldly financial types outside of EA.
EA has no provision against people thinking of themselves as bringing about a utopia, and that makes it a dangerous philosophy.
Again, this is an extremely broad criticism that applies to many religions and ideologies.
FtSoA
5mo ago
There's an entire world of rhetoric that's not just logical arguments. Use that.
There's the saying that you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. I don't 100% buy that because I myself have disproved it on major beliefs at least three times, but it is often true in practice.
The point of the essay was to, as much as possible, list clear facts that I don't think reasonable people can disagree with on an object level. Using much rhetoric would defeat the style of trying to list clear facts. (To my knowledge, there isn't such a list of these facts all in one place [or a current one, at least]. If there were, I'd have written something different.)
There's no one single way to convince a particular person of any given thing at any given time. I acknowledge my approach has the tradeoffs it does. (Part of my worldview is acknowledging tradeoffs.) Plus, rhetoric is typically more words and my list was already pretty dang long, practically speaking.
Also, if we're debating the metalevel relative merits of persuasive strategies using the written word, rhetoric is a symmetric weapon. For example, Marxists can wax poetic about solving inequality just us much as I can lovingly describe personal liberty. I think you could call both Adam Smith and Karl Marx talented writers in terms of style. But as soon as we start talking about facts I get to beat Marxists to death with empirical results and basic math.
You got pretty close, but then Trump laughed your guy out of the room after using him.
One thing I will say for Trump is that he does seem to be restrained by "numba go down." That doesn't help avoid the subtler long term damage to growth, but if certain other presidents had cared about market reactions we'd be a richer country. Shame about DOGE being mostly a clown show.
It would be excellent if SCOTUS is able to overturn certain very bad no good decisions that led to significant government intervention.
FtSoA
5mo ago
Ask and ... you know the rest.
https://www.themotte.org/post/2277/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/352627?context=8#context
FtSoA
5mo ago
Good work I'd say. Thank you.
For 6, I don't believe the dollar's relative value is a major issue for decades of trends.
FtSoA
5mo ago
People have been killed in the name of EA ideas.
Such as? If we're referring to the Ziz stuff then well that's not going to cut it for me in that they were not part of "EA" in any meaningful sense for a long time before the real insanity began.
But also, plenty of people have been killed in the name of classic liberal ideas.
I, for one, think that if you gave soviet levels of power to the shrimp welfare people, they would be very unwise with it. I don't think that's an unreasonable view.
Probably! I can't get over that Classic Environmentalism is anti-interventionist to the point some want humanity to disappear, and then some EA types are so interventionist they want to basically eliminate nature because of the inherent suffering.
FtSoA
5mo ago
I think Mises is right in the final analysis
I'm more of a Hayek and Friedman guy myself. Utilitarianism libertarianism > deontological libertarianism.
but this is bad argumentation for your stated goal because progressives do not share the basic priors that make these numbers convincing to you
The para re: policy effectiveness sets that up a basic shared prior of caring about means and ends.
If someone fundamentally does not care about measuring ROI of policy interventions, then what can one do. One can lead a horse to facts...
Moreover, they have their own numbers that you don't find convincing.
Not remotely good ones they don't. I actually read Capital in the 21st Century and I've taken econ courses from Marxists, so I'm pretty familiar with the other side of the aisle here.
That's kinda my whole thesis here: I used to accept those numbers as part as that narrative. Then I learned better.
Without that, you are in danger of merely engaging in congratulating your own side for having a worldview that correctly fits their perception of the world.
My "side" here is currently out of power or even major influence in either of the two major U.S. political parties right now.
Being right is clearly insufficient!
FtSoA
5mo ago
That there are some "pure" altruists in EA is not what I am picking at. The essays I reference are targeted at that very phenomenon because it is a thing some people do. Selection effects are what they are. You are making points without the knowledge of what is already been discussed on the topic. Go google "avoiding EA burnout" and you'll find a plenty of stuff on this front.
The thing I am pointing at is that comparing Soviet anything to EA is apples to hand grenades. Donors are not coerced. OpenPhil analysts are not employees of the state, and aimed at "doing the most good" insofar as they can figure that out. The failure mode that is most apt is the standard "NGO Industrial Complex" where organizations exist to exist, not to actually solve the problem in their mission statement.
FtSoA
5mo ago
Is there an easy way to port over a substack article with images and links?
I don't see one, so I tried to provide enough context to tell someone whether they might want to click or not.
FtSoA
5mo ago
K-12 teachers get a solidly large does of lefty canon exposure, and a default assumption of "government intervention to fix things is good and necessary."
Even in a quite red state decades ago, my teachers were disproportionately left of center.
FtSoA
5mo ago
I think "pure altruism" is a strawmanning of EA in general and Open Philanthropy in particular. One of EA's main tenets is that the traditional hyperfocus on overhead costs of charities is unhelpful as a measure of actual efficacy. If you want smart, driven people to do good work in allocating resources, paying them something like market rate is advisable. Otherwise, you're selecting on something other than merely talent for the job.
Of course, it's always possible OpenPhil is actually bad at their stated mission for whatever reason, including design flaws. So having different models out there, like volunteer crowdsourcing, is a good thing.
Famously, the Soviets did not rely on charitable giving to fund their efforts. Donors can always stop donating.
Scott has addressed this kind of thing--how much altruism is mandated or what is sufficiently pure--multiple times. Numerous essay in EA Land focus on the emotional unsustainability of pure altruism.
Some level of partiality/self-interest is allowable on pragmatic grounds alone. Martyrdom should not be a standard requirement.
FtSoA
5mo ago
In my latest essay, I try to list the major points I'm aware of that puncture the progressive narrative on economics, without trying to directly touch on the Culture War's social fronts.
Reality Has a Poorly Recognized Classical Liberal Bias
I think most people here have enough exposure to libertarianism that they are at least aware of these issues (even if they don't agree with them). If you think I missed one or I'm somehow dead wrong please do indicate so.
FtSoA
5mo ago
I guess it depends on what your standard for pulls is
I think it's pretty clear that the P320 stock trigger pull is standard for its class. It does not have a trigger safety, of course, and in general striker pistols are far lighter than a DA pull. Which is why Glock Leg was such a thing when police departments started moving away from revolvers and DA/SA pistols.
Imagine if this had happened in the present social media era: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/11/18/armed-and-unready/419a50bf-23b0-4175-93ee-33211044c8df/
the P320 did poorly on the drop safety tests resulting in a redesign
The P320 passed industry drop-safe testing standards. Through extra testing outside those standards, it was late found a very particular kind of drop did cause an issue. The XM17 drop testing found essentially the same issue with the same fix--lighter parts to reduce inertia issues.
https://thrumylens.org/featured/my-thoughts-on-the-sig-p320-30-degree-drop-failure/
some rather unique elements to its design such as a fully cocked striker on recoil that no one else has done (including Sig on their other guns like the P365)
As an overly committed P365 owner, I assure you they are also fully cocked. While broadly similar, it is a different FCU design. For one thing, the rails on the P365 go the whole length of the FCU.
but I havent heard much about any of their testing, there doesnt appear to be a whole lot of it done
Seriously? This is probably the most tested gun in history between common adoption worldwide in militaries and LE agencies, plus a huge private market. And now several years of ongoing drama.
Whatever the problem is, it's nonobvious because you have all kinds of people trying to find it. My understanding is that this is the likely explanation for the ones firing in holsters (found in YouTube comments):
Here’s how it goes off uncommanded: grip modules too tight, and loose slide/frame lockups. This is the combination. The trigger bar doesn’t move freely in the grip module, and can hang up with trigger partially pulled. This defeats the striker safety. Then, a loose slide rocking on the FCU rails pulls the striker off the seer and… bang. It’s a problem with tolerances- but you need this exact combination of bad tolerances to have a problem. It’s not difficult to do at all, but you need to mix/match FCUs and grips until you get the magic combo. It’s not ONE flaw, it’s two. And you require BOTH to make it unsafe.
At the end of the day, Sig has handled this poorly and, even if I discount like 50% of the alleged uncommanded discharges as actually negligent discharges, there's some kind of manufacturing/design/wear/tolerance flaw that is insufficiently rare and so the problem isn't going away. If I were Sig, I'd probably halt all P320 production, figure out some kind of safety field test to identify units with the flaw(s), and then not resume production until a full fix was in place.
On the other hand, if it turns out the USAF incident was actually not as popularly described (I'm seeing some reports it was airmen fooling around), then a lot of people should eat some crow.
FtSoA
5mo ago
Doesn't the stock P320 have about the same trigger pull weight as other in its class? Glocks are like 5.5 lbs and the M18 is like 5.5 to 7 lbs from what I'm seeing.
The "1mm of travel" is not being done at the regular point of measurement if he's jamming shit up top after pre-travel. That's way more movement down where the finger engages the shoe.
Basic errors like this are why I have a hard time taking the critics here seriously.
Engaging the sear nearly to the point of firing and then fucking with it is going to cause problems if tolerances are off from either defects or wear issues. I'm perfectly willing to believe manufacturing/wear defects combined with the inherent design of the cocked striker lead to these problems. That would explain why they're rare.
Also, looking at this Wyoming Gun Project specimen what the hell is wrong with his FCU rails being bent so much? That's not normal. I only have P365s, which is a broadly similar FCU design, and there's nowhere near that level of give, loaded or empty. Like his gun is clearly not safe, but it's an old and clearly beat-to-shit .45 and not an M18. It seems obvious to me that the amount of movement in the slide allows the partially engaged sear to move off the correct path and so it slips.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=OYoxraSP5pY
And no, partially engaging the sear then jostling the gun absolutely should not result in a discharge, thats the whole point behind drop and firing pin safeties. Except as newer videos reveal, the P320s firing pin safety does not actually block the firing pin, and the drop safety is easily defeated by any slide canting, which occurs even under normal trigger pulls.
The issue here is that this gun has like 3 million copies in the U.S. and has undergone numerous rigorous testing and trials. So when some video pops up showing "wow obviously this gun is bad when I fuck with it" I dismiss it by default, because if the issue was so obvious we would 1) see way more issues than we do and 2) this all would have been figured out by now.
The crazy thing about markets is that they work so well, even under adverse conditions. The Chinese made some necessary compromises and it worked out pretty well for them.
You do point out a very real challenge I am painfully aware of and what is the underlying motivation of why I would write such an essay. The erosion of (classic) liberalism by progressivism has happened; can we stop it? Or are we in the U.S. doomed to the same eventual fate as the UK?
I have made exactly the same argument you do against Christians saying we need to return to Christianity--if that led us here what good would it do to redo things, even if that were possible? (I'd argue the key difference between classic liberalism, at least the free market economics of it, and Christianity is that the latter is not based on a factual understanding of reality.)
In the U.S., classic liberalism got hammered pretty hard starting during the Great Depression for about 50 years on economics, then we had a few decades of half-decent neoliberalism in both parties, and now both parties are largely past neoliberalism for the indefinite future. MAGAfication on the right may actually negatively polarize the left into becoming more neoliberal again, if we're lucky. #silverlinings
And, though my essay is aimed at progressive failures, I figure my best shot of convincing MAGA types that perhaps they should care about market economics, as the GOP once did, is by trashing progressive failures, not Trump and present antimarket policies.
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