Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
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User ID: 863
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
Where does the article cite to any evidence, or provide any numbers, to demonstrate the "recruiting issues among specific demographics?" As far as I can tell its only external links are to an army ad and Twitter reaction.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
Exactly! And I guess your point is that the push for legal marijuana is slowly winning, but my counter-point is that legal marijuana is winning much more slowly than it ought to be, given that there is such a strong argument in its favor. Indeed, these are the kinds of important questions of public policy that I am worried about and that inspired this post, Singer's A' being illegal is nowhere near the top 10 on my list of biggest injustices.
I think this misunderstands my point. My point is rather, there are some arguments of the A/A' form that do not descend into "Ew, yuck" or similar, but also that what makes an argument convincing is not universal, it can be relative. It's relative to what ethical premises you accept. It's relative to facts you know about the world. Changes in policy get even more complicated, being related to facts about how governments are structured and a million other factors. There are many explanations for why the given A/A' argument is not considered strong by a lot of people, ranging from differences of premises to different knowledge of facts. It is not correct to extrapolate the state of the world by assuming most people share your moral opinions and state of knowledge.
But we have lots of things that would make a lot of people better off but are illegal because they sound bad, which, as Bryan Caplan puts it, "The way I like to think about it is that markets are great at doing good things that sound bad, and governments are great at doing bad things, that sound good."
Frankly, I think this is a terrible theory of mind. People generally have motivations and reasons for believing the things they do beyond "it sounds bad." Maybe you think their reasons round off to that because they are not utilitarians or consequentialists but I think it is much better to understand people's beliefs and motivations on their own terms.
I agree with you that Singer's A' is not strictly comparable to A such that we can say supporting A but not A' is irrational, but my point is that the responses I have seen do not even get there, they stop at "A'? Ew, yuck"
Do you often see discussions of issues on Twitter that go the way you wish this discussion had gone?
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I think the article is big on Vibes, Narrative, and Metaphor but pretty light on reason or evidence. If you buy all the authors premises its a nice polemic but as someone skeptical I found basically nothing in it convincing.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I don't really think you can take the particular A and A' of Singer's comment and generalize them to all such forms of the argument. For example, something like this argument was (is) very common in the push for legal marijuana. That society already accepts and encourages use of much more dangerous drugs (in the form of alcohol and tobacco) so it doesn't make any sense to ban marijuana on the basis of its supposed danger.
Singer posits a compelling argument: Society accepts a certain concept, A, yet its variant A', which along many relevant dimensions is similar to A but should be less objectionable, is met with taboo.
"Should be less objectionable" according to who? It seems like the argument assumes a degree of inter-subjective agreement about the relative ranking of A and A' that is not, empirically, true.
The taboo around A' is like an emotional firewall, preventing any rational discourse.
Statements like this are why discussing this without the context of the actual A and A' are impossible. This may be true for the particular A' in Singer's post but I do not think it is true in general.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I am not convinced. What was the situation in Gaza pre-Israeli withdrawal?
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
Fair enough, I have a little sympathy for Hamas. But I recognize that they are evil in both their actions against Israelis and Palestinians alike and want to see them defeated.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I am not sympathetic to Hamas. I do not think Hamas deserves any sympathy. I do think the innocent Palestinians who Hamas is using as human shields deserve sympathy.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
Sure, I agree. I think Hamas is evil. But I don't think that's true of Palestinians in general. Same as the Nazi Germany government or the imperial Japanese government.
That's not really my argument. My argument is if they do a cease fire with Hamas, we will literally just be here in 5-10 years from now at best. They knew what the response to this would be and they did it anyway. These are people who put weapons under schools and hospitals and dares people to blow them up. We may get Hamas 2.0 after this, but if we do a cease fire and Hamas stays in power, we 100% get Hamas 1.0 in power no matter what.
How is Israel's current strategy going to prevent us from being back here in 10-15 years? Say Israel kills every member of Hamas, not just in Gaza, but the entire world. What is the plan for after that? Do we go back to the pre-2005 occupation of Gaza by Israel? The same one the preceded Hamas' rise to power? Does Israel go back to treating Gaza like an open air prison? Will whatever group that fills the power vacuum left by Hamas be friendlier with Israel?
What will a cease fire even accomplish?
It will prevent the deaths of thousands or tens of thousands of innocent civilians, many of them children? That is enough of a goal for a lot of people!
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
Do you think this is the first time in military history that there was collateral damage?
No, but nor do I think collateral damage is always permissible.
Do you think that conquered people always resist?
What does Palestinians "not resist[ing]" even look like in this context? They are penned in Gaza with nowhere to go. Regularly assailed by air from Israel with little ability to resist or retaliate. How much resistance could they cease doing?
Also do you think it is good strategy to basically encourage human shields (provided side A arranges it so that if Party B attacks A, then B will cause collateral damage and be prevented from the collateral damage)? It seems like a really bad idea.
What has been the actual effect of Israel's killing of human shields on Hamas' willingness to use human shields? Has it actually decreased? Has killing human shields been an effective deterrent in preventing Hamas' use of them? Or has it just killed a thousands of innocent people?
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
Part of the reason we have lasting peace with those countries is the vast amount of economic resources we spent to help build those countries back up after the war. Do you think that's going to happen here? After Israel's war with Hamas is over are they going to deliver a bunch of resources to Gaza and the West Bank to help the development of a peaceful Palestinian state? I am skeptical!
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I apologize if this comes off as straw-man-y but if your argument is functionally "Hamas is so evil they should not be allowed to continue to exist so it's fine when Israel kills thousands of innocents to stop them" then your argument is missing a few steps! Someone put this more pithily than me on Twitter but if Israel killed my whole family, who have nothing to do with Hamas, in pursuit of killing some Hamas member my first response would be to start Hamas 2. Do you imagine that a lasting peace is going to be achieved by killing thousands of innocents to get rid of Hamas?
I suspect a majority of the people who are calling for a ceasefire agree you that Hamas is evil. I've seen lots of people make points about how Hamas oppresses Palestinians in Gaza. How they haven't allowed elections in almost 20 years. Those people just disagree that Hamas is "murdering thousands of innocent people to stop them" evil.
But if these people think that a cease fire with Hamas will lead to a long standing peace then they are delusional.
I don't think most people think a present ceasefire will lead to long standing peace, I think they are much more focused on the immediate goal of preventing the deaths of thousands (tens of thousands?) of innocent civilians.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I think it is less an Ohio thing and more a marijuana/abortion thing. My recollection is those two issues also passed as ballot measures in some other pretty red states last year.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
That utility is fungible between people such that X's being made better off can morally offset Y's being made worse off.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
Not sure what you mean by no chain of custody. My state at least has several measures.
On the ballot itself is a stub your're meant to tear off that identifies that specific ballot. That stub has what's basically a serial number on it you can take to the state election website to figure out if the particular ballot you cast has been counted.
As to the ballot itself, it's placed in a security envelope one is required to sign and date. I know signature matching isn't an exact science but I know there are at least some checks. One year I forgot to sign and got some helpful mail from the state informing me of that fact and outlining the process to cure the deficiency.
Is it just because Dems think it gives them an advantage?
It is very convenient and enables people to vote who may otherwise have difficulty doing so.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I definitely recognize the potential, though I'm not sure how often that potential is realized. Both of the things you mention are crimes in my state, which is not to say they don't happen.
There are also well known tradeoffs with requiring people to vote in person. People might have to take time off work since voting is often on a work day and can involve a wait of hours. Poll workers or observers might do a little voter intimidation.
The balance of which of these is worse is at least not obvious to me.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
TIL Aella is the woman in the gnomes photo. Saw that way before I knew who she was.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
Election night thread?
Reading accounts like this make me glad to live in a state that (1) mails everyone a ballot every election and (2) also mails everyone a voters guide a week or more in advance of any election. I get text of initiatives, statements for and against, candidate statements, all kinds of stuff delivered to my door well in advance of having to make a decision.
Election logistics aside, the actual elections were pretty boring. Bunch of state level judges (electing judges is dumb as hell) running unopposed. About half the local races also involved candidates running unopposed. The other half were against incumbents who'd been in the position a decade and would probably win in a landslide. No initiatives or ballot measures or anything interesting.
Looking outside my own state, Bolts has a massive round up of stuff to watch tonight. Big ones so far:
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Andy Beshar wins re-election as governor of Kentucky.
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Ohio passes Issue 1 and Issue 2. Enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution and legalizing marijuana respectively.
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Dems projected to control Virginia Senate, denying Youngkin a trifecta.
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Loudoun County School Board looks likely to be won by Democratic Party endorsed candidates.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
What about the initial plunge into the crowd? Video evidence shows the car was struck before hitting anyone—meaning Fields could have panicked and hit the gas.
Sure, he could have. What's the evidence he did? Whether it was murder or not depends on what actually happened, not just what could have happened.
Most importantly, he did not accelerate after hitting the crowd, he braked and paused. He threw the car into reverse only when his window was smashed.
Spoken like someone who's never watched the video. Fields doesn't stop out of some desire to limit the damage he's doing, he stops because he hits another car blocking his way. His threw his car into reverse because it was literally the only way out of the street.
Why'd anyone bent on homicide stop and back out instead of accelerating?
He physically could not carry out the course of action you are questioning because his way was blocked by another vehicle.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
As far as I'm concerned, it'd be better to just throw all that metal in the ocean then.
Why?
Regarding your assessment of the Unite the Right rally, I find the notion ludicrous that public protests should be judged that way. How many deaths in total did BLM protests cause, for example?
I am not sure I understand the analogy. I think it is bad when protestors kill people and understandable when governments take action they think will reduce the likelihood it occurs.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I've read the discussion on the destruction of General Lee's statue in Charlottesville in last week's thread. I got the impression that many commenters here are prone to come up with explanations why the official removal of the statue was at least unsurprising or objectively justified from a culture war perspective, and I get that. But it seems they aren't focusing on the palpable difference between legally removing a statue and destroying it in a furnace. Because as far as I'm concerned, it's a big step from one to the other.
I mean, they didn't just melt it down and throw it away or something. They're melting it down for the purpose of creating some other art piece based on community input. At least, that's according to the proposal submitted by Jefferson School African American Heritage Center that the City Council accepted. It is a literal transformation of a symbol of Virginia's racist, white supremacist past to one of its more egalitarian present. The symbolism is the point.
And what happened to Lee's statue certainly cannot be explained by financial considerations either, as I'm sure that whatever arrangement that was on the table for putting it away as a museum piece was cheaper than melting it down in a furnace.
I think this misapprehends the process. The city solicited proposals on what to do with the statue. The people who made the proposal the Council accepted were responsible for all the costs of transporting it, melting it down, etc. It didn't cost the city anything.
In the end, the only sufficient explanation I can come up with is that local authorities were afraid that Lee's statue, no matter where it were to be placed, was likely to become a site of pilgrimage for right-winger heretics opposed to the culture-warring leftist interpretation of race relations in the US, hence the statue's destruction.
That seems like a pretty reasonable fear? The initial decision to remove the statue was the impetus for the Unite the Right rally. Where a white supremacist murdered someone and injured 30 others.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
If you have some evidence he's changes his position I'm happy to see it.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I broadly agree that it's not, like, very specifically a trans metaphor. I think it is getting at something a little more fundamental, the idea of sex being social and contextual. This has obvious implications for trans people so I can see how people read a trans metaphor into it.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2yr ago
I think this is more a limit of KSR's imagination than commentary on the time period. Le Guin wrote The Left Hand of Darkness in 1969. It features a population that ordinarily have an asexual appearance (no secondary sex characteristics) but go into a kind of heat during which they can develop either set of secondary sex characteristics. What set of characteristics they develop isn't even consistent across heats! It's a setting where one's biological sex is very literally contextual, though not necessarily chosen.
I think the issue is most people in favor of rent control policies don't understand the economic arguments against them. They have mistaken factual beliefs. They correctly perceive the first order effects of reducing rent for people covered by such policies and think it is desirable. I think it takes a pretty specific kind of economics education to see the prices as outputs of a system, rather than inputs, and reason from the implications of that.
I think there is a confusion in this discussion between people being irrational and people lacking specific technical knowledge or perspective.It's like the xkcd Average Familiarity comic but for moral philosophy or economics.
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