Nanugu
8mo ago
The Spartan constitution attributed to Lycurgus was deliberately unwritten, or at least it was claimed to be so. Some copies apparently did exist, most notably at the oracle of Delphi. Spartans themselves were supposed to maintain it orally.
From Plutarch:
None of his laws were put into writing by Lycurgus, indeed, one of the so‑called "rhetras" forbids it. For he thought that if the most important and binding principles which conduce to the prosperity and virtue of a city were implanted in the habits and training of its citizens, they would remain unchanged and secure, having a stronger bond than compulsion in the fixed purposes imparted to the young by education, which performs the office of a law-giver for every one of them.
Sparta's government and domestic policy was truly bizarre, though, and doesn't map well to modern politics. Caste society, mostly automated ascetic communism, no private property, iron coinage (to make wealth unwieldy and theft ungainly), two kings, an elected-for-life-council-of-elders, many other peculiarities.
My own two cents is that the value of the unwritten constitution lay in its looseness. It allowed, and depended on, virtuous men to exercise real decision making power.
Nanugu
8mo ago
Agreed. I was trying to say that the post was wild because in retrospect because many of the conflict theorist's beliefs seem justified in retrospect, and that Scott's own revealed behavior is a repudiation of his (and, admittedly, my own) naive inclination towards mistake theory as a descriptive model.
Nanugu
8mo ago
He himself is someone who could only be modelled by conflict theory - his public actions and stated opinion were not motivated because he was mistaken about HBD; he misrepresented his own beliefs because the dominant intellectual paradigm prevented the technocracy (ie Scott) from publicly advancing the most accurate viewpoints or influencing policy in a logical direction. He could only be 'convinced' by a display of political power by the opposition. This is exactly the situation presented by the conflict theorist in the quote I pulled.
Nanugu
8mo ago
That conflict vs. mistake article is pretty wild to go through.
Mistake theorists think racism is a cognitive bias. White racists have mistakenly inferred that black people are dumber or more criminal.
Not, "mistake theorists believe that black people are dumber, but hide their power levels because doing otherwise would mean sticking their necks out."
Conflict theorists think a technocracy is stupid. Whatever the right policy package is, the powerful will never let anyone implement it. Either they’ll bribe the technocrats to parrot their own preferences, or they’ll prevent their recommendations from carrying any force.
...an almost exact summation of why the technocracy supported anti-HBD views. And the only way to get Scott to reveal his true thoughts was to change who was powerful. No amount of debate and convincing would have worked - he was already privately convinced, after all.
I reject the idea that there is a hard binary - you can believe that mistake theory is right for some circumstances for some people and conflict theory in others. When I talk to my dad about how stupid DEI is, he is receptive. When I argue with my brother about HBD... well it's just a bad idea. Thanksgiving dinners are a lot more pleasant if I just accept conflict theory on that one and recognize the only way to change anyone's mind is to simply win a presidential election first.
Nanugu
9mo ago
The checkup itself is pretty routine. If they get referred to a specialist or have to take a test or a vaccine that incurs a separate charge. But surely a base rate for the visit is easy to figure and most added services should be easy to look up as well.
Nanugu
9mo ago
Medicine is worse than that. There was some bureaucratic confusion about whether insurance would be available for my kid's routine visit. I asked at the front desk what it would cost, assuming a normal visit with no complications, in case I couldn't apply insurance. She didn't know. I asked her who would. Didn't know that either. Tried calling the billing department, no answer. Looked up the billing information the hospital is required to publish by state law. The 'common' bills they showed did not include checkups. So basically, I could wait months for a different appointment or I could tell them I was willing to pay whatever price they asked after the fact. It worked out.
Vets, dentists, and the Surgery Center of Oklahoma can all quote prices. Medicine could too. I always thought the rightwing's Obamacare should've been: hospitals have to have transparent pricing and insurance companies can only say to the customer, "We'll cough up X money for your procedure based on your prognosis. We'll incentivize you to spend less than X. You can pay more than X if you make up the difference. You are allowed to spend that money at any hospital." The government can maintain a crappy website that lets you do price compare, with the assumption that Amazon or Walmart would make the actual working website.
Nanugu
9mo ago
Bloodtopia clearly isn't importing Ideastan's ideas or way of thinking given that they have kept a distinct immigration policy and concern with bloodlines for 1000 years.
Nanugu
10mo ago
Your whole point was that the urban, educated, irreligious voters who switched from voting D to voting R are an uninfluential component of Trump's constituency. I'm saying that profile fits for a lot of the Trump admin, so your premise is flat out wrong. That RFK Jr, Musk, Vance, and even Trump are at different points of their conversion blue to red only shows that such a conversion is possible.
Working on a software synth, and I have the opposite feeling. I made a half-baked one on my own in 2024, but in 2025 my labor is so much more efficient that I can make a vastly superior product that will actually realize my original vision. In 2026, I'll be able to do something more ambitious.
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