@RandomRanger's banner p

RandomRanger

Just build nuclear plants!

4 followers   follows 1 user  
joined 2022 September 05 00:46:54 UTC 

				
User ID: 317


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
RandomRanger


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Just build nuclear plants!

				
				
				

				

					4 followers  

					follows 1 user  

					joined 2022 September 05 00:46:54 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 317


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					
					Week
					Month
					Year
					All
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can see the point the article is trying to make (US tariff policy is pretty dumb, populism has its bad and overly conspiratorial elements) but also disagree a lot with how it makes the point:




Because of this, people who actually study behavioural change, by keeping records, tracking performance, and analyzing the relation to reward/punishment, wind up developing beliefs that contradict common sense. This is true not just of social scientists, but even animal trainers. They all tend to agree that reward is at least as effective as punishment, and in some cases more so. This generates an important décalage between expert opinion and public culture.






It is not difficult to see how this difference in view creates a state of affairs that can, in turn, be exploited for political gain in a democracy. The expert view on punishment tends to percolate out, influencing the behaviour of educational elites (and others who are inclined to defer to expert opinion). This gives rise to a set of views and practices among those elites, such as permissive parenting, abolition of corporal punishment in schools, a less punitive approach to crime, and opposition to capital punishment, which are basically out of sync with the views of the majority. This in turn leads the broader public to think that certain persistent social problems, such as juvenile delinquency or urban disorder, are a consequence of various institutions (not just the criminal justice system, but schools and parents as well) having become insufficiently punitive. The solution, from their perspective, is an exercise of straightforward common sense – all we need to do is “get tough” with offenders. The resistance of elites to these obvious truths is a sign that there is something wrong with them (e.g. they have been seduced by “fancy theories,” become divorced from reality, etc.).






Unfortunately, there are many cases in which the people are right to distrust elites. Analytical reasoning is sometimes a poor substitute for intuitive cognition. There is a vast literature detailing the hubris of modern rationalism. Elites are perfectly capable of succumbing to faddish theories (and as we have seen in recent years, they are susceptible to moral panics). But in such cases, it is not all that difficult to find other elites willing to take up the cause and oppose those intellectual fads. In specific domains, however, a very durable elite consensus has developed. This is strongest in areas where common sense is simply wrong, and so anyone who studies the evidence, or is willing to engage in analytical reasoning, winds up sharing the elite view. In these areas, the people find it practically impossible to find allies among the cognitive elite. This generates anger and resentment, which grows over time.




We tried the less punitive approach to crime and sure enough crime has soared since the low-points in the 50s. It's self-evident that if you get rid of the criminals, they can't do any crime. Whereas, if you let them out onto the streets after 30, 40, 70 arrests, they're fully capable of setting random women on fire in a subway.


Europe is run by elites much more than America and they've fucked everything up bigtime. Very smart, sophisticated people in the EU and yet they've managed to crush innovation and industry with their tax and energy policies, neuter the strategic relevance of Europe (historically, the strongest player in the world). British governance has been horrendous. Judges wrecked Birmingham's garbage disposal system. The Ajax armoured vehicle is so useless it's making soldiers sick, it's actually causing casualties to the operators. HS2 bat tunnels. Police clearance rates have fallen to negligible levels in fields like theft.


Elites are often terrible at actually governing, see also the painstakingly meritocratic Confucian officials who led Qing into national disaster.


There's a role for elites and genuine need for expertise but by no means should they be trusted unconditionally to have even a basic level of understanding of their 'areas of expertise'. It could just be Lysenko/Freud/humours theory garbage. If your doctor starts talking about the balance between bile and phlegm and fails to cure you with the leeches, it's very natural to get suspicious of him! That's what populism is, even if it doesn't necessarily know better. Elites need to do better to regain the social contract where they get status and wealth, in exchange for good leadership.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 24, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is there even a single instance of an indigenous (by which I mean tribal when Europeans showed up, not organized states like Japan) people actually advancing to the technological/military frontier without getting colonized? I find it unbelievable that the Iroquois could become a major power, just because of all the catching up they'd have to do in statecraft. They were behind the Aztecs, who themselves were far behind the Europeans or Asians at this point. There's zero chance they can control international trade because 'native peoples' were vastly inferior at sea to Europeans or settled peoples, for obvious reasons. They'd need to develop a seafaring culture first and that takes time.


Ironically, this is also orthodox Marxist thought (I am not a Marxist). Marx was dead against the idea of revolution in Russia. No revolutionary conditions he said, not enough industrial workers, improperly developed, not enough capitalism. You can only move onto socialism after completing capitalism, he said.