UnterSeeBootRespecter
9mo ago
No, I'm proposing a spoils system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system
Machine politics are fine and dandy as well though. Ethnic voting blocs are sensible.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
9mo ago
It's also a guaranteed way to make the functioning of government much shittier than the already shitty state it's in.
That accepts the premise that the civil service is actually meritocratic and competent. It is not.
It would also destroy state governments because to ensure people who knew what they were doing (and who were aligned with the president) were in the civil service during a rotation every 4 or 8 years, victorious presidents would have to raid ideologically-aligned statehouses across the country for anyone who knew what they were doing.
That would be a problem the first time, and not at all the second time.
I don't believe for a second that the quality of governance would get measurably worse... what WOULD happen, though, is that the academic-PMC complex would rapidly start churning out social science "studies" showing that it had gotten measurably worse.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
9mo ago
I think the clear answer is simply to convert every single government position from civil service to political appointee. This gives presidents and victorious politicians at all levels a clear way to reward their supporters, and ensures the alignment of everyone from dog-catcher through park ranger through under-sub-secretary's assistant for automotive regulation are on board with the agenda.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
9mo ago
The Mormons are mostly of English Protestant extraction and almost entirely of Northern European extraction beyond that. They’re wearing the clothes of a universalist religion but the reality is very different.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
9mo ago
Granted, if the regime kills spacex then they won’t pull it off, but short of that, I believe they’ll get it done. Talk about killing the goose that laid the golden egg, though…
UnterSeeBootRespecter
9mo ago
So how much money would you put down that Starship/Super Heavy will never work?
I really don't see any reason it can't work, it's a matter of particularly difficult engineering, but there's no reason that can't be overcome.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
9mo ago
The expansion of human civilization to other stars will not be pioneered by lone adventurers or merry bands of hardy explorers, like we imagine the voyages of Erik the Red or Christopher Columbus. This works for interplanetary space, but not interstellar space, whose travel time will require multiple generations of people to survive a journey, including on the first try. Interstellar travel will need to accommodate not just adventurous young men with nothing to lose, but also women, children, and the elderly. In other words, a whole society. The existence of a society always implies the existence of a government.
I kinda expect it to be an ethno-religious group like the Mormons in the Expanse. Someone rich enough, organized enough to pull it off.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
9mo ago
It cannot reign in the unelected deep state. We have dozens of autonomous agencies that the official government has little power over, and they pass regulations that define how we interact, what businesses can and cannot do, and what documentation needs to be kept (thus creating the need for administration jobs to make sure that the business can prove to regulators that it’s compliant.
I don't think this is a feature of democracy per se, I think it's a feature of what happens when you restrict democracy in a deliberate way. There's plenty of evidence from pre-1910s time frame that democracy can exercise control over the state apparatus. It's just that we got rid of the spoils system and deliberately shielded the bureaucracy from executive controle. Once upon a time, these jobs were handed out to political supporters as a reward for their support. In such a system, you virtually guarantee democratic control of the bureaucracy by virtue of everyone from the postmaster on up directly owing their livelihood to the current President.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
9mo ago
Anyone on the right celebrating this should understand that just as it did not start here, it absolutely will not stop here. The other side is going to look for a way to escalate until they find one, and then they're going to use it, likely without mercy
I agree with you, but it wasn't going to stop where it was even if the pro-lifers didn't take this action against Planned Parenthood. And since that's the case, there's nothing to lose by taking this action and everything to gain. If you don't take the chances you have to hurt the enemy, the enemy will be stronger, and you will be relatively weaker.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
the psychological cost of living as a red pill picker as opposed to a blue pill picker
What psychological cost?
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
For now, it's a combination of "my wife sees asking my parents for help as a failure and imposition on her part" and "my parents just retired and are traveling literally all the time."
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
I feel your comment. My wife and I are mid 30s with a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Luckily I think we have enough time to have one more. But looking back at my own childhood, I’m struck by how much more assistance my parents got from their parents than we get from mine (wife’s parents aren’t in the picture). I spent a whole lot of time with both sets of grandparents up to age five or so, every weekday really.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
Free and clear estate worth ten times the average GDP per capita in the year of the election.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
Back when the franchise was restricted to landowners, the government was much smaller; there were fewer laws, few taxes, and certainly few regulations.
Sounds good to me.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
Based on the quality of foster care and CPS... this seems like a major disaster for child welfare.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
I don't think so? Certainly seltzers or non-nutritive sweetened sodas are basically neutral.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
I'm just pointing out that, at scale, incompetence is indistinguishable from malice in its outcome.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
Right, supporting freeloaders who knowingly put themselves in danger is not pro-social.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
It isn’t hard to convince the kid to take the red pill in this example.
Just tell them blue is spicy. Works on my kids.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
Not everyone is sane, not everyone clicks the option they mean to click, not everyone is literate, and so on. It is, for all intents and purposes, guaranteed that "everyone can simply choose to live" is wrong.
The premise nowhere states that people will not have what is going on explained, or only explained via text, or have the choice made via mouse click. You are introducing new premises from thin air to aid your bad arguments.
In summary, this is a bad faith argument.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
The premise nowhere claims that small children make their own choices. You are modifying the premise and arguing in bad faith based on your modified premise.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
It is generally considered more bad to be evil than stupid or incapable
In general. But if you put an incompetent in charge of a country and they incompetently unintentionally cause the deaths of 10% of the population, that's not better than if Genghis Khan conquered your country and exterminated 10% of the population on a whim.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
When the people are stupid, how can democracy work?
Well, it largely can't, and I think we're observing the failure of democracy right now.
UnterSeeBootRespecter
10mo ago
Why not? I reject this premise entirely.
There's no scenario where we don't make major decisions (as this would be) for our children. Whether as a parent or as a society.
And why should they get worse? No one has explained why replacing an incompetent bureaucracy should make things worse.
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