hustlegrinder
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User ID: 719
Free market capitalism and identity
Today I spent some time reading about Georgia Meloni and watching some of her speeches, such as this one. She’s charismatic, but being a rootless global laissez-faire capitalist I am of course not thrilled; anyway, I’d like to offer my perspective on some of the issues raised in her speeches.
It is a natural state of affairs that the governments, by leveraging their capacity for violence, have an enormous power over their citizens and by extension on their businesses; all private organizations are by default subservient to the State.
"Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State" — Benito Mussolini
Diverting from such an arrangement is not trivial. Indeed, how do you stop the people who have, pretty much by definition, overwhelming firepower from using it to take your stuff? One way are the democratic institutions — things like the separation of powers, checks and balances, key positions being elected and therefore held at least somewhat accountable, and so on. All of that works to an extent, but these things are fragile and often not really sufficient.
The other pillar of limiting the power of the govts to control and loot private enterprise, is the competition between different countries. The states themselves can be seen as providers of a certain service — you pay the taxes, and in return get useful things like personal asset protection, arbitrage, infrastructure and so on. As such they are also subject to the market forces. If there are multiple independent offers, and you are free to choose any of them, then in fact you are likely to find a fair deal.
Therefore, in order for the free world to exist it must be possible to change your country at will. It’s easy to see that nationalism runs contrary to this goal. If you only ever can be accepted in one country, if you can only be permitted to run important businesses or organisations in the country of your birth; and doomed to be an irrelevant outsider in all others — well, then your government has you by the balls — you have no real negotiating position with the state.
This reasoning can be extrapolated to other kinds of identity Meloni mentions, to an extent, although of course the most important one of them by far is the national identity. But I disagree that the capitalist’s goal is to destroy identities. It is only necessary for them to be made interchangeable.
If anything capitalism served to amplify and increase the adoption of certain cultural elements, think the Italian cuisine or the Japanese animation. I know what you’re going to say — that it’s not real, it’s superficial, it’s commoditized and the real national identity is something else entirely. Well, it is. The real national idea, the one you’re left with when the music stops, is always to force you to surrender everything you have to the state and to go die in the trenches for no good reason, ostensibly as a sacrifice to your country. Perhaps it’s for the best if we abandon that.
Right-Libertarian anti-racism policy.
I’m sure you’ve all seen a lot of awful anti-racism/diversity/etc policies put in place by leftists; every thread here features at least some examples.
That said, I really don’t like racism. It is one of the most disgusting instances of collectivist thinking: judging an individual for the actions of a group of people that ostensibly contains him; in this case people get lumped together by skin color.
Suppose you are a billionaire and want to decrease the amount of racism in the world; what decent options do you have?
Suppose you are a CEO of a corporation, what policies do you put in place to ensure there is no discrimination based on skin color in hiring, promotion, etc?
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Maybe they just understand this market better than me? Never underestimate just how little work people are willing to put into things. Even playing around with prompts and inpainting for a few hours may be too much for most people, when they could just hand over $10 for a pretty picture on Shutterstock instead.
Spending $10 instead of a few hours sounds like a good deal to me.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
It seems to me more likely that Putin took a gamble, a good gamble, which had positive expected value, and came up absolutely snake eyes on the heroism of a relative handful of Ukrainians.
All speculations about Putin’s plans being actually smart or reasonable or a part of some 4d chess master plan, must factor in the fact that, as it turned out, Russian military was in shambles, badly provisioned and making blunder after blunder especially when it comes to logistics.
Like if Putin’s so smart, then why is he unable to execute? One would expect the value calculations to be on basically the same level of competence: old man’s delusions weaved out of the lies of his sycophant inner circle.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
My comment is just about this bit. Imagine 5000 Koreans migrated to the Bronx. Through discipline, patience, and sacrifice they’ve made for themselves businesses and a safe community with low criminality. Everything they earned they worked for. Should they have to send their kids to a school filled with non-Koreans, say Dominicans or Haitians, who have average worse values and higher criminality? Should they be forced at threat of ruin to hire non-Koreans?
No, I don’t think we should infringe on their freedom of association.
However, when I hire a Korean to work for my company I don’t want him to promote or hire people based on them being or not being Korean. When my company is small I can ensure that personally. But when it gets big, then I must replace my own judgement (a limited resource) with some kind of a company policy. What options do I have here?
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Life imprisonment is partially reversible.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I like this idea, but since I don’t believe the optics of this could survive for a minute in the US, a better solution came from 2cimirafa, who basically said “keep violent offenders in prison until they’re 60 and give them fast food and video games to keep them humanely fat and sedated.” If that could survive the inevitable Republican swipe of “Democrats want to buy Playstations for every felon in prison” it seems to be a good idea. Keeping violent offenders comfortable and sedated and off the streets should cut down on violence for prison guards, less hardened prisoners they would prey on, and of course the average person.
Well imagine if someone raped and killed your mother, wife and daughter, and then proceeded to laugh at you for the next thirty years, eating Big Macs and playing video games all the while
Would you be okay with this kind of "justice"?
Thing is, some crimes are in fact heinous and must be punished by long imprisonment with dismal conditions (and that only because we can't trust the state with the death penalty). The others probably shouldn't be jailable offences to begin with.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
But having said that the obvious counter argument is having admitted that you feel no particular sense of loyalty and are only shopping around for who ever will give you the best price, and will ditch them in a heartbeat should a better deal come along, why should anyone give you that deal?
Why, for the same reason people give me all other kinds of deals; doing that brings them value.
I mentioned that I see my relationship with a country as a business transaction — I pay the taxes and follow the regulations — and in return the state allows me to operate on the territory it controls and provides a range of useful services. As an honorable businessman, I uphold my part of such a deal.
It’s also not true that I’d ditch them in a heartbeat. First, there is value in a good long-term relationship, and second, moving assets and processes is not without cost.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
You see, I view all the HBD stuff as a motte and bailey thing. Obviously there might be some population level differences, but then still, one has a moral duty not to draw Bayesian inferences out of these statistics and instead evaluate every person on their own merits, disregarding traits like race, nationality or gender. As long as you do that any proportion you get is fine. That said, obsessing over genes or IQ differences or whatever is always sus. It’s a thoroughly uninteresting topic, unless when used to provide flimsy justifications for racist practices. I don’t care whether or not Blacks have better or worse IQ than Whites on average — I’m dealing with people, not with averages.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Of course the indigenous people should have the right to prevent building power plants or anything else on their land - and so should everyone else. It’s called private property. Offer them enough money or other incentives and they’ll agree to let you build it, this is the only moral way to resolve the situation.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I'm reminded of the "soul-editor" from the SCP Foundation Wiki that had symbols from every major world religion, as well as a few unknown ones.
What SCP number, by the way?
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
The argument that it's all just a business transaction is a double edged sword.
You thinking it’s not just a transaction makes it easier, not harder, for the state to take your stuff when the time comes, right as you’d stare at the process in disbelief, denial, hoping for the better and taking seriously the state’s shallow excuses for doing so. I’ve seen this happen many times. Sentimental feelings towards a country prevent people from cutting their losses early on.
If all you have to offer is the value of your stuff why shouldn't a country just take your stuff?
What I have to offer are the yearly taxes and the ongoing benefits of my participation in the economy, the value a country receives out of my residence in it extends far in the future.
Also most of the "stuff" we’re talking about consists of control over businesses and processes, that wouldn’t fare well after being seized.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
All the non-authoritarian states are supporting Ukraine, that’s true, but the problem with the good vs. evil mindset is the Ukrainian state itself which isn’t good by any reasonable standard
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
That is also my perspective.
Except why condemn the cynical western backers in this particular case? For all we know they might have the same assessment; surely it’s unreasonable to expect them to broadcast it in their media right as they supply Ukraine with armaments and promises
The amount of otherwise reasonable people who seem to have drunk the coolaid in earnest gives me a pause too, though
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I also lean libertarian and I am against euthanasia.
The society and the state simply cannot be trusted these matters, and the added convenience of legalised euthanasia isn’t worth their involvement. There are going to be all kinds of ugly things from states covering up murders, to vulnerable people being pressured towards it by shrinks or activists or whoever else who profits from this.
If someone really wants to end their life they should procure a gun and do it themselves.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
The only ethical way is to put responsibility on those who take part in Putin’s actions, whatever their nationality, and completely exonerate all others.
Collective responsibility is a repugnant concept.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Of course you are allowed to be a nationalist, in fact I think you should be allowed to subscribe to any worldview, however wrong or extreme it might be. Freedom of speech and all that
It’s just that I won’t support you in doing so, and will back up people who work in opposition to these ideas.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Thing is, the "Bruxelles-Washington" can afford both the NATO and the gays in Poland, they aren’t really forced to choose
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Fair enough; the first question better represents what I meant to ask.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Can anyone offer me an argument in favor of ad-blockers that doesn't amount to some kind of misanthropic "The system, man, it's broken; so whatever I do against the system is a-ok"? I really can't even create a steelman for the ad-block position.
First, tracking is in fact a big problem and ad blockers are a practical solution to it. The adoption of ad blockers, by crippling the ability to track users in browsers, incentivises the ad networks to develop other ways to deliver ads that don't rely on tracking to such extent. See for example https://www.ethicalads.io/ . Hopefully that reduces the amount of surveillance that's going on.
Second, ad-blockers may need to be discouraged, but definitely shouldn't be banned; the last thing we need are more regulations on what we are and aren't allowed to run on our hardware. If the content creators and other businesses want their users to engage with ads or otherwise bring revenue, that's great, and such businesses should ensure that by means of technology or by the choice of their business model. Consider what Apple is doing with iOS, they arguably imposed a greater restriction on the vast majority of their users (in that all the apps and purchases have to go through the App Store), meanwhile jailbreaking your iPhone is legal and always has been. Or, in fact, see the recent efforts by Google. No regulation is necessary here.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
I don’t think that’s how it works.
The progress we’re seeing with generative models now leads me to think that idiot savant AGIs, that are good at some tasks but wildly inefficient at others are possible if not inevitable.
Hooking up GPT-10 to a few special purpose models is the only plausible way of building something that resembles AGI that we have now.. and it wouldn’t be obsessed with efficiency at every step. I think the whole Eliezer’s "God in a terminal shell" model of AI doesn’t reflect reality well.
Perhaps it’d send humanoid robots with guns after you precisely because the Terminator movies exist.. they’re often referenced in our culture and are definitely in the training corpora for LLMs. How’s that for time travel.
hustlegrinder
1yr ago
Web advertisement itself is a great thing. It solves a big, important problem - connecting businesses and customers, at low cost and awesome efficiency. Besides, the narrative about all-powerful, mind-controlling demonic ads really needs to go away, Dall-E or no Dall-E. I suggest anyone who takes this seriously to switch off the ad blocker for a few minutes and go watch some actual ads, "touch the grass" so to speak. What you'll most likely find is a picture of the product with a price sticker superimposed on it, and maybe some kind of a product description. If you're lucky you may stumble upon an ad that's a bit more creative. Either way, it's not a hypnotic pattern devised by a malicious AI superintelligence with the purpose of injecting irresistible desire to buy into your head.
The real value here is about matching the product ad with the people who actually want it to buy it. The ad networks collect all kinds of data from the user, then use it to decide what ads to show him. That kind of thing allows you to find a paying customer for a few dollars. It's a nice, valuable service that solves an important problem. Try it sometime. Build something useful and sell it on the internet - you'll grow to appreciate the ads. Improving ad network capabilities, that are by the way vastly overestimated by many people including yourself, would be awesome. It would mean that instead of garbage ads peddling things of no interest to you, you'd see ads for things you really need right now (also no, a facebook ad cannot make you buy something you don't want to buy). It would also mean that it'd be easier and cheaper to start or scale a business.
If we don't want to devolve into a horrid anarcho-capitalist future
The sad thing about the advertisement industry, however, is that in all likelihood the ads aren't leading us into a capitalist paradise. The side effect of collecting user data for the purpose of serving better ads (the good), is that a whole lot of user data ends up centralised in an ad network's data centers (the bad), and then one way or another ends up in the hands of the state surveillance system (the ugly). The amount and nature of that data is such that it can be used to trace it back to you as a person. There isn't anything remotely "anarcho" about that.
Perhaps we can re-engineer the ad industry so that it doesn't have to collect that much data about the user. I don't think the ad companies would be against that, provided that the quality doesn't drop. That's not a problem that's going to be solved by regulation, though, for obvious reasons.
Collective responsibility is not a given, avoiding it is always an unalloyed moral good, and your question is kind of like asking what is better — to allow a criminal to beat up ten random people on the streets or murder one — then asking if it’s moral to run away from such a criminal. Of course it is; better yet is to incapacitate the criminal himself so that everyone else can go on their merry way.
Similarly in your story it’s the principal who should be fired for not being able to do his job of maintaining discipline in his school, and for taking it out on unrelated students on top of that.
every leadership, regime that has severely impugned on this right has failed or collapsed, so there is that. There is a balance.
That’s correct, but it’s of little comfort to you personally, if you have no plausible option to walk away from it — which is exactly my point
Not really. nationalism does not imply you cannot pick your stuff up and move elsewhere and even be accepted in your new country (like how Russian Jews assimilated well in the US)
US is not an ethnostate, and ethnonationalism is a different thing compared to the US nationalism — in this post I’m arguing mostly against the former.
Then again, nationalism of any sort is antithetical to the paradigm of shopping for countries that offer the best terms for you and your businesses.
As someone who generally enjoys your writing - please don’t fall into the trap of granting assent to Putin just because doing so runs contrary to the disingenuous mainstream narrative. He really is an enemy of freedom; almost a quintessential looter type out of Rand novels
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