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Notes -
Do we still talk about Scott's articles on this site?
He has a new one out about Conflict Theory vs. Mistake Theory.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-i-am-not-a-conflict-theorist
The general thrust of his argument is that conflict theory doesn't explain voting patterns because people vote against their self-interest. For example, rich elites are generally in favor of raising taxes, which affect them disproportionately. And it was young people, not vulnerable old people, who were more likely to be lockdown fascists during Covid.
But I'm not sure if this adequately explains conflict vs. mistake theory. Conflict theory is inherently tribal, and people will do things against their own self-interest, even their tribal self-interest, to own the other tribe. Dunking on the other team is its own reward, moreso than actual spoils.
Nevertheless, I remain a mistake theorist. More of the modern world developed by accident than by scheming. For example, take immigration. Clearly, this is an area of heated tribal conflict now. But it wasn't always this way. When the US opened up the current era of mass immigration in the mid-1960s, it wasn't an effort to change the ethnic makeup or import voters. At the time, demographers projected that there would be 400,000 immigrants a year, of whom 367,000 would be white! In other words, they were spectacularly wrong.
The rewrite of our country's genetic makeup happened by accident while no one was looking.
Gay rights is another area where mistake theory wins. Clearly there was a lot of conflict in this area. But then, something happened around 2010 and one side just stopped fighting. A new consensus emerged: "Love wins. People are born that way. Queer people just want to be tolerated. They don't want to shove it in our face. They just want to love their partners the same way that straight people do. They definitely won't try to convert kids." And within 15 years, almost everything about this consensus was proven wrong. Even if you think this was the plan of the gay movement all along, it still doesn't explain why Republicans went along for the ride. You might say... they were mistaken.
Sports gambling? Mistake theory.
Marijuana legalization? Mistake theory.
De-policing? Mistake theory.
People generally aren't trying to mess things up. They are just wrong about the consequences of their ideas. Sure, there are like 5 or 10% of people who are true radicals who want to destroy society and will lie to achieve their means. But the average politician or corporate leader just doesn't understand how the world works. They'll buy a load of horseshit because it sounds good and it gratifies their ego. The world changes when wrong ideas face no resistance.
I think that mistake theory and conflict theory are far too simplistic ways of viewing the world, and I reject identifying primarily as either.
It seems clear to me that the world is messy, and that many, if not most, contentious issues hinge both on people believing different sets of 'facts' (and theoretically, if not practically, once they come to a consensus about the facts they'll agree on policy) as well as fundamental conflicts of values.
Someone who thinks that abortion at 12 weeks should be illegal because they believe fetuses can suffer could, at least in theory, be swayed by arguments about embryonic development and our best guess about cognition and consciousness.
Someone who thinks that zygotes have an Immortal Soul and are thus worthy of life is both factually wrong, and also likely an adherent of values that cannot be moved by rational argument.
For a slightly less CW example, think about two people, who both believe that some degree of taxation and redistribution is justified by the support it provides to the poor, but disagree on what the ideal level of taxation should be.
I can see one of them pulling out papers by respected economists (which both of them agree beforehand are trustworthy), where they find that above a certain level, taxes are distorionary, and prompt those wealthy enough to be net tax payers to flee to other jurisdictions, causing a net reduction in taxes paid, and hence aid available to the poor.
On the other hand, if one of them is an unshakeable libertarian, they might be unwilling to stand any level of taxation that isn't voluntary, no matter the justification. They'll only cave when the cops show up at their door, and maybe they'll decide to feed the dog tannerite in advance. If it's someone with a pathological hatred for the wealthy, they might think the poor suffering is a fair price to pay for getting one over those richy riches.
At the end of the day, humans are messy, values are messy, the Aumann Agreement Theorem is hard to instantiate, and people can accept the same facts and come away with entirely different desired outcomes from said facts.
Hell, even "self-interest" is sometimes not a useful metric. Is a revolutionary who takes up arms against what they perceive as a tyrannical government, often not putting other values over their own bodily integrity and well-being? If a concept pathologizes even overt altruism as well as sheer evil, it's probably not the best rubric.
Fortunately, the civilized world has largely found ways to prevent outright bloodshed even in the face of conflicting values, and we have ways of discharging unhappiness or rage at things not going our way, because the alternative is often unacceptable to both sides. This isn't unbounded, and things can and do go awry.
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