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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.
Look, I don’t like pot. I think it has ruinous long term effects and personality changes that a fifth of whiskey doesn’t. But I also just don’t like fucking hippies and think they need to be beaten by the police. At least a good third of my opposition to just legalizing and taxing the stuff is because I don’t like the people that do it.
lol
I have to admit I was pro marijuana legalization when the only people I knew who did it were me and my nerdy Internet friends. It was like some quiet patrician indulgence.
Then I moved to a place where it's been legal for decades and people in the rest of the country moved to almost entirely because it was legal there and I'm ready to turn into a Reagan Republican wrt weed.
I could probably say this about a lot of topics. The Beatles? Great music and I enjoyed listening to them. And I'm ready to never hear a Beatles song ever again and talking about the Beatles should be a ticket for a first offense. Beatles fans ruin me on the Beatles.
I could imagine being gay. Even living in a Chelsea high rise with a rotation of young twinks and staying up until 8am at chemsex or circuit parties. Seems fine. But spending any time walking around in the Castro makes me want gayness criminalized.
I'm in favor of a lot of progressive ideas until I realize how unlike the median progressive I actually am
@Lomez had a good take on this, saying "Legal gray areas are good, actually".
Our rules-obsessed culture seems to have little space between "totally banned" and "fully commercialized and celebrated". But there are lots of things that belong in a third category: "grudgingly tolerated".
Vices belong in that third category.
Marijuana legalization has been a disaster. We have ugly dispensaries and billboards everywhere and consumption of marijuana has skyrocketed. I don't even think it's reduced violent crime. Near me, in Seattle, the areas around dispensaries attract the worst people and there have been murders nearby.
We were better off when you had to get some bullshit certificate from a fake doctor and then grow your own weed. Or just get it illegally with the understanding that the cops probably wouldn't bust you unless you were doing something else annoying.
As someone who lives in a weed-legal state (Oregon), I disagree with this. A couple reasons:
The weed market is currently crashing hard. The gold rush is over, dispensaries are failing left and right, and weed farms are hugely overproducing leading to incredibly low prices. In 5 years there will be a LOT less dispensaries, billboards, etc.
A significant cause of violence at dispensaries is that the bank/credit card companies will not service dispensaries because of federal laws. This means that dispensaries are forced to work in cash and that makes them juicy targets for robberies. There's nothing about weed stores that's inherently violence-causing besides this; even consuming the product makes you less violent. If the federal legal complications get cleaned up (aka we get federal legalization) most of the issues with crime and violence will dissolve. And it has, in fact, reduced violent crime by eliminating the black market trade.
That being said, I agree with Lomez about this more generally and am firmly against legalization of all other drugs (holy shit legalizing meth and opiates has been a disaster).
Good points all around.
In my neighborhood, there's another issue, which is that shitheads tend to congregate around the large pot shop (which is also a liquor store). So there is lots of crime nearby. Unclear if crime would decrease if the shop vanished, or if the shitheads would just congregate somewhere else. Either way, you don't want these places in your neighborhood.
Up here they're all in downmarket strip malls or one of those parking-lot-and-two-buildings compounds right off a state route. Nobody would tolerate them in a neighborhood, despite something like 80% of them voting to legalize it...
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