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Notes -
Moonshot Personal Growth Idea
There are a lot of smart, hyper-informed people on here (don't be bashful). Each probably have 1-5 topics they know A LOT about, who could deliver a knowledgable spiel over voice or text without much effort and intelligently field any number of follow-up questions. So it occurs to me there might be a big educational opportunity for me here if I can capture some of this low-hanging fruit.
I don't know much about American politics, health, business, etc., but eagerly want to know more, and I'm happy to talk over discord/phone/voice or text depending on your preferences. Some topics to jog your brain; if it strikes you that "hey, I actually got obsessed with topic 23 one time and learned everything you could possibly know about it over a 6 month period," please consider reaching out to me. I'll adopt a position indicated by either "pro" or "con" provisionally just to inspire engagement (my actual views here are very low-confidence and "pro/con" means something more like "I've heard interesting arguments for this side of the issue that I want an intelligent person who knows more than I do to explain the merits of to me" than "this is what I believe.")
“The current level of military spending is justified.” Pro
“The typical white male is utterly blameless for the circumstances of the African American community” Pro
"The growth of transgender identity and bisexuality have the character of a social contagion" Pro (Is bisexuality created or only revealed by the environment? Is anyone bisexual because of encouragement, or is the absence of discouragement the only environmental factor that does anything to affect rates of ID?) (Caplan)
“Asian romantic preferences are morally permissible.” Pro
“De facto interrogational torture by the US is justified.” Pro
"Extraterrestrial life is the best explanation of some UFO sightings" Con
“Any minimum wage fails a purely utilitarian cost benefit test due to disemployment effects.” Pro
"Joe Biden's Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Would Be Disastrous," (Or: Cost benefit analysis puts several other environmental causes ahead of climate change.)
"Feminism is bad for women." (a la Bryan Caplan)
"Conventional medicine barely makes us healthier" (as seen in Robin Hanson's case for radical medical skepticism, from the RAND Health insurance experiment to the replication crisis http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/feardie.pdf)
"Dietary research is of such poor quality that we know almost nothing about whether any given major diet fad is truly the ideal diet." (Pro) (I would be willing to take the even stronger position that we don't even know ANYTHING about the right diet just to see what a smart, informed person would say in response to better calibrate my reasoning on this issue)
"Most of life is a prestige-signaling game./Social status is the closest thing to a one-variable explanation for everything, and does far better than the traditional rival models like sex or money."
"Diversity is our strength." Pro
"Society does not clearly treat one sex more unfairly than the other." (Pro)
"IQ is real and a major determinant of social outcomes" Pro
"Racial groups differ in socially relevant ways for genetic reasons." Con
“Capitalists deserve their success.” Pro
"Money doesn't really buy happiness." Pro
“The solution to traffic is congestion pricing (tolls)” Pro
"Actions taken by the Biden Admin during the Covid pandemic were generally justified." Not enough info to sway either way
“We should deregulate construction completely.” Pro
“Workers are not underpaid in competitive business environments.” Pro
Question: How do taxes work, and how SHOULD they work?
“Affirmative action is immoral/harmful.” Pro
“State-mandated wealth redistribution is immoral./Wealth inequality is not a serious social problem” Pro
“Abortion is morally permissible.” Pro
“We should put America First” pro
“It is not possible to be a good criminal defense lawyer AND a good person.” Pro
“We should privatize everything.” Pro
“The poor generally deserve to be poor.” “American wealth inequality is generally fair.” (as seen in remarks made by Caplan re: the so-called "success sequence")
“Gender is essentially biological.” Pro (Tomas Bogardus, Alex Byrne)
“We should remove confederate monuments.” Con
“We should not provide trigger warnings/safety culture actually harms mental health.” Pro (Jonathan Haidt)
“We Should Stop Talking about Privilege” pro
“Immigration is Not a Human Right.” Con
“The Death Penalty is Immoral” pro
“The typical meat eater does nothing wrong.” Pro
“Political correctness is just politeness.” Con
“There are no positive rights; There is no right to healthcare or education.” Pro
“Utilitarianism is a bad moral theory.” Pro
“It isn’t morally wrong to misgender a trans person.” Pro
“Artificial intelligence is not an existential risk.” Pro
“We should not have gun control.” Pro
“We should segregate intimate public spaces by biological sex.” Or: “it is not morally wrong to do so.” Pro
“It’s morally wrong for the average voter to vote; we should try to decrease voter turnout.” Pro
“It’s morally permissible to racially profile.” Pro
“Psychological egoism is false.” Pro or con
“Ethical egoism is false.” Pro
“Racial discrimination is not inherently immoral.” Pro
“Businesses may racially select their customers.” Pro
“Equality of opportunity is morally undesirable.” Pro
“Mixed martial arts don’t violate anyone’s rights.” Pro
“We are morally obligated to tip servers.” Pro
“Hazing should be permitted on college campuses.” Pro
“It is just to punish criminals for the sake of causing suffering to people who deserve it.” Pro or con, preferably con
“If we ought to be taxed more, we ought to donate our excess income.” (“Rich socialists/distributive egalitarians are hypocrites.”) pro
“It’s morally permissible to sell oneself into permanent slavery.” Pro
“There is no duty to hire the most qualified applicant.” Pro
“We should completely deregulate the provision of healthcare services.” Pro
“We should not require occupational licensing by law (for doctors, plumbers, or lawyers).” Pro
“Workplace quality and safety regulations are bad for workers.” Pro
“We should not dispense racial reparations to the black community.” Pro
Con “alcoholics (and drug addicts in general) are nonresponsible victims”
Pro: “Race is biologically real”
Pro:“The rich pay their fair share”
“Exploitation isn’t wrong.” Pro
“Free market pricing is a better distributor than queuing” Pro
“Price gouging is fine.” Pro
“The casting couch is just prostitution” Pro
“Affirmative Action is systemically racist” Pro
“Colleges are guilty of negligent advertising” pro
"We should we abolish civil rights law" (Richard Hanania)
“Gender is essentially biological” pro
TL;DR Looking for someone to explain American politics to me, preferably over discord voice. Especially interested in topics like happiness, relationship success, American public policy (esp. healthcare and the budget)
You seem inordinately preoccupied with moral questions. That's your biggest hangup. They don't have objective answers without fixing a moral framework. And even then, well-informed people mostly disagree.
Well, sure, but:
You could say the same thing about aesthetic claims. But if your friend told you “hey I know you think the new Marvel movie was good but I think it sucks, let me tell you why”, you wouldn’t tell him “first we need to decide on a framework for aesthetic evaluation”. You would just hear him out, and you would assume from the start that it’s the sort of thing that you two could have a reasonable conversation about, and that he is capable of giving reasons that you may be responsive to, reasons that may ultimately cause you to change your position.
People’s moral psychological profiles and modes of ethical inference are more similar than is generally assumed. Almost everyone agrees that theft is wrong for example, and if you give an argument that purports to show that some particular act is isomorphic to theft (e.g. “I can’t take your ice cream cone without your consent, so why can the government take part of your income without your consent?”), then people won’t just blow it off: they’ll feel compelled to either accept your argument, or point out some relevant difference that causes the isomorphism to fail.
I understand your point. Though I posit that people generally understand there are differences in taste in a way they don't understand differences in morality.
Be that as it may, my concern was more narrow, specifically that @PerseusWizardry will have a better time if he drops all of his moral questions. They are simply not questions that can be resolved through conversation or better data.
You've never changed your mind on a moral question, due to more information?
I'm racking my brain and coming up blank. As an adult I'm reasonably sure the answer is no. Have you?
Well, I'm rather young, so my "as an adult" timeframe is limited, and my memories aren't timestamped.
Maybe going from anti- to pro-sweatshop would count? I'm sure there are other specific examples. Does that count as a moral question?
For more overarching moral theory, I've become aware that there are decision-theoretical theorems that I would want whatever theory I embrace to manage to either agree with the conclusion, or disagree with the premises.
Yes, many of the questions are moral questions, but they are specific moral questions. You can point to things that could play relevant factors in their moral analysis, since we tend to moralize according to principles to some extent, it's not arbitrary.
For a lightning rod, let's look at one example he gave: “Abortion is morally permissible.” Pro
Here are some relevant questions that might affect your opinion in one way or another:
What normative ethical systems seem plausible enough to you that we should take them into account? What things might plausibly give humans moral value, under the way you think about ethical systems? How do you value animals? How do you value 3-day olds? The mentally ill? What do you think about population ethics (and, of course there are all sort of arguments there as to what systems within that make sense)? What about harms contributed to the mother? To the father? To society? Demographically, are we trending toward overpopulation or underpopulation? Aren't they cute? But don't you feel bad for that girl in Ohio? Is AI going to kill everyone before they live a proper life anyway? Might they have lasting souls? If Christianity's (or any other religion) right, will killing them send them to paradise? Or hell? What about rights—can they place an obligation for you to let them use your body, like the musician thought experiment? Do you share any guilt or praise for harms or, I suppose, benefits from differentially aborting groups that society could do better or worse with more of (see China's birth ratio)? And I'm sure there are many more.
All of these can affect your opinion on that issue, which means that arguments bringing up those features aren't useless.
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