Note the framing. Not “should blackmail be legal?” but rather “why should blackmail be illegal?” Thinking for five seconds (or minutes) about a hypothetical legal-blackmail society should point to obviously dystopian results. This is not a subtle. One could write the young adult novel, but what would even be the point.
Of course, that is not an argument. Not evidence.
What ? From a consequentialist point of view, of course it is. If a policy (and “make blackmail legal” is a policy) probably have bad consequences, then it is a bad policy.
“It’s obviously bad. Think about it and you’ll notice that. I could write a YA dystopian novel about how the consequences are bad.” <-- isn’t an argument, at all. It assumes bad consequences rather than demonstrating or explaining how the consequences would be bad. That section is there for other reasons, partially (I think?) to explain Zvi’s emotional state and why he wrote the article, and why it has a certain tone.
Charitable interpretation of dystopianists: they’re using the outside view.
Uncharitable interpretation of dystopianists: they can come up with persuasive young adult novels against any change, regardless of whether the change would be bad or not. “I can make a narrative in which this is a bad thing” != “this is a bad thing”.
What ? From a consequentialist point of view, of course it is. If a policy (and “make blackmail legal” is a policy) probably have bad consequences, then it is a bad policy.
“It’s obviously bad. Think about it and you’ll notice that. I could write a YA dystopian novel about how the consequences are bad.” <-- isn’t an argument, at all. It assumes bad consequences rather than demonstrating or explaining how the consequences would be bad. That section is there for other reasons, partially (I think?) to explain Zvi’s emotional state and why he wrote the article, and why it has a certain tone.
Yes. It’s doing a few things, and that’s a lot of it.
I’m not sure how much of this is projection, but I got the impression that people wanted a more gears-level model of how blackmail is bad.
But don’t you need to get a gears-level model of how blackmail is bad to think about how dystopian a hypothetical legal-blackmail sociey is ?
Charitable interpretation of dystopianists: they’re using the outside view.
Uncharitable interpretation of dystopianists: they can come up with persuasive young adult novels against any change, regardless of whether the change would be bad or not. “I can make a narrative in which this is a bad thing” != “this is a bad thing”.