My reaction is similar to Nanani’s, this is awful.
How are wars, armies, soldiers, and all the trappings relevant to actually practiced rationality? Smart thinking trapped in a stupid metaphor is still stupid, right?
How does one classify these two armies? What IQ, measure of rationality, or other characteristic separates the two sides?
So, according to Freedom House, countries with nonviolent revolutions since the late 1990s are improving. There’s not a lot of data beforehand. You named the exception: Georgia’s gotten a little worse since the overthrow of the “rigged” election there. Look at the data: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=42&year=2008
I’m willing to admit I might have some Western bias, but I try to catch it. The general consensus does seem to be that the elections were rigged, but I don’t know enough to say with much confidence either way.
In my original post, I was referring to the period of actual revolution, not everything since. I know it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Reality is gritty, nasty stuff. Nonviolent struggle strategy and tactics do not guarantee success nor democracy—but neither do violent methods.
If we’re discussing strategies and tactics, most nonviolent movements do not plan much past overthrow. That’s bad, but again, no worse than violent overthrow.
These are big and fuzzy concepts, for sure. When does a revolution actually end? If a less or equally undemocratic leader is elected, is that a failure of nonviolent struggle, a failure or planning, a failure of the people, or what? Are Freedom House’s metrics valid or consistent? I don’t have good answers.
If you were to wager on whether strategic nonviolent or strategic violent struggles in the modern day were more likely to lead toward a successful overthrow, how would you bet? What about leading toward more democratic overthrows (i.e. elections)?
Interestingly, Denmark used nonviolent resistance very effectively against the Nazis while being a nominal ally of Germany. (If they weren’t distracted by fighting a war, it probably wouldn’t have been nearly as effective, though—the Nazis simply couldn’t spare the manpower to effectively impose martial law, although they did attempt to do so.)
That story is so totally cheating. The evil empire the author uses is a toothless law-bound caricature. Face the gands with a less congenial interstellar empire, say the Mexica from “Wasteland of Flint”, and they just die, by the very large numbers, and the Mexica enslave the preschool kids and re-colonize the planet. Game over, player two wins.
dclayh, Yes, that came to mind for me too. The small-town Gandhian libertarianism of Russell’s story is entertaining, and just as silly. Yet, you didn’t receive any karma points, and Eliezer received several, so either someone out there thinks a fictional short story is a reasonable rebuttal, or people are scoring for support of a side or entertainment.
Eliezer, I don’t see how Russell or Turtledove even belong as anything more than footnotes, unless the discussion is about fiction writers creating alternate universe just-so stories that tend to align with their ideologies. I didn’t think Less Wrong, of all places, would be where I’d have to insist that short story fiction is not adequate or reasonable evidence, or any sort of rebuttal, against real world claims or case studies.
Please try actually reading Sharp. He’s not Gandhi. Neither is Robert Helvey—he’s actually a retired US colonel.
Having had to explain to other sci-fi lovers in the past why using fiction as a counterargument is so silly, I googled to see if people had written about why it’s silly. GUESS WHAT I FOUND?
Yeah, my jaw dropped when I found that. I’m sure you won’t respond to this, as the mass of LW moves on to the most current post, but really? Was this a self-aware joke? Eliezer 2009 is that much less rational than Eliezer 2007?
It’s not evidence, but it is a pointer to an argument from existing knowledge: “you know, X probably would actually result from Y”. (Well, to a bounded rationalist that is an example of evidence, but a kind that it’s not nearly as problematic to get from fiction.)
I think E. was trying to swat the old idea “smart people lose to unreasonable people” specifically in war, and perhaps also metaphorically in general competition.
My reaction is similar to Nanani’s, this is awful.
How are wars, armies, soldiers, and all the trappings relevant to actually practiced rationality? Smart thinking trapped in a stupid metaphor is still stupid, right?
How does one classify these two armies? What IQ, measure of rationality, or other characteristic separates the two sides?
I’d suggest the works of Gene Sharp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Sharp) at http://www.aeinstein.org/ as he and his associates are behind some of the few successful (i.e. towards democracy) revolutions since the Cold War.
It is far from clear that the “colour revolutions” resulted in more democracy in respective countries. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saakashvili#Criticism
To be an ally of the West is not the same as to be a democratic country. Similarly, the elections are not automatically rigged if communists win.
So, according to Freedom House, countries with nonviolent revolutions since the late 1990s are improving. There’s not a lot of data beforehand. You named the exception: Georgia’s gotten a little worse since the overthrow of the “rigged” election there. Look at the data: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=42&year=2008
I’m willing to admit I might have some Western bias, but I try to catch it. The general consensus does seem to be that the elections were rigged, but I don’t know enough to say with much confidence either way.
In my original post, I was referring to the period of actual revolution, not everything since. I know it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Reality is gritty, nasty stuff. Nonviolent struggle strategy and tactics do not guarantee success nor democracy—but neither do violent methods.
If we’re discussing strategies and tactics, most nonviolent movements do not plan much past overthrow. That’s bad, but again, no worse than violent overthrow.
These are big and fuzzy concepts, for sure. When does a revolution actually end? If a less or equally undemocratic leader is elected, is that a failure of nonviolent struggle, a failure or planning, a failure of the people, or what? Are Freedom House’s metrics valid or consistent? I don’t have good answers.
If you were to wager on whether strategic nonviolent or strategic violent struggles in the modern day were more likely to lead toward a successful overthrow, how would you bet? What about leading toward more democratic overthrows (i.e. elections)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Article
Interestingly, Denmark used nonviolent resistance very effectively against the Nazis while being a nominal ally of Germany. (If they weren’t distracted by fighting a war, it probably wouldn’t have been nearly as effective, though—the Nazis simply couldn’t spare the manpower to effectively impose martial law, although they did attempt to do so.)
It’s an unfair example. Danes were fellow Aryans, and so were objects of empathy in a sense that folks in India wouldn’t have been.
There were Indians fighting along with Germans:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Legion
Agreed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Explosion
http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php
That story is so totally cheating. The evil empire the author uses is a toothless law-bound caricature. Face the gands with a less congenial interstellar empire, say the Mexica from “Wasteland of Flint”, and they just die, by the very large numbers, and the Mexica enslave the preschool kids and re-colonize the planet. Game over, player two wins.
dclayh, Yes, that came to mind for me too. The small-town Gandhian libertarianism of Russell’s story is entertaining, and just as silly. Yet, you didn’t receive any karma points, and Eliezer received several, so either someone out there thinks a fictional short story is a reasonable rebuttal, or people are scoring for support of a side or entertainment.
Eliezer, I don’t see how Russell or Turtledove even belong as anything more than footnotes, unless the discussion is about fiction writers creating alternate universe just-so stories that tend to align with their ideologies. I didn’t think Less Wrong, of all places, would be where I’d have to insist that short story fiction is not adequate or reasonable evidence, or any sort of rebuttal, against real world claims or case studies.
Please try actually reading Sharp. He’s not Gandhi. Neither is Robert Helvey—he’s actually a retired US colonel.
Having had to explain to other sci-fi lovers in the past why using fiction as a counterargument is so silly, I googled to see if people had written about why it’s silly. GUESS WHAT I FOUND?
The Logical Fallacy of Generalization from Fictional Evidence, by Eliezer Yudkowsky: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/10/fictional-evide.html
Yeah, my jaw dropped when I found that. I’m sure you won’t respond to this, as the mass of LW moves on to the most current post, but really? Was this a self-aware joke? Eliezer 2009 is that much less rational than Eliezer 2007?
It’s not evidence, but it is a pointer to an argument from existing knowledge: “you know, X probably would actually result from Y”. (Well, to a bounded rationalist that is an example of evidence, but a kind that it’s not nearly as problematic to get from fiction.)
I think E. was trying to swat the old idea “smart people lose to unreasonable people” specifically in war, and perhaps also metaphorically in general competition.