I can’t end without mentioning that there has been some empirical work done on investigating which cognitive features make people libertarians. The main example that comes to mind is Philip Tetlock’s investigation of taboo tradeoffs. Roughly, if you present subjects with a dilemma about a hospital administrator who has to choose whether to spend a million dollars on buying a six-year-old child a kidney, or spend the same million dollars on hospital equipment, doctor salaries, et cetera, what you discover is that most subjects, liberal or conservative, want to punish an administrator who even thinks about the question. People who identify as libertarian don’t get angry at the administrator for thinking about it. And the first obvious interpretation of an experimental result isn’t always the correct one, but sometimes, you know, it is.
My first thought was that the mantra of “shut up and calculate” clearly means that we shouldn’t get angry at the administrator for doing that. But Harry’s conversations with Dumbledore seemed to go the opposite way. Dumbledore was trying to calculate how to do the most good even if some of the kids get hurt, and Harry was getting angry at him for it.
My guess now is that Harry’s not angry at the administrator for calculating. He’s angry at the administrator for not calculating how to parley a million dollars into a kidney and a bunch of equipment, salaries, et cetera, and a breakthrough cancer treatment as long as you’re spending money, anyway. And that, I presume, is what the “Cheating” subtitle on the prelude means.
Also here:
My first thought was that the mantra of “shut up and calculate” clearly means that we shouldn’t get angry at the administrator for doing that. But Harry’s conversations with Dumbledore seemed to go the opposite way. Dumbledore was trying to calculate how to do the most good even if some of the kids get hurt, and Harry was getting angry at him for it.
My guess now is that Harry’s not angry at the administrator for calculating. He’s angry at the administrator for not calculating how to parley a million dollars into a kidney and a bunch of equipment, salaries, et cetera, and a breakthrough cancer treatment as long as you’re spending money, anyway. And that, I presume, is what the “Cheating” subtitle on the prelude means.