This question is probably a violation of rule 4, but I think if we’re discussing politics then it just has to be asked:
Regarding American politics, which party’s general stance is more optimal for ensuring prosperity?
I realize that politicians often fail to meet the idealistic standards of their affiliations, and that both parties’ s positions are too biased, general, and simple to actually be correct, but which one do you think comes closer to the mark, overall?
I believe Eliezer said somewhere that, if you had to choose between one of the two major tribes, the Republican camp was slightly better. He may have updated since then. Politics may kill minds, but it is still important, and individual votes do influence it even on a national scale, so if we’re going to talk politics, we may as well spend the time trying to figure out how best to apply our conclusions.
Again, I’m sorry if this question is too mindkill-y even for this thread, but I believe that this is the most relevant question we can ask if we’re talking politics. Also, I don’t mean to fence off non-Americans, but I am American, as are the majority of Lesswrongers, and in any case, America has enormous influence on other nations one way or the other. If you have an opinion on the matter, please share it, whether you’re American or not.
Reagan deregulated, Bush lowered taxes, Clinton balanced budgets and reformed welfare, etc. etc.
Of course the record is not perfect, but in the grand scheme of things, large sweeping points of discussion tend to get attention correlated with the discussion.
I think that this thread will go better, by the established norms of LW, if we stick to single, small topics that can actually be taken apart. The question you ask has far too many nested unknowns—definition of party platforms is hard, and economic outcomes of various policies is even harder—and too many places for discussion to go off the rails. Even with this group, that debate will devolve into talking points within three layers of replies. I’d rather have that sort of discussion in an ordinary group, and use LW for political debate of the sort LW actually has an advantage at.
This question strikes me as both too mindkill-y, and as unimportant in light of the fact that you don’t get to vote for political parties, only for individual candidates in individual races. What do you think would be the important change in your behavior if you were convinced, in general, that Republicans were “better” than Democrats or vice versa, and how do you think that would impact the political process?
What do you think would be the important change in your behavior if you were convinced, in general, that Republicans were “better” than Democrats or vice versa, and how do you think that would impact the political process?
The political discussion moves the parties around. Economics discussion resulted in significant deregulation which has since been pretty broadly adopted by both parties. A discussion of what features make one party better than the other will, if it bears up, tend to contribute to making both parties more like the better position.
Since politics is a team sport, if it turned out that one team is doing better at what you want (assuming it is prosperity, hardly the only metric possible), then you would be well advised to support that team in some ways.
These are two practical implications for this discussion.
I hear the deregulation thing touted a lot and I don’t buy it. Do you have any links or sources? It seems like “deregulation” usually refers to less explicit rules in favor of a closer alliance between government and the major players of the industry in question.
Reagan further removed controls on oil and gas, cable television and long-distance phone service, as well as interstate bus service and ocean shipping.
I believe that this is the most relevant question we can ask if we’re talking politics
Why ???
One of ways politics messes up people’s reasoning is that they tend to pay excessive implication to the political alignment of issues. When considering policy X, they first ask themselves, “is X a left-wing or a right-wing policy”? (I know I used to, though I try to do so less and less), which in turn is likely to subconsciously influence how skeptical they are of pieces of evidence, etc.
This isn’t a very big problem for elections, where one’s vote has very little weight anyway, but you also get the same effect when judging ideas about society or history, or parenting styles, or careers …
So paying less attention to politics should reduce emotional priming and increase decision quality.
I don’t see what benefit one could get from paying attention to politics, apart from maybe getting along better with people who care about politics.
I’ll take maximum economic prosperity now and leave maximum social prosperity to the point when most of the world is industrialized and children aren’t being arbitrarily tortured by disease and starvation. I don’t care about the first world poor.
First, I think this is a very useful and interesting question. It actually impacts decisions.
Second, I think the question itself is biased, in a sense. It asks which is more optimal for ensuring prosperity implicitly leading some to think this is the only possible criterion for choosing. However, the party that leads to more prosperity by many definition might also be the party that produces a poor underclass and a society which is, overall, significantly less happy or healthy on average. Might do, I’m saying, the point being that prosperity alone is not necessarily even the most intuitive figure of merit.
Indeed another very important figure of merit is societal survival. What profiteth it a political system if it raise the happiness but succumb to an external enemy? Nature is “red in tooth and claw,” this is not a value judgement, just a description of the survivors. There is no seriously large (i.e. successful) political system that isn’t pretty amazingly cynical about basic rights when protecting itself. It can be codified and above board (such as passing laws about which “coercive interrogation” is allowed and what the rules for “extraordinary rendition” are) or it can be hidden and lied about, but even seeming peacey countries have militaries and intelligence services and are not anxious to repeat any subjugation they might have experienced in world war I or II or some other conflict they did not do well in.
Having said all that, my considered opinion (sort of like a conclusion I guess) is that the policies of either major party in the US can be made to work for prosperity. That the more fundamental difference is values, primarily a belief in different amounts of government redistribution (both parties support redistributive policies). If you can accept a repressed underclass, you can get an efficient economy carried out by the overclass. If you want to mitigate the bottom, you can get an efficient economy carried out. The provable results of economics are more about what mechanisms work and less about what the ultimate goals of the produced prosperity are.
Disclaimer: Republicans spend a lot of time torturing non-Americans and then laughing about it in their Republican forums, so as a non-American, I’m probably about as biased against them as a black guy would be biased against the KKK.
Regarding American politics, which party’s general stance is more optimal for ensuring prosperity?
The Pirate Party.
I believe Eliezer said somewhere that, if you had to choose between one of the two major tribes, the Republican camp was slightly better.
Really? I wouldn’t expect it of him. Frankly without context and certainty, I think this sentence is more distracting than useful, as I’m trying to figure out reasons he would say that, instead of actually judging an actual argument for or against a party.
Republicans spend a lot of time torturing non-Americans and then laughing about it in their Republican forums, so as a non-American,
There are two ways to interpret the above statement, one of which makes it false, the other true but highly misleading.
The false interpretation: Republics support torturing random non-Americans and than laugh about it on their forums. (Seriously, if this statement sounds at all plausible to you, you have bigger problems.)
The misleading interpretation: Republics support torturing certain particular non-Americans and laugh than laugh about it on their forums. Of course, those particular non-Americans are terrorists, dictators, dictators’ thugs, and otherwise nasty people who one could reasonably say deserve it.
Republicans spend a lot of time torturing non-Americans and then laughing about it in their Republican forums, so as a non-American,
There are two ways to interpret the above statement, one of which makes it false, the other true but highly misleading.
The false interpretation: Republicans support torturing random non-Americans and than laugh about it on their forums. (Seriously, if this statement sounds at all plausible to you, you have bigger problems.)
The misleading interpretation: Republicans support torturing certain particular non-Americans and laugh than laugh about it on their forums. Of course, those particular non-Americans are terrorists, dictators, dictators’ thugs, and otherwise nasty people who one could reasonably say deserve it.
Of course, those particular non-Americans are terrorists, dictators, dictators’ thugs, and otherwise nasty people who one could reasonably say deserve it.
Or innocent bystanders mistaken for, or even cynically denounced without merit. The same legal and practical protections against torturing or even mistakenly imprisoning Americans are deliberately not applied when torturing or imprisoning foreigners.
The U.S. has, and all countries have, to some extent, a double standard, one for citizens and one for non-citizens. In the U.S. the distance between the two different standards has increased gigantically since 9/11/2001.
The misleading interpretation: Republicans support torturing certain particular non-Americans and laugh than laugh about it on their forums. Of course, those particular non-Americans are terrorists, dictators, dictators’ thugs, and otherwise nasty people who one could reasonably say deserve it.
No, it’s not just “particular” non-Americans, because then you’d see Republicans debate in their forum what criteria should be used to determine those “particulars”—WHICH I’VE NEVER SEEN THEM DO. The more accurate relation is just this: Republicans support torturing non-Americans. They support torturing certain kinds of non-Americans more than other kinds, but there’s never been a torture of a non-American by Americans that they’ve ever found a legal or moral problem with. Not even taxi-drivers that were tortured to death for being in the wrong place.
Being a non-American is the sufficient condition for most Republicans to support the right of Americans to torture you, even to death.
That’s been my impression from the Republican forums I’ve had the misfortune to observe.
I spent several years hanging around in the warblogger community around 2003. I literally have no idea what you’re referring to. Yes, a lot of people were very happy when Saddam Hussein got hanged, myself included. Some(though not all) favoured waterboarding in extreme circumstances. Absolutely nobody would have favoured taking a cheese grater to a random Canadian.
This question is probably a violation of rule 4, but I think if we’re discussing politics then it just has to be asked:
Regarding American politics, which party’s general stance is more optimal for ensuring prosperity?
I realize that politicians often fail to meet the idealistic standards of their affiliations, and that both parties’ s positions are too biased, general, and simple to actually be correct, but which one do you think comes closer to the mark, overall?
I believe Eliezer said somewhere that, if you had to choose between one of the two major tribes, the Republican camp was slightly better. He may have updated since then. Politics may kill minds, but it is still important, and individual votes do influence it even on a national scale, so if we’re going to talk politics, we may as well spend the time trying to figure out how best to apply our conclusions.
Again, I’m sorry if this question is too mindkill-y even for this thread, but I believe that this is the most relevant question we can ask if we’re talking politics. Also, I don’t mean to fence off non-Americans, but I am American, as are the majority of Lesswrongers, and in any case, America has enormous influence on other nations one way or the other. If you have an opinion on the matter, please share it, whether you’re American or not.
A prerequisite to the above question:
Do the political parties, when elected, implement the policies that they advocate when campaigning?
Are there other affiliations besides party which more accurately predict a politician’s actions?
Reagan deregulated, Bush lowered taxes, Clinton balanced budgets and reformed welfare, etc. etc.
Of course the record is not perfect, but in the grand scheme of things, large sweeping points of discussion tend to get attention correlated with the discussion.
I think that this thread will go better, by the established norms of LW, if we stick to single, small topics that can actually be taken apart. The question you ask has far too many nested unknowns—definition of party platforms is hard, and economic outcomes of various policies is even harder—and too many places for discussion to go off the rails. Even with this group, that debate will devolve into talking points within three layers of replies. I’d rather have that sort of discussion in an ordinary group, and use LW for political debate of the sort LW actually has an advantage at.
Yes many moving parts, but an important part of this discussion could be which are actually more important and which are sideshows.
This question strikes me as both too mindkill-y, and as unimportant in light of the fact that you don’t get to vote for political parties, only for individual candidates in individual races. What do you think would be the important change in your behavior if you were convinced, in general, that Republicans were “better” than Democrats or vice versa, and how do you think that would impact the political process?
The political discussion moves the parties around. Economics discussion resulted in significant deregulation which has since been pretty broadly adopted by both parties. A discussion of what features make one party better than the other will, if it bears up, tend to contribute to making both parties more like the better position.
Since politics is a team sport, if it turned out that one team is doing better at what you want (assuming it is prosperity, hardly the only metric possible), then you would be well advised to support that team in some ways.
These are two practical implications for this discussion.
I hear the deregulation thing touted a lot and I don’t buy it. Do you have any links or sources? It seems like “deregulation” usually refers to less explicit rules in favor of a closer alliance between government and the major players of the industry in question.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deregulation#Deregulation_1970-2000
Reagan was not the only president who reduced regulation, but he was one of them.
Why ???
One of ways politics messes up people’s reasoning is that they tend to pay excessive implication to the political alignment of issues. When considering policy X, they first ask themselves, “is X a left-wing or a right-wing policy”? (I know I used to, though I try to do so less and less), which in turn is likely to subconsciously influence how skeptical they are of pieces of evidence, etc.
This isn’t a very big problem for elections, where one’s vote has very little weight anyway, but you also get the same effect when judging ideas about society or history, or parenting styles, or careers …
So paying less attention to politics should reduce emotional priming and increase decision quality.
I don’t see what benefit one could get from paying attention to politics, apart from maybe getting along better with people who care about politics.
How do you define ‘prosperity?’ Do you mean it in a narrow economic sense of a wider sense (e.g. ensuring general utility).
Whose prosperity are we talking about? What time frame?
I’ll take maximum economic prosperity now and leave maximum social prosperity to the point when most of the world is industrialized and children aren’t being arbitrarily tortured by disease and starvation. I don’t care about the first world poor.
First, I think this is a very useful and interesting question. It actually impacts decisions.
Second, I think the question itself is biased, in a sense. It asks which is more optimal for ensuring prosperity implicitly leading some to think this is the only possible criterion for choosing. However, the party that leads to more prosperity by many definition might also be the party that produces a poor underclass and a society which is, overall, significantly less happy or healthy on average. Might do, I’m saying, the point being that prosperity alone is not necessarily even the most intuitive figure of merit.
Indeed another very important figure of merit is societal survival. What profiteth it a political system if it raise the happiness but succumb to an external enemy? Nature is “red in tooth and claw,” this is not a value judgement, just a description of the survivors. There is no seriously large (i.e. successful) political system that isn’t pretty amazingly cynical about basic rights when protecting itself. It can be codified and above board (such as passing laws about which “coercive interrogation” is allowed and what the rules for “extraordinary rendition” are) or it can be hidden and lied about, but even seeming peacey countries have militaries and intelligence services and are not anxious to repeat any subjugation they might have experienced in world war I or II or some other conflict they did not do well in.
Having said all that, my considered opinion (sort of like a conclusion I guess) is that the policies of either major party in the US can be made to work for prosperity. That the more fundamental difference is values, primarily a belief in different amounts of government redistribution (both parties support redistributive policies). If you can accept a repressed underclass, you can get an efficient economy carried out by the overclass. If you want to mitigate the bottom, you can get an efficient economy carried out. The provable results of economics are more about what mechanisms work and less about what the ultimate goals of the produced prosperity are.
Disclaimer: Republicans spend a lot of time torturing non-Americans and then laughing about it in their Republican forums, so as a non-American, I’m probably about as biased against them as a black guy would be biased against the KKK.
The Pirate Party.
Really? I wouldn’t expect it of him. Frankly without context and certainty, I think this sentence is more distracting than useful, as I’m trying to figure out reasons he would say that, instead of actually judging an actual argument for or against a party.
There are two ways to interpret the above statement, one of which makes it false, the other true but highly misleading.
The false interpretation: Republics support torturing random non-Americans and than laugh about it on their forums. (Seriously, if this statement sounds at all plausible to you, you have bigger problems.)
The misleading interpretation: Republics support torturing certain particular non-Americans and laugh than laugh about it on their forums. Of course, those particular non-Americans are terrorists, dictators, dictators’ thugs, and otherwise nasty people who one could reasonably say deserve it.
I believe his stated reason was their economic policy.
There are two ways to interpret the above statement, one of which makes it false, the other true but highly misleading.
The false interpretation: Republicans support torturing random non-Americans and than laugh about it on their forums. (Seriously, if this statement sounds at all plausible to you, you have bigger problems.)
The misleading interpretation: Republicans support torturing certain particular non-Americans and laugh than laugh about it on their forums. Of course, those particular non-Americans are terrorists, dictators, dictators’ thugs, and otherwise nasty people who one could reasonably say deserve it.
Or innocent bystanders mistaken for, or even cynically denounced without merit. The same legal and practical protections against torturing or even mistakenly imprisoning Americans are deliberately not applied when torturing or imprisoning foreigners.
The U.S. has, and all countries have, to some extent, a double standard, one for citizens and one for non-citizens. In the U.S. the distance between the two different standards has increased gigantically since 9/11/2001.
This may be what Aris was referring to.
No, it’s not just “particular” non-Americans, because then you’d see Republicans debate in their forum what criteria should be used to determine those “particulars”—WHICH I’VE NEVER SEEN THEM DO. The more accurate relation is just this: Republicans support torturing non-Americans. They support torturing certain kinds of non-Americans more than other kinds, but there’s never been a torture of a non-American by Americans that they’ve ever found a legal or moral problem with. Not even taxi-drivers that were tortured to death for being in the wrong place.
Being a non-American is the sufficient condition for most Republicans to support the right of Americans to torture you, even to death.
That’s been my impression from the Republican forums I’ve had the misfortune to observe.
I spent several years hanging around in the warblogger community around 2003. I literally have no idea what you’re referring to. Yes, a lot of people were very happy when Saddam Hussein got hanged, myself included. Some(though not all) favoured waterboarding in extreme circumstances. Absolutely nobody would have favoured taking a cheese grater to a random Canadian.