The problem with radicals isn’t that they aren’t proposing solutions.
The problem is that they are proposing solutions and following those solutions would create huge problems.
One example:
We all agree that there too much bureaucracy. Too much useless laws that only complicate things.
It takes some insight to understand why the problem exist. Some people without that insight propose that new laws should have expiring dates.
The problem is that those people don’t understand what happens in practice. When such an expiry date is reached law gets “reconsidered”. The government makes a list with all issues that were with the law in the last years.
In an attempt to fix those issues the law then grows by an additional 10-30%. Patching increases complexity and adds new problems.
A lot of the political problems that are raised by radicals are obvious to those people in political power.
It might be a valid criticism to say they don’t think enough about existential risk.
The assumption that they don’t think that there’s something wrong with the criminal justice system, the economy and the legislative process is mistaken. Seeing the problems is the easy part.
They are too busy with realpolitik. Too focused on the poll numbers of next week.
Often they’re not smart enough to think of a practical solution.
More or less what I was going to say. “Radicals” pointing out problems in existent systems often don’t understand those systems well enough to recognise the problems are compromises in a solution to a more fundamental underlying problem.
That’s probably right. (Oh, and of course radicals propose solutions—my point is that they’re usually not as well-informed or well-thought out as their critiques. If your solution is “revolution” I’m going to call that “not having a solution.”)
I am speaking from a limited kind of experience—talking to young people, friends of mine, who are just starting or about to start careers in public service. They’re smart, they understand the business pretty well, they have idealistic motives. They’ve often pulled up good social science research or facts I didn’t know, when I make a radical comment from a perspective of ignorance.
But I’ve been frustrated to find that “Washington kids” focus very heavily on polls and parties, and the big problems just aren’t very salient to them. It’s often happened that things that horrified me barely troubled them. When it’s not the central part of your job, you start to dismiss it as unimportant.
I’ve found, for example, that people who are really concerned by police brutality, as a top priority, almost never work in government and often don’t like government. Shouldn’t be surprising.
I am speaking from a limited kind of experience—talking to young people, friends of mine, who are just starting or about to start careers in public service.
The experience I’m speaking comes from having a father who is a parliamentarian for the city of Berlin.
my point is that they’re usually not as well-informed or well-thought out as their critiques.
How do you know that their critiques are well thought out? Most critiques from radicals that I read don’t contain an analyses of the root courses of the problem they are criticizing.
A naive understanding of bureaucracy leads you to believe that expiration dates for laws would help.
Cries to get politicians to do something about bureaucracy lead to the adaption of expiration dates for laws in some parliaments. The politician can tell his voters that he enacted a law to reduce bureaucracy and his voters are happy.
The “radicals” didn’t have a well-thought out critique of bureaucracy that included an understanding of how bureaucracy develops.
But I’ve been frustrated to find that “Washington kids” focus very heavily on polls and parties.
Yet most radicals focus a lot more on visible problems. They rather analyse police brutality than focus on the problem that politicians are too focused on polls and party conflicts.
The problem with radicals isn’t that they aren’t proposing solutions. The problem is that they are proposing solutions and following those solutions would create huge problems.
One example: We all agree that there too much bureaucracy. Too much useless laws that only complicate things. It takes some insight to understand why the problem exist. Some people without that insight propose that new laws should have expiring dates.
The problem is that those people don’t understand what happens in practice. When such an expiry date is reached law gets “reconsidered”. The government makes a list with all issues that were with the law in the last years. In an attempt to fix those issues the law then grows by an additional 10-30%. Patching increases complexity and adds new problems.
A lot of the political problems that are raised by radicals are obvious to those people in political power. It might be a valid criticism to say they don’t think enough about existential risk. The assumption that they don’t think that there’s something wrong with the criminal justice system, the economy and the legislative process is mistaken. Seeing the problems is the easy part.
They are too busy with realpolitik. Too focused on the poll numbers of next week. Often they’re not smart enough to think of a practical solution.
More generally http://www.ryanholiday.net/their-logic/ is a good blog post on the problem of thinking that you discovered something new.
More or less what I was going to say. “Radicals” pointing out problems in existent systems often don’t understand those systems well enough to recognise the problems are compromises in a solution to a more fundamental underlying problem.
That’s probably right. (Oh, and of course radicals propose solutions—my point is that they’re usually not as well-informed or well-thought out as their critiques. If your solution is “revolution” I’m going to call that “not having a solution.”)
I am speaking from a limited kind of experience—talking to young people, friends of mine, who are just starting or about to start careers in public service. They’re smart, they understand the business pretty well, they have idealistic motives. They’ve often pulled up good social science research or facts I didn’t know, when I make a radical comment from a perspective of ignorance.
But I’ve been frustrated to find that “Washington kids” focus very heavily on polls and parties, and the big problems just aren’t very salient to them. It’s often happened that things that horrified me barely troubled them. When it’s not the central part of your job, you start to dismiss it as unimportant.
I’ve found, for example, that people who are really concerned by police brutality, as a top priority, almost never work in government and often don’t like government. Shouldn’t be surprising.
The experience I’m speaking comes from having a father who is a parliamentarian for the city of Berlin.
How do you know that their critiques are well thought out? Most critiques from radicals that I read don’t contain an analyses of the root courses of the problem they are criticizing. A naive understanding of bureaucracy leads you to believe that expiration dates for laws would help. Cries to get politicians to do something about bureaucracy lead to the adaption of expiration dates for laws in some parliaments. The politician can tell his voters that he enacted a law to reduce bureaucracy and his voters are happy.
The “radicals” didn’t have a well-thought out critique of bureaucracy that included an understanding of how bureaucracy develops.
Yet most radicals focus a lot more on visible problems. They rather analyse police brutality than focus on the problem that politicians are too focused on polls and party conflicts.
Then calling them “radicals” is a misuse of the word, I think.