Please correct me if I misunderstand you here, but you propose two mechanisms why cultural changes are bad, and they seem to be (a bit ironically) somewhat the opposite of each other.
In one case, the changes are good in short term, but bad in long term. (Let’s make people free to do X, in short term a few people are made very happy, in long term some social mechanism we took for granted collapses, and now many people are unhappy.) In other case, the changes are good in long term, but bad in short term. (Let’s show people a vision of utopia they didn’t realize was possible, but it will take a lot of time to actually get there, and in the meanwhile people are angry that we are not there already.)
First, yes, I believe that you are making a good point. Two good points, actually.
But we need to distinguish between “this is ultimately harmful” and “this is temporarily harmful, but worth it in long term”. The former should perhaps not be done (unless we find a way how to make it okay in even longer term), the latter… I guess, could be better timed, not to be in the worst part of all the curves at the same time. How to do that, though? Our clickbait culture seems incapable of the virtue of silence, though some politically incorrect ideas were successfully removed from the center of public discourse.
On individual level, you could perhaps improve things by making the change you want to see in the world. If you believe that Facebook is evil, make a Nicebook, and perhaps it will still be profitable (much less than Facebook, but that could still be enough money for you personally). If you make a shop that only sells healthy food (for prices comparable to other shops), I would be happy to shop there. Perhaps give people courses on how to be happier? (I wonder if there is an economic concept of “barely profitable” company, i.e. one that tried to generate exactly as much money as needed to avoid loss, but otherwise optimizes for other goals.)
In a perfect world, we would have a Progressive-Conservative Coalition for Better Life, that would explore ways how to time and shape social changes to achieve long-term improvement without short-term setbacks.
Yeah, I’m willing to entertain the idea that there’s a tradeof to be made between the short term and the long term or something like that… but to be honest, I don’t think the people who push these ideas are even thinking along those lines. I think a rational discussion would just be a net plus for everyone involved, but people are unwilling to do that either because it’s not in their interest to do so (lobby groups, media agencies) or because they don’t understand why they should.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think there are some left-wing groups who have had discussions on how to best change things. But mostly I think that people are just unwilling to criticize their own side, allowing the craziest voices to rise to the top.
The closest thing I’ve seen to anyone seriously discussing these ideas was when Bill Maher suggested that the US needs a “tea party of the left”, full of people so batshit crazy that they make people like him look like the reasonable ones. So maybe I’m not giving progressives enough credit and they did actually did do a calculation along those lines at one point, and decided that people being temporarily miserable was a worthwhile sacrifice. But for the most part, I think it’s just been reflexive partisanship, and little else.
Please correct me if I misunderstand you here, but you propose two mechanisms why cultural changes are bad, and they seem to be (a bit ironically) somewhat the opposite of each other.
In one case, the changes are good in short term, but bad in long term. (Let’s make people free to do X, in short term a few people are made very happy, in long term some social mechanism we took for granted collapses, and now many people are unhappy.) In other case, the changes are good in long term, but bad in short term. (Let’s show people a vision of utopia they didn’t realize was possible, but it will take a lot of time to actually get there, and in the meanwhile people are angry that we are not there already.)
First, yes, I believe that you are making a good point. Two good points, actually.
But we need to distinguish between “this is ultimately harmful” and “this is temporarily harmful, but worth it in long term”. The former should perhaps not be done (unless we find a way how to make it okay in even longer term), the latter… I guess, could be better timed, not to be in the worst part of all the curves at the same time. How to do that, though? Our clickbait culture seems incapable of the virtue of silence, though some politically incorrect ideas were successfully removed from the center of public discourse.
On individual level, you could perhaps improve things by making the change you want to see in the world. If you believe that Facebook is evil, make a Nicebook, and perhaps it will still be profitable (much less than Facebook, but that could still be enough money for you personally). If you make a shop that only sells healthy food (for prices comparable to other shops), I would be happy to shop there. Perhaps give people courses on how to be happier? (I wonder if there is an economic concept of “barely profitable” company, i.e. one that tried to generate exactly as much money as needed to avoid loss, but otherwise optimizes for other goals.)
In a perfect world, we would have a Progressive-Conservative Coalition for Better Life, that would explore ways how to time and shape social changes to achieve long-term improvement without short-term setbacks.
Yeah, I’m willing to entertain the idea that there’s a tradeof to be made between the short term and the long term or something like that… but to be honest, I don’t think the people who push these ideas are even thinking along those lines. I think a rational discussion would just be a net plus for everyone involved, but people are unwilling to do that either because it’s not in their interest to do so (lobby groups, media agencies) or because they don’t understand why they should.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think there are some left-wing groups who have had discussions on how to best change things. But mostly I think that people are just unwilling to criticize their own side, allowing the craziest voices to rise to the top.
The closest thing I’ve seen to anyone seriously discussing these ideas was when Bill Maher suggested that the US needs a “tea party of the left”, full of people so batshit crazy that they make people like him look like the reasonable ones. So maybe I’m not giving progressives enough credit and they did actually did do a calculation along those lines at one point, and decided that people being temporarily miserable was a worthwhile sacrifice. But for the most part, I think it’s just been reflexive partisanship, and little else.