Unfortunately, my Karma score went below 2 last night (the threshold to be able to post new articles). This might be due to a mistake I made when deciding what facts to discuss in my latest post - it was unnecessary to bring up my own views, I should have picked some random observations. But even if I hadn’t posted that article, my score would still be too low, from all the negative reviews on this post. Or from the third post.
In any case, I’ll finish the posts on my blog.
The explanation isn’t for why people care about politics per se, but that we care so deeply for politics that we respond to adversity much, much harsher in political environments than in others. Or, our reactions are disproportionate to the actual risks involved in it. People become angry when discussing if something should be privatized or if taxes should be raised. If one believes that there is some general policies that most benefit from, it’s really bad to become angry at those whom you really should be allies with.
That’s different from what I’m used to here in Sweden. For most people here it’s accepted to not vote—if you put a blank vote in the ballot box. Even though most vote (more than 80%) it’s not considered bad to not have a political opinion, you can just say you don’t understand enough. In the bad all old days it seems that there was something of a taboo to ask others what they voted for, which made it easy to skip discussing politics.
I don’t think that the idealistic-pragmatist divide is that great, but if I should place myself in either camp, then it’s the latter. From my perspective this model would not, if followed through, suggest to do anything that will not have a positive impact (from one’s own perspective).
I believe I should be able both to show how to think on politics and then use that structure to show that some political action is preferable to none—and by my definition work on EA and AI are, for those methods I mention above, political question.
I do have a short answer to the question of why to engage in politics. But it will be expanded in time.
I would beg to differ, as to this post not having any content. It affirms that politics is difficult to talk about; that there’s a psychological reason for that; that politics has a large impact on our lives; that a rational perspective on politics requires that one can answer certain questions; that the answer to these questions can be called a political ideology and that such ideologies should be constructed in a certain way. You may not like this way of introducing a subject—by giving a brief picture of what it’s all about—but that’s another story.
I will finish posting this series. I have already written an almost complete version of them, so what’s missing is mainly coming up with a few facts/perspectives for some of the posts. Hopefully I’m finished by, thursday.
I agree with your second point, that one should be able to determine the value of incremental steps towards goal A in relation to incremental steps towards goal B, and every other goal, and vice versa. I will fix that, thanks for bringing it up!
If you rank your goals, so that any amount of the first goal is better than any amount of the second goal etc., you might as >well just ignore all but the first goal.
Ranking does not imply that. It only implies that I prefer one goal over another, not that coming 3% on the way to reaching that goal is more preferable to reaching 95% of the other. I prefer 0.5 litres strawberries to one honeydew melon for dessert. But I also prefer one half of a melon to one strawberry.
Hm, so economy fixing is like trying to make the markets function better? Such as when Robert Shiller created a futures market for house loans, which helped to show that people invested too much in housing?
No, that was not part of my intentions when I thought of this. But I’d guess that they would be or it won’t be used by anyone.
The goal of this sequence is to create a model with enables one to think more rationally regarding political questions. Or, maybe, societal questions (since I maybe am using the word politics too broadly for most here). The intention was to create a better tool of thought.
The way I see it, all of these—especially the last point, which sounds unfamiliar, do you have a link? - are potentially political activities. Raising funds for AI or some effective charity is a political action, as I’ve defined it. The model I’m building in this sequence doesn’t necessarily say that it’s best to engage in normal political campaigns or even to vote. It is a framework to create one’s own ideology. And as such it doesn’t prescribe any course of action, but what you put into it will.
True, changed it. Thanks!
Politics may or may not be worth one’s while to pursue. The model I’m building will be used to determine if there are any such actions or not, so my full answer to your question will be just that model and after it is built, my ideology which will be constructed by it.
I also have a short answer, but before giving it, I should say that I may be using a too broad definition of politics for you. That is, I would regard getting together to reduce a certain existential risk as a political pursuit. Of course, if one did so alone, there is no political problem to speak of. But one probably needs the support of others to do so. So, if this model would suggest me to engage only in making money and giving to charity, then that would be my political strategy. I believe that it’s unlikely that will be the only thing to do, however.
One reason is because politics is somewhat ubiquitous and potentially cheap to engage in for most. Discussing politics—how well they like/dislike the current political leader, if policy X is good or bad, how wrong someone is to support the opposing team—is normal for at least 70% of the adult population, I’d guess. So for most people, they will have ample chance to discuss politics and if they can get one sentence across for every conversation that might be a part of their political strategy as well. Another low-cost strategy is just to announce one’s political views and otherwise be a friendly character, unless someone asks for one’s opinion.
Another reason is that for some, politics is rewarding in itself. A few will naturally seek to become specialists in politics, just as a hobby.
I agree with you on the issue of politics being very different today than what it was on the savannah, or wherever these instincts evolved. Politics requires a lot more people, more coordination than in the past, it would seem. But, even though it is different, that doesn’t mean there is no goal that a lot of people can accomplish by acting in concert. That is, just because we’re primed to believe that it is much easier to do than it really is and to believe that any old strategy will work, one shouldn’t believe it cannot be done. One shouldn’t start believing in it either, of course.
The S&P 500 has outperformed gold since quantitative easing began. I don’t believe there has been a time past four >years where a $100 gold purchase would be worth more today than a $100 S&P 500 purchase.
According to Wikipedia, QE1 started in late November 2008. Between November 28th 2008 and December 11th 2012 these were their respective returns:
Gold: 110% S&P500: 47,39%
Now Index-funds are normally better, but just look at the returns from late 2004 to today:
Gold: 165% S&P500: 45%
Gold has been rising more or less steadily over all those years except for 2005 and 2012 (stagnant) and 2013 (falling). It hasn’t tripled, but for the 2004-2012 it was a good buy.
One of the points I presented that you didn’t address is that other people in society teach their kids that stealing is bad and they shouldn’t do it.
I believe that also goes under the rubric of voluntary action, so it does not constitute treating others as mere means for my own goal. Like, if you exchange with people or do anything voluntary together all of you consents to being used (if one wants to put it like that). The same with morality; if people teach their children to behave nice, and property is somewhat depended on that condition, it does not change the character of that social phenomenon, that it is voluntary.
This is crucial, because it is the involuntary nature of theft that makes thieves into the disrespecting beings that they are; it is what makes the action amount to treating others as merely means for one’s own end. You do not touch upon it except for one mere assertion that moral action is not voluntary (which I think is crazy, but please enlighten me if you want to go that way), so most of what you wrote does not immediately concern this point, so I will not comment on it.
You’ve also introduced the idea of “force”, creating an analogy between theft (simple removal of property) and violence (e.g. robbery at gunpoint).
“Initiation of force” is a specific concept within libertarian circles; it means negating negative rights, because it is the first action that can legitimately force a conflict into violence, or as just a name for illegitimate action against others. I used it for my convenience, and I thought the concept was well known.
I also used the phrase “state backed force”, was it that which you reffered to? That is the view that all legislation issued by the states are threats of violence for those who do not comply, which I believe is obvious upon reflection.
(Doing the steel-man thing: You might cite Nozick here, too.)
What do you mean? Nozick wasn’t a market anarchist.
Well, my point was that this assumes a whole theory of property, and a specific one at that. There are others.
It seemed like your point earlier was that my argument lacked a proof that using others’ property also meant using others. The point you bring up now is, as I understand it, that while it may be true that stealing the property of others amounts to treating them as merely means for ones own end—another, equally plausible, view of property amounts to the view that simply owning property is the same as merely using others for one’s own end.
The argument states that if I own something I depend on others in two ways: first, that they don’t take my property, and second, that they assist in defending my property from those who would steal it from me. Both (or at least one) of these actions are positive rights, and when I claim my property I claim certain positive actions from others, that is I claim “to benefit from the efforts of others”. Thus, I am treating others as mere means to an end.
To summarize, the argument you present says two important things:
1) Property rights does not depend solely on people not doing something, but also that they do something. 2) Property is protected by a positive right that I expect people to uphold, or that, as a matter of fact, property is in today’s society (or necessarily?) upheld by forcing people to pay for that protection.
I believe that the first point is somewhat mistaken, and the second point (which I’m not sure I have interpreted correctly) is irrelevant, in that it is not a necessary feature of property.
(1) Is correct if one assumes that there are some people who actually steal property. If it is not the case the one does not depend on others cooperation, but merely their refraining from initiating force.
(2): To some extent one is dependent on state-backed force, because there is state-backed force (if there weren’t we’d live in a stateless society, probably something as described by David Friedman and Bruce L. Benson). But you are incorrect that having property is a claim on others, as a demanding claim. That is because property can be uphold by exchange, by me hiring others in defending my property or catching the thieves responsible. That is, upholding property can be like any other voluntary (among those who favor property, at least) activity. And, if you go back to the definition of theft, it was precisely taking others belonging without their consent.
So, theft of property is necessarily involuntary—but upholding property is not. In today’s society it may be upheld by force, and one may be dependent on it, but only because that force exist in the first place.
This seems to presume that using others’ property as a means to an end constitutes using others so, which seems dangerously close to question-begging the whole issue.
Yes, it was an implicit assumption of what I wrote; if A takes the property that belongs to B then A is using B as a mere means to his own ends. Or, to take an example, that should be appropriate, when the government collects taxes from a producer they’re using that producer as a cash-cow to fund their own projects, that is treating him/her as a means to their own ends.
So, while an implicit assumption in the comment I made, it is nevertheless true that the thief is using others as mere means for his/her own end.
A second, subtler use of the Worst Argument In The World goes like this: “X is in a category whose archetypal member is solely harmful. We immediately reject this archetypal X because it is solely harmful. Therefore, we should also immediately reject X, even though it in fact has some benefit which may outweigh the harm.”
Theft is however not solely harmful, obviously one party gains.
For most people I know, that is in the swedish libertarian community, theft is theft whether or not it has socially beneficial effects, because we use the definition that you gave; theft is taking from others without their consent. The implication is not that “As theft is always bad, it should be dismissed without a thought”, because some libertarians do favor theft and are explicit about it, because they believe it’s necessary. The moral breach of treating others as mere means to one’s own goals can be (hypothetically for most) mended if it has other good consequences (or such). The point is that taxation is bad, which doesn’t mean it should be dismissed out of hand, but it shouldn’t be adopted out of hand! That is, taxation should be considered a bad, until it is proven necessary or otherwise positive.
Some time last night (European time) my Karma score dropped below 2, so I can’t finish the series here. I’ll continue on my blog instead, for those interested.