"You should only do the things I think you should do and if you don't I won't make any attempt to understand your position, I'll just claim that it is cosmically wrong. Based on what? Oh, on my own intuition, of course!" <- every BB post.
Moral realists are fucking retarded. It always, always bottoms out in intuition and "seemings", and you seem incapable of understanding that not everyone shares those intuitions.
Also, this *is* me shoveling bad karma in your direction, and if you want me to put it in terms you *might* be able to understand, it's because it brings me utility.
It's a reply to your blog in general. On its own this post wouldn't deserve a response, but shrimp welfare and promoting voting rights for machine intelligences are both as outrageous, tribal and sloppy as everything you complain about here, and the only reason you don't see it is because you're as much of an intolerant zealot as everyone you complain about.
"The more incendiary the political commentary is—the more it would be abhorred by the other side—the greater the signaling value it has... people are incentivized to be maximally uncareful and outrageous."
Reply: "People like you are fucking retarded, and I'm saying so because it brings me utility."
I'm not against having breakdowns in the comments sections but are we sure THIS is the post do it in?
"Posting ragebait memes instead of having actual discussions is bad and we should try to not do that" is probably what the average person would consider the most mild take on this substack. You couldn't wait like, 2 more days for a utilitarian/EA/SIA post?
Empirically, when the head of a country stays in office for too long, they tend to warp the system around them. This happens even in democracies. Term limits force voters and politicians to be loyal to ideas rather than people.
But, also empirically, the amount of distortion scales with the amount of power. Bernie Sanders has some level of cult of personality, but it's just not comparable to what presidents routinely get even in our term-limited system.
And there are also benefits of having longer-serving officials, like encouraging long-term thinking and giving them more leeway to diverge from voters' wishes when the voters are wrong.
So it's a balance. The optimal term limit for Congress is probably not "unlimited", but it's also probably longer than the optimal term limit for presidents.
You will often hear that Republicans are hypocrites because they are only pro-life up until birth. This is a very silly claim ...
And who is this supposed to convince? Who is the person who thinks that Republicans’ policies display wanton disregard for human life, but then, upon seeing that this indifference conflicts with opposition to abortion, comes to oppose Republican policies? It seems its sole purpose is to preach to the choir. To convince, in other words, those who are already convinced.
=====
I think you're right here that this argument is ineffective at convincing people to oppose Republican policies: as you say, anyone who agreed with the premises would already be opposed to Republican policies. But I think this sort of argument is directed at those who are already pro-choice Democrats, and is intended not to *convince* them but to help them *understand the motivations* of their opponents.
There are a few different things that could be true about the motivations of pro-lifers:
1. Pro-lifers are genuinely motivated by wanting to reduce the number of abortions, and banning abortions is in fact the most effective way to do that.
2. Pro-lifers are genuinely motivated by wanting to reduce the number of abortions, but are misguided: there are other policies (contraception, child care, etc.) that would reduce abortions even better, that they are not interested in.
3. Pro-lifers' claimed goal of reducing the number of abortions is entirely pretextual: their real goal is something else (like oppression, or controlling women, etc.)
Recall that pro-choicers' criticisms of anti-abortion laws are not *just* that they think people should be able to have the abortions, but that these laws cause problems even for people who *aren't* trying to have abortions (like people who are falsely accused of having had an abortion even though they really just had a miscarriage, or people who need an emergency abortion of a non-viable pregnancy and can't get it)
Now, the best strategy for pro-choice advocacy clearly depends on which of (1-3) is true. For instance, if (1) is true, maybe some compromise would be possible - you could try to design laws in such a way as to limit abortions while avoiding those other problems. If (2) is true maybe you could advocate for those other policies by framing them as ways to reduce abortions. But if (3) is true then there's no compromise to be had - the supporters actually like the bad side-effects of these laws - and so direct conflict is the only option.
(Of course, 'pro-lifers' are not just one group; maybe there are some people in each of (1-3), and that could depend on whether we are talking about the rank-and-file, about the politicians, or whatever.)
One way of stating that argument might be the following:
"Stuff like more funding for child care would be better for kids, and everyone who thinks about the issue should realize that. If Republicans were in category (1), they would support more child care. The fact that they're not shows they're in category (2) or (3) - and the fact that they're so consistently wrong about this sort of thing means they're probably not just making random mistakes, so (3) is more likely than (2). We should consider that when we develop our strategy."
Now, I don't know if I *agree* with this argument. Again, probably it depends on which particular Republicans you're talking about. But I think there's a point being conveyed that isn't just obvious slop.
(See this post for a similar discussion in the context of animal advocacy: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/23BjNccCdG9a3v8PD/the-good-the-bad-and-the-fair-cop . The author talks about negotiating with major corporations to change their animal welfare policies, and he talks about how assuming good faith and finding common ground is often an effective strategy, but sometimes corporations take advantage of this to string them along without any intent to actually improve things, so it can be necessary to pivot to a more confrontational strategy.)
1) Doesn't this assume that audiences are showing up with expectation of being convinced, which is probably not true? Like if you were to claim McDonalds is doing a disservice by serving the exact same fries every day?
2) I think you are gesturing at loss of legitimacy and honestly the lack of enforcement on Epstein Island related events, with Epstein being a symbol for all of the corruption such as the Nancy Pelosi trading and Trumpcoin stuff, undercuts any argument that they even care about persuading anyone of anything.
politics doesn’t work according to the rules of analytic philosophy. it is about inflaming people’s passions. creating aesthetic experiences that appeal to based human emotions to illicit support or to demoralize your opposition.
A good post, but the pedant in me would like to note that Rachel Levine was the Assistant Secretary for Health, not the head of the HHS.
Oops fixed thanks.
“Pick your fighter: RFK flexing his biceps or a blogger who doesn’t even know Rachel Levine’s job title”
"Not now babe, someone is WRONG on the internet..."
Also if we could also get term limits for members of Congress that'd be greeeeeaaaaaaaaat.
Agree.
"You should only do the things I think you should do and if you don't I won't make any attempt to understand your position, I'll just claim that it is cosmically wrong. Based on what? Oh, on my own intuition, of course!" <- every BB post.
Moral realists are fucking retarded. It always, always bottoms out in intuition and "seemings", and you seem incapable of understanding that not everyone shares those intuitions.
Also, this *is* me shoveling bad karma in your direction, and if you want me to put it in terms you *might* be able to understand, it's because it brings me utility.
Bizarre response...
It's a reply to your blog in general. On its own this post wouldn't deserve a response, but shrimp welfare and promoting voting rights for machine intelligences are both as outrageous, tribal and sloppy as everything you complain about here, and the only reason you don't see it is because you're as much of an intolerant zealot as everyone you complain about.
"The more incendiary the political commentary is—the more it would be abhorred by the other side—the greater the signaling value it has... people are incentivized to be maximally uncareful and outrageous."
Reply: "People like you are fucking retarded, and I'm saying so because it brings me utility."
Seems like he's understood you pretty well?
Yes! He actually does. What he doesn't understand is himself.
You okay?
Yes?
I'm not against having breakdowns in the comments sections but are we sure THIS is the post do it in?
"Posting ragebait memes instead of having actual discussions is bad and we should try to not do that" is probably what the average person would consider the most mild take on this substack. You couldn't wait like, 2 more days for a utilitarian/EA/SIA post?
It's a reply to BB's project in general. If he truly values what he says he values in this post he should shut down his blog.
Empirically, when the head of a country stays in office for too long, they tend to warp the system around them. This happens even in democracies. Term limits force voters and politicians to be loyal to ideas rather than people.
But, also empirically, the amount of distortion scales with the amount of power. Bernie Sanders has some level of cult of personality, but it's just not comparable to what presidents routinely get even in our term-limited system.
And there are also benefits of having longer-serving officials, like encouraging long-term thinking and giving them more leeway to diverge from voters' wishes when the voters are wrong.
So it's a balance. The optimal term limit for Congress is probably not "unlimited", but it's also probably longer than the optimal term limit for presidents.
=====
You will often hear that Republicans are hypocrites because they are only pro-life up until birth. This is a very silly claim ...
And who is this supposed to convince? Who is the person who thinks that Republicans’ policies display wanton disregard for human life, but then, upon seeing that this indifference conflicts with opposition to abortion, comes to oppose Republican policies? It seems its sole purpose is to preach to the choir. To convince, in other words, those who are already convinced.
=====
I think you're right here that this argument is ineffective at convincing people to oppose Republican policies: as you say, anyone who agreed with the premises would already be opposed to Republican policies. But I think this sort of argument is directed at those who are already pro-choice Democrats, and is intended not to *convince* them but to help them *understand the motivations* of their opponents.
There are a few different things that could be true about the motivations of pro-lifers:
1. Pro-lifers are genuinely motivated by wanting to reduce the number of abortions, and banning abortions is in fact the most effective way to do that.
2. Pro-lifers are genuinely motivated by wanting to reduce the number of abortions, but are misguided: there are other policies (contraception, child care, etc.) that would reduce abortions even better, that they are not interested in.
3. Pro-lifers' claimed goal of reducing the number of abortions is entirely pretextual: their real goal is something else (like oppression, or controlling women, etc.)
Recall that pro-choicers' criticisms of anti-abortion laws are not *just* that they think people should be able to have the abortions, but that these laws cause problems even for people who *aren't* trying to have abortions (like people who are falsely accused of having had an abortion even though they really just had a miscarriage, or people who need an emergency abortion of a non-viable pregnancy and can't get it)
Now, the best strategy for pro-choice advocacy clearly depends on which of (1-3) is true. For instance, if (1) is true, maybe some compromise would be possible - you could try to design laws in such a way as to limit abortions while avoiding those other problems. If (2) is true maybe you could advocate for those other policies by framing them as ways to reduce abortions. But if (3) is true then there's no compromise to be had - the supporters actually like the bad side-effects of these laws - and so direct conflict is the only option.
(Of course, 'pro-lifers' are not just one group; maybe there are some people in each of (1-3), and that could depend on whether we are talking about the rank-and-file, about the politicians, or whatever.)
One way of stating that argument might be the following:
"Stuff like more funding for child care would be better for kids, and everyone who thinks about the issue should realize that. If Republicans were in category (1), they would support more child care. The fact that they're not shows they're in category (2) or (3) - and the fact that they're so consistently wrong about this sort of thing means they're probably not just making random mistakes, so (3) is more likely than (2). We should consider that when we develop our strategy."
Now, I don't know if I *agree* with this argument. Again, probably it depends on which particular Republicans you're talking about. But I think there's a point being conveyed that isn't just obvious slop.
(See this post for a similar discussion in the context of animal advocacy: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/23BjNccCdG9a3v8PD/the-good-the-bad-and-the-fair-cop . The author talks about negotiating with major corporations to change their animal welfare policies, and he talks about how assuming good faith and finding common ground is often an effective strategy, but sometimes corporations take advantage of this to string them along without any intent to actually improve things, so it can be necessary to pivot to a more confrontational strategy.)
I'm enjoying these last few posts
1) Doesn't this assume that audiences are showing up with expectation of being convinced, which is probably not true? Like if you were to claim McDonalds is doing a disservice by serving the exact same fries every day?
2) I think you are gesturing at loss of legitimacy and honestly the lack of enforcement on Epstein Island related events, with Epstein being a symbol for all of the corruption such as the Nancy Pelosi trading and Trumpcoin stuff, undercuts any argument that they even care about persuading anyone of anything.
politics doesn’t work according to the rules of analytic philosophy. it is about inflaming people’s passions. creating aesthetic experiences that appeal to based human emotions to illicit support or to demoralize your opposition.
Analytic philosophy also isn’t reasonable lmao