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The dictatorship of the articulate

florentcrivello.com

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Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#231

Post by fleddr »

rocgf wrote: post #188
fleddr wrote: post #176

https://florentcrivello.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/image... The chart in the article is nice fuel for the little conspiracy theory I've been internalizing for most of my adult life. Isn't it suspicious, this hard divide between our wants and our needs? Our wants (optional goods, luxuries) have gotten dramatically cheaper over time, an explosion of choice, high speed of innovation, accessible and affordable to a g…

This is not really the case everywhere. Healthcare and education are not drastically more expensive everywhere in the Western world. In Europe, these things have not increased in price to the same degree as the US and they are definitely more regulated than in the USA. Housing is probably a special case because it's an investment, and house owners vote and make decisions based on this.

Healthcare is too complex to settle on, because some disruptive variables are at play, like changes in demographics and highly complicated taxation schemes. I'm from Europe (Netherlands) and healthcare costs has risen by double digits for a long time now, whilst service only degrades.

So let's take education. After 30 years of internet, you'd expect it to be practically free by now. Instead it got exponentially more expensive as well as more bureaucratic.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#232

Post by plaguepilled »

hackerlight wrote: post #181
plaguepilled wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes everyone is aware that regulations are laws and can be implemented maliciously. We still need regulation despite those shortcomings. Regulations give people who have a stake in a given resource a seat at the table, even if they're not part of the regulated business' plans. The examples you gave have negative effects, but they also highlight how ill equipped the industries that have them are with dealing with some…

I see that we agree. Like you, I am a proponent of good regulations. My issue is with extremist views on regulations, which I now see that you don't hold. I rarely see people on the populist left advocating for specific bad regulations to be repealed or even refactored, unless it happens to clash with a hot button social issue they care about such as discrimination. It's the pragmatic center-left neoliberals who are…

While its common in the US and similar environments, I think that's not a helpful framing of political interests.

To be explicit, I think pinning things on the left or right gives people a way to characterise a problem which should be inspected analytically.

For example, painting climate change as a 'leftist' cause is not ideal. That's because calling it leftist is common tactic to paint climate scientists as comparable to marginalised groups (who are seen as easier to tease).

The issue here is that it detracts from the practicality of the climate action discussion (what are the bottlenecks for each option, vested interests and what to do, etc) and its in poor taste to the marginalised groups.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#233

Post by mburee »

wizofaus wrote: post #226
rwl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also a cost in human life. I saw a photo exhibition [1] about the construction of the Bay Bridge once, containing many beautiful shots from the point of view of the workers. The photos were taken by Peter Stackpole, a 20 year old kid who basically just talked his way onto the boats that took the workers out to the site. He took photos of the towers as they were being riveted together, of the cables being wo…

I find it pretty hard to believe "just letting workers die" was at all economically cheaper than having regulations in place to minimize that likelihood. The costs might be subsidised more heavily, but to just waste the years of training and effort that's put into ensuring we have skilled qualified workers (of any sort) is surely enormously expensive.

I suppose the more experienced (and more valuable I guess) knew most dangers and pitfalls and were better able to navigate amongst them. Some people also seem to be inherently more clumsy/likely to misstep/hurt themselves and they'd get sorted out sooner.

Not that that was any good, but I don't think enough builders died to make a difference in productivity.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#234

Post by dnrvs »

shaftoe wrote: post #198
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #156

This is what I consider the modern face of Fascism. I know you're not supposed to use that word, because it really upsets Fascists. But really, long passionately argued essays about how democratic governance is stopping us from returning to the good old days and we should let the powerful do whatever they want. Using dubious emotional arguments like laundromats can't be historic buildings? Calling things dictatorship…

Fascists believe in a strong authority. This article is arguing to have less of one, inherently more laisse faire. Democracy doesn't mean freedom. What you're describing is the modern face of communism. I know you're not supposed to use the word because it really upsets communists.

The article is arguing that the people the author agrees with should have more authority to do what they want and the people they disagree with should have less. And when those people won't leave then "we need to be okay ruffling some feathers". Sounds pretty fascist aligning to me.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#236

Post by ghastmaster »

brazzy wrote: post #212
ghastmaster wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was also a cost in human life. The article's first sentence, reads, "A few years ago, Silicon Valley was buzzing with the reverberations of Marc Andreessen’s epic essay, It’s Time To Build." Here's the main point of "It’s Time to Build" regarding the failures in response to the covid pandemic: "Part of the problem is clearly foresight, a failure of imagination. But the other part of the problem is what we did…

> Regulatory oversight is not necessary for safety to improve over time. You couldn't be more wrong. > I think history shows that as technology advances and people's standard of living increases, people become more risk averse. General knowledge also increases over time, decreasing the proclivity for humans to put themselves in risky situations. Except complexity increases faster than knowledge. It's flat out impossi…

Complexity increasing faster than general knowledge may be true, however, it is much easier for me to do assess safety with a search online for "death rate of copper vs coal miners" than it was in less complex times.

General knowledge has made people aware of complexities that warrant some investigation or questioning, before participating.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#237

Post by luma »

secretsatan wrote: post #123
rwl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also a cost in human life. I saw a photo exhibition [1] about the construction of the Bay Bridge once, containing many beautiful shots from the point of view of the workers. The photos were taken by Peter Stackpole, a 20 year old kid who basically just talked his way onto the boats that took the workers out to the site. He took photos of the towers as they were being riveted together, of the cables being wo…

Was going to say this, human life was cheaper. It's quite worrying to see now a trend trying to praise this attitude as fearless workers, where as the ones we have now are all wimps, views usually espoused by people who have never, and will never work a job that could be dangerous

This has never not been true, capitalists or politicians have always been happy to send someone else to be injured or die to make themselves rich. The article in the OP is shockingly ignorant of how regulations come to be, which makes sense as the author is just another hopeful capitalist willing to throw us all in the fire if he can make a buck.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#238

Post by layer8 »

V_9 wrote: post #143
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #91

There's a reason we don't just "let the builders build". We used to do that (certainly to a massively greater extent than we do now), and the result was that although a few of them managed to construct monuments we can all be proud of, most of them built a pile of crap and/or damaged the places they built in and the people they nominally built for. This is true of literal buildings, but it's also true of a great many…

I also thought this was going to be an article on the power of language

I was expecting something about articulate vocal minorities.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#239

Post by notahacker »

thrown_22 wrote: post #195
notahacker wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a certain irony in looking favourably at the building speed and cost of an era when Depression labour oversupply could get a bridge built quickly and cheaply (with only 11 construction deaths!) but the longstanding invention of running water didn't find its way into grandma's house until well into the second decade of her life. And even people with running water saw it collected straight from the same ri…

Spoken like someone who's never had to carry all their daily water from a well. Even if you can't drink tap water the fact that you don't need to carry the water for washing, bathing, cleaning, watering, etc. etc. etc. is an amazing improvement in quality of life.

Spoken like someone who didn't read the comment properly, or at all.

Building a big red bridge quickly isn't that much of a testament to the ability of people in the 30s to get stuff done if people in the 30s also spent their entire childhood drinking dirty well water because in many parts of the US people hadn't got around to implementing the ancient technology of piped water

Not going to lie, I'd pick the society where taps are standard but a bridge might take a long time to build over the one where the bridge building progresses more quickly but you'll be waiting 15 years to get a tap and need to boil what comes out of it.

Re: The dictatorship of the articulate

#240

Post by ABeeSea »

jfoster wrote: post #149
ABeeSea wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can always go back to letting insurers deny health care based on “pre-existing conditions.” I’d rather regulators deciding people shouldn’t be priced out of the healthcare market for having asthma or diabetes. Or go back before the (unfunded) EMTALA bill where uninsured people were told to just die in the hospital parking lot.

Perhaps the primary goal shouldn't be regulation or de-regulation, but ensuring affordable access?

Whatever mechanism the government uses to “ensure affordable access” would be a regulation. We’ve seen what fully unregulated healthcare looks like and it’s people dying in the streets.
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