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We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

erikmcclure.com

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Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#271

Post by nvm0n2 »

lloeki wrote: post #239
arp242 wrote: post #58

For a lot of things the problem is essentially a problem of scale. Those "ancient human tribes" who did so much better were tribes of 100-200 people, and it's actually not that hard to "do the right thing" with a relatively small group of people. Blaming it on the two-party system is such a short-sighted US-centric point of view. There are plenty of countries with other types of democracies, and they have roughly sim…

> Blaming it on the two-party system is such a short-sighted US-centric point of view. There are plenty of countries with other types of democracies, and they have roughly similar problems There are also plenty of countries with very close to somewhat different systems. Let's take France, where there are > 2 party - more like a dozen, of various sizes and shapes -, and where the president is a direct elect from the c…

That's not to do with the voting system. It's because political disagreement is almost always ideological disagreement, which is one dimensional. See Sowell's analysis in his book "Conflict of visions" for an explanation of why.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#272

Post by throwaway290 »

maxbond wrote: post #192
stale2002 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've recently seen a truly horrifying terrorist attack, and the response was as brutal as you would expect. Indeed. And the reason why such an attack happened is because the people who did the attack were the ruling government body of 2 million people for almost 2 decades, and were left to their own devices to build up a large scale attack, involving 1 thousand+ combatants. And in a few months, those combatants an…

Uhm, no, they are not the "ruling body," I think you should revisit the fundamental facts of the situation and reevaluate your perspective. To be frank your comment has a really disturbing undertone of bloodlust. I don't know a nice way to say that. You should really reexamine what your attitudes are here and how you came to them, this is not an appropriate way to discuss the deaths of thousands of people.

> Uhm, no, they are not the "ruling body," I think you should revisit the fundamental facts of the situation and reevaluate your perspective.

After Israel voluntarily withdrew its military and displaced all Jews out of Gaza, Hamas painted it as "powerful Hamas won" to get elected and since then is in fact the ruling party in Gaza territory (even if not very popular among the citizens there anymore for obvious reasons). What are the alternative facts?

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#273

Post by wizzwizz4 »

me_me_me wrote: post #263
fifticon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he was blaming it on the two-party system. He was just explaining how the two-party system is one of those obviously broken mechanisms that effectively blocks against replacing it with one of the better alternatives. The general category of issues he highlights, should be well known to people who have lived in and observed our real world and society for a while. It is possible to produce USB-C cables th…

> He was just explaining how the two-party system is one of those obviously broken mechanisms that effectively blocks against replacing it with one of the better alternatives I think this is self evident. How the hell US is heading to next Biden vs Trump. Again? How can anyone claim its that those are the best possible choices - or good choices? Trump is a fraud clearly claiming he is one and biden is barely capable…

> biden is barely capable to string two sentences together.

A speech impediment is not necessarily an impediment to governance ability. Please, criticise him for the things he's actually done wrong (being a politician, I'm sure those are many), not for a life-long disability.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#274

Post by bawolff »

dawnbreez wrote: post #259
bawolff wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, for example, a medical solution will be different in a country that practices medicine for profit over those places where medicine is non profit. There are some differences, but doctors still need to eat, equipment needs to be purchased, etc. Making medicine non profit isn't going to cure cancer.

"Non-profit" does not imply nobody gets paid. https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/guide-to-nonprofit-salar...

That's my point. Money still has to come from somewhere. Being a non-profit doesn't solve the problem of things costing money.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#275

Post by moring »

littlestymaar wrote: post #250
Telemakhos wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two unexamined assumptions in the article: first that the “we” in “we can solve everything” is synonymous with “government,” and next that “we” know the correct answers. The former is a very twentieth century notion. The identification of government with society (“we”) went hand in hand with the idea that government should have power in every domain of human life and co-opt or liquidate every competing auth…

> Governments have never solved many problems at all—-homelessness comes to mind North Korean dissidents in South Korea disagree strongly with your claim: several of them publicly expressed their shame to see such a rich country failing to fulfill this very basic human need when their super poor communist country of origin had no such problem. Homelessness is a society-wide self-inflected wound: it could be stopped i…

> Homelessness is a society-wide self-inflected wound: it could be stopped in a few years, but that would be landlord gentry's biggest nightmare.

I think you are making the same mistake as the author of the article. Can you describe the steps necessary to solve homelessness, without resorting to "steps" that simply describe a condition that won't be fulfilled, such as "people have to..." or "the government has to..."?

Or, in other words, let's assume that I want to solve homelessness. What do I have to do for that?

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#276

Post by nvm0n2 »

mikewarot wrote: post #157
maxbond wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re your edit, what disqualifies eg smartphone app permissions from being capabilities? As far as I can see - they literally are.

A capability is essentially a handle to a file or folder, chosen by the user at runtime using a "powerbox" (much like a file-open dialog). The OS doesn't give access to anything other that the files chosen by the user, so no matter how confused or evil the program, it's not going to have unauthorized side effects. Permission flags just flags, not capabilities.

Capabilities are strictly less secure than hard-coded permissions, because capabilities can be given away by confused deputies whereas fixed permissions cannot.

Capabilities also don't magically stop your app containing buffer overflows, SSO login problems, they don't make your users phishing-proof and in general they don't do a lot of anything. They're a useful API pattern that every OS already provides and has done for decades, but they're very far from a silver bullet.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#277

Post by jhbadger »

concordDance wrote: post #233
coldtea wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a lot of things the problem is essentially a problem of scale. Those "ancient human tribes" who did so much better were tribes of 100-200 people, and it's actually not that hard to "do the right thing" with a relatively small group of people. And yet other societies in the present do the right things in a lot of areas even with comparable groups of people. Not to mention today we have tools like the fast text,…

> Or rather most things are better in other western countries with big economies? Not sure which other countries you're thinking of, but each of then have their own issues. E.g. the UK has insane house prices and its rail is awful (I live here).

Yes, compared to many places in Europe (and even parts of Asia), UK's rail system is pretty bad. But it is still a practical way to get from city to city in the UK. In the US, except for the Washington-NYC-Boston corridor (and maybe the San Diego-Los Angeles route) it isn't really anymore. You can technically take a train from NYC to Chicago, but it will take you longer than the same train trip took 100 years ago! And insane house prices are very much a problem in the US as well.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#278

Post by imtringued »

Ragnarork wrote: post #262
arp242 wrote: post #58

For a lot of things the problem is essentially a problem of scale. Those "ancient human tribes" who did so much better were tribes of 100-200 people, and it's actually not that hard to "do the right thing" with a relatively small group of people. Blaming it on the two-party system is such a short-sighted US-centric point of view. There are plenty of countries with other types of democracies, and they have roughly sim…

I get the frustration of the author, but to me this article reeks of the "Cocktail Party Ideas"[0] syndrom. [0] https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/

It doesn't reek of that for me. The other extreme is to insist on genetic engineering to increase IQ so that we have more "geniuses" with "novel" ideas, when in reality those ideas have been known for a long time and just needed to be put into practice.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#279

Post by throwaway290 »

WalterBright wrote: post #153
throwaway290 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first sentence is correct but I don't think the second tracks. US is surrounded by massive bodies of water and has no land border with a hostile nation. Invading it is not very practical. The tendency of civilian population to carry weapons may be a bigger deterrent to invasion. It can sound cheeky but perhaps the biggest thing you have to show for it is overall more free and less murdery world thanks to people…

The US in WW2 invaded two other continents across oceans. Hitler thought the US wouldn't fight, and that the Soviet Union was too weak. Having a strong military and a willingness to fight, means you don't have to fight.

Are you alluding to Allies vs Axis? Because I don't think US have invaded a country unilaterally in that war.

It would be similar if Mexico/Canada/Cuba together declared war at US and then Russia joined them. Because then sure Russia can have a decent chance of successfully invading US across a sea and then strong military could make a difference. But Mexico and Canada won't and countries who could are inconveniently far. This is why I say lack of attempted invasions may be more thanks to good geopolitical situation and civilian population equipped for defense than strong military.

Re: We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

#280

Post by abenga »

Telemakhos wrote: post #208
moring wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author almost, but not quite, reached the point where they realize they contradict themselves: Claiming that socialized healthcare would cure cancer, but not explaining how to move the US to socialized healthcare (nevermind that countries with socialized healthcare haven't cured cancer either). Claiming that we could lay fiber cable to every house, but not how to actually do it. Claiming that an alternative votin…

There are two unexamined assumptions in the article: first that the “we” in “we can solve everything” is synonymous with “government,” and next that “we” know the correct answers. The former is a very twentieth century notion. The identification of government with society (“we”) went hand in hand with the idea that government should have power in every domain of human life and co-opt or liquidate every competing auth…

> ... competing authority like academia or media or church

These are beholden to themselves, their owners, and to a deity, while the government (in theory at least) is supposed to be beholden to the governed.

There are many problems solved by a government, it's easy to ignore them because we assume they are a given and only think about the marginal issues that ail us at present.

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