The Fallacy of Human Freedom • Hacker News Board

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#61

Post by ef4 » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 9:42 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #57

ef4 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our nature is no less violent, our circumstances are merely better. Even if that's true, it has the same effect in the end. "Put people in a better environment, and they will behave better" is a radical, pro-progress statement that would have been unrecognizable to most societies. We're so infected with the progress meme that even people here arguing against it keep implicitly granting some of its premises.

How about this: take people out of a 'good' environment, and put them in a bad one, and they'll revert to primitive behaviour. This is something that has been observable even in recent times. In recent conflicts people have committed incredibly base behaviour, including cannibalism... http://documentarystorm.com/the-cannibal-warlords-liberia/ Technological 'progress' is not really progress, it's just an accumulation…

But if all our institutions and capital were wiped out, it would be appropriate for our behaviors to revert. That just proves that humans are extremely adaptable to changes in environment.

Which state shows our "true nature"? I would argue the concept is meaningless. Our current state is just as natural as any other.

To argue otherwise, you need to make theological assertions about humans being supernatural. A city is no less natural than a beehive, which is no less natural than a mountain.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#62

Post by ef4 » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 9:56 PM UTC

fusiongyro wrote: post #56

ef4 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our nature is no less violent, our circumstances are merely better. Even if that's true, it has the same effect in the end. "Put people in a better environment, and they will behave better" is a radical, pro-progress statement that would have been unrecognizable to most societies. We're so infected with the progress meme that even people here arguing against it keep implicitly granting some of its premises.

It's relevant because if people only behave better because they're in a better environment, you haven't really changed them. The goal is then dislodged from getting people more freedom and converted into creating better environments. It is easy to see how a goal of creating better environments could be hijacked to justify all kinds of unsavory political actions. And indeed it has been. Gray isn't implicitly granting…

> The goal is then dislodged from getting people more freedom and converted into creating better environments.

But freedom is a property of the environment. How would you possibly get someone more freedom without altering their environment?

I actually don't think Gray himself would agree with you. He thinks the whole idea of "increasing freedom" is illusory. He's not arguing against progressive politics in particular. He's arguing against (small "d") democratic politics in general. Even modern (economic) conservatives believe in progress -- they just see it coming from markets more than governments. Gray is opposing them too.

One doesn't need to believe in global optimality to still believe progress is possible. If you believe that a society without chattel slavery is definitely better than one that has it, you already concede that there is at least a partial ordering (in the mathematical sense) of "social goodness". That's all that's required.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#63

Post by ef4 » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 10:02 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #55

bjhoops1 wrote: post #54

A couple of thoughts: 1) A hard upper limit on the intellectual capacity of an individual human being does not directly necessitate a corresponding limit to the capacity of humanity as a whole. There are now reliable means of preserving past knowledge and experience, and population growth means more minds are available to ponder difficult problems. Interestingly, this is somewhat analogous to where we are today in co…

The capacity to aggregate the capabilities of individual humans is greatly improved, but the way we vote has not been adapted accordingly. All voting systems currently assume the capability of a voter to aggregate all the knowledge in the world into asingle rational decision. This is impossible, one person can never know enough to rationally vote on anyone or anything. We need a whole different kind of democracy, one…

You've just described the difference between central planning and markets. The biggest reason markets work is that they aggregate knowledge and propagate it throughout a society.

(Granted, there's plenty to criticize about the implementation of real markets. But if one wants to design a system for intelligently aggregating individual knowledge into globally beneficial outcomes, markets are the place to start.)

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#64

Post by s_baby » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 10:08 PM UTC

quadhome wrote: post #44

kijin wrote: post #16

> their core belief in progress is a superstition, further from the truth about the human animal than any of the world’s religions. If some someone thinks that the history of humanity has always been one of progress, that's an empirical claim that can be shown to be false. But most of the people who I think promote the idea of progress are actually not like that. The idea of progress is an ideal, not an empirical cla…

I think you may be arguing against a strawman. The article, as I read it, said Gray was arguing against the ideal of progress in the human individual. The hope that the individual will use reason and knowledge to improve themselves, the world around them, and act moral / just / rationally. The endgame being no need for power structures but instead responsible and free individuals. But, he's only addressing the indivi…

>We will forever trade our away our freedoms because the free individual will never be Good.

Freedom, and the pursuit of individual desires is a form of Good. The problem is this can come at the expense of others. The question is under what conditions do free individuals strive for an inclusive "Good" if any conditions at all.

>The endgame being no need for power structures but instead responsible and free individuals.

The endgame is the ideal of a self-actualized human being. In the same way a "free man" will see his own self-interest in the interests of his family and close ones so will a self-actualized person see their own self-interest in the interests of their communities and the world.

Re: The Fallacy of Human Freedom

#65

Post by fusiongyro » Wed, Jun 26, 2013, 10:59 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #62

fusiongyro wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's relevant because if people only behave better because they're in a better environment, you haven't really changed them. The goal is then dislodged from getting people more freedom and converted into creating better environments. It is easy to see how a goal of creating better environments could be hijacked to justify all kinds of unsavory political actions. And indeed it has been. Gray isn't implicitly granting…

> The goal is then dislodged from getting people more freedom and converted into creating better environments. But freedom is a property of the environment. How would you possibly get someone more freedom without altering their environment? I actually don't think Gray himself would agree with you. He thinks the whole idea of "increasing freedom" is illusory. He's not arguing against progressive politics in particular…

I hate to shout "semantics!" but I do think you're misappropriating (or perhaps correctly reappropriating) Gray's progress. Arguing for political change on the grounds that it will improve things is not an implicit acceptance of the doctrine of progress as he defines it. If it were, the doctrine of progress would necessarily be continuous with all change and therefore meaningless. He's clearly stating that classical governments predate the doctrine, so how exactly could they have experienced change and refinement otherwise? Pointing to the expectation of improvement after change generally and calling it progress strikes me as really massively overbroadening the definition and missing the point.

He's not arguing that democracy is bad and that distinctions do not exist. He's arguing that it is clearly not the pinnacle or final goal of some sort of ever-improving vision. He illustrates this by showing that there are plenty of times in history when a democracy turns into something else, and a few times where a democracy built on brutality is erected on the ashes of a more civilized government of some other flavor (monarchy, often). This is not anti-democratic because it isn't a judgement about democracy, it's a judgement about progress and history. It is an indictment of the doctrine of progress, because the doctrine cannot permit the idea that a monarchy be better than a democracy. If the case is being made that democracies are bad, I don't see it here. The point I'm seeing being made (forgive me if I missed something) is simply that while two governments can be compared, what makes one better than the other ultimately doesn't have as much to do with the ideology as the way it plays out in practice, and the two are often quite far from each other.

I haven't read Gray's book, but I'm quite excited about it and am looking forward to it because of this review. Most of the negative feedback I see here has an indignant air to it that I tend to associate with first contact with powerful ideas. I will end my comments here, since if I'm off-base I'm not going to get any closer until I read the book, but thanks for having the conversation with me. I do appreciate the clarity of your thought and your taking the time to share it with me. Thanks.