Plans you're not supposed to talk about • Hacker News Board

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#641

Post by quantum_solanum » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #630

DarylZero wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free markets are a game with rules set by the government. "Without using force or fraud" just means not breaking the rules of the game set by the government. It's a very deceptive way to describe rule-following. It implies a very idealistic, unrealistic vision of what those rules are and how they are made. The people who benefit most from the rules control the system, making sure rules don't change. The benefit they…

> just means not breaking the rules of the game set by the government You can make up your own definitions of things as you like. It's a common rhetorical device to divert a conversation into a swamp. Me, I'll stick to commonly understood meanings.

that's literally YOUR own definition, as you said elsewhere in the thread

> Free markets require a working police and justice system

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#642

Post by vkou » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 2:36 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #639

UncleMeat wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still sounds like a revolution to me. If we get to simply exclude all of the successful and largely bloodless ones, then of course revolutions are messy and risky. It is that way by definition!

> That still sounds like a revolution to me. The term "revolution", while it does not have to imply bloodshed, does imply some kind of struggle involved. My point about what happened in the countries of Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union fell was that there was no struggle at all, not even a bloodless one. Everyone just said "about time" and went about the business of running their own countries.

And by definition, the bloody revolutions would not have been bloody if the people in charge just acquiesced to the demands of the revolutionaries, and gave up without a fight.

This is absolutely a case of survivorship bias.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#643

Post by triceratops » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 2:45 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #380

vkou wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, most revolutions of the modern age has resulted in somewhat of a worse outcome for the citizenry. 'Most' revolutions of the modern age were anti-colonial revolutions, in places like India and Africa, in the aftermath of WWII. Life under colonial rule in those places was, as a rule of thumb, not great. We then had a large string of revolutions in Eastern Europe, in the late 80s/early 90s[1]. Would you also…

A war of independence is a quite different thing than a revolution! For one thing, when it's won, the losers go back home. After a revolution, they stay around. Which is you often end up killing them.

The American Revolution and the American War of Independence are synonymous.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#644

Post by chernevik » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 2:45 AM UTC

akiselev wrote: post #328

llbeansandrice wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I'm being too US-centric but I feel like you at-best mean conservatism with a lower-case 'c'. Even then the very definition of conservatism explicitly avoids any change: > commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation I've never known conservatism to be anything except opposition to change as that's the most conservative thing you can generally do: nothing.

Even in the US that's a very uncharitable interpretation of conservatism that sounds like something I'd say in the heat of a Thanksgiving dinner argument. The more charitable one is called "progressive conservatism". Progressive conservatives believe, among other things, that "instant change is not always the best and can sometimes be damaging to society, therefore cautious change that fits in with the nation's socia…

Lincoln took great care to root his arguments against slavery in the principles of the Founding Fathers.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#645

Post by chernevik » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 3:09 AM UTC

It's very clever. But if you think Mao was some benevolent genius modernizing his people with a sly trick, you need to read more history.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#646

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 3:30 AM UTC

codeisawesome wrote: post #407

csours wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good form is protective, the bad form just normalizes something that is common at the time. Is there any particular reason a woman cannot lead a prayer? Is there any particular reason why we exchange work for money? Is there any particular reason why not to eat pigs? For each of those, the answer may be yes or no depending on your time and place. The reason yes or the reason no may also be different.

> the bad form just normalizes something that is common at the time. Exactly. I think there should be a blanket negative to customs, practices or systems that objectively cause harm. It would be reprehensible to see someone try to defend, say, Female Genital Mutilation… using “Chesterton’s Fence”. Just don’t fucking do it to people; stop doing it right now, the “why” might be for anthropologists to ponder at a later…

[deleted]

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#647

Post by pdonis » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 4:58 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #642

pdonis wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That still sounds like a revolution to me. The term "revolution", while it does not have to imply bloodshed, does imply some kind of struggle involved. My point about what happened in the countries of Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union fell was that there was no struggle at all, not even a bloodless one. Everyone just said "about time" and went about the business of running their own countries.

And by definition, the bloody revolutions would not have been bloody if the people in charge just acquiesced to the demands of the revolutionaries, and gave up without a fight. This is absolutely a case of survivorship bias.

> by definition, the bloody revolutions would not have been bloody if the people in charge just acquiesced to the demands of the revolutionaries, and gave up without a fight.

In other words, if the actual facts had been different, we would use a different word to describe what happened. Yes, indeed. That's why we have different words: to capture meaningful differences in the facts we are using the words to describe. If we simply called every change in government a "revolution", the word would be useless.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#648

Post by esyir » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:03 AM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #547

esyir wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the point though? The implied meaning of Chesterton's fence is simply: Understand the root motivation that belies a rule/norm/etc before you contest it.

A big problem is that people don't agree on the root motivation. I believe that policies against women being religious leaders is based in historical misogyny. But if you go ask people in these organizations, they'll say that women are fundamentally less capable of leading religious groups and that God made this rule for a reason. What do you do then? I'm pretty darn sure that the stated reason is not actually true a…

I don't see how that's an issue.

You can take their argument at face value, then deconstruct it and refute piecemeal.

Rationalisations generally fall apart under further scrutiny, and if they don't, then maybe they aren't just rationalisions after all.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#649

Post by vkou » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:28 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #647

vkou wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And by definition, the bloody revolutions would not have been bloody if the people in charge just acquiesced to the demands of the revolutionaries, and gave up without a fight. This is absolutely a case of survivorship bias.

> by definition, the bloody revolutions would not have been bloody if the people in charge just acquiesced to the demands of the revolutionaries, and gave up without a fight. In other words, if the actual facts had been different, we would use a different word to describe what happened. Yes, indeed. That's why we have different words: to capture meaningful differences in the facts we are using the words to describe.…

My point is that when a revolution starts, the participants have zero idea of whether or not its going to be bloody or relatively bloodless. If you're going to condemn revolutions as a whole, you have to condemn the bloodless ones as well, for that same reason.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#650

Post by jjoonathan » Thu, Dec 16, 2021, 5:43 AM UTC

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #546

underwater wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that the definition of progressivism is, literally "support for or advocacy of social reform", while conservatism is "seeks to promote and to preserve traditional social institutions." If you want to see social change, then you're progressive. How you think that should happen -- whether it is measured or radical -- is secondary.

Under that definition, a self-proclaimed libertarian would be a progressive, as would someone who wants to replace public schools with religious institutions. A neocon, who wants to forcefully bring democracy to a foreign country, would be a progressive in that country. Perhaps different terms are more useful.

A terminology zoo is helpful when you want to encode additional information about political context, but if you're trying to draw parallels then less is more. In this case, "keep the status quo it might be important" and "ditch the status quo it might be the cause of our problems" are battle lines that get drawn again and again and again over many different issues under many different circumstances. It makes sense to draw the parallel.