A bascule rant Pangloss can agree with (I hope)

[bascule]

I haven't been very welcome in Politics as of late. The reason, I believe, is because the ideas I wish to communicate require such an accumulation of baggage trivia that there's no way I can easily communicate them, and most of these topics Pangloss and I disagree upon.

 

So, I want to go off on a political rant, but rather than going off on one that will invite enmity, it will be one I think is simpler to express. Fundamentally, Pangloss and I are both libertarians, but while Pangloss is conservative (more of a traditional Libertarian) I am a "liberaltarian". I've experienced the dichotomy between these two types at places like Defcon, and it is a weird one, the sort of love hate relationship that can only stem from mutual understandings of so many ideas and mutual disagreements on so many others. What's funny is I have traditional Libertarian leanings in areas where Pangloss seems to have "liberaltarian" leanings (gun control, I believe). I proudly support any American's right to launch any projectile with any mechanism of his choosing, so long as the entire event is conducted on his property and does not affect the lives of others. Some of the happiest days of my life were spent collecting pure hydrogen off a Huffman apparatus, compressing it into 3L bottles, and igniting the mixture with a rocket igniter in order to launch paint buckets some 50 feet into the air (or more!)

 

Anyway, all of that said, here's what I have to say, concicely:

 

* Progressive, modernistic change in human society has increased the standard of living for some. The cost is at creating a destabilized condition at the lowest levels of society in terms of standard of living, in which an untold suffer and die due to deplorable conditions. However, while these deplorable conditions are a fact of life, they have always been, and in the past, the whole of society has been subject to nature's whims, before modern science and medicine were mostly able to tackle the ravages of mother nature and decrease, human suffering.

 

* Progressive, modernistic change occurs best in an environment in which evolution of dominant paradigms (memes!) is able to occur in conditions the most similar to the process of biological evolution by natural selection, i.e. unconstrained by outside, sentient forces manipulating the scenario for any sort of moralistic means.

 

* However (in pops the liberal in the liberaltarian, and the part where Pangloss will disagree), as humans we are moral and should seek to confine the naturalistic confines of our economic system solely to our economic system, and not let economic circumstances impact one's well-being. This means we must vicariously redirect the combined effort of mankind towards the collective well-being. So long as everyone remains in good health, sheltered, and afforded the bare necessities, business can fluorish and so can mankind's standard of living continue to upwardly evolve, following the same progressive trend all evolution over time has undergone to date. The burden of sustaining the collective health of mankind and fighting other moral inequities can be funded by the money reaped by the extremely wealthy, who have reached levels of economic success beyond the point of diminishing returns in terms of evolving the systems which hold society together. As has been repeatedly demonstrated by the overwhelming majority of the extremely wealthy, at this point they feel an obligation to give back what they have reaped from the system to mankind. After all, when you've accumulated more wealth than you can spend in a lifetime, would you rather leave your enormous wealth in the hands of an oligarchy of squandering heirs, or would you feel obligated to give your wealth to fight the remaining ravages of nature in the form of suffering from disease? Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet, have collectively given the massive amounts of capital they have expoited from a moralistically bankrupt system (whose moral bankrupcy ultimately does moral good!) to the causes of fighting malaria and HIV, two of mankind's greatest foes.

 

* The more I observe the system, the more I observe that, for the most part, it is self-balancing and any interference by me, in terms of tirades, may or may not drag it closer to the pattern upon which it is asymptotically converging. But then again, everything I say may ideed draw it closer. It is up to me to determine if what I say is drawing the system closer to the central pattern, or is a dissonant force pushing it away. Finding that balance is what all of humanity has collectively spent their time doing throughout all of recorded history.

 

* So I will continue to fight for universal healthcare, while recognizing that capitalism is the ideology which has built the modern world, and an ideology I wish to continue to perpetuate a rising standard of living which will ultimately lead us to the break-even point where we will finally have conquered all of the problems which nature has beset us with and begin a new golden age where we can live utopian lives without worrying about forces beyond our control, for we will have built a world where consciousness has completely conquered nature and we are free from all natural problems.

 

This point has been named the Singularity. That's not an apt term. A more apt term would be an event horizon. The knee of the curve...

[-Demosthenes-]

The reconciliation between Libertarianism and universal healthcare is not so difficult to understand. Libertarians believe that the government should do some things. The government has a military, police/fire departments, road maintenance, etc., (Ignoring the federal/state/municipal distinction for now). So we all think (almost all of us) that the government has some responsibilities.

 

So a libertarian is merely different in terms of degree, not kind. How much should the government do? And believing that the government should be responsible for the wellbeing of the citizens, universal healthcare makes sense.

 

Not to mention the money and bureaucracy involved in our current health care system. Subsidiaries, government aid, all of it costing two or three times it costs per capita in Canada (see table near bottom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada), and the thousands of individuals making decisions about who gets government money and who doesn't.

 

That is the libertarian’s fear.

[Pangloss]

It's true, I'm a big believer in "safety nets", for example. It's just (as Bascule indicated) that I draw the line at things like "a living wage" or any kind of putting people artificially on the same economic level, ignoring their actual contribution. In my view that won't help business to flourish, it'd just rob people of incentive. There's a reason so many Katrina "victims" are still in taxpayer-funded housing in an economy with under 4% unemployment.

 

But that having been said, I don't fail to see the value in Bascule's position, at least in terms of framing the debate and pointing the way towards compromise and progression. Just as there's a reason we still have faux victims, there's also a reason why we have so few people on public assistance and such great wealth today, and the "helping hand" is a valid part of that reason.

[john5746]

I am afraid we will have to change at the genetic level before this "singularity" works. Of course, by then we probably will have been monkeying with our genes and/or making artificial intelligent agents to replace us.

 

We are just animals. You take an animal and provide everything it needs, it eventually forgets how to provide for itself. Better to teach it how to provide for itself.

 

A safety net is required, especially for the children of the poor, but the goal is not to provide them with everything to be middle class. We should expect some hardships when asking for handouts. If I ever get very sick, I don't expect to live as well as I do now, heck I don't even expect that when I retire. I just hope that basic needs would be met, otherwise give me a gun.

[Pangloss]

By the way, I'm a big fan of Star Trek, and that "world" does have a lot of appeal to me, even though the "Federation" society would probably be viewed at as socialistic by today's standards. But I've always thought it interesting that while Starfleet captains and commanders run around telling everyone who will listen that their society is more enlightened than that of the 20th century, the truth is that their society is that way because of a dependence on replicators and warp drive. Technology solved their problems, not an evolved sense of morality.

 

And the most interesting race in the Trek universe is the money-loving Ferengi, who started out (while Roddenberry was still alive) as a mindless bunch of hooligans obsessed with wealth, but over time (after Roddenberry died) developed into an intelligent, motivated, and ethically advanced race. Go figure.

[Sayonara]

By the way, I'm a big fan of Star Trek, and that "world" does have a lot of appeal to me, even though the "Federation" society would probably be viewed at as socialistic by today's standards. But I've always thought it interesting that while Starfleet captains and commanders run around telling everyone who will listen that their society is more enlightened than that of the 20th century, the truth is that their society is that way because of a dependence on replicators and warp drive. Technology solved their problems, not an evolved sense of morality.

So much so that this was in fact used (under-used, imho) as a device in later episodes to show that it's easy to support such moral positions when your critical resources are essentially free.

 

In the context of this thread, I feel this is a lesson that is becoming increasingly more important in the developed world.

 

And the most interesting race in the Trek universe is the money-loving Ferengi, who started out (while Roddenberry was still alive) as a mindless bunch of hooligans obsessed with wealth, but over time (after Roddenberry died) developed into an intelligent, motivated, and ethically advanced race. Go figure.

The fate of all ST races which were introduced as "hostiles" but simply weren't credible as such.

[Pangloss]

(Yeah that was always a problem with Trek. Actually I may start a separate thread on "the politics of Star Trek" (and perhaps other entertainments) -- that could be interesting.)

 

Anyway, that's a well-put expression of what I was saying, about how it's easy to support moral positions when your resources are free. Often in entertainment that's played out in only the most extreme way -- people in desperate situations throwing morality away -- but I think there's a much more subtle effect on society over time.

[-Demosthenes-]

We are just animals. You take an animal and provide everything it needs' date=' it eventually forgets how to provide for itself. Better to teach it how to provide for itself.

 

A safety net is required, especially for the children of the poor, but the goal is not to provide them with everything to be middle class. We should expect some hardships when asking for handouts. If I ever get very sick, I don't expect to live as well as I do now, heck I don't even expect that when I retire. I just hope that basic needs would be met, otherwise give me a gun.[/quote']

 

The problem is that helping people only some of the time requires a larger bureaucracy and more money to maintain than a system that just supplies the services.

 

We have more government and spend more money than countries who practice "socialized medicine." It's been shown to shrink government bureaucracy and spending -- a conservative's dream.

[padren]

Bascule's sentiments mirror my own very closely, and I quite like the OP.

 

I also have high hopes for some star-trek ish society (if we aren't unrecognizable transhumans by then) and feel very strongly that technology is one of the key factors in an evolving morality.

 

Just imagine a little while in the future where vegitarian foods had the taste appeal and better nutrition and economic viability (including grown meats) than slaughter houses. I would bet that within 3 generations after the last slaughterhouse went out of business that contemporary society would be revulsed by the idea of how food was previously aquired.

 

 

Take human nature in an example of limited resources: A ship is sinking, there are 4 adults with one child each, and only one lifeboat that can only fit two people but requires an adult to be at least one passenger.

 

Each adult knows their child will die if they are not the ones on that boat, and you can't put your kid and someone elses in the thing. Would they draw straws? Would the loosers explain to their children that they will drown horribly because you pulled a straw of the wrong length?

 

Likely it would turn very ugly.

 

 

I think 95% of the dangerous side of human nature is tied up in feeling that the world is, to some degree, analogous to that situation. The truly molevolent types who would always be dangerous even in a utopia can only influence the world when they prey on the fears of more level headed people and convince them following them is safer for their children than not.

 

I would catagorize everything from freezing, to dying of disease, to being killed by violent humans as factors "elemental exposure" for lack of a better term.

 

As technology makes it easier for us to help others without hurting ourselves and isolates us from danger, I think we'll find out better nature showing a lot more than the darker side.

 

 

In short, I think "liberaltarianism" as Bascule puts it, is the best mix of freedom of adaption and removing the dangerous factors from society, by implementing things such as social nets that remove the fear of "elemental exposure" that drive most of crime, acts of violence and just about anything called a lesser of evils.

[Sayonara]

Just imagine a little while in the future where vegitarian foods had the taste appeal and better nutrition and economic viability (including grown meats) than slaughter houses. I would bet that within 3 generations after the last slaughterhouse went out of business that contemporary society would be revulsed by the idea of how food was previously aquired.

 

Will that make us a better society then?

 

What if it turns out that the flavour of steak is FEAR?

[padren]

Will that make us a better society then?

 

What if it turns out that the flavour of steak is FEAR?

 

I miss the FEAR reference - what do you mean by that?

 

Basically I do think it would make a better society, and that changes that increase empathy generally do. The main reason we suppress empathy is a feeling that whatever we are reacting to, while would be nice to avoid, is needed to survive.

This is why we usually have more empathy for victims of plane crashes than of wars.