David Sklansky is an ACist

[madnak]

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Oh come on, you must at least concede they came pretty damn close.

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Defeating the armed resistance is a long way from successfully ruling the world. There's little question the Nazis would have done great harm, but I doubt they could have ruled much of anything for long. Their ideas were unsustainable. I also don't think they were half as close to winning the war as we tend to believe.

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So how do you explain that what is moral today is different than what was considered moral 50 years ago?

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He's talking about a "tit for tat" morality, which is universal. Some cultures have tried to stamp out this kind of morality, and all have failed. In many ways this is unfortunate; a standard of compassionate altruism would arguably be better for modern society than a standard of reciprocal altruism. The latter's what we're stuck with.

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I said in my footnote I'm using the term as it is used in evolutionary biology. If you don't like the term, choose another one.

There is a genetical basis for which you're able to create and absorb culture, but the culture itself, is not included in your genes, since by definition culture (again, in evolutionary biology) isn't genetical. You can take an american newborn and have it grow up in afghanistan, with an average family from there, and it's culture will be quite different than you'd expect from the son of american parents.

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The interactions of ideas and values in culture is arguably a selective process, and is therefore similar in many ways to (biological) evolution. The same standards apply.

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That's true as long as you accept that in many cases the foundation will be logically flawed. Also do consider that, as I said earlier and will probably end up repeating several times, for any such logical conclusion to be drawn, you must input preference/purpose/desire into the equation. Otherwise it's meaningless to think of ethics/morality.

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Of course. Logic moves from premises to conclusions, nothing more. Without moral premises, you can't get moral conclusions. At least, not logically.

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On the one part you're saying that we apply reason to determine which values/beliefs are most worthy of defending, and on the other you say that "nature will correct the mistake". You can have both, but in most cases it's either one or the other. Or more accurately, one of the two plays a much more important part than the other.

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"Important part" in what sense? Selective processes take a very long time, and are very inefficient. If a quick heuristic can serve as an effective substitute, so much the better. That's probably why we've developed the ability to absorb culture, rather than evolving specific cultures at a genetic level. But where shortcuts and rules of thumb fail, selection will almost always succeed. It takes longer, it's costlier, and it's riskier, but it's also more reliable.

On the other hand, the question of "success" isn't necessarily a question of what's good for us. In memetics, we aren't even sure what the standard is. And there's a chance that we'll go extinct before we find the "right" configuration - that's an integral part of selection, too. Sometimes it doesn't correct, sometimes it just terminates. So I don't think apathy is defensible. Particularly since social perspectives are themselves memes that work within a selective context. I agree it's silly to say "apathy is fine, because selection will solve our problems" - apathy may be selected against (let's hope so).

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Without bias (in the way I meant by "bias"), there can be no ethic or morality.

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I go further. I think bias informs every human action to some degree. Not all ACists buy into praxeology.

[madnak]

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But there are certain things (i.e. theft, rape, murder) that are so extreme where it's simply wholly unreasonable to think there could ever exist enough mitigation where someone with the human condition could rightfully conclude it is good.

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Except that many societies have concluded that all three of these actions are "good." Never across the board, but often under cirtain conditions (and almost always when perpetrated against "the enemy"). Many societies have also failed to consider these actions particularly "extreme" - heresy and treason have typically been considered far worse.

And how is theft extreme? Hell, theft is part of how capitalism works - some theft is actually healthy, think about the security industry. And some theft helps maintain equilibrium - poverty encourages theft, which is a big part of why poverty is probably selected against.

[madnak]

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Six cats. One African Grey. They only watch.

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Heh. I'll bet they do.

[tame_deuces]

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Oh come on, you must at least concede they came pretty damn close.

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Defeating the armed resistance is a long way from successfully ruling the world. There's little question the Nazis would have done great harm, but I doubt they could have ruled much of anything for long. Their ideas were unsustainable. I also don't think they were half as close to winning the war as we tend to believe.


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Let me just add to this portion of the post, simply because it is a subject that is very interesting to me. Not many who knows their history thinks Germany came close to winning the war, and in informed military and political circles around 39-40 many said germany could at a maximum last 5-10 years simply due to financial issues (a bad side-effect of this was that not many expected germany to go to large-scale war, and if you read contemporary sources...you will probably find that was not the belief in germany at that time either, and that the whole large scale thing was most likely a mishap).

Not that is in any way takes away from what happened. They waged war, they were bloody good at doing it and the scale of the war is simply unbelievable and all honour to those who fought them back and made victory possible.

[ALawPoker]

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Except that many societies have concluded that all three of these actions are "good."

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Well what do YOU think? Just because some society somewhere has concluded something, that makes the conclusion correct? I thought the whole point of progress and assessment was that we can correct our mistakes.

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Never across the board, but often under cirtain conditions (and almost always when perpetrated against "the enemy").

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Harsh times call for harsh measures I guess. At least that's superficially what our instincts tell us. I'd say we have this bias because over the course of our evolutionary journey when you did not succeed, there was no "next time." But today, when you logically analyze certain situations, it is clear to me that there exist certain "harsh measures" that will always do more harm than good to you (the actor) in the long run.

Look at the Middle East for example. You know, [censored] Iran, [censored] Iraq. They're archaic [censored] whose best interest I couldn't care less about. But I support leaving them the hell alone not because I give two [censored] about some Iranian's wellbeing, but because I know that in the long run intervention will do me more harm than good (even if my superficial instincts tell *me* to hit the nuke button).

It's really amazing how often what is "moral" is also to your rational best interest. If I didn't know better, I'd think this universe had a sense of order or something.

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And how is theft extreme?

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No need to dwell on my word choice. I merely meant that theft as a societal norm is bad in all circumstances that involve human beings.

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Hell, theft is part of how capitalism works - some theft is actually healthy, think about the security industry.

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Think about what the people providing those services might contribute instead if there was not a demand to prevent theft. Capitalism provides a *solution* to a problem; do you really think it's a good thing that some of capitalism's effort is bogged down with preventing theft rather than, say, solving the problem of making my television set an inch bigger and a C-note cheaper?

I fail to see why the fact that theft occurs is a good thing just because people have found a solution. The health industry is a good thing in the sense that it's a solution to a problem; but heart attacks still suck.

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And some theft helps maintain equilibrium - poverty encourages theft, which is a big part of why poverty is probably selected against.

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Poverty is selected against (if that's even the case right now, which I would say is a big long shot in Western societies, but that's beside the point) because people who are poor are more likely to die and less likely to reproduce.

And yes, if I have 10 dollars and you have 3 dollars and you steal 2 of mine, you've helped move towards fiscal "equilibrium." I fail to see why this is a good thing, since I think more utility will occur when you earn rather than take your 2 dollars.

[foal]

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How'd this thread lose its gusto? I'm still waiting for ALawPoker to show us the error of our ways.

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I tried responding to you, but I had computer trouble and lost the post. I can recreate the reply if you want, but I'm a bit busy now, so let me know if you're still interested before I do so and I'll reply later on.

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I'm still interested, but wont take it as a duck if you opt not to.

[Borodog]

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It is not a coincidence that the most internally liberal socities generally come to dominate the world

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So the nazis were intenally liberal?

Hmm.

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I must have missed the part where the Nazis came to dominate the world.

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Oh come on, you must at least concede they came pretty damn close.

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No, they didn't. And to answer your original question, yes Germany was more internally economically liberal during the 1930s than the United States, in that Hitler correctly allowed wages and prices to fall rather than maintaining artificially elevated wages and prices, as Roosevelt did in the U.S., causing huge unemployment. But other than that, Hitler's economic policy wasn't that much better than Roosevelt's. In fact, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Roosevelt were all pretty close to each other ideologically and policy wise. When their socialist economic policies were wreaking terrible damage, Hitler blamed the Jews and Roosevelt blamed the capitalists. Roosevelt's top economic edvisor was a Marxist who wrote glowingly of Joseph Stalin while his policies were starving millions of Ukranians to death. As late as 1940 Roosevelt was still publicly praising Mussolini's economic policies. Mussolini, Hitler and Roosevelt all resorted to corporatist (i.e. fascist) control of their national economies through government-enforced cartelization of industries (i.e. nominally private owners heavily controlled and regulated by the government), whereas under Stalin there was national control of industries through nationalization, the outright government ownership of industry. All called for autarchic national self-sufficiency and heavy control and restrictions on international trade, including government managed international barter replacing international free trade based on the gold standard.

But really there was never any real question of these countries coming to dominate the world. None could match the productive capacities of the United States and its enormous capital stock built on hundreds of years of much freer internal markets.

The world comes to be dominated culturally by internally liberal societies because liberal economic policy leads to exponentially greater capital accumulation and productivity. But these nations also have governments, which are inherently violent and aggressive. Having much more internal wealth to plunder to finance international aggression allows such nations to externalize the costs of much grander imperialist adventures. This has been the story with the Romans, the Spanish, the British, and of late, the United States.

[foal]

LALawPoker,

These two quotes seem inconsistent:

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But there are certain things (i.e. theft, rape, murder) that are so extreme where it's simply wholly unreasonable to think there could ever exist enough mitigation where someone with the human condition could rightfully conclude it is good.

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Well what do YOU think? Just because some society somewhere has concluded something, that makes the conclusion correct? I thought the whole point of progress and assessment was that we can correct our mistakes.

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Are you conceding that the first one is incorrect?


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It's really amazing how often what is "moral" is also to your rational best interest.

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This doesn't seem at all the case to me. I think you're mistakenly linking an individual's best interest with society's best interest.

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Look at the Middle East for example. You know, [censored] Iran, [censored] Iraq. They're archaic [censored] whose best interest I couldn't care less about. But I support leaving them the hell alone not because I give two [censored] about some Iranian's wellbeing, but because I know that in the long run intervention will do me more harm than good (even if my superficial instincts tell *me* to hit the nuke button).

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Heh, you seem like a nice guy (no offense).

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people who are poor are more likely to die and less likely to reproduce.

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Poor people reproduce more.

[Nielsio]

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It is not a coincidence that the most internally liberal socities generally come to dominate the world

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So the nazis were intenally liberal?

Hmm.

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I must have missed the part where the Nazis came to dominate the world.

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Oh come on, you must at least concede they came pretty damn close.

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No, they didn't. And to answer your original question, yes Germany was more internally economically liberal during the 1930s than the United States, in that Hitler correctly allowed wages and prices to fall rather than maintaining artificially elevated wages and prices, as Roosevelt did in the U.S., causing huge unemployment. But other than that, Hitler's economic policy wasn't that much better than Roosevelt's. In fact, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Roosevelt were all pretty close to each other ideologically and policy wise. When their socialist economic policies were wreaking terrible damage, Hitler blamed the Jews and Roosevelt blamed the capitalists. Roosevelt's top economic edvisor was a Marxist who wrote glowingly of Joseph Stalin while his policies were starving millions of Ukranians to death. As late as 1940 Roosevelt was still publicly praising Mussolini's economic policies. Mussolini, Hitler and Roosevelt all resorted to corporatist (i.e. fascist) control of their national economies through government-enforced cartelization of industries (i.e. nominally private owners heavily controlled and regulated by the government), whereas under Stalin there was national control of industries through nationalization, the outright government ownership of industry. All called for autarchic national self-sufficiency and heavy control and restrictions on international trade, including government managed international barter replacing international free trade based on the gold standard.

But really there was never any real question of these countries coming to dominate the world. None could match the productive capacities of the United States and its enormous capital stock built on hundreds of years of much freer internal markets.

The world comes to be dominated culturally by internally liberal societies because liberal economic policy leads to exponentially greater capital accumulation and productivity. But these nations also have governments, which are inherently violent and aggressive. Having much more internal wealth to plunder to finance international aggression allows such nations to externalize the costs of much grander imperialist adventures. This has been the story with the Romans, the Spanish, the British, and of late, the United States.

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Why did you edit out the Dutch?

[ALawPoker]

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LALawPoker,

These two quotes seem inconsistent:

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But there are certain things (i.e. theft, rape, murder) that are so extreme where it's simply wholly unreasonable to think there could ever exist enough mitigation where someone with the human condition could rightfully conclude it is good.

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Well what do YOU think? Just because some society somewhere has concluded something, that makes the conclusion correct? I thought the whole point of progress and assessment was that we can correct our mistakes.

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Are you conceding that the first one is incorrect?

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No. Far from it. People can, have, and always will make mistakes. The pleasant side, though, is that we can, have, and always will (tend to) learn from our mistakes.

If you disagree with my first quote, then I suppose you're willing to explain to me why societal norms such as rape, theft, or murder could be good?


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It's really amazing how often what is "moral" is also to your rational best interest.

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This doesn't seem at all the case to me.

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I think you're confused by a lot people (think: religious zealots) telling you things are "immoral" when they in fact are not. I reserve the term "moral" for things that I actually believe would be -EV in all situations. And even still, "moral" is an empty word to me. What's "immoral" is immoral because it can be demonstrated to be bad in its own right; not because it "is" some word. By definition (my definition anyways) something could not possibly be moral if it wasn't to my practical best interest.

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I think you're mistakenly linking an individual's best interest with society's best interest.

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Last time I checked, society was nothing more than a group of individuals; all with slightly different preferences and concerns. Where's the mistake?

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Look at the Middle East for example. You know, [censored] Iran, [censored] Iraq. They're archaic [censored] whose best interest I couldn't care less about. But I support leaving them the hell alone not because I give two [censored] about some Iranian's wellbeing, but because I know that in the long run intervention will do me more harm than good (even if my superficial instincts tell *me* to hit the nuke button).

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Heh, you seem like a nice guy (no offense).

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I'm honest. Would you rather I say I care about some Iranian I've never met when in fact I don't?

And LOL: Re-reading my quote there, I actually meant to put the *'s around the first 'me' in that sentence. The emphasis looks so ridiculous where I put it. But hopefully the intended point was not convoluted.

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people who are poor are more likely to die and less likely to reproduce.

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Poor people reproduce more.

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Hence, why I said it's a big long shot that such is actually the case. You took out the "if" part of my response that I included in parenthesis. Thanks for cherry picking a portion of a quote that's silly and irrelevant to the discussion anyways. Though, in your case you seem like someone who is sincerely looking for answers and honest debate, and I doubt it was done maliciously.