Shiny stuff and designer societies

[Lodewijk andré de la porte]

I rather like this calmer tone. It makes it much easier to think about what
you're saying.

2015-10-30 22:32 GMT+01:00 Juan <juan.g71 at gmail.com>:

> On Thu, 29 Oct 2015 22:23:39 +0100
> Lodewijk andré de la porte <l at odewijk.nl> wrote:
>
>
> >         So a criminal monopoly is going to define what 'justice' is,
> > >         and enforce it, too.
> > >
> >
> > What's worse, it'll redefine criminal!
>
>         Of course. So, why should any sane person support such a
>         system?
>

Because it helps you. Consistently applied and effective justice reduces
the crime rates. By defining crime to be behaviors that are:

* Game theory wise bad - like driving (very) fast being good for you, bad
for everyone else. Or contract enforcement - having serious enforcement
even for less valuable contracts is very hard (=expensive) to do. The edge
of acceptable is sought, and usually differs significantly per person.
(Asbestos processing company CEO saying it's a good thing workers are
unaware of the dangers, it makes for greater profit, and therefore prevents
informing the workers. Past the line? Maybe, but it was legal and didn't
cause public retaliation*)

* Fragile but preferable - no petty theft (like jackets) makes it much
easier to be in shared spaces, but any enforcement is more expensive than
the jacket stolen. It's very hard to prevent petty theft. But also
shoplifting, being honest about products (Volkswagen's lies might've forced
other manufacturers to perform fraud), etc

* Simply too unkind - fraud, murder, serious harassment (although the
border is hard to place), theft of freedom (rape is both harassment and
theft of freedom), (not all but many ways of) causing pain or injury, etc

I think it's important to create law that's conservative and very morally
and ethically neutral. For me that's the difference between being a force
for evil and a force for good.

I ran into a fascinating example yesterday, a group of women was mad a
friend for leaving without saying she would (which is a strange thing to
do, why not say bye?), and for leaving with a guy although she has a
boyfriend. I don't know her boyfriend arrangement, or how they're doing,
but seemingly that made no difference in the first place. They were forming
a loyal monogamy cartel! They did not respect their friend's ethical/moral
choice. But I can't say it was entirely unreasonable, if she claimed to be
exclusive to the guy it's probably very unkind.

To clarify; this was a case of micro-oppression. Their friends were clearly
intend on excluding her and otherwise sanctioning her for her behavior,
although her behavior was, well, her conscious choice. They could've
decided not to care about her, and they wouldn't be upset about her
leaving. But they cared and sanctioned instead. If you don't like a person
you should attempt to disconnect and isolate first, I think.

I think justice should not depend upon ethics very much at all. If it does
it should incorporate the ethics of those involved into it's judgement, but
if you do this justice will become arbitrary complex and faults are likely.
(faulty justice is severe unkindness)

* justice increases the cost of retaliation - this is one of the biggest
disadvantages. An eye for several eyes might seem pretty reasonable as for
retaliation, but we punish this severely everywhere now. (I'd prefer not
wasting an eye) (real world: you may not stop NAM - a Dutch natural gas
company - from draining so much gas beneath the earth underneath your feet
that the earth gives way and fills the void with your house, because the
gas draining is legal, because it's hard to estimate the risk of pumping
the gas, and because it's very profitable (maybe worth more than the house
anyway))

>         You can keep repeating absurd, mainstream propaganda without
> > >         any regard to logic, but what's the point? What can you
> > >         achieve?
> > >
> >
> > Complex agreements, abstaining from violence, huge organizations, etc.
> > These are valuable, aren't they?
>
>         Abstaining from violence? States are the most violent
>         organizations on the planet.


It's a fucking for virginity kind of thing. And it's because our states are
so well matched - you need only be comfortably more armstrong than the
other wrestlers. (why that means you need to be able to nuke the entire
enemy a few times over, even after considering countermeasures, well, uhm,
we all make mistakes. Either that or the propaganda lies about the
countermeasures' effectiveness! So, is the USGOV incompetent or shrewd? )


> As to the complex arrangements
>         that can exist in a society, you don't need the state to
>         have them.
>

True, but we have made it far easier by ways of state. Certain arrangements
are impossible without an allmighty third party. For example, you will
never expend 100 euro's to retrieve 50. So, a promise of paying 50 euro's
is not a very good promise if there's no cheaper way of enforcing that
payment. This is often possible, through reputation or the like, but not
always, and it's always difficult (=costs).

Having a third party say "I'll suffer any expense, and I sure can, to
ensure the enforcement of this promise, and will be sure punish the
violator severely", means the total enforcement cost becomes 0 - not even a
fool will challenge an adversary that truly means that.

That entity needn't be the state, but it's better the more
disproportionately powerful it is. Also because of vagueness. In "maybe
more powerful" situations a test of power is sometimes required. And if
there's more than two powerful parties they will weaken oneself with such a
test. (what doesn't kill you wounds you still)


>         It's also debatable why huge organizations are 'valuable'.
>

Economies of scale is one reason. The other is singular ginormous efforts.
The pyramids are an example, but also the space race, this boat
<https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Barzan_%28ship%2C_2015%29_03.jpg>,
terraforming projects, and huge softwares too. And soon astroid mining,
space solar, eradication of certain diseases, etc, etc, etc, etc

Not just commerce; CERN is awesome!

(but big is also scary)


> > Ideally, there's a political game that is able to generate
> > "appropriate" political choices. It's not a republic, a trade union,
> > tribal understandings, etc, etc, per se, but there's always something.
> >
> > Without this system we are screwed anyway.
>
>
>         That's vague. What system are you alluding to, and who is 'we'?
>

It's tricky. I meant that, one way or another, we arrive at "political"
decisions. One could say that the parts involved in arriving at that
decision are a system. If the system sucks, we're screwed.

It's much better to have a system that generates "appropriate" choices.
Sometimes the right choice is undefined, but a choice must be made still.
For example; a carbon emission auctioning system, which is the right choice
given Capitalism, Game Theory and something bad increasing with carbon
emission, is not implementable without filling out an essential parameter,
how bad do we accept things to get?

Like, maybe I'm okay trading an "idyllic truly empty desert" for "cesspool
of all things poisonous" if we profit a lot from it. ( if value of desert <
value of cesspool + value of profit.) CNGOV decided that was a good trade,
and I (strongly) agree. The BBC
<http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth> did
not. (lake here
<https://www.google.com/maps/place/40%C2%B037'32.9%22N+109%C2%B040'10.1%22E/@40.6257967,109.66948,5179m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0>
)

(game theory and fluctuating public opinion makes natural protection not a
good thing to leave to markets)


> If we do have that system
> > we *should* use it.
>
>         Statism? That system is designed to benefit special interests.
>         Unless you belong to some special faction, it won't do you any
>         good.
>

I meant, if we have a good way to generate general interest choices (or,
idk, "appropriate" interest choices) then we should use it.

I think the "special interest" should be humanity as a whole, averaged with
SUM(PERSON_i)


> > And we can use it to determine the absolute widest boundaries of what
> > is permitted, boundaries which you may not wander out of.
>
>         Determine, how?
>

Through the political system. It depends on the system of course.

Related;
I think we can produce a formal logic for politics. It can model the
effects of a policy choice, and project them into a single dimension. The
single dimension is "desirability" or "euro's", it's supposed to be the
same thing anyway.

It'll be very challenging to do that formal logic properly. I don't think
it's useful in every situation. Mapping is easy for economic situations,
but very hard for emotions.

Particularly challenging would be, say, family law. When is it reasonable
to split a family? When Suffering_family < Suffering_society? Not if you
prefer to leave people alone, then it's Suffering_family + neutrality_bias
< Suffering_society. Also, both Suffering_family and Suffering_society will
be the results of combining a very large amount of factors.

One could model the amount of coercion upon an actor, how much a tax
exemption would create incentives.

I'm sorry for not having good examples. My understanding of formal logic is
not that great, and I haven't actually tried to model a government's
considerations. I think formal logic is the successor of "legalese", harder
to speak and read, but once the mapping and relating is done the reasoning
is absolute. Much easier to find mistakes, be precise, and much harder to
make mistakes regarding governance.

(note: formal logics dealing with fuzziness are even much harder to
write/read, but will be a definite must)


> > We can produce incentive schemes, to encourage the correct behavior.
>
>         What is the 'correct' behaviour?
>

For the system's actors to behave as they should, as determined by the
system. In a republic a politician is intended to act in the best interest
of its supporters. Businesses can at times provide great enough incentive
to causes them to act otherwise.


> > In fact, if the system works it needs no restrictions.
> >
> > We've yet to find a system that works.
>
>         Define 'works'.
>

Does what it says on the tin.


> > >         Come on Lodewijk. Why don't you do your homework? Learn the
> > > ABC of poltical theory.
> >
> > I tried doing homework, but the books were full of propaganda.
>
>         Well yes, there are varying levels of propaganda in political
>         philosophy. There are some sound principles too.
>
>         You think people should be free, and things organized according
>         to 'market principles' in some areas, but not in others.
>         Problem is, being 'free' to follow arbitrary rules isn't
>         exactly freedom.
>

Freedom is not very strongly defined anyway. It means you can't be "forced"
to do something, but it's very rare for death not to be an alternative
choice. Reality narrows our choices most significantly, but through law and
enforcement we can change the "economic landscape" and cause what once was
the best choice ('deepest valley') to become only meh, or very not good
('high ridge'). I guess freedom is when you have no (clear) optimal
choices, which isn't actually preferable.

But I think we understand people so badly that it's better to make them
responsible for their own mistakes, rather than sometimes make a wrong
choice for them. As our understanding of "the human condition" grows, so
does our ability to make choices that are actually better according to
certain measures (certain measures because nihilism informs clearly that
nothing truly matters). Perhaps freedom is being allowed to choose the
measure.

Mathematically it makes sense to have competition and free markets. In
practice the actors do not obey perfectly, and cause a lot of reality.
Additionally, while a market is finding it's optimum (the best way to do a
certain thing) competition actually has significant cost. Sometimes reality
shifts faster than markets anneal, and we get stuck with a lot of
competition instead of expediting that energy to moving towards the ideal
solution. (also game theory)


> > Do tell me Juan, how do we prevent a "criminal monopoly"? Isn't it
> > better to make a very good "criminal monopoly"?
>
>         Literally? A very good criminal monopoly would excel at being
>         criminal. I don't think that's what you want?
>

There you go using criminal as if it means something :)

Uhm, the ideal criminal monopoly, to me, would be criminal enough to ensure
it's own existence, and do things I like as well. Like advancing humanity.
(competing with the aliens that might already be underway, or finding a way
for them to want to join our superior political system so we may advance
together against yet more aliens that might not exist, and then to delay
the heat death of the universe, I suppose)


> > > > But, there is no nations.
> > >
> > > Ah, so your monopoly of crime is going to tyranize the whole
> > > planet. Cute.
> > >
> >
> > The system spans the globe, the crimes are all the peoples'.
>
>
>         Whatever. A world state is a pretty bad idea.
>

Depends on what it does. It sure beats having competing governments.
Racism, inflation and excessive military power are what you get, not much
more afaik. (and replication of efforts)


> > I have the right because I can. Powers *are* rights.
>
>         That's not what 'right(s)' means. Or rather that's the kind of
>         'rights' that governments rely upon. Arbitrary dictates backed
>         by force.


Rights are defined by government, a self restraint alike "I'll never drink
again". But I don't think that's very meaningful. Rights are supposed to be
impossible to violate. If the government is incapable of violating the
right, then it's a right. But by that point it's synonymous with a
citizen's power. In practice "rights" are barriers, not absolute restraints.

Ugh, linguistics.

        You are misunderstanding what natural rights are. Natural
>         rights are a more legalistic description of common sense
>         morality.
>
>         You can probably kill a few random people right now if you
>         want. Say, use a car to run people over. But the fact that you
>         *can* kill people means killing people is morally right?
>
>         Same thing with natural rights. The fact that natural rights
>         can be violated doesn't mean they don't exist.
>

Natural rights are entirely different from rights. It is as you say, a plea
for encoding some specific morality into law. Claiming something is a
natural right seems to imply that it's been a right since before the
politics determined what is and isn't a right. I think it's pretty
meaningless, but I deeply empathize with the emotions involved.

I could hear myself screaming that my natural rights are being violated.
(as a futile plea after I give up hope)


> > Ask the pigs, cows, rabbits, ferrits, birds, and all the other
> > animals we do whatever we want to.
>
>         We are not talking about political philosophy applied
>         to non-human animals right now.
>

I think if humans have natural rights, then why don't animals? Maybe you
think they do, maybe you think they don't. But the same goes for humans,
some people think something should be a right, some people don't. But for
justice to be applied consistently we need there to be a clearly defined
set of rules, so we should agree upon that set of rules. We're not very
good at it :(


> > Ask the mountains thought to have
> > spirits.
>
>         That's a poetic license.
>

Can't ignore a mountain's natural rights, man.



> > Listen to them and you will hear but weeping for lack of
> > strength.
> >
> > Ofc, I'm the asshole for saying this.
>
>         Well, at least you are sincere...
>

Thanks!


>         I would point out (again) that  1) your understanding of
>         natural rights isn't...right. 2) that even current states
>         pretend to get their powers from 'natural rights'.
>

I think my understanding is still not aligned. What states pretend to get
their powers from 'natural rights'? I thought it used to be "God played
lottery and my name came up" for kings, queens and pharaohs. And at some
point that line could just be omitted because of legacy/buy-in.

I think when a (messenger of) the state comes up and goes "you better pay
your tax or I'll whip your ass" then that's, well, where they get their
power, and natural rights don't really come into the whipping.


>         It's called 'representative government' and it's allegedly
>         based on 'consent'. Look it up =P


Pretty sure it's more about whipping.

If it really was consent I could send a letter to the king informing him
I've had enough of his shit and I'll just fend for myself in the western
sahara, or on a boat or something, but I think they'll still come get me if
I break the law ((most) Dutch law applies to citizens abroad).


> > I think in practice it will be easier to make the system a compelling
> > opt-in. If you don't want to be in it, it is probably not good
> > enough.
>
>         Oh that's a good point. So now you wearing your anarchist hat?
>         =P
>

It's my plan for world domination. I just make a system that's so nice
everyone will come running. Probably easier than whipping everyone into
obedience. It could even be no-conflict with the governments, running two
systems in parallel until either gets attention starved.

> >         It's a 'necessary evil'? (doubly retarded since you don't
> > >         believe in 'evil' eh? )
> >
> > I honestly do not know.
> >
> > This is a very complex issue spanning all industries. I think the
> > patent system is a steaming pile of mercantile shit. The core idea is
> > not so crazy though - idea's can be stolen, so they must be property.
> > But you don't lose the idea when it gets stolen.
> >
> > It ruins the creative industries - we've made our fantasies protected
> > property, subject not to the potential for art but the will of
> > businessmen. Countless stories go untold. The stories that do get
> > told are smudged with corporate inserts and ruinous inserted
> > political messages. (look for racism/feminist inserts, they're
> > everywhere and they usually fail to actually be unracist or feminist)
>
>         Yep.
>

Thanks for showing me the word mercantile. It's like a newspeak
thinkbarrier is lifted.

> I don't see where this goes. Perhaps a powers = rights argument?
>
>         It's a reductio ad absurdum of the  "power = rights" argument.
>
>         "might makes right" is sarcasm, not a literal statement.
>

Ah, yes. The syntactic similarity of right and rights.
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