SSCReader
3mo ago
There are many, many things in the world that I suspect genuinely work in this way, that is, aspirationally. But I've not found a really good way of communicating that even in a book-length work, much less a forum post. Sorry.
No need to be sorry! And for what it is worth, I do think aspirations are important. Just because I don't think it can work completely or perfectly, doesn't mean that I think the idea has no value. Indeed American aspirationalism, is one of the things I most admire about this nation.
I'd just think the people making the choices probably need to be aware the aspirationalism is important, but also not strictly achievable. Which is in and of itself not straightforward. In a distributed way society needs people who truly believe in the aspirations AND pragmatists who work as if those aspirations are not true. Too much belief in the aspirations tends to create too much trust in the institutions those aspirations create, which can (and often is) exploited from within those institutions, and too little gives you nowhere to go, no overall goal. Individuals I think tend to be bad at holding both of those views at once. Whereas a successful society can be the outcome of both groups. Where influence may wax and wane over time between each side.
And I don't think that is necessarily entirely along left/right lines. Though that can shift over time.
SSCReader
3mo ago
This is what it means, to be a mistake theorist: I genuinely believe that the people who disagree with me, are making a mistake, and that if they were smarter, it is not a mistake they would make.
She could still be smart, and be making a mistake though. Right now, I think you are both very intelligent and wrong. If she is deliberately playing her part, because she knows that doing the opposite would be a huge mistake for her career then she isn't being a stupid person. Nor is she being evil. There are other options in between!
She could just be being a standard relatively self-interested person who both believes in her causes, has internalized what she needs to say to fit in in her social group and would quite like to have an important job.
You know who I think that describes? The vast majority of people. Mistake theory doesn't mean that people can only be stupid or evil. They can be smart but wrong, dumb but wrong, or perfectly average but wrong. They can be subject to social forces and so on.
I also consider myself a mistake theorist for context here. Most people are decent people. There are very few evil people in the world. The difference is i think, that I believe that because we are not rational beings, being smart doesn't get you much closer to being correct. So having reached the wrong belief does not mean you are stupid, or being a stupid person. It is simply very very difficult to ignore the whole social edifice of your society. So that being persuaded by it, tells you almost nothing about the individual in question except that they are a person.
SSCReader
3mo ago
No-one has ever done this, because it demonstrates it could not be done even when people really wanted to do it is the point. Like communism may be just fine if it weren't being attempted by humans. But sadly it is.
If it couldn't be done from the start (which was your point), then why would you ever think it could be now? It may be bad reasoning, but it is real world reasoning. Philosophically and logically perhaps you are correct. But in practice I think I am.
SSCReader
3mo ago
see: "I'm not a biologist"
That isn't being a moron, that's her toeing the line on the current culture war. And similarly if she does understand it, but is choosing to ignore it, that doesn't make her stupid. I am sure she grasps the principle, she just disagrees over what her responsibility is to it. Which is a good reason to be against her as a justice to be clear! But it isn't the same as not understanding.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Like, seriously? "The Constitution limits government power, but sometimes we don't like that. What are we supposed to do when the Constitution limits government power in ways we don't like?"
If you read the rest of her comments she says "“I’m interested in your view that the context doesn’t change the First Amendment principles,” Jackson said. “I understood our First Amendment jurisprudence to require heightened scrutiny of government restrictions of speech, but not necessarily a total prohibition when you’re talking about a compelling interest of the government to ensure, for example, that the public has accurate information in the context of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.”"
So she is obviously aware that the Constitution limits government power, but she is talking about there not being a total prohibition when there is a compelling interest.
Now you may of course disagree with the fact whether Covid or whatever is such a compelling interest, but I think positing that one question, means she is an idiot, about not understanding what the Constitution does is just cherry picking. The rest of her questioning clearly shows she does know that.
Her question shouldn't paraphrased as
"The Constitution limits government power, but sometimes we don't like that. What are we supposed to do when the Constitution limits government power in ways we don't like?"
but rather as
"The Constitution limits government power, but that limit is not all encompassing. In your view what should the government do when and if it does have such a compelling interest?"
Remembering her question here is in the context of a hypothetical about a viral social media stunt that is causing suicides among teenagers. So she is asking even if people are dying is your position that the government cannot encourage the media companies to suppress these posts. Is that not a compelling interest? And the advocate understands where she is going because he answers, no, the government can use positive speech to condemn the posts but it cannot ask the companies to take them down. So they both understand that government power is limited by the Constitution, what they are going back and forth about is what counts as a compelling interest and where those limits end.
Again, you may think she is wrong about where those limits are, but it is clear she isn't a moron who doesn't understand that the Constitution is there to put limits on government action. She clearly understands that.
SSCReader
3mo ago
And one of the most important principles of American governance is the doctrine of enumerated powers, which has not been carefully adhered to since, well, maybe ever...
Exactly, if it wasn't carefully adhered to, from very early on, there is no reason it should be now. All of that is just a framework for decisions that benefit the people. If your rules don't work and have to be ignored, then the rules are no good and should be ignored.
Now that does allow for decisions to be made in partisan ways, and that is another problem I completely agree. But the rules didn't stop that happening anyway. So you are no worse off. But having actual enumerated decisions at least let people know what the ground under their feet is doing now. Sure maybe that changes on the next case, but that is ok. Knowing what the next step looks like is enough for 90% of people.
Personally I'd prevent the Supreme court from punting or making very minor narrow decisions. If a law is unconstitutional then they force the government to rewrite it until it is. Give them some powers to enforce that on the executive and legislative branches. Give them some actual teeth to really be a check and balance. Their job is to determine that and punting it back and forth helps no-one except prolonging things. Even if that means my side would lose a lot of cases given the ideological make up of the court, I would far prefer that.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Someone who is libertarian when it protects petty criminals from local LEOs but statist when the federal government wants to bully corporations into doing things the federal government is forbidden from doing, does not have a sophisticated jurisprudence. They have a results-oriented political agenda.
Then she should have sided against J6 surely? That was a Federal case.
In any case, i think you are quite right in one respect, she is results orientated. Which is something I think is needed on the court. The courts are made for men, not men for the courts in other words. Very technical rulings in order to make the smallest possible change to a statute without providing any guidance to how that impacts the statute over all, are very common currently as are punting things back to lower courts on narrow grounds. Whether that is Roberts just not wanting to rock the boat too hard or just being slightly too beholden to previous decisions. I see Jackson and Thomas as being antidotes to that, though in clearly different directions.
I'd rather have a decision go against my political side as long as it results in clear ideas of what can or can't be done, than some wishy-washy dismissal on providence grounds. That is one of the reasons I like Jackson, she consistently pushes for them to make actual real decisions, even when it is likely (as in the Idaho case) that her preferred outcome would not be the one a conservative leaning court would actually make, if it was willing to make a decision. Notably Thomas also does this as well. Which is why even though I disagree with a lot his decisions, I think he adds a good balance to the court.
SSCReader
3mo ago
I won't say it's impossible! I have been wrong about Trump's chances before. Maybe I'll be wrong again.
Interestingly, I think the opposite, I think Trump is still favored here. Maybe not by a lot at this stage, the switch did help, but maybe I'd give it 55-45 to Trump. By no means a sure thing, but I would rather be in Trump's position not Harris's.
SSCReader
3mo ago
(With specific respect to the 2020 protest, I did see some discussion of Jackson and Barrett "swapping places" but in the end I think far less attention was paid to that peculiarity than was maybe warranted.)
I am not sure about Barrett, but Jackson has sided with conservatives on reading criminal statues narrowly in a few cases. I am not saying she is conservative by any means, but she does have a very specific jurisprudence that can lean what has been described as libertarian on criminal matters. Now she was a public defender, so it maybe her experiences there with perhaps the over-reach of the prosecutorial state have aligned her somewhat that way. She is also very concerned with the practicalities of rulings. As in, how easy is it for an average person to know what they should or should not be doing with any given statute or law. She thinks the courts should be doing more to clarify and help citizens there.
Obviously you are not likely to agree with a lot of her opinions, but I think she is a far better justice than she has been painted, even with that expectation.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Counterpoint: didn’t the IRA cause something to the tune of one billion in damage in a single event? In the middle of London? And that led directly to negotiations.
Ahh no, remember the UK government had been willing to negotiate as far back as Sunningdale in the 70's. The IRA made several mis-steps (killings kids and OAP's in Warrington and Enniskillen) which cost them significant support in Catholic communities. Which is why they ended up accepting a deal very similar to one they were offered at Sunningdale 25 years before. The Major government at the time of the Canary Wharf bombing was being propped up by Unionist votes which is why he was being forced temporarily to take a hard line towards the IRA, but that wasn't indicative of previous UK government approaches. In essence the bombing (or actually the end of the IRA ceasefire which had held prior to that for over a year) gave Major the excuse he needed to ignore the Unionists who were propping up his government and go back to the status quo of negotiation which he was already in favor of. Given the majority Starmer has I don't think the situation is going to be similar there.
The current protests are certainly when compared to the Troubles pretty tame. Burning a few buses is nearly a Northern Irish past time at this point though, so my calibration may be different than the average person.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Justice Jackson has already shown herself to be an unsophisticated jurist who simply votes for whatever seems Wokest,
I think, our ongoing series of Supreme Court analysis has indicated otherwise no? She has sided with the conservatives against the other liberal justices on multiple occasions particularly in criminal cases like the January 6th case.
Indeed she has been slightly less liberal than Sotomayor or Kagan:
" Jackson has voted slightly less liberal than the other two non-conservatives on the bench—59 percent of the time to Sotomayor's 63 percent and Kagan's 65 percent"
In fact to the extent there are op ed pieces about her not living up to expectations as a liberal appointment.
"Jackson, the most recent addition to the bench, joining in 2022, has surprised some since taking her seat on the Supreme Court. This term, President Joe Biden's appointee, and the first Black female justice, unexpectedly sided with her conservative colleagues on a number of cases, including Fischer vs. United States, a major case pertaining to January 6."
SSCReader
3mo ago
Or she is having the bump from replacing Biden.
Fundamentals still favor Trump i think. The econony is not great, loss of incumbent advantage. Its a lot to overcome. Which isn't to say its a slam dunk.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Just to point out, I didn't say there are no black sub groups. Just that overall one of those groups is a much more dominant slice of the pie compared to any one white group to a pretty major extent.
Edit: Though I agree with your main point.
SSCReader
3mo ago
A major economic downturn or a bungled military crisis are the only two outside shots Trump has.
I don't think is true, I think Trump is still favored at this stage. Kamala has a better chance than sticking with Biden I think, but that isn't a high bar.
PA is almost a must win for her, and that means carrying Philly, very strongly. Which means carrying the black vote very strongly with high turn out. And currently I am not sure that is going to be the case as I mention above.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Sure, DOAS might find it tasteless or even offensive, but what are they going to do about it--vote Republican?
Well, or not vote at all. My wife is both black and Black (ADOS, urban, poor family, raised by grandmother etc.). She dislikes Kamala and doesn't think she is Black. That doesn't mean she is going to vote for Trump though she does like some of his economic and America First politics, but has other issues with him, which she felt might be assuaged by a Black VP pick. But she is considering not voting at all. And she isn't that far from voting for Trump honestly, or a slightly less crass version of him at least.
I think you're looking at what progressives think (note Biden had to walk back his comment later), and mixing that up with what Black voters themselves think. And obviously as a disclaimer not all white progressives nor all Black voters are the same. But I was at a family cook out and most of them do not like Kamala at all. A couple of cousins mentioned thinking of voting for Trump and it certainly didn't get them yelled at.
So being Black is seen as a voting bloc by the progressives (hence why they see Kamala as Black) , but it is also based upon a real thing, an (almost entirely ADOS) shared identity that is indeed closer than whites in general in the US. In the sense that any random US ADOS black person is likely to be closer culturally to any other random US ADOS black person, than any random white American is going to be to any other random white American. The comparison would be in white sub groups, like Cajuns or Amish, or WASPS. There are simply more different white groupings that people can be raised in. Whereas the Black community, spread from a single source in the fairly recent past, and was built on a nearly blank canvas due to the loss of whatever cultures they already had. It would be amazing if white people were a similar singular cultural bloc given the histories and numbers involved. To that extent I think it is true there is a Black identity and not a White one in the US as it stands currently. Being a voting bloc is downstream of being a cultural bloc.
Now it is true that groups can be assimilated into this Black identity and most of these are going to be black immigrants (Caribbean usually, although that is also complicated, see differences between Dominicans ("I no black, I Dominican" ) and Jamaicans), though some white people can also, usually "white trash" (See Eminem etc.). And that richer, more successful Blacks tend to remove themselves (remaining black, but not Black), and their families. But the fact remains I think that a much more similar US Black community, does indeed exist in a way that a US White community does not currently. So it is not that Black identity is more important than White, it is that it exists in a way White does not. And largely that is a good thing for white people. A singular White identity almost certainly means that Cajuns, Amish, Mid-westerners, WASPS, Borderers, Southerners et al, have all had to have their unique white identities erased.
To recap, to the progressive movement Kamala is black and Black, but to many Black people themselves, she is merely black. There is a real difference they see there. And that is why Obama derived significant Black credibility from his marriage to Michelle. And why Kamala lacking that, may not push many votes to Trump, but may well reduce Black enthusiasm for her (and thus turn out). Though of course smart Black Democrats should be aware of this, so should be working on something to boost her credentials here.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Due process involves a lot more than just the right to appeal though. If your local cops picked you up off the street, for no reason, faked evidence, threw you in jail after a trial you didn't get to attend, kept you in solitary until finally the Supreme Court granted you an appeal,it would be hard to describe that alone as giving you due process. Indeed the Supreme Court might decide your due process rights had been violated as part of the appeal regardless of whether the cops thought they had followed them.
That doesn't mean the IBA didn't give due process, but the ability to appeal to CAS can't be in and of itself said to show the IBA followed due process otherwise. Likewise because CAS is based in Switzerland its decisions can be appealed to the Swiss Federal Tribunal but CAS itself might have failed to follow whatever counts for due process in Switzerland, either on purpose or by mistake.
Again it's not evidence they didn't follow due process, but it isn't evidence they did either.
SSCReader
3mo ago
I would suggrst the main difference is that 5000 years ago, you had no choice but to endure the bad things. You couldn't avoid that your life and work and having kids was dangerous. They were inescapable. Today many people can still have the good, having kids and the like, but don't become fentanyl addicts or require mental health care..Many. many millions of people fall into the bracket and have the old joys, less of the old miseries and not much of the new.
Now at least we have that option. You've never taken joy in a truly great book, or video game or movie? Or learned some new thing about the world? Not only would those not exist 5000 years ago, you would not have had the time to enjoy them compared to today.
It seems to me that we have greatly expanded the access of good things, reduced the number of bad things..and yes we have created more bad things, but if my choice is being crippled or having to deal with the ennui of a pointless office job. One of those is worse than the other. And one can be fixed by switching jobs, or homesteading or becoming a lumberjack or whatever. You can do that and still benefit from the good things about modernity.
Thats the key diffetence to me. You can have kids and most of them won't die, nor is your wife at much risk in labour. You can live in a small close knit community. The old joys still exist. And you can not indulge in drugs, you can still worship your God or gods, you can still tell stories around a fire in the woods. Or take your kids fishing.You can just do it with a full belly instead of empty, where your life does not depend on it.
What joys of old have we truly lost? You right now can choose to do anything your forebears did. You just have a lot more options as well. You can farm, and find other like minded people. You can opt out of almost all of modern society if you wish and in varying degrees. Thats why today is better. You have that choice. 5000 years ago you did not have the option of choosing modern devices and medical care and knowledge. Today you can buy some land and a horse and choose your level of advancement. Amish? Or Mennonite? Kacyzynki or Musk? You can choose to have your family live without a washing machine or an oven or a TV. You can choose to be a farmer or to hunt for food, or pick up road kill. All of these things are possible right now today.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Organized sports is probably the best way to be fair. As long as you ket your coaches actually enforce discipline.
But every school I know seems to be similar.
SSCReader
3mo ago
And yet there is no football and dodgeball, there are no dweebs in lockers and no fights at the bike rack.
There are all of those things in my kids school. What they don't do is really enforce respect for authority.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Their joy and suffering was similar to ours. Nothing fundamental about human nature or the human experience has changed in any way since at least the invention of writing.
Hmm, my grand dad was basically a subsistence farmer, and while it wasn't universally miserable of course, it was certainly a lot more stressful and worrisome than his kids becoming trades people. He had to spend more time tending the farm to get by than he would have in a normal job by a long long way. And that was with fertilizer and a tractor.
The further you go back, the more labor was required to do any basic task. Certainly they still took joy in what they could, but they did so with aching joints and bowed backs.
There is a reason in the rust belt than when you ask many miners do they want their sons to become miners they say no. Because they know it is a crippling, dangerous job. They want to send their kids to college so they can work in an office and not have crippling lung diseases and missing fingers.
In other words we don't have to look back hundreds of years to see that things are better now. We can see it in one or two generations back. Or you can go to see subsistence farmers in China. Humans haven't changed, but the amount of work and danger it takes to live is significantly less than it was. Technology has made material differences to people.
Now perhaps there is an argument we waste that saved time and energy in frivolous ways. But we have it to waste. They might not have had unending hell-misery, but they certainly had more hell misery in a very material way than almost any modern Westerner.
By the end of his life, my grandad in his 60's couldn't walk, was blind in one eye and the massive strong hands that could pull a calf from a cow or wrangle a sheep were gnarled and twisted with arthritis. He was in constant pain. He refused to let his kids take over the farm, because he wanted better for them. His kids are older than he was when he died and they are all much healthier than he was at the end. The human experience really has changed. Our bodies can only take a certain amount of wear, and certainly many technologies since writing have reduced the amount of wear we need to put them through.
Just because lives weren't unending hell misery and that people made do with what they could, does not mean that the very real and material benefits of human endeavour have not improved the human experience.
SSCReader
3mo ago
At the schools where most mid-high achieving students will attend there is vigorous policing
No there is not, that is my point. There is little to no actual punishment for students. Suspension and expulsion and investigations are not real punishments that channel male aggressive behaviors constructively. Unless either the teachers or parents are giving actual punishments that kids care about, then that is not policing. Teachers are not allowed to, and most parents do not seem to want to.
Then because you cannot actually correct behaviour, you ban the things that might lead to it. That isn't policing. it is ducking the problem entirely.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Yes. In that teachers are not allowed to actually discipline or police children effectively nowadays.
So all activity is non-policed.
SSCReader
3mo ago
If society could only deal with things with precedent it could never have developed in the first place as early societies would constantly be encountering things for the first time. So i think your first point is demonstrably in error.
I think you're also getting mixed up between the meta and object levels. If you think society is going to be better with lots of kids then you can and arguably should campaign for and have lots of kids yourself. No issues there! But my point is that regardless of what you do, or what we do individually societies are exceptionally resilient and adaptive. Societies survive civil wars, coups, nuclear bombs, plagues, ice ages, famines. Civilizational collapse and more.
My point is not that you shouldn't try to change something. Its that at a societal scale adaptions will happen regardless as situations change. Because pressures will emerge whether anyone is planning them or not.
Even the leftist stuff you decry is an example, the pressures that created that movement exist outside of the movement itself.
You need to think at a much more macro level when looking at societies. Big changes are the result of cascades. Leftism could not have got to this point without the relevant circumstances having been created by prior societal choices and outcomes which created a favorable environment for those leftist ideas to be successful. And in turn the outcomes of this wave, will create the conditions for the next, which might be a more conservative swing, or something else we won't predict.
People are just the vector at this scale. Individual choices are socially mediated as a gestalt that no-one has control of.
If you want to shape a wave thats fine. Everybody does, just be aware the ocean will exist whether your wave breaks or not. That is my point.
SSCReader
3mo ago
politically radicalized in opposite directions, which appears to be a phenomenon without historical precedent?
And? Lots of things are without historical precedent. It doesn't mean they are actually problems. It's a self correcting issue. Either through assortative mating, or in people who won't reach out across the aisle simply not having relationships while others will find their desires for companionship overcome their political biases, or they don't and simply don't pass on their genetics. There is nothing that needs to be done, a new balance will be found.
Sure there is, that's why I touched on social pressure and conditioning. It's one of the mistakes (hah!) I think Scott made in Conflict vs Mistake. Most people are not making well thought out rational decisions. They are adopting their beliefs and outlooks not necessarily consciously. Even the Mistake theorists. If someone believes whatever rationalizations they have adopted and thinks the other side will take advantage of a current culture war issue, or because it will hinder their career, or because it makes for an uncomfortable conversation, then they can choose not to do X, or to do Y without necessarily being conflict theorists. Selfishness exists outside of Mistake vs Conflict.
Just lying for personal advantage or for some other reason does not on its own make one a conflict theorist. It is only if she is doing so in the service of politics as war. And just to be clear that may be the case, but her actions here don't tell us because she can also derive personal advantage by lying/not examining her views too much. In other words there are other factors that impact people's decisions beyond conflict/mistake.
But also consider if I am a mistake theorist up for the Supreme court. I believe that my opponents are wrong and misinformed and that the truth could be reached if they only realized the mistakes they are making. But 1) I may not believe I can correct them in this context, with the time available. so 2) Even a mistake theorist might decide that lying or evading in this context is the better option. Mistake theorists can be pragmatic. Because 3) When I am a Supreme Court justice I will have plenty of time to make my arguments I otherwise would not.
The core of mistake theory hinges on why you believe people have different beliefs about politics. But that doesn't mean you also believe you can solve that particular issue easily or quickly. Any Mistake theorist is unlikely to think they can convince Democrats/Republicans they are wrong easily or quickly, because if that were the case it would already have been done. So a Mistake theorist even though they would prefer to settle this with a good old fashioned honest debate can take other options depending on the situation. If Earth was going to be destroyed unless Republicans and Democrats united in 7 days, then even if you felt it was possible to come to a truth and convince people, you may still opt to stage a false flag alien invasion or something. Your political philosophy is only one of the things that impacts your decision making.
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