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naraburns  nihil supernum  7d ago (text post)   26640 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

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But the strange part is that many of the items in his list undermine the justifications for raised taxes, etc.
If academics and nonprofits don't have a presumption of moral status, how do we justify taking people's money to fund them and using their judgements to rule the people?
If education should be run purely as a service to students and parents, what moral argument is left against school choice?
If "politeness" rules aren't supposed to be a political weapon to stifle debate, how is his preference that "bad left wing ideas should gain power" at the expense of the truth going to be enforced?

It's all self-defeating, and so I suspect a totally performative offering of peace from a position of weakness, with his fingers firmly crossed behind his back.

If academics and nonprofits don't have a presumption of moral status, how do we justify taking people's money to fund them and using their judgements to rule the people?

I mean, in the "fund" case, it's just "having people research this is diffusely positive for society, so funding it from the taxpayer internalises the externality".

Of course, there are departments whose output is negative for society (obvious nonpartisan example: marketing psychology), which that argument suggests should get no grants and should in fact have to pay the government to compensate society for their "pollution". One can question whether internalising this externality is worth the costs of implementing such a scheme, but the "axe funding" part I'm completely sold on.

how is his preference that "bad left wing ideas should gain power" at the expense of the truth

Where did he say this quote? I can't find it.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GXd0TunXoAASp0t?format=jpg one of his more famous quotes, but I forgot he said "wrong" instead of bad. It was a delightful preview of 2020.

That quote has lowered my opinion of him, although he didn't say he wanted it at the expense of the truth.

EDIT: With that said, he appears to have kinda contradicted this since, although AFAICT he hasn't specifically walked it back (besides deleting the Tweet).

I think he started walking it back with "correction: I do not want wrong left wing ideas such as 'Yglesias should be fired from Vox' to gain pow--wait no!"

Most of the worst nonprofits are funded more by wealthy donors than taxes.

True, but I've spent the last four years watching obscene amounts of government money go to them too. Over a quarter of national science grants are now for DEI programs now, for example.

And that's not counting the constant use of nonprofit propaganda as a moral bludgeon, which yglesias himself is often guilty of.

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