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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   34788 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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You almost certainly have not met, in person, the homeless guy that your hypothetical community philanthropy will reach. A lot of the homeless population moves around and in and out of homelessness. The soup kitchen you volunteer at is probably in a different part of a large city.

I don't know about where you live, but there are definitely distinct individuals who frequent specific places. Most don't just aimlessly wander here, there, anywhere. After all, they have some stuff! It's hard to move!

The same is true of ... homeless people for most?

I congratulate them. Now improve your housed neighbors. And when those are as good as you can make them, then move out to the next group outward, and so on.

those premodern divisions are still "contingent groups of people determined by geography, economic history, shared customs, etc".

Being contingent is not synonymous with being arbitrary. More importantly, those contingencies are important in people's lives.

How can it possibly matter if you have "meaningful reciprocal relationships" that happen to be in the same city as the homeless people? I don't have any such 'reciprocal relationships' with the homeless people, so it sure seems like we're relying on geographical coincidence.

You asked what "your community" is. I provided some yardsticks of what is needed for a community. Geographical contingency can be part of it, because we're physical beings who exist in specific locations, alongside other people. But ultimately it's about cooperating with other people.

This is just the 'chesterton's fence' conservative - defending something, but it's not the thing you claim to be defending.

Thanks for the mind-reading.

There's some vague sense that what the liberals are doing is wrong, but the only levered criticism is that the liberals aren't touchy-feely enough, and should be doing the exact same thing but just slightly more conservative-feeling.

None of that is what I said.

And when those are as good as you can make them, then move out to the next group outward, and so on.

why? Why should one e.g. manage to overcome local resistance to building code reform in a veto-point bueraucracy to fix local rents before donating antiparasitic medication to people in africa? You still haven't really justified that!

Because it's an actual example of the tragedy of the commons, and by ignoring the things you share with the people around you, you are defecting against them and incenting the degradation and decay of your surroundings, local infrastructure, local governance, local traditions, and the individually-inefficient-but-collectively-powerful networks of thick and redundant social, familial, and professional connections, relationships, and obligations which, from colonial era through Tocqueville's time and all the way to the middle of the 20th century made America function.

The entire premise of EA is, like, 'neglected causes'. If nobody was trying to fix "the degradation and decay of your surroundings, local infrastructure, local governance, local traditions, and the individually-inefficient-but-collectively-powerful networks of thick and redundant social, familial, and professional connections" then sending money to africans might be a problem, but there are literally millions of people trying to fix those things, and thousands of times as much money are spent on them. So this complaint genuinely does not make sense.

I actually agree that EA should stop sending money to low-iq africans and instead spend money on beauty and will-to-power, and that 'spending money' is a poor way of accomplishing the latter and our smartest people working as hard as possible at giving malaria nets to mediocre bantus (and meaningless fun to mediocre white people) is dumb. But none of the arguments you're making really make sense on their own terms. The amount of money spent on 'local charity' per year in the united states is MUCH MUCH HIGHER than all of EA expenditure, or all of EA wealth.

Also, local infrastructure is great by any standards other than modern ones. Yeah, we don't have a good public transportation system in most of the US, but cars and planes still make it better than literally any period in history. The environmental movement's continued success means that our 'surroundings' are also better than any point in the last century. What does 'decay of governance' even mean? How do you expect a bunch of ivy league jews to reinvigorate 'local traditions'?

individually-inefficient-but-collectively-powerful networks of thick and redundant social, familial, and professional connections

These are being macerated by the internet, which is much more powerful in any literal or physical sense of 'power'. As is demonstrated by themotte existing on the internet, and not IRL. that trend is accelerating rapidly and will not stop.

The entire premise of EA is, like, 'neglected causes'

Granted, but with a small amendment - "the entire premise of EA is legible neglected causes." It's pretty easy to count dead bodies, particularly when there is already a vast, multi-billion-dollar international development aid network who works full time at collecting every heart-wrenching statistic about Africa who you can get data from.

By contrast, it's a lot harder to quantify dysfunctional community (particularly among the wealthy donor class's socio-political enemies in the WEIRD West).

If nobody was trying to fix "the degradation and decay of your surroundings, local infrastructure, local governance, local traditions, and the individually-inefficient-but-collectively-powerful networks of thick and redundant social, familial, and professional connections" then sending money to africans might be a problem, but there are literally millions of people trying to fix those things, and thousands of times as much money are spent on them.

I agree that spending money on impersonal charity is not a good way to fix these things. However, I don't agree that "literally millions of people" are trying to fix them, otherwise we would be seeing much less grim results than we currently are. Moreover, it's not a duty that can be delegated to specialist charity organizations. It's an obligation that comes along with citizenship, that everyone has. The only question is what each of our individual obligations are, depending on our means, location, and ability.

Also, local infrastructure is great by any standards other than modern ones.

Given that we are living in modern times, modern standards are the correct ones to apply.

Yeah, we don't have a good public transportation system in most of the US, but cars and planes still make it better than literally any period in history.

There are any number of transit-minded folks on here who I'd defer to on this (though with the caveat that I'm not a "cars are evil" guy like some are).

The environmental movement's continued success means that our 'surroundings' are also better than any point in the last century.

I was referring to the physical built environment, but I take your point about pollution.

What does 'decay of governance' even mean?

Maybe by first fixing their own zoning codes to allow for the development they say they want?

How do you expect a bunch of ivy league jews to reinvigorate 'local traditions'?

By actually participating in them, or creating them out of whole cloth if the area is so deracinated that there is no continuous community.

These are being macerated by the internet, which is much more powerful in any literal or physical sense of 'power'. As is demonstrated by themotte existing on the internet, and not IRL. that trend is accelerating rapidly and will not stop.

I agree, but that doesn't mean I have to quietly acquiesce to it. Long defeats are worth fighting, if the cause is noble.

By contrast, it's a lot harder to quantify dysfunctional community (particularly among the wealthy donor class's socio-political enemies in the WEIRD West).

Sure, but it's also harder to ... figure that out, if it does exist. And also a lot harder to fix. Dysfunctional just means "bad", and is about as informative. The EA people probably don't even agree with you about that dysfunction! It's not a quantification issue.

However, I don't agree that "literally millions of people" are trying to fix them, otherwise we would be seeing much less grim results than we currently are

Yeah, this is just wrong. Millions of people can try to fix it and just ... be wrong about what they're fixing, fix it poorly, and go nowhere. Which is probably happening, sure, but the problem is not only hard, it's not obvious at all what the problem is, or what can be done - and in a sense half of politics is trying to solve it, but poorly!

Maybe by first fixing their own zoning codes to allow for the development they say they want?

uh dustin moskovitz, the main EA donor, is literally funding yimby stuff on a large scale though

Sure, but it's also harder to ... figure that out, if it does exist. And also a lot harder to fix. Dysfunctional just means "bad", and is about as informative. The EA people probably don't even agree with you about that dysfunction! It's not a quantification issue.

Right, I agree that "making things good" is hard to quantify. Which is why small and local arenas where one has the most information are the best places to start.

Millions of people can try to fix it and just ... be wrong about what they're fixing, fix it poorly, and go nowhere. Which is probably happening, sure, but the problem is not only hard, it's not obvious at all what the problem is, or what can be done - and in a sense half of politics is trying to solve it, but poorly!

My fault; poor language. I agree that it's definitely possible for millions of people to be bad and/or wrong at fixing things. What I meant was that there is no mass-movement towards revitalizing civic associations, mutual benefit societies, churches, families, municipal governments, or rooted neighborhoods; ACS statistics and local election turnout numbers tell us this much.

uh dustin moskovitz, the main EA donor, is literally funding yimby stuff on a large scale though

Yes, this is good (though depends on what he means by "scale" though; I'd be more pleased with him doing something in his own community and then moving outward from there than going state- or country-wide).

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