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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3776 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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One of the core insights which has struck me in the past years has been that tribalism is downstream from reality.

People too often focus on the group itself and ignore the ecosystem it's part of. Any group gets modified by reputation, competition, practicalities and the need for results. It is only after this kind of modification has happened that you can understand the significance of a "social ritual."

There are risks, but groups are also the basis of pluralism and a way of learning where we all stand relative to each other.

I look at this as dialectic. For instance, by itself as an ideology libertarianism hasn't really appealed. While a lot of the ideas are quite beautiful I find it all a bit simplistic, a bit look over here, not over there and at it's worst just a rote-learned thought system, or catechism.

But as part of a dialectic to work against other prevailing ideas I think it has great merit.

I call it "directional libertarianism", the belief that there is no ideological nirvana to achieve, but that our society could use a more libertarian approach in a bunch of specific areas.

Political sophistication begins with the realization, in the words of Sowell, that there are no solutions, only trade-offs. The socratic ideal of political sophistication requires one to be able to articulate the opposing side in terms they can accept, and to state what bits of reality would need to change before one supported different policies.

So, for instance, I oppose the drug war in general, but believe there are drugs out there that are dangerous enough that they should stay illegal. At a certain probability of bad health outcomes, we kind of need to hit the ripcord.

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