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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2638 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 31, 2024

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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To what degree should the politicians do what the general population wants, when what the general population wants is stupid? The most clear cut case of the general population wanting stupid stuff I think is price controls- the idea of keeping rent or gasoline below a certain hard cap is very popular with a lot of ordinary people. But it of course would be counter-productive- it'll only result in a lower supply of something people desperately want, and force them to start paying with their time in long lines instead of paying just with their wallets. So if 90% of the population say they want a cap on prices of something, does their elected representative have a responsibility to say "No you guys are stupid, I know what you really want" and not implement price controls?

Another example would be nationalism. A lot of times, people will be chauvinistic about their culture, and want to oppress minority cultures. Not really so much in the US recently despite all the fuss about race relations, but there are many extreme cases internationally. The majority will try to inflict on the minority restrictions on using their minority language in schools, prevent access to elected and civil service jobs, take children away from families, forcibly expel people, even execute the minorities with roving firing squads or death camps, in a brief list from least bad to worst actions chauvinism often leads to. Does a politician have any obligation to say, "No, I will not implement this policy. Not only is it immoral, it won't actually make life better for you" to the people who elected him if the 90% majority population wants to inflict those degradations on the 10% minority?

The obvious slippery slope is a politician thinking he knows better in a case where he doesn't actually know better, or deciding laws based on his own personal values instead of the general population's in a case where there is no option that's better on all metrics. E.g, abortion laws always have a trade off between the preferences and health of the mother against the fetus, and where you want abortion laws to be at depends on the ratio of which you value mother:fetus.

Would this fit better in the Culture War thread? It's roughly on topic and certainly seems fleshed out enough.

Anyway, yeah, this is a big reason why shifts toward more democratic rather than more elitist governments can be harmful, as we've been experiencing in the US.

Of course, politicians will also use their discretion to enact bad policies.

Would this fit better in the Culture War thread? It's roughly on topic and certainly seems fleshed out enough.

I sometimes like the lower standards of the smaller threads. Less pressure to thoroughly defend my position.

Virtue ethics: Stand up to the mob, though it will be at the cost of your favor with them.

Deontology: Obey the mandate of the voters because fidelity to your role as their representative is the only rule you can will to universal law

Utilitarianism: ExpectedUtility(your policy) - ExpectedUtility(public's loss of trust in the institution that gives you power)

I see the job of a politician in a democracy as trying to enact the best policies possible under the constraint of needing to get elected. If they did whatever the people wanted, it would lead to disaster, and they'd probably actually be voted out because of it.

So is a politician justified in restricting the rights of minorities, if the populace is deeply bigoted and actually want the politician to go even further?

Seconding Avocado.

I haven’t seen anyone argue that gas needs to stay below X $/gallon. Or $/barrel, since that’s insulated from actual gas pump and heating bill prices already. What shows up in the news is the clearing price for what is basically a fixed quantity demanded.

“I can’t believe it cost $80 to fill up my truck.”
“I can barely afford the kids’ school supplies.”
“Why are a dozen eggs so expensive?”

The big exception is rent control, where the normal supply and demand rules are already incredibly distorted. Then people start throwing around hard caps.

As for actually answering your question—the only winning move is not to play. Reneging on a popular promise is suicide. A politician ought not to make ones he thinks are stupid or immoral. He should run on a positive platform that just happens to deprioritize or counter the popular thing; it’s much easier to be ignored than be told you’re a dumb idiot.

Compare the mainstream Democrat response to “defund the police.” The low hanging fruit (body cams, diversity statements) gets picked. The expensive and counterproductive stuff is less likely outside of areas which made it a single issue.

As for actually answering your question—the only winning move is not to play. Reneging on a popular promise is suicide. A politician ought not to make ones he thinks are stupid or immoral. He should run on a positive platform that just happens to deprioritize or counter the popular thing; it’s much easier to be ignored than be told you’re a dumb idiot.

Sure, but say 2 years into a 5 year term there's a massive gasoline shortage, and the majority of people start calling for price caps like in the 70s. What do the politicians do then?

Lower speed limit, 55 max on the highway.

Remove tariff and / or sanctions on oil producing states.

Rationing

Drill baby, drill!

Start a war / Organize a democratic revolution in a country that is mean to women and / or homosexuals but has oil.

People will hate lower speed limits. Some of the others seem better, though.

Those might be better options, but that dodges the question of what responsibility the politician has when their voters say they really want price controls but would in reality prefer one of those options, or even doing nothing, over price controls.

The responsibility is to advocate for actions that will make improvements, and oppose actions that will lead to increased scarcity.

So how does a politician apply that rule when it comes to an issue that's a values judgement, like abortion, or the best amount to redistribute from the rich to the poor, or gun rights, or freedom of speech vs hate speech?

A politician's constituents are less likely to be as unified on these issues as they would be on abundant and affordable housing and energy.

Can you define hate speech?

Gun rights in what context?

Freedom of speech in what context? I believe the current standard is Brandenburg v. Ohio.

Abortion; the best likely scenario is to do nothing and make no specific advocacy.

Can you define rich and poor? Getting into the weeds on issues like this is likely best.

A politician's constituents are less likely to be as unified on these issues as they would be on abundant and affordable housing and energy.

Across a nation? Sure. But I'm certain you can find some smaller constituencies where the voters are quite unified in what they want their representative to do.

Can you define hate speech?

I can't, and the voters might not be able to either, but that won't necessarily stop them from demanding something be done. I have a similar response to the rest of your questions: I am not trying to argue for specific policies, I am asking what a politician has the obligation to do when their voters start angrily making demands that something should be done, but what they say they want is not what they really want long term.

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population wanting stupid stuff I think is price controls- the idea of keeping rent or gasoline below a certain hard cap

I'm not sure what people want are price caps. People want affordable abundant housing and energy. Price caps don't typically achieve this. Politicians promising price caps are frequently popular which is why they persist.

You do get people advocating for specific popular policies that they think are obviously good, and when they don't see politicians doing enacting them, they assume they must be corrupt. For example, in Canada, there is a strong push right now to ban AirBnb completely or to ban corporations from owning houses, or even to ban anyone from owning multiple properties such that renters would only be allowed to rent from government owned housing or co-ops. Whenever these ideas come out on social media, the support to opposition ratio is easily 100:1.

Whenever there is any discussion about why these policies are not being enacted, there is always agreement that the problem is that politicians either don't care about the people or that they have investment interests that they're trying to protect. They never consider that some people might think their ideas won't work.

Politicians could maybe avoid this problem by increasing the housing supply, but if there are any problems with housing at all, then there will be a lot of outrage directed at them for not enacting these specific policies. I read a paper once that argued that this is South America's problem. There are lots of educated people who know that their policies are terrible, but the electorate has so little trust in politicians, that in order to get elected, you need to promise to enact these populist measures. In the West, the electorate tolerates the political class not doing exactly what they want because they have a certain level of trust.

In the West, the electorate tolerates the political class not doing exactly what they want because they have a certain level of trust.

I'm not sure trust is the word I'd use. My sentiment would be nearer acceptance, acquiescence, resignation. It is only by degree that our current political structures have not yet descended to a despotism that would see a plurality resist them through force of arms.

That's kind of my point. The people think they want one thing, but they really want another. I don't think people really want to erase minority cultures or kill a minority population with roving death camps either, they just get tricked into thinking they want it. But what rights do politicians have to bypass what the people think they want?

I don't think people really want to erase minority cultures

I don't think this is true. Usually as soon as they think it's objectionable, they want it gone. At that point, it's really just a matter of how much they care which determines how far they are willing to go. Many trad-ish christians would happily erase the trans movement and vice versa, I think, if it could be done without much broader societal harm.

Death camps seem less likely, though.

It would seem that many politicians are unable to deliver abundant affordable housing and energy. They still need to be seen to do something, price controls are something, besides these are totally not price controls. They can blame the greed of companies or producers. The direct or indirect subsidies or policy incentives that might be effective in delivering abundant and affordable energy and housing are frequently untenable for other reasons.

Violence against minority populations can be popular organically. In current year in many western nations it's the political classes calling for calm or obfuscating and minimalizing what are frequently valid complaints about policy failures or the actions and behaviors of a minority cohort. They don't want to risk a revolution that sees them chucked out or hanging from a lamp post. While it can certainly be induced by propaganda, some is the 'natural' clash of civilizations, without a functioning political process to resolve the differing perceptions some amount of violence should be expected.

If there's no political process that can prevent the housing of migrants at hotels in a community, I would predict fires at hotels.

A riot is the language of the unheard.

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