Most of the pessimistic people I talk to don’t think the government will collapse. It will just get increasingly stagnant, oppressive and incompetent, and that incompetence will make it impossible for individual or corporate innovators to do anything worthwhile. Think European-style tax rates, with American-style low quality of public services.
There will also be a blurring of the line between the government and big corporations. Corporations will essentially become extensions of the bureaucracy. Because of this they will never go out of business and they will also never innovate. Think of a world where all corporations are about as competent as AmTrak.
hmm, blurred lines between corporations and political power… are you suggesting EU is already a failed state? (contrary to the widespread belief that we are just heading towards the cliff damn fast)
well, unlike Somalia, where no goverment means there is no border control and you can be robbed, raped or killed on the street anytime.…
in civilized Europe our eurosocialist etatists achieved that… there are nor borders for invading millions of crimmigrants that may rob/rape/kill you anytime day or night… and as a bonus we have merkelterrorists that kill by hundreds sometimes (yeah, these uncivilized Somalis did not even manage this… what a shame, they certainly need more cultural marxist education)
Political discussion is mostly fine as long as it is reasonable. tukabel’s comment looks like kekistani babble to me and it doesn’t do well on the reasonableness metric.
Political discussion is prone to be look like “kekistani bable” if you disagree. But once you’ve started a political discussion there will be some disagreement which will be interpreted as “kekistani bable”—or worse.
Political discussion is prone to be look like “kekistani bable” if you disagree
That’s not true at all. Within pretty much any political ideology you can find grunt-and-scream babble (kekistani babble in alt-right, sjw babble in progressive, exploitation babble in marxist, etc.) and you can find reasonable people making reasonable points.
It’s not an issue of agreeing or disagreeing, it’s an issue of the level of the discussion.
Well, I haven’t seen that yet. I mean a reasonable discussion between different political affiliations. Inside one camp, yes. Across some wider divisions, not yet.
Emotions are just too strong, reasons are just too flimsy.
Stuart Armstrong has a lot of excellent posts about AI. But every now and then he thinks, that he should do some politics. Which is also a good decision. But then he argues from a (liberal) default, which is not as clever as his AI related views. By far.
Look at what happened. tukabel wrote a post of rambling, grammar-impaired, hysteria-mongering hyperbole: ‘invading millions of crimmigrants that may rob/rape/kill you anytime day or night’.This is utterly unquestionably NOT a rationally presented point on politics, and it does not belong on this forum, and it deserves to be downvoted into oblivion.
Stuart said he wished to be able to downvote it.
Then out of nowhere you come in and blame him personally or starting something he manifestly didn’t start. It’s a 100% false comment.
Upon being called out on this, you backtrack and say your earlier point didn’t actually matter (meaning it was bullshit to begin with), complaining that he’s gasp liberal.
But here it didn’t take being liberal to want to downvote. If I agreed 100% with tukabel, I would be freaking EMBARRASSED to have that argument presented on my side. It was a really bad comment!
‘invading millions of crimmigrants that may rob/rape/kill you anytime day or night’
Well, they are in fact robbing, killing, and raping people, and the authorities are remarkably uninterested in doing anything about it besides accusing the victims of “racism”. In fact in most western European countries some who says something mean about the migrants gets a harsher sentence then a migrant who engages in robbing, killing, or raping.
This is utterly unquestionably NOT a rationally presented point on politics
Why not? Because he said something false? A better question is why you refer to the truth as “hysteria-mongering hyperbole”?
they are in fact robbing, killing, and raping people
Just like the the natives :-/
in most western European countries some who says something mean about the migrants gets a harsher sentence
Bullshit. Yes, I know, there are cherries you can pick. Still bullshit.
Why not? Because he said something false?
That too, but mostly because the content of this rant was “I don’t like immigrants” and that was basically it. Adding a lot of emotionally coloured words just makes it look like a temper tantrum.
It is possible to rationally discuss the issue of immigration in Western Europe—basically, the Europeans are not breeding (TFR is way under 2.0 in most countries) and more warm bodies do help with the economy. But the IQ and cultural issues are a big deal. The problem is complicated and crimmigrant rants do not help.
Japan is leading the way on the “we don’t reproduce and no immigrants are allowed” path. Wait a bit and things will become clearer.
Explaining things to you is pointless. You seem to be incapable of learning.
My point was that I’m quite aware of all the evidence that you have in mind and that it’s not out of ignorance that I come to different conclusions than you do.
So basically you’re conceding I’m right, but still want to call bullshit on it.
If by “some” you literally meant nothing but “more than zero”, fine. (But “some” people get harsh sentences for pretty much anything, so “some people get harsh sentences for X” is not very informative about how little X is tolerated.)
But usually “somebody who does X undergoes Y” is used to imply something like “if you do X you’ll most likely undergo Y”, which in this case is very far from being the case. (I just have to spend some time on Facebook to see dozens of western Europeans saying mean things about migrants and AFAIK hardly any of them have ever gotten any sentence.) So I’m getting the impression that you were using the literal meaning as the motte and the colloquial meaning as the bailey.
If by “some” you literally meant nothing but “more than zero”, fine. (But “some” people get harsh sentences for pretty much anything, so “some people get harsh sentences for X” is not very informative about how little X is tolerated.)
So you consider harsh sentences for pointing out true facts about migrant behavior to be reasonable as long as it only happens to “some” people? You may want to learn about how chilling effects on free speech work.
No, I don’t. I was just pointing out that you picked a very disingenuous way of stating that. (You could have said instead, for example, “some people who said something mean about the migrants have gotten harsher sentences”)
true facts
Huh. I’ve been living for a year in a city where most of the population is foreign-born (myself included) and it doesn’t look like it’s going to hell. In particular I feel safer here than in certain other places with many fewer immigrants.
You may want to learn about how chilling effects on free speech work.
Judging by the number of people I hear saying ridiculous things about migrants every day, I wonder what would happen if such “chilling effects” were not in place—would my Facebook feed ever contain anything else at all?
in most western European countries some who says something mean about the migrants gets a harsher sentence
Bullshit. Yes, I know, there are cherries you can pick. Still bullshit.
basically you’re conceding I’m right
LOL. You wish. Work on your reading comprehension, maybe?
If what I said about people getting harsher sentences for saying mean things about migrants than migrants engaging in rape was really “bullshit”, you wouldn’t have to engage in accusations of “cherry-picking” to pre-dissmiss any evidence. As if there is any reason for any sentence for saying mean things about migrants to be worse than the sentence for rape.
I am not pre-dismissing anything. I’m actually quite familiar with both the sorry state of the freedom of speech in Europe and the propensity of immigrants to be not quite law-abiding. But if you want to make any specific claims, show data (and note that singular of ‘data” is not ‘anecdote’).
This is not a good argumentation, at all. “It use to be fine, until I was offended by that”.
It was never really fine. At first, the politics were pretty much prohibited as a “mindkiller”, this was the rule of the game here. Then the standard PC views became accepted, as a kind of a default. Then some reactionaries put their views on a display and shortly after went away.
Now, the unspoken norm is to not go too far away from the PC platform, again?
It’s possible to talk about politics without explicitly invoking Boo lights like ‘crimmigrants’ and appeals to exaggerated risks like ‘may rob/rape/kill you anytime of day or night’. You can have a reasonable discussion of the problems of immigration, but this is not how you do it. Anyone who says this is A-OK argumentation and that calling it out is wrong is basically diametrically opposed to Lesswrong’s core concepts.
Basically, you’re accusing me of outright lying that I think that argument is quite badly written, and instead being blindly partisan. It was badly written, and I am not. I don’t even know WHAT to do about the problems arising from the rapid immigration from the Middle-East into Europe. I certainly don’t deny they exist. What I DO know is that talking about it like that does (ETA: not) help us approach the truth of the matter.
appeals to exaggerated risks like ‘may rob/rape/kill you anytime of day or night’.
Except that risk is not in fact exaggerated.
Basically, you’re accusing me of outright lying that I think that argument is quite badly written, and instead being blindly partisan.
Here’s an idea. If you don’t want to be accused of outright lying and being blindly partisan, try not outright lying and not being blindly partisan. Crazy idea, huh?
Your certainty that I am lying and blindly partisan appears to be much stronger than justifiable given the evidence publicly available, and from my point of view where I at least know that I am not lying… well, it makes your oh-so-clever insinuation fall a touch flat. As for being blindly partisan, what gives you the impression that I would tolerate this from the other side?
At the very least, I think this chain has shown that LessWrong is not a left-side echo chamber as Thomas has claimed above.
Except that risk is not in fact exaggerated
If so, the original expression of that risk was presented in such a fashion as to make that claim as non-credible as possible through explicit emotionally enflaming wording.
A political action is everything what a civilization does. Has no other language to speak, but politics.
And it matters a lot what it does. If our (western) civilization is to survive, it has to do the right things—politically. To avoid fundamental political questions is not only silly to try, but impossible.
Most of the pessimistic people I talk to don’t think the government will collapse. It will just get increasingly stagnant, oppressive and incompetent, and that incompetence will make it impossible for individual or corporate innovators to do anything worthwhile. Think European-style tax rates, with American-style low quality of public services.
There will also be a blurring of the line between the government and big corporations. Corporations will essentially become extensions of the bureaucracy. Because of this they will never go out of business and they will also never innovate. Think of a world where all corporations are about as competent as AmTrak.
hmm, blurred lines between corporations and political power… are you suggesting EU is already a failed state? (contrary to the widespread belief that we are just heading towards the cliff damn fast)
well, unlike Somalia, where no goverment means there is no border control and you can be robbed, raped or killed on the street anytime.…
in civilized Europe our eurosocialist etatists achieved that… there are nor borders for invading millions of crimmigrants that may rob/rape/kill you anytime day or night… and as a bonus we have merkelterrorists that kill by hundreds sometimes (yeah, these uncivilized Somalis did not even manage this… what a shame, they certainly need more cultural marxist education)
It’s comments like this that make me pine for the downvote button. Please keep your points specific and precise, free of vague and vast politicking.
You have started with “politicking”. Now you don’t like that anymore?
Too bad!
Political discussion is mostly fine as long as it is reasonable. tukabel’s comment looks like kekistani babble to me and it doesn’t do well on the reasonableness metric.
Political discussion is prone to be look like “kekistani bable” if you disagree. But once you’ve started a political discussion there will be some disagreement which will be interpreted as “kekistani bable”—or worse.
By every side in this discussion.
That’s not true at all. Within pretty much any political ideology you can find grunt-and-scream babble (kekistani babble in alt-right, sjw babble in progressive, exploitation babble in marxist, etc.) and you can find reasonable people making reasonable points.
It’s not an issue of agreeing or disagreeing, it’s an issue of the level of the discussion.
Well, I haven’t seen that yet. I mean a reasonable discussion between different political affiliations. Inside one camp, yes. Across some wider divisions, not yet.
Emotions are just too strong, reasons are just too flimsy.
So, how do you characterize ‘Merkelterrorists’ and ‘crimmigrants’? Terms of reasonable discourse?
And you think your concern trolling is contributing to reasonable discourse?
This thread is over. Tapping out on behalf of all participants.
I’ll go along with that.
Seems to me like Daniel started it.
Perhaps. But doesn’t matter who started.
Stuart Armstrong has a lot of excellent posts about AI. But every now and then he thinks, that he should do some politics. Which is also a good decision. But then he argues from a (liberal) default, which is not as clever as his AI related views. By far.
This is from my POV, of course.
This is utterly LUDICROUS.
Look at what happened. tukabel wrote a post of rambling, grammar-impaired, hysteria-mongering hyperbole: ‘invading millions of crimmigrants that may rob/rape/kill you anytime day or night’.This is utterly unquestionably NOT a rationally presented point on politics, and it does not belong on this forum, and it deserves to be downvoted into oblivion.
Stuart said he wished to be able to downvote it.
Then out of nowhere you come in and blame him personally or starting something he manifestly didn’t start. It’s a 100% false comment.
Upon being called out on this, you backtrack and say your earlier point didn’t actually matter (meaning it was bullshit to begin with), complaining that he’s gasp liberal.
But here it didn’t take being liberal to want to downvote. If I agreed 100% with tukabel, I would be freaking EMBARRASSED to have that argument presented on my side. It was a really bad comment!
Well, they are in fact robbing, killing, and raping people, and the authorities are remarkably uninterested in doing anything about it besides accusing the victims of “racism”. In fact in most western European countries some who says something mean about the migrants gets a harsher sentence then a migrant who engages in robbing, killing, or raping.
Why not? Because he said something false? A better question is why you refer to the truth as “hysteria-mongering hyperbole”?
Just like the the natives :-/
Bullshit. Yes, I know, there are cherries you can pick. Still bullshit.
That too, but mostly because the content of this rant was “I don’t like immigrants” and that was basically it. Adding a lot of emotionally coloured words just makes it look like a temper tantrum.
It is possible to rationally discuss the issue of immigration in Western Europe—basically, the Europeans are not breeding (TFR is way under 2.0 in most countries) and more warm bodies do help with the economy. But the IQ and cultural issues are a big deal. The problem is complicated and crimmigrant rants do not help.
Japan is leading the way on the “we don’t reproduce and no immigrants are allowed” path. Wait a bit and things will become clearer.
Also stuff like this.
Dear Eugine,
As I told you, I’m quite aware of what’s happening in Europe.
Then explain the grandparent.
Or do you simply like to virtue signal by selectively forgetting it?
Explaining things to you is pointless. You seem to be incapable of learning.
My point was that I’m quite aware of all the evidence that you have in mind and that it’s not out of ignorance that I come to different conclusions than you do.
There is a significant qualitative difference in amount here.
So basically you’re conceding I’m right, but still want to call bullshit on it. Sounds like a classic sign of cognitive dissonance.
Well, so far they aren’t experiencing a huge increase rape and general crime.
If by “some” you literally meant nothing but “more than zero”, fine. (But “some” people get harsh sentences for pretty much anything, so “some people get harsh sentences for X” is not very informative about how little X is tolerated.)
But usually “somebody who does X undergoes Y” is used to imply something like “if you do X you’ll most likely undergo Y”, which in this case is very far from being the case. (I just have to spend some time on Facebook to see dozens of western Europeans saying mean things about migrants and AFAIK hardly any of them have ever gotten any sentence.) So I’m getting the impression that you were using the literal meaning as the motte and the colloquial meaning as the bailey.
So you consider harsh sentences for pointing out true facts about migrant behavior to be reasonable as long as it only happens to “some” people? You may want to learn about how chilling effects on free speech work.
No, I don’t. I was just pointing out that you picked a very disingenuous way of stating that. (You could have said instead, for example, “some people who said something mean about the migrants have gotten harsher sentences”)
Huh. I’ve been living for a year in a city where most of the population is foreign-born (myself included) and it doesn’t look like it’s going to hell. In particular I feel safer here than in certain other places with many fewer immigrants.
Judging by the number of people I hear saying ridiculous things about migrants every day, I wonder what would happen if such “chilling effects” were not in place—would my Facebook feed ever contain anything else at all?
LOL. You wish. Work on your reading comprehension, maybe?
Being extinct is a very peaceful state.
If what I said about people getting harsher sentences for saying mean things about migrants than migrants engaging in rape was really “bullshit”, you wouldn’t have to engage in accusations of “cherry-picking” to pre-dissmiss any evidence. As if there is any reason for any sentence for saying mean things about migrants to be worse than the sentence for rape.
I am not pre-dismissing anything. I’m actually quite familiar with both the sorry state of the freedom of speech in Europe and the propensity of immigrants to be not quite law-abiding. But if you want to make any specific claims, show data (and note that singular of ‘data” is not ‘anecdote’).
Did you mean to type “quantitative”? If you didn’t, what difference?
That much anger, for what? What does it mean?
Spreading this shitty argumentation in a place that had otherwise been quite clean, that’s what’s gotten under my skin.
This is not a good argumentation, at all. “It use to be fine, until I was offended by that”.
It was never really fine. At first, the politics were pretty much prohibited as a “mindkiller”, this was the rule of the game here. Then the standard PC views became accepted, as a kind of a default. Then some reactionaries put their views on a display and shortly after went away.
Now, the unspoken norm is to not go too far away from the PC platform, again?
No.
I’m quite far from the PC platform and I don’t have any issues (that penetrate through my very thick skin, anyway :-D).
It’s possible to talk about politics without explicitly invoking Boo lights like ‘crimmigrants’ and appeals to exaggerated risks like ‘may rob/rape/kill you anytime of day or night’. You can have a reasonable discussion of the problems of immigration, but this is not how you do it. Anyone who says this is A-OK argumentation and that calling it out is wrong is basically diametrically opposed to Lesswrong’s core concepts.
Basically, you’re accusing me of outright lying that I think that argument is quite badly written, and instead being blindly partisan. It was badly written, and I am not. I don’t even know WHAT to do about the problems arising from the rapid immigration from the Middle-East into Europe. I certainly don’t deny they exist. What I DO know is that talking about it like that does (ETA: not) help us approach the truth of the matter.
Except that risk is not in fact exaggerated.
Here’s an idea. If you don’t want to be accused of outright lying and being blindly partisan, try not outright lying and not being blindly partisan. Crazy idea, huh?
Your certainty that I am lying and blindly partisan appears to be much stronger than justifiable given the evidence publicly available, and from my point of view where I at least know that I am not lying… well, it makes your oh-so-clever insinuation fall a touch flat. As for being blindly partisan, what gives you the impression that I would tolerate this from the other side?
At the very least, I think this chain has shown that LessWrong is not a left-side echo chamber as Thomas has claimed above.
If so, the original expression of that risk was presented in such a fashion as to make that claim as non-credible as possible through explicit emotionally enflaming wording.
Can you explain what you mean? As far as I know, different views of civilization collapses don’t lie on any strong political fault-lines.
A political action is everything what a civilization does. Has no other language to speak, but politics.
And it matters a lot what it does. If our (western) civilization is to survive, it has to do the right things—politically. To avoid fundamental political questions is not only silly to try, but impossible.
Actually, it’s not really needed. When Eugine uses a new account we can also ban/delete the post.