But what about the medium and long-term effects of allowing lots of money to continue flowing into the reactionary movements that sparked the protests in the first place?
It’s unclear whether the action reduced long-term flow of money into reactionary movements. There’s quite a lot of crypto-money that’s hard to control. That money can not only be used to buy NFTs of monkey images but could also be used to fund reactionary movements.
There will be people who will be discouraged but other people will be radicalized. Those people who will be radicalized are likely more dangerous than the people who will be discouraged.
Agreed and, a broader point—I notice that authoritarians heavily intersect with “people who can’t imagine second-order effects of anything”. Theoretically we should see some authoritarians who think through everything at multiple levels and mastermind a better society against all odds, but instead we keep seeing that basic thought process of “X is bad. X requires Y. So let’s ban Y, boom everything’s solved.”
As a mistake theorist I suspect “no second order effects” is a mistake that leads many people in power to unwittingly inflict much misery on their societies.
Plenty of “cruelty is the point” signaling stuff going on too though, as Zvi says.
Theoretically we should see some authoritarians who think through everything at multiple levels and mastermind a better society against all odds
Policy is not made by single people but by institutions. In a highly authoritarian environment, the people in those institutions are not allowed to say things that would violate the party line and as a result, they are unable to really think through everything.
It’s unclear whether the action reduced long-term flow of money into reactionary movements. There’s quite a lot of crypto-money that’s hard to control. That money can not only be used to buy NFTs of monkey images but could also be used to fund reactionary movements.
There will be people who will be discouraged but other people will be radicalized. Those people who will be radicalized are likely more dangerous than the people who will be discouraged.
Agreed and, a broader point—I notice that authoritarians heavily intersect with “people who can’t imagine second-order effects of anything”. Theoretically we should see some authoritarians who think through everything at multiple levels and mastermind a better society against all odds, but instead we keep seeing that basic thought process of “X is bad. X requires Y. So let’s ban Y, boom everything’s solved.”
As a mistake theorist I suspect “no second order effects” is a mistake that leads many people in power to unwittingly inflict much misery on their societies.
Plenty of “cruelty is the point” signaling stuff going on too though, as Zvi says.
Policy is not made by single people but by institutions. In a highly authoritarian environment, the people in those institutions are not allowed to say things that would violate the party line and as a result, they are unable to really think through everything.