It’s possible (I would even say plausible) that having a colonial past is an overall economic benefit to a country—due to the establishment of sound institutions that persist through decolonization—while having a colonial present (being actively colonized) is an overall economic detriment -- due to the traditionally extractive nature of colonial policy swamping the benefits of good institutions. I know that the economic growth rate in India increased markedly soon after decolonization, and that the period of colonial rule in India coincided with a massive decline in India’s share in world GDP.
having a colonial present (being actively colonized) is an overall economic detriment—due to the traditionally extractive nature of colonial policy swamping the benefits of good institutions.
Colonies were extractive at first, but as they were filled with white emigrés over time their economies diversified and infrastructure began to be built, which also improved the lot of the natives in some cases (but I don’t know how general this positive externality was). For example, after the Belgian government annexed the Congo Free State after its catastrophic mismanagement and abuses, the colonial authorities devoted tremendous effort into educating the native Congolese and providing healthcare. Black-owned enterprises flourished, literacy skyrocketed, and the infant mortality rates in the major cities compared favorably with Western standards.
For example, after the Belgian government annexed the Congo Free State after its catastrophic mismanagement and abuses, the colonial authorities devoted tremendous effort into educating the native Congolese and providing healthcare.
I dunno, Moldbug does make a good point in his Fnargl thought experiment (though he’s very naive if he actually expects it to stay a good point until 3007.)
But there are several important disanalogies between Fnargl and actual historical colonial regimes. Unlike Fnargl, colonial governments had to answer to the short term interests of the governments (and, by extension, the people) of their home countries. So, for instance, the British did things like erect massive protective tariffs against Indian exports to Britain while simultaneously making it very cheap to export from Britain to India, in order to cater to special interests at home (who could vote them out of power, unlike the Indian people).
(Note—short term ⇐ 20 years, long term >= 20 years.)
It’s perfectly reasonable for there to be a long term versus short term tradeoff. Regime change almost always has a short term negative impact as institutions are gutted and society resettles. The long term tradeoff is more difficult to quantify, and is also subject to things like hyperbolic discounting. Since war and nation building is often at the behest of politics, the short term negative is almost always seen as the dominant factor.
This is one of the most frustrating things for me to see, demonstrated by one of the more clear-cut cases: North Korea. Violently overthrowing the regime would cost billions of dollars, and the death count could be as high as 1-2 million in the conflict. Economic fallout may be as high as a trillion dollars, with markets changing and political powers shifting over the following decades.
This is weighed against 20 million people being tortured and oppressed into living at subsistence, in a land where famine can claim a million people per year and the living conditions are among the worst the world has to offer. The inability of the world to act to end this isn’t a moral question of dust specks versus torture; it’s a matter of torture versus the short term inconvenience.
First, you keep forgetting that North Korea has nukes. In a cornered-rat situation they are are likely to nuke Seoul and might as well attempt to nuke Tokyo (their rockets reach that far).
Second, which entity will be going around the world fixing what it sees as problems by application of superior firepower? How will this entity make its decisions? What do you think it’s going to evolve into?
Third, did the experience of Iraq teach you anything?
First: A death count of 1-2 million includes the low-yield barely functional nuclear weapons of Pyongyang, assuming they’re even able to deliver them to a location where they would do significant damage.
Second: Not relevant to the discussion and serves only to distract from my point.
Third: A big part of my post was to point out that multiple decades and proper resources are needed to handle situations like Iraq. Did you actually bother to read it?
I don’t “know” that it will succeed. However, I know the odds of success will be much higher. Are you claiming it can never succeed?
The second point is not relevant to the discussion, because the discussion is about the existence of alternate scenarios which are higher global utility. An implementable path of execution is not required for their discussion. Specifically, this is a discussion about the utility of leaving NK as it is, compared to a particular alternate future that I claim has higher net utility. Requiring that I lay out and define an error proof path to get there which takes into account other possible scenarios of your design is well outside of bounds, and if you wish to require that, I’ll politely excuse myself.
However, I know the odds of success will be much higher.
Well, how high? Did we get from 0.01% to 0.1%? Or did we get from 5% to 50%?
On the basis of what do you estimate the odds of success?
the discussion is about the existence of alternate scenarios which are higher global utility. An implementable path of execution is not required for their discussion.
Huh? So, um, you’re talking about fantasy worlds, ones which you can’t get to?
My point is that your “alternate future” has serious side-effects which you should not ignore while estimating its global utility. I think that your claim of “higher net utility” is mistaken.
Lumifer, it would be helpful if you laid out your belief system here. It appears as though you believe intervention is never justified and that nation building/culture change can never be successful. I’d like to get clarification, and understand why.
It appears as though you believe intervention is never justified and that nation building/culture change can never be successful.
Whether something is justified is a function of morality (= system of values) under which you evaluate the justification. Even if you assume pure utilitarianism, the utility function itself is not a given and depends on a network of values.
In short, your values will determine what’s justified and what’s not. Different people (and different organizations) have different values and so will consider different things justified or unacceptable.
Having said this, I think that decision-making leading to political interventions is usually biased. I suspect that it prioritizes short-term thinking over long-term and tends to underestimate costs. Interventions also usually work better on small scale and with very lopsided power balance (compare the US invasion of Grenada and the US invasion of Iraq).
With respect to nation building and culture changing, I don’t know of a single example where the conqueror changed the conquered society primarily for the society’s own benefit and not the conqueror’s. Countries have goals and incentives, altruism is not among them. I don’t expect that to change in the near future.
Regarding the above, it appears we largely agree. My wish for interventions is that if they are deemed necessary, they be properly funded both in terms of resources and time.
Regarding culture changes, I agree that most conquered societies were changed to the benefit of the conquerors. There are many cases where I’m ok with that—ridding the world of the “culture of north korea” and replacing it with a “culture of western civilization” is a prime example.
My wishes and my expectations are often rather different… :-/
There are many cases where I’m ok with that—ridding the world of the “culture of north korea” and replacing it with a “culture of western civilization” is a prime example.
I am sure there are more than a few people who would be OK with ridding the world of the “culture of western civilization” and replacing it with a “culture of China”. So, what’s next?
Of course there are, however western civilization currently has big enough guns to defend itself.
Your responses seem very emotional and not well thought out. I suspect your beliefs on this topic are too strongly tied to your identity for you to discuss it dispassionately.
Of course there are, however western civilization currently has big enough guns to defend itself.
So is that what it comes down to, who has bigger guns?
Your responses seem very emotional and not well thought out. I suspect your beliefs on this topic are too strongly tied to your identity for you to discuss it dispassionately.
That’s… interesting. Would you care to substantiate this assertion of yours? Because from my side it looks like you just want to stop this conversation by claiming that I’m a hysterical idiot and no good can come out of talking to me. There are simpler and more polite ways of getting out of a conversation.
Ultimately yes, it does come down to who has bigger guns, no matter how unpalatable that may seem from a moral standpoint.
If I wanted to stop the conversation, I would simply stop responding (which will probably happen after a few more messages.) Rather, I wanted to point out that you’re being IMHO needlessly combative and that you’re making assumptions and ascribing viewpoints to me which I do not hold. I do not, for example, think you’re an hysterical idiot, and I wouldn’t be talking to you if I thought no good could come of it.
That is a rather different claim than “your responses seem very emotional and not well thought out” which is a pretty clear passive-aggressive jab, especially coming after “regarding the above, it appears we largely agree”.
I do tend to argue in a combative way, whether it’s “needless”, of course, is a subjective opinion.
It may seem a clear passive-aggressive jab to you, but it isn’t. Allow me to examine one of your responses from above:
“So is that what it comes down to, who has bigger guns?”
This very much feels like an emotional trigger → cached response scenario on your part. It’s combative in that you’re passive-aggressively implying that I’m too stupid to have thought of this already, even though it’s a trivially obvious objection and one that gets discussed to death quite often. Did you really think I hadn’t heard it before, did you really think I’m unaware that the situation is more complicated than this, did you really think such an obvious objection would have been overlooked?
That’s an example of what I mean. You didn’t bother to emulate my thinking, you didn’t try to understand where I was coming from. From my perspective, it appears that you just threw out a cached “pretending to be wise” soundbite because I stumbled onto one of your triggers.
Earlier, I asked you for your overall viewpoint so I could better understand your model of the world and try to sidestep some of this. The fact is that much of our view on this matter does appear to match, yet you still seem to be after my throat. If you think that I’m the problem, then by all means, let me know.
This very much feels like an emotional trigger → cached response scenario on your part. It’s combative in that you’re passive-aggressively implying that I’m too stupid to have thought of this already, even though it’s a trivially obvious objection and one that gets discussed to death quite often.
You misunderstood this comment. It’s not a cached response and it’s purpose is not to imply that you are too stupid to have thought about it before.
The purpose of this particular sentence is to sharpen the point and offer you a chance to accept or reject a position around the boundary where I’m not sure whether you’ll agree with it or not. You could viably have said “Yes, it does come to this” or you could viably have said “No, I reject this approach”.
Essentially, when you stake out a position, I don’t know how far are you willing to take it. So I take a guess as to how far could it go and propose a one-sided interpretation or a position that’s noticeably more extreme in a particular direction. When I do this I don’t know whether you’ll find this new position acceptable or not—the point of my proposal/question is to find out.
You didn’t bother to emulate my thinking
My ability to read minds is very very limited :-D I don’t have any particular insights into how your mind works (including things which are patently obvious to you since it’s your own mind) and I don’t think I could do a good—or even a passable—job of emulating your thinking.
yet you still seem to be after my throat
I am curious about the boundaries of the positions you asserted here. I am not particularly interested in your throat or your scalp.
Instead of sharpening the point, you could have just asked. That’s particularly relevant here, because sharpening the point -does not work- when the answer is, “it’s complicated”.
Regarding the boundaries of my position, yes, it pretty much always comes down to who has the guns, whether those guns be nuclear bombs, economics, or even a culture that your average human being prefers over another. In our current world, there’s a pretty strong trend that the cultures with the big guns are preferred over the rest; in part because the guns provide security, but much more so because those places able to protect themselves are better places to live. There are of course exceptions at every end of the spectrum, but the trend is clear.
So yes, having the guns means western civilization wins and north korea doesn’t. However, the west also happens to have the ‘moral might’ to go along with it: the reason we have the guns, is because people actually like and want to live here, as opposed to there, and that’s the ultimate arbiter.
From that standpoint, even russia and china have the ‘moral might’: north korea is arguably one of the worst places on the planet to live.
So is that what it comes down to, who has bigger guns? Most of the time yes, but it’s complicated.
Similarly, didn’t we learn from the Iraq war? Yes, we learned lots of things. It’s complicated.
By trying to force these questions down to a black and white yes/no answer, you’re both insulting the others in the thread and eliminating an entire category of answer. I don’t believe that was your intent, but nevertheless that’s what’s happening.
Well the “culture of north korea” is glaringly obviously much more dysfunctional than the “culture of western civilization”, as for the “culture of western civilization” and “culture of China”, they’re much more comparable.
It’s possible (I would even say plausible) that having a colonial past is an overall economic benefit to a country—due to the establishment of sound institutions that persist through decolonization—while having a colonial present (being actively colonized) is an overall economic detriment -- due to the traditionally extractive nature of colonial policy swamping the benefits of good institutions. I know that the economic growth rate in India increased markedly soon after decolonization, and that the period of colonial rule in India coincided with a massive decline in India’s share in world GDP.
Colonies were extractive at first, but as they were filled with white emigrés over time their economies diversified and infrastructure began to be built, which also improved the lot of the natives in some cases (but I don’t know how general this positive externality was). For example, after the Belgian government annexed the Congo Free State after its catastrophic mismanagement and abuses, the colonial authorities devoted tremendous effort into educating the native Congolese and providing healthcare. Black-owned enterprises flourished, literacy skyrocketed, and the infant mortality rates in the major cities compared favorably with Western standards.
And then it all went to shit …
Using Congo as an exemplar, in the context of this particular post, has a degree of irony.
I dunno, Moldbug does make a good point in his Fnargl thought experiment (though he’s very naive if he actually expects it to stay a good point until 3007.)
But there are several important disanalogies between Fnargl and actual historical colonial regimes. Unlike Fnargl, colonial governments had to answer to the short term interests of the governments (and, by extension, the people) of their home countries. So, for instance, the British did things like erect massive protective tariffs against Indian exports to Britain while simultaneously making it very cheap to export from Britain to India, in order to cater to special interests at home (who could vote them out of power, unlike the Indian people).
(Note—short term ⇐ 20 years, long term >= 20 years.)
It’s perfectly reasonable for there to be a long term versus short term tradeoff. Regime change almost always has a short term negative impact as institutions are gutted and society resettles. The long term tradeoff is more difficult to quantify, and is also subject to things like hyperbolic discounting. Since war and nation building is often at the behest of politics, the short term negative is almost always seen as the dominant factor.
This is one of the most frustrating things for me to see, demonstrated by one of the more clear-cut cases: North Korea. Violently overthrowing the regime would cost billions of dollars, and the death count could be as high as 1-2 million in the conflict. Economic fallout may be as high as a trillion dollars, with markets changing and political powers shifting over the following decades.
This is weighed against 20 million people being tortured and oppressed into living at subsistence, in a land where famine can claim a million people per year and the living conditions are among the worst the world has to offer. The inability of the world to act to end this isn’t a moral question of dust specks versus torture; it’s a matter of torture versus the short term inconvenience.
First, you keep forgetting that North Korea has nukes. In a cornered-rat situation they are are likely to nuke Seoul and might as well attempt to nuke Tokyo (their rockets reach that far).
Second, which entity will be going around the world fixing what it sees as problems by application of superior firepower? How will this entity make its decisions? What do you think it’s going to evolve into?
Third, did the experience of Iraq teach you anything?
First: A death count of 1-2 million includes the low-yield barely functional nuclear weapons of Pyongyang, assuming they’re even able to deliver them to a location where they would do significant damage.
Second: Not relevant to the discussion and serves only to distract from my point.
Third: A big part of my post was to point out that multiple decades and proper resources are needed to handle situations like Iraq. Did you actually bother to read it?
I strongly disagree.
How do you know that after multiple decades and “proper” resources you will succeed?
I don’t “know” that it will succeed. However, I know the odds of success will be much higher. Are you claiming it can never succeed?
The second point is not relevant to the discussion, because the discussion is about the existence of alternate scenarios which are higher global utility. An implementable path of execution is not required for their discussion. Specifically, this is a discussion about the utility of leaving NK as it is, compared to a particular alternate future that I claim has higher net utility. Requiring that I lay out and define an error proof path to get there which takes into account other possible scenarios of your design is well outside of bounds, and if you wish to require that, I’ll politely excuse myself.
Well, how high? Did we get from 0.01% to 0.1%? Or did we get from 5% to 50%?
On the basis of what do you estimate the odds of success?
Huh? So, um, you’re talking about fantasy worlds, ones which you can’t get to?
My point is that your “alternate future” has serious side-effects which you should not ignore while estimating its global utility. I think that your claim of “higher net utility” is mistaken.
As I mentioned here, North Korea doesn’t have preexisting ethnic tensions.
I guess it did not.
Lumifer, it would be helpful if you laid out your belief system here. It appears as though you believe intervention is never justified and that nation building/culture change can never be successful. I’d like to get clarification, and understand why.
Whether something is justified is a function of morality (= system of values) under which you evaluate the justification. Even if you assume pure utilitarianism, the utility function itself is not a given and depends on a network of values.
In short, your values will determine what’s justified and what’s not. Different people (and different organizations) have different values and so will consider different things justified or unacceptable.
Having said this, I think that decision-making leading to political interventions is usually biased. I suspect that it prioritizes short-term thinking over long-term and tends to underestimate costs. Interventions also usually work better on small scale and with very lopsided power balance (compare the US invasion of Grenada and the US invasion of Iraq).
With respect to nation building and culture changing, I don’t know of a single example where the conqueror changed the conquered society primarily for the society’s own benefit and not the conqueror’s. Countries have goals and incentives, altruism is not among them. I don’t expect that to change in the near future.
Regarding the above, it appears we largely agree. My wish for interventions is that if they are deemed necessary, they be properly funded both in terms of resources and time.
Regarding culture changes, I agree that most conquered societies were changed to the benefit of the conquerors. There are many cases where I’m ok with that—ridding the world of the “culture of north korea” and replacing it with a “culture of western civilization” is a prime example.
My wishes and my expectations are often rather different… :-/
I am sure there are more than a few people who would be OK with ridding the world of the “culture of western civilization” and replacing it with a “culture of China”. So, what’s next?
Of course there are, however western civilization currently has big enough guns to defend itself.
Your responses seem very emotional and not well thought out. I suspect your beliefs on this topic are too strongly tied to your identity for you to discuss it dispassionately.
So is that what it comes down to, who has bigger guns?
That’s… interesting. Would you care to substantiate this assertion of yours? Because from my side it looks like you just want to stop this conversation by claiming that I’m a hysterical idiot and no good can come out of talking to me. There are simpler and more polite ways of getting out of a conversation.
Ultimately yes, it does come down to who has bigger guns, no matter how unpalatable that may seem from a moral standpoint.
If I wanted to stop the conversation, I would simply stop responding (which will probably happen after a few more messages.) Rather, I wanted to point out that you’re being IMHO needlessly combative and that you’re making assumptions and ascribing viewpoints to me which I do not hold. I do not, for example, think you’re an hysterical idiot, and I wouldn’t be talking to you if I thought no good could come of it.
That is a rather different claim than “your responses seem very emotional and not well thought out” which is a pretty clear passive-aggressive jab, especially coming after “regarding the above, it appears we largely agree”.
I do tend to argue in a combative way, whether it’s “needless”, of course, is a subjective opinion.
It may seem a clear passive-aggressive jab to you, but it isn’t. Allow me to examine one of your responses from above:
“So is that what it comes down to, who has bigger guns?”
This very much feels like an emotional trigger → cached response scenario on your part. It’s combative in that you’re passive-aggressively implying that I’m too stupid to have thought of this already, even though it’s a trivially obvious objection and one that gets discussed to death quite often. Did you really think I hadn’t heard it before, did you really think I’m unaware that the situation is more complicated than this, did you really think such an obvious objection would have been overlooked?
That’s an example of what I mean. You didn’t bother to emulate my thinking, you didn’t try to understand where I was coming from. From my perspective, it appears that you just threw out a cached “pretending to be wise” soundbite because I stumbled onto one of your triggers.
Earlier, I asked you for your overall viewpoint so I could better understand your model of the world and try to sidestep some of this. The fact is that much of our view on this matter does appear to match, yet you still seem to be after my throat. If you think that I’m the problem, then by all means, let me know.
You misunderstood this comment. It’s not a cached response and it’s purpose is not to imply that you are too stupid to have thought about it before.
The purpose of this particular sentence is to sharpen the point and offer you a chance to accept or reject a position around the boundary where I’m not sure whether you’ll agree with it or not. You could viably have said “Yes, it does come to this” or you could viably have said “No, I reject this approach”.
Essentially, when you stake out a position, I don’t know how far are you willing to take it. So I take a guess as to how far could it go and propose a one-sided interpretation or a position that’s noticeably more extreme in a particular direction. When I do this I don’t know whether you’ll find this new position acceptable or not—the point of my proposal/question is to find out.
My ability to read minds is very very limited :-D I don’t have any particular insights into how your mind works (including things which are patently obvious to you since it’s your own mind) and I don’t think I could do a good—or even a passable—job of emulating your thinking.
I am curious about the boundaries of the positions you asserted here. I am not particularly interested in your throat or your scalp.
Instead of sharpening the point, you could have just asked. That’s particularly relevant here, because sharpening the point -does not work- when the answer is, “it’s complicated”.
Regarding the boundaries of my position, yes, it pretty much always comes down to who has the guns, whether those guns be nuclear bombs, economics, or even a culture that your average human being prefers over another. In our current world, there’s a pretty strong trend that the cultures with the big guns are preferred over the rest; in part because the guns provide security, but much more so because those places able to protect themselves are better places to live. There are of course exceptions at every end of the spectrum, but the trend is clear.
So yes, having the guns means western civilization wins and north korea doesn’t. However, the west also happens to have the ‘moral might’ to go along with it: the reason we have the guns, is because people actually like and want to live here, as opposed to there, and that’s the ultimate arbiter.
From that standpoint, even russia and china have the ‘moral might’: north korea is arguably one of the worst places on the planet to live.
So is that what it comes down to, who has bigger guns? Most of the time yes, but it’s complicated.
Similarly, didn’t we learn from the Iraq war? Yes, we learned lots of things. It’s complicated.
By trying to force these questions down to a black and white yes/no answer, you’re both insulting the others in the thread and eliminating an entire category of answer. I don’t believe that was your intent, but nevertheless that’s what’s happening.
First, I believe it does. “That depends, it’s complicated and here’s why...” is a perfectly good answer to a very sharp point.
Second, “it’s complicated” is not an acceptable answer in the cases where you actually have to make a binary decision.
I think you’re the only one who got insulted, basically because you thought it was all about you and your throat. Oh well.
I think this subthread is done.
Well the “culture of north korea” is glaringly obviously much more dysfunctional than the “culture of western civilization”, as for the “culture of western civilization” and “culture of China”, they’re much more comparable.