There are also countless examples of “top-down social planning” that leaded to huge success—from sending men to the moon to eradicating smallpox to building the TGV (French high-speed train) network to eradicating illiteracy in some countries. We can argue for long if those results could have been achieved otherwise, or if they had more drawbacks than they are worth, … that would mean entering in a full-scale political discussion, which is not the purpose of Less Wrong. But calling it a “delusion” with a sleight of the hand like you do really looks like you’re victim of mind-killing on that issue. Rational political debate shouldn’t appear so blatantly one-sided.
There appears to be a definitional disconnect here. Although the Apollo program was top-down in many ways, it wasn’t what I would call social planning.
There are also countless examples of “top-down social planning” that leaded to huge success—from sending men to the moon to eradicating smallpox to building the TGV (French high-speed train) network to eradicating illiteracy in some countries. We can argue for long if those results could have been achieved otherwise, or if they had more drawbacks than they are worth, … that would mean entering in a full-scale political discussion, which is not the purpose of Less Wrong. But calling it a “delusion” with a sleight of the hand like you do really looks like you’re victim of mind-killing on that issue. Rational political debate shouldn’t appear so blatantly one-sided.
There appears to be a definitional disconnect here. Although the Apollo program was top-down in many ways, it wasn’t what I would call social planning.