I just re-read Scott Alexander’s Be Nice, At Least Until You Can Coordinate Meanness, in which he argues that a necessary (but not sufficient) condition on restricting people’s freedom should be that you should first get societal consensus that restricting freedom in that way is desirable (e.g. by passing a law via the appropriate mechanisms).
In a sufficiently polarized society, there could be two similarly-sized camps that each want to restrict each other’s freedom. Imagine a country that’s equally divided between Christians and Muslims, each of which wants to ban the other religion. Or you could imagine a country that’s equally divided between vegetarians and meat-eaters, where the meat-eaters want to ban cell-cultivated meat while the vegetarians want to ban real meat (thus restricting the other group’s freedom).
In such a situation, if each group values their own freedom more than the ability to impose their values on the other side (as is almost always the case), it would make sense for the two groups to commit to not violate the other side’s freedom even if they gain sufficient power to do so.
I imagine that people in this community have thought about this. Are there any good essays on this topic?
Yeah I’ve argued that banning lab meat is completely rational for the meat-eater because if progress continues then animal meat will probably be banned before the quality/price of lab meat is superior for everyone.
I think the “commitment” you’re describing is similar to the difference between “ordinary” and “constitutional” policy-making in e.g. The Calculus of Consent; under that model, people make the kind of non-aggression pacts you’re describing mainly under conditions of uncertainty where they’re not sure what their future interests or position of political advantage will be.
banning lab meat is completely rational for the meat-eater because if progress continues then animal meat will probably be banned before the quality/price of lab meat is superior
Vox has a post about this a little while ago, and presented what might be the best counterargument (emphasis mine): link
… But the notion that lab-grown meat could eventually lead to bans on factory-farmed animal products is less unhinged.
After all, progressives in some states and cities have banned plastic straws, despite the objective inferiority of paper ones. And the moral case for infinitesimally reducing plastic production isn’t anywhere near as strong as that for ending the mass torture of animals. So, you might reason, why wouldn’t the left forbid real hamburgers the second that a petri dish produces a pale facsimile of a quarter-pounder?
While not entirely groundless, this fear is nevertheless misguided.
Plastic straws are not as integral to American life as tasty meats. As noted above, roughly 95 percent of Americans eat meat. No municipal, state or federal government could ever end access to high-quality hot dogs, ribs, or chicken fingers and survive the next election.
(I think the argument is shit, but when the premise one is trying to defend is patently false, this might well be best one can do.)
It’s often very hard to make commitments like this, so I think that most of the relevant literature might be about how you can’t do this. E.g. a Thucydides trap is when a stronger power launches a preventative war against a weaker rising power; one particular reason for this is that the weaker power can’t commit to not abuse their power in the future. See also security dilemma.
James Madison’s Federalist #10is a classic essay about this. He discusses the dangers of faction, “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community,” and how one might mitigate them.
Pacts against coordinating meanness.
I just re-read Scott Alexander’s Be Nice, At Least Until You Can Coordinate Meanness, in which he argues that a necessary (but not sufficient) condition on restricting people’s freedom should be that you should first get societal consensus that restricting freedom in that way is desirable (e.g. by passing a law via the appropriate mechanisms).
In a sufficiently polarized society, there could be two similarly-sized camps that each want to restrict each other’s freedom. Imagine a country that’s equally divided between Christians and Muslims, each of which wants to ban the other religion. Or you could imagine a country that’s equally divided between vegetarians and meat-eaters, where the meat-eaters want to ban cell-cultivated meat while the vegetarians want to ban real meat (thus restricting the other group’s freedom).
In such a situation, if each group values their own freedom more than the ability to impose their values on the other side (as is almost always the case), it would make sense for the two groups to commit to not violate the other side’s freedom even if they gain sufficient power to do so.
I imagine that people in this community have thought about this. Are there any good essays on this topic?
Yeah I’ve argued that banning lab meat is completely rational for the meat-eater because if progress continues then animal meat will probably be banned before the quality/price of lab meat is superior for everyone.
I think the “commitment” you’re describing is similar to the difference between “ordinary” and “constitutional” policy-making in e.g. The Calculus of Consent; under that model, people make the kind of non-aggression pacts you’re describing mainly under conditions of uncertainty where they’re not sure what their future interests or position of political advantage will be.
Vox has a post about this a little while ago, and presented what might be the best counterargument (emphasis mine): link
(I think the argument is shit, but when the premise one is trying to defend is patently false, this might well be best one can do.)
It’s often very hard to make commitments like this, so I think that most of the relevant literature might be about how you can’t do this. E.g. a Thucydides trap is when a stronger power launches a preventative war against a weaker rising power; one particular reason for this is that the weaker power can’t commit to not abuse their power in the future. See also security dilemma.
...Project Lawful, actually?
James Madison’s Federalist #10 is a classic essay about this. He discusses the dangers of faction, “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community,” and how one might mitigate them.