Servant

Karma: 57

Servant 24 Sep 2010 8:17 UTC
5 points
on: Politics as Charity
In a ‘direct democracy’ system where the general population vote directly to change and implement policies, then discussing about the behavior of these individual voters would be sensible.

But in a ‘representative democracy’, like the United States, the people don’t vote directly for policies. They vote for representatives in Congress to ‘represent’ their interests. It is these representatives that actually vote to change and implement policies. The chance of these represenatives casting the deciding vote is ¹⁄₅₃₅ (1/100 in Senate, ¹⁄₄₃₅ in the HoR), and thus is much higher than the chance of an individual casting the deciding vote (1/1,000,000). If politics is charity, then it would be more productive to donate to “assist” the represenatives GOTV (by voting how you want them to vote) than it is to get the average powerless individual to GOTV.

In addition, focusing on elected officals tend to ignore the judicary system and the bureacracy, unelected officals who, nevertheless, make policies just as much as the elected officals do. For example, the FDA rejects and accepts drugs based on criteria it sets, the Fed sets monetary policy and implictly decides the unemployment and inflation rates, the EPA passes environmental regulations that corporations must follow, and the Supreme Court justices rule on important court cases that would impact the lives of millions. “Assisting” those represenatives GOTV would be incredibly lucrative.

Servant 27 Sep 2010 17:48 UTC
0 points
in reply to: dripgrind’s comment on: Vote Qualifications, Not Issues
“The last link says that US found 500 degraded chemical artillery shells from the 1980s which were too corroded to be used but might still have some toxicity. They don’t sound like something that could actually be used to cause mass destruction.”

So just because it doesn’t seem to cause mass destruction according to you, it therefore ISN’T a WMD?

WMDs has nothing to do with mass destruction. According to the US government and international law, WMD (mosly) means: “nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.” That’s it. This weapon is classified as a chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Convention, so by that definition, Saddam had WMDs.

Source: http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f1a1.html

EDIT: Though for the most part, I was called to attention that “WMDs” may have no definiton at all, and instead people use the words NCB instead, for clarification . Also, the source points out that there are new types of WMDs such as conventional weapons and radiological weapons.

Servant 28 Sep 2010 19:53 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Perplexed’s comment on: Vote Qualifications, Not Issues
“Yeah, I know I am sliding into Mind Killer territory here. Sorry.”

Is the Mind Killer policy really policy? If it was, your posts would have been downvoted instantly. Instead, you’ve made a total of 24 karma through 3 posts by “sliding” into this Mind Killer territory.

If there is no enforcement (negative Karma) for a policy, and if anybody can hop in Mind Killer territory without suffering any penalty, then this policy doesn’t exist.

The Direct Democracy Experiment

Servant29 Sep 2010 4:36 UTC

3 points

12 comments1 min readLW link

Servant 29 Sep 2010 14:37 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Sly’s comment on: The Direct Democracy Experiment
By war, I mean actual war that can result in the destruction of the direct democracy. Your victory in the actual war is dependent on Quality of Life, Economic Strength, and Army Strength.

I think it would be more accurate for voting blocs to propose given policies (representing referendums and initivates). It will also save me the effort for coming up with the actual policy questions myself; the voting blocs will do it for me.

Servant 29 Sep 2010 14:43 UTC
0 points
in reply to: erratio’s comment on: The Direct Democracy Experiment
You don’t know the rules of the simulation, you only know enough to be able to make desicions within it. I think that should limit the ‘informedness’ of the voters in question.

And I am merely testing to see if direct democracy works...at all. If it doesn’t work well here, then it does act as evidence against working in a less “homogenous” society. (I think. Maybe a less “homogenous” society might have a better functioning direct democracy, with new ideas, but I still think one test is better than none.)

Servant 30 Sep 2010 2:21 UTC
0 points
in reply to: patrissimo’s comment on: Vote Qualifications, Not Issues
I can’t agree with this idea. The point of government IS to come up with solutions to potential problems (other governments, crime, paying for “public goods”, expanding the freedom of the individual pledging loyalty to the government, protection from the “state of nature”), through a variety of tools, including coercion. The government exist not in and of itself, but exist to produce certain “outcomes” which will favor or harm specific interests.

If we can’t talk about what a future government is actually going to do, then what’s the point of changing to it?

Servant 30 Sep 2010 2:47 UTC
0 points
in reply to: whpearson’s comment on: Brain storm: What is the theory behind a good political mechanism?
There are other ways of engaging in micronational secessionism. The best method prehaps is to unilaterally declare independence under the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, but do so in such a matter as to not attract the attention of the federal government (for example, keep on paying taxes, follow the laws). Then begin operating as if you are an independent government. Examples would include the Republic of Molossia and the Empire of Atlantium. You will lose status though.

The main problem is thinking you could generalize from one small situation into the macrolevel. There may be intervening variables that could explain why a government can succeed with small population and that same government collaspe when it runs a large population.

Servant 30 Sep 2010 3:00 UTC
0 points
on: Brain storm: What is the theory behind a good political mechanism?
Is the goal of coming up with a mechanism of government really for implementation purposes?

Because I’m worried that the main reason why people come up with strange and new government mechanics that are unlikely to ever be adopted is to claim the following:

“Look! Our people have developed the Viatngvogbvim, and this Viatngvogbvim will solve most of our problems (while creating new ones, but let ignore that for now). Viatngvogbvim will aid our society to prosperity. Too bad it will never be implemented or enacted, but that’s okay, because now that we have found the solution, we don’t need to think of anything else to do with this problem. We don’t need to engage in political compromise anymore, or try to work within the current despicable government system. We can now MOVE ON with our lives, glad that we are content with this secret, hidden knowledge of Viatngvogbvim.”

Servant 1 Oct 2010 8:31 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Servant’s comment on: Brain storm: What is the theory behind a good political mechanism?
whpearson and blogospheroid seemed to misunderstood what I said, so I’ll clarify my comments, since I wasn’t being clear.

I don’t think that people come up with new governments for the sole purpose of testing or implementing them. I think that people sometimes come up with new governments as a way to come up a simple answer* to the problems facing society, so they don’t have to think any more about those problems, or waste resources trying to fix these problems conventionally.

*To them, at least. The point of coming up with a new government is to persuade themselves, not others.

Servant 1 Oct 2010 8:53 UTC
1 point
on: Hypothetical—Moon Station Government
A ‘technocratic’ Bureacratic Despotism, with the Philanthropist technically in charge.

Before you say otherwise, realize that the OP has asked: “What sort of government do you establish?”, not “What sort of government WOULD you wish to establish?” Regardless of my personal views, the wealthy philanthropist has too much influence and control over the government (by being its sole source of funding) for it to be truly ‘democratic’. I also have to make sure that the system survive and thrive, so I cannot rely on testing out new and exciting ideas, lest the philanthropist sues me when they fail. The safest method for surviving and thriving then would be to rely on a bunch of technocratic experts to handle the government for the philanthropist, and if the government collaspes, it would be the technocrats who are blamed, and not me.

Servant 3 Oct 2010 3:15 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Will_Newsome’s comment on: Rational Terrorism or Why shouldn’t we burn down tobacco fields?
You would likely have to, for the simple reason that if Cancer gets cured, more resources can be dedicated to dealing with other diseases, meaning even more lives will be saved in the process (on top of those lives saved due to the curing of Cancer).

The economy can be in shambles for a while, but it can recover in the future, unlike cancer patients..and you could always justifying it that if a banker like you could blow up the economy, it was already too weak in the first place: better to blow it up now when the damage can be limited rather than latter.

Though the reason it doesn’t appeal is because you don’t quote hard numbers, making the consequentalist rely on “value” judgements when doing his deeds...and different consequentalists have different “values”. Your consequentalist would be trying to cure cancer by crashing the economy to raise money for a cancer charity, while a different consequentalist could be embezzling money from that same cancer charity in an attempt to save the economy from crashing.

Servant 7 Oct 2010 19:09 UTC
6 points
on: A Parable On Obsolete Ideologies
“Germany should completely lose all the baggage of Nazism and replace it with a completely democratic society that has no causal linkage whatsoever to its bloody past.”

General Y is advocating for an absolute bastardization of history as much as General F. You cannot deny the past, because the past shaped your country and what your country did. There is a difference between interpreting the “real” meaning of Nazism, and actually erasing Nazism from history, as General Y wants.

General Y also want to place all blame on the the Nazi regime, thereby excusing the rest of the German population for actually supporting the National Socialists to begin with! You aren’t dealing with “militant nationalism” here at all. You’re dealing with HUMAN BEINGS.

Finally, General F could argue that de-Nazification could get out of control, leading to the rise of left wing terrorist groups who argued you haven’t done enough de-Nazification and the only way to remove the “Nazi taint” is to destroy capitalism entirely and surrender to the Soviet Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification#The_radical_left_in_Germany_during_the_1960s.E2.80.9370s_and_Nazi_allegations

Servant 7 Oct 2010 20:01 UTC
1 point
on: There is no such thing as pleasure
“If there are people who do experience a definite thing common to all enjoyable experiences, this might be one reason for the attraction, to some, of utilitarian theories—even for taking some sort of utilitarianism to be obviously, trivially true.”

People do find a definite thing common to all enjoyable experiences: they enjoy them.

Your comment raises a good point though: it would be very hard to measure one sort of enjoyment with another, especially between the “carnal pleasures” and the “intellectual pleasures”, which both produce enjoyment...but how much? Without a way of measuring pleasure, you’re left with subjective judgement, which may be of little use.

Servant 27 Oct 2010 5:17 UTC
6 points
on: Willpower: not a limited resource?
“Much recent research suggests that willpower—the capacity to exert self-control—is a limited resource that is depleted after exertion.”

Instead of taking this research at face value, shouldn’t we wait for new experiments to verify their findings? I am afraid of people just accepting this experiment, and ignoring the many OTHER experiments that said otherwise.

Servant 2 Nov 2010 19:56 UTC
4 points
in reply to: araneae’s comment on: Voting is not rational (usually.)
The reason may be less that the LW community believes voting is rational...but that the LW community already understands that voting IS irrational, and the LW community is just reacting negatively to having the same idea be brought up again.

I understand you provided some solutions to try and make voting ‘rational’, though, however, I do disagree with the idea that #3 and #4 would actually work. Voting only becomes rational when your vote does sways an issue, and not only is this chance incredibly small, but it would likely provoke an automatic recount, meaning your vote is again proven useless.

Providing one extra vote to your side when your side is already is winning/losing is inherently irrational (at least in terms of swaying policy, not signaling views).

Servant 19 Mar 2011 2:34 UTC
1 point
on: How best to show dying is bad
“More generally, I’d like to figure out how to pierce this sort of argument in a way that makes the person in question actually change his mind.”

Since you did post that letter about your Father trying to argue to you in a manner to try and have you change your mind, this raises alarms bells for me.

If both you and your Father is trying to change each others’ minds, then there is a possibility that the argument can degenerate: both sides would only treat the other people’s arguments as something to swat away, as opposed to something to seriously consider and take into account. If this occurs, then the argument would become futile, neither side will budge on this point, so no persuasion will occur.

That being said, if both you and your Father are arguing in good faith, then there is still a chance of someone being persuaded (either you or your Father). If neither are though, then no persuasion will occur and the argument is futile. Since I am unable to determine which is the case in your OP, I would request a clarification on this point.

Servant 21 Mar 2011 0:04 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Cyan’s comment on: Can we stop using the word “rationalism”?
And then, about three minutes later, we’d have to taboo said common keywords and then write a three sentence summary of said keyword and present it to each other in order to pick out common themes and keywords, and repeat this process over and over...and not being able to actually talk about what we were supposed to talk about.

Can’t we just argue over what is being done in the name of rationality, rather than arguing over the word “rationality” itself?

Servant 21 Mar 2011 4:26 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Cyan’s comment on: Can we stop using the word “rationalism”?
Throwing up numbers would just be pointless guessing for the sake of pointless guessing, but because of the tight-knit nature of the blog in question (meaning that people here tend to share the same ideas and values concerning rationality), I’d say that the chances of regression for the LessWrong community would be significantly lower than the chances of regression for two random individuals.

Servant 24 Mar 2011 16:44 UTC
1 point
on: death-is-bad-ism going a little bit more mainstream?
What exactly do you mean by mainstream? If you mean accepted by the general population, then I’m guessing not. In fact, as a random individual, I know nothing appsumo AND reddit (I didn’t even know appsumo existed until you said they did so in this blog post), so if those things are not mainstream, then I highly doubt “death-is-bad” would become somehow become mainstream by associating with non-mainstream stuff.

Servant

The Direct Democ­racy Experiment

The Direct Democracy Experiment