ChristianKl comments on Something's Wrong - Less Wrong

82 [deleted] 05 September 2010 06:08PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 05 September 2010 07:49:16PM 11 points [-]

I'm not advocating anger as an emotional state -- I think that's usually counterproductive.

And it's also important to avoid the kinds of internal inconsistencies you mentioned.

But I wouldn't say criticism without suggestion is useless. My point is precisely the opposite.

Consider government corruption. Useful ideas can be proposed for limiting corruption, but the fact is that (in some states, and in some countries) nothing has really succeeded. This lack of success tends to make people see corruption as ordinary, as business as usual. That's a logical fallacy. Lack of success at fighting corruption does not imply anything about how harmful or harmless it is. I remember a column by John Kass of the Chicago Tribune where he interviewed the families of children killed in car accidents by truck drivers who had gotten licenses in exchange for bribes. His point: just because corruption is traditional and common and we don't know how to fix it, does not make it harmless.

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 September 2010 11:32:31AM 3 points [-]

The test of whether a political idea to fight corruption isn't whether it "really works" and would reduce corruption to zero.

That not really relevant. What matters is the expected utility of focusing more resources on fighting corruption instead of focusing the resources elsewhere.