Politics Discussion Thread September 2012

Multiheaded

The last thread didn't fare too badly, I think; let's make it a monthly tradition. (Me, I'm more interested in thinking about real-world policies or philosophies, actual and possible, rather than AI design or physics, and I suspect that many fine, non-mind-killed folks reading LW also are - but might be ashamed to admit it!)

Quoth OrphanWilde:

Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.

Let's try to stick to those rules - and maybe make some more if sorely needed.

Oh, and I think that the "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also belongs here.

Quoth OrphanWilde:

Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.

Let's try to stick to those rules - and maybe make some more if sorely needed.

Oh, and I think that the "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also belongs here.

Keynes, who is having a come back these days, was also in favour of a reduced week, based on the assumption that the prosperity societies have would lead to less work.

We can certainly afford it, but if 40 hours is more efficient than 30 hours, in a competitive framework the former will triumph. Of course, theres a reasonable amount of evidence (as I understand it) that beyond short pushes to get stuff done, stretching the working day reduces productivity: this is one of the reasons companies excepted union demands for an 8 hour day.

It is kind of weird that we have a 5 day working week and not a 6 day or 4 day week if you think about it. One suspects that thats a cultural creation rather than an inevitable one.

in a competitive framework the former will triumph

In what kind of a competitive framework? If, say, all the trade unions within a nation insist upon a 30-hour week, it would indeed maybe reduce the industry's output a little - but wouldn't the best and brightest/most conscious workers from the other nations either move there, giving the employer superior human resources, or have a strike at home and enable the same kind of thing for themselves?

The question is, who tells, or broadly hints, the workers what to ask for? (and here the buck is certainly away from the Left - c'mon, look at how useless it has been, nowdays it can't tell the workers to stand up for anything!)

3coffeespoons14y

"...stretching the working day reduces productivity" AFAIK, it reduces productivity per hour; I'm not sure at what point it reduces overall productivity. ETA: will look this up later, if no one else gets there first.