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.

It really depends on the field. If you get someone to work 10 less hours at mcdonalds, you are literally getting 25 percent less out of employing that person, and you need to make up the shortfall with more employees. On the other hand, office work is so independent of hours that many people can work at home with no enforcement just fine.

Yeah, the burger-flippers are exploited in a really hardcore and efficient way, no kidding. It's exemplarly of how far modern capitalism can go in full view of its 1st world clients. (Do read "Manna"!) I'd also argue that they're emotionally abused through all the phoney "team-building" and such, but that's another matter.

But hey, that's exactly where organized labor could find a good spot to make a stand - "We're working as hard as we possibly can, we're not some big fucking happy family, treat us like adults!". Mcdonalds it... (read more)