"liberated" women
I actually have seen that. Check out those graphs - there's a difference between statistical significance and differences of magnitudes that actually matter. But lets suppose for a moment that the differences were of a magnitude large enough to influence policy:.
..."this makes me happier" and "I prefer this" are not the same thing. Feminist action might well have shifted happiness from women to men as a result of shifting work load from men to women, but I'm not sure why a more equitable labor and happiness distribution is a bad thing? Unless you're suggesting that it was a net loss.
"tolerated" minorities / disgenic
I haven't seen the former...could it be attributable to the recession and wealth inequality? The latter is too large of a discussion to have.
I suppose arguing over the facts of these matters will derail somewhat. Back to the theoretical stuff...
When you try to run a government like a charity you are asking for trouble.
So if I understand, this can be paraphrased as, "a government that is designed for the purpose of benefiting its people is likely to be worse than a government designed to exploit its people because the former has no concrete incentive".
If so, I still don't see why the solution isn't transparency and data collection, to give the government an incentive to make reality come out the way that the government claims it should. If the numbers come out wrong, the ruler loses power.
Anoint
wait, not so fast
1) Doesn't that constitute a revolution and destruction of all existing power structures? Seems rather un-reactionary. My "transparency" solution was an attempt to work within the system, not to topple it.
2) You convinced me that it is possible that power structures designed to be non-exploitative tend to end up falling prey to perverse incentives that fuel a large amount of counterproductive action which benefits no one.
a) That's not the same as making a convincing case for the "order-chaos" thesis, where centralized power is superior to complex systems of distributed power. Thus far, I'd rather live in a random liberal democracy than a random totalitarian state, Why do you believe that a self interested and exploitative centralized power is superior to a self-interested and exploitative network made up of multiple distributed systems of power?
b) Your solution didn't even stipulate that our rulers must act in self interest. They'd still have to appease the populace. It didn't hand them any real power. Wouldn't a better solution (what I think maximizes Order and Self Interested Rulers, not what I think best maximizes utility) be to hand over all our weapons and military power to China and tell them to rule us as they see fit? Or, if we really had faith in this concept that even Fnargl would be superior, wouldn't North Korea suffice?
I'm not sure why a more equitable labor distribution is a bad thing?
If me and the eminent Professor Hawking found ourselves sharing an apartment, it would be insane to distribute the labor equally between us. Comparative advantage tells us that he should use his enormously powerful mind and reputation pay a much higher share of the rent while I can use my young and increasingly muscular body to do any household chores which need doing. This turned into a slash-fic way too fast, but you get my drift here; men and women need to pursue tasks which compleme...
People want to tell everything instead of telling the best 15 words. They want to learn everything instead of the best 15 words. In this thread, instead post the best 15-words from a book you've read recently (or anything else). It has to stand on its own. It's not a summary, the whole value needs to be contained in those words.
I'll start in the comments below.
(Voted by the Schelling study group as the best exercise of the meeting.)