Lumifer comments on On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor - Less Wrong

13 Post author: ChrisHallquist 27 November 2013 05:08AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 24 November 2013 12:51:25AM 0 points [-]

None of the major political ideologies are particularly consequentialist in the way they approach policy.

You have to distinguish between what they say and what they do. The major ideologies are considerably more consequential in what they do than in what they say.

Comment author: Jack 24 November 2013 01:55:48AM 0 points [-]

You'll have to explain what that means.

Comment author: hyporational 24 November 2013 08:02:32AM *  6 points [-]

My interpretation:

Politicians try to say things that appeal to as many people as possible to maximize votes. Once they're elected, they can be more specific and thus more consequentalist about what they do, since for the average voter, verifying what they do is more laborious than listening to what they say.

Comment author: Lumifer 25 November 2013 01:57:28AM *  1 point [-]

There is no hidden meaning here.

In politics there is a major difference between what politicians say and what they do. This is a rather straightforward consequence of the set of incentives they have to deal with. There are, of course, limits to the divergence of the words and the deeds, but these limits are pretty lax.

Comment author: Randy_M 25 November 2013 03:57:57PM 0 points [-]

Are you implying that what happens is generally what was intended (by someone) or that policy out comes are due to wrongly anticipating consequences, rather than simply neglecting to?

Comment author: hyporational 28 November 2013 04:43:46AM 1 point [-]

Both look fine to me and are not mutually exclusive. Many policies are compromises between different parties so they might not look like especially consequentialist. Consider also that the more media visibility a policy can be expected to get, the less consequentialist it will look, extrapolating from my other comment.