Lumifer comments on Political ideas meant to provoke thought - Less Wrong

3 [deleted] 02 June 2014 01:20AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 05 June 2014 01:11:27AM *  1 point [-]

...are positive utility in some circumstances ... and produces Y amount of utility

Of course, all this depends on how do you understand and calculate utility. Your statements are true for certain values of "utility" and not true for other values.

...where there is left-right disagreement; everyone supports policies that increase wealth and don't increase inequality or have other negative effects

That's actually not true. You are assuming that wealth and inequality are all that people are interested in. Let me suggest to you another value: power. For example, going a bit off the left-right axis we can find statists -- people who really like government power and think that the more the better. They don't necessarily care much about wealth (or about inequality either) -- what they care about is the power of central authority and that's the yardstick they'll be using to support (or not) certain policies.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 23 June 2014 01:00:47PM *  0 points [-]

And who will admit to being a power loving statist?

Comment author: Lumifer 23 June 2014 05:04:51PM 1 point [-]

And who will admit to being a power loving statist?

A lot of people as long as we call it "the power to right wrongs, solve problems, and lead to prosperity".

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 23 June 2014 05:24:10PM *  0 points [-]

IOW , they don't admit to it, where "admit" means "admit", and instead require you to divine their true meaning.

PS are you aware that you admit to being a selfish money grabber every time you say you are a freedom lover who just wants the state to stay out of people's lives? :-)

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 23 June 2014 01:03:04PM -1 points [-]

Almost everyone values lower crime, lower stress, etc. These are cooperated with higher equality.