= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
fezziwig comments on Defeating the Villain - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (34)
This "let's defeat the villain and everything will be OK" mentality is what made me skeptical of many aspects of liberalism. Many liberal-leaning activists choose a controversial topic (religion, gay marriage, abortion, immigration, etc.) and proclaim that the old system is evil, without a rational explanation why, and more importantly, without a rational explanation how their proposal would be better in the long term. If I ask for an explanation, I'm often labeled as "the enemy".
It's interesting, as I think that if liberalism were slower, I would likely be a liberal. If the liberal views were rationally discussed, and if serious research was being made to study the effects of these novel ideas on society after many generations, or if we just slowly introduced a few minor reforms first, and then observed how it affects the next generation, I would be among the very strong supporters of these liberal ideas.
Why I'm conservative-leaning? Because I hold the belief that while the proposals of liberals might bring the advantage of some personal freedoms, 1. these would be relative, so people would not feel happier and 2. they could have long-lasting negative side-effects of the society as a whole.
Why wasn't I convinced by these ideas? Because they are used as ammunition, as things which "sound good". The weight is not on scientific rigor, but about how nice the idea sounds to potential voters.
A (maybe a little extreme) example: A school wants to introduce the rule that teachers are not allowed to correct student's essays with a red pen, because red is an aggressive color, it is abusive and it causes psychological trauma for the children. Or that they intentionally forbid children to call each other boys and girls, or even to forbid them the knowledge that any difference exists, just to erode the difference between genders, so that everyone should choose a gender later and not be "biased". These seem to be suggested because they "sound good" for a liberal activist, but as I grew up while my essays were corrected with a red pen, and all other people I know grew up that way, and countless generations grew up that way, and none of us seem to have any psychological trauma because of this, I would oppose any such "novel ideas", unless there was a serious study observing the long-lasting effects proving me wrong.
I know the evidence for some of my beliefs is mostly anecdotic, but even anecdotic evidence is better than no evidence at all.
The problems you're describing don't sound like "failure to make plans for after the villain is defeated" so much as "failure to accurately assess whether your target is a villain or not". I think Zubon's point is that even after you've found a real live villain and come up with a workable plan to defeat him, you're still not done.
A villain is not necessarily a person or an institution. I was referring to people viewing certain social and cultural norms as "villains", without any serious study into what long term effects the abolition of these norms would cause, or how an alternative norm they would propose instead of the old would fare in the long term.
I'm not claiming that a traditional norm is good solely because it's traditional, I'm open to new ideas. However, I believe that in case of a conflict between an old and a new norm, the burden of proof lies on the new norm, especially if the old norm was keeping society functional for many generations, and the new wasn't seen in effect in real life for long enough.