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NancyLebovitz comments on Open thread, Oct. 5 - Oct. 11, 2015 - Less Wrong
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I've found I've become a smidge more conservative-- I was in favor of the Arab Spring, and to put it mildly, it hasn't worked well. I'm not even sure the collapse of the Soviet Union was a net gain.
Any thoughts about how much stability should be respected?
I think it was a gain for me, because it decreased the probability that Soviet Union would attack my country. Many people from former Soviet area of influence have the same opinion. Then again, many have the opposite opinion.
Also, as a result of collapse of Soviet Union, I am allowed to cross borders and attend LW meetups at Vienna. I know, it's pretty selfish to wish an entire empire to collapse only to improve my weekends, but still, I am selfishly happy.
The Arab Spring has worked quite well in the one country that actually had a well-established civil society prior to it, namely Tunisia. (Not coincidentally, this is also where the AS got its start.) All else being equal, I am in favor of having solid evidence about the factors that can actually lead to long-lasting social improvement in the Arab world and elsewhere.
I think the question is WAY too general. The only possible answer is: "It depends".
People tend to conflate two different things by that phrase.
1) The fall of Communism.
2) The break up of the Soviet Union into 15 republics.
Which one are you asking about.
There is yet a third interpretation: the loss of control by the USSR over the other states of the Warsaw Pact. This is the aspect that is most clearly a good development. Added: In fact, I think that is the most common use (cf Viliam).
I definitely value it higher than the momentary high of getting to impose your values on others, which seems to be the opposite of the current US foreign policy.
Not being in favor of the collapse of the Soviet Union seems to me a gigantic mistake. The threat of large scale nuclear war is greatly reduced. 100s of millions of people live in a much less repressive environment. (If you don't believe that, consider information was greatly restricted in the communist bloc with communist propaganda keeping the sad truth that communist lives were way circumscribed and poor compared to Western lives, and people were literally shot for trying to leave). It would be interesting to poll people over the age of 45 or 50 that live in eastern europe to find out how many of them would not be in favor of getting out from behind the iron curtain.
I would be inclined to agree, but the B vs P comparison is a bit unsettling...
Lots! But it seems like if we start doing "yay stability" vs. "boo stagnation" we'll be at politics pretty quick.
Stagnation is actually a stable condition. It's "yay stability" vs. "boo instability," and "yay growth" vs. "boo stagnation."
Those are true words you wrote. I lounge corrected.
Was exactly does that mean? That you cheered when it happened? Or do you mean something more political significant?
I cheered when it happened.
The interesting question is how did you decide the Arab Spring was a good thing.
Was it because the New York Times told you so? Or was it a consequence of the prior that "More democracy is always good?"
There may have been some influence from the NYT, but it was also less tyranny as well as more democracy.
Democracy is a quite deceptive word. 74% of Egyptians want Egypt to be ruled via the Sharia.
Did the NYT narrative have Egyptians suddenly stoning homosexuals which a majority of that country believes, or did it have the new government not representing the views of the Egyptian population?
As far as I remember not really. It had the idea that western democracy with people who value western value suddenly came to Egypt without really thinking it through.
"Less tyranny" isn't the same thing as "more democracy".
I'm not sure that I know what's meant with "less tyranny".
Some governments are more abusive than others, and governments which are very abusive tend not to be democracies.
What do you mean with being abusive? Democracies don't have inherent protection of minorities.
Do you believe that the Pakistani government was less abusive than prerevolution Egypt?
I can't speak for Nancy, but my own reaction to the Arab Spring was something like "oh, that looks like a good thing if it actually works out rather than leading to more repression in the end", and it was a consequence of a prior that resembles the one you describe but contains less straw: "More democracy is usually good, other things being equal".
[EDITED to add: I mention this only because I find it striking how the two possibilities you mention are both, if you'll pardon my directness, rather stupid[1], and I'm wondering on what basis you assume that Nancy's reasons were stupid ones.]
[1] Meaning "it would be rather stupid to decide on that basis" rather than "it is stupid to think that someone else might decide on that basis". And of course "stupid" is a strong word; believing whatever you read in the NYT isn't really that bad a strategy. But I'm sure you see what I mean.
This is an entirely generic attitude suitable for everything that claims to have a noble aim in mind.
Doesn't look like a workable prior given that other things are never equal. Looks like a hedged version of "the expected value of more democracy is more good".
I don't think so. Nancy is not an expert in Arab politics -- she relies on opinions of others. Given this, accepting the prevailing opinion of the media (of the appropriate political flavour) is an entirely normal thing and happens all the time. "There is another coup in Backwardistan? The newspaper I read says it's bad? Oh, I guess it must be so <yawn>".
Ditto with using general priors when you can't or can't bother to analyze the situation yourself.
Nope. For instance, abstinence-only sex education claims to have in mind the noble end of preserving the virtue of the young. I do not particularly hope that it succeeds in its aims, because I disagree about their nobility.
Regarding what the "Arab Spring" was trying to do as a noble end (as opposed to one merely claimed to be noble) says something not altogether trivial about the values of the person who so regards it.
For a consequentialist this is a question for historians and those who model historical what-ifs (psycho-historians? Hari Seldon, where are you?)
There are multiple possibilities that I can think of offhand:
1. a revolution/regime change/instability may have some negative or positive effect in the near term, but no measurable long-term effect anywhere
2. there are some long-term positive/negative effects locally, but none globally
3. there are both local and global effects, positive and/or negative
A historical analysis can only get you so far, as it is hard to come up with controlled examples. Was the US revolution similar to the French revolution? To the Russian revolution? To the Spartacus' uprising? To the Chinese dynastic revolts?
Would the US have been better off peacefully separating from Great Britain like Australia and Canada? Did the horrors of the World War II scare Europe into peace? Was the Holocaust a net good for the Jews, since it led to creation of Israel and the rise of Jewish influence in the US and in the world? (Assuming either of those are beneficial. Most Arabs would disagree.)
Even the seemingly clear-cut "good" cases, like the end of the Apartheid in South Africa eventually resulted in rising crime rates in the country.
To misquote a famous historian, "History is just one damned thing after another".
My current position on the issue is that any uprising is only worth considering if you can reasonably expect near-term positive effects for the group you care about, because there is currently no way to estimate long-term effects, and you cannot hope to be honest about the welfare of people you don't care about.
This position is an awkward one, since it means that Hitler's takeover of Germany was worth supporting at the time it happened, unless you cared about Jews, Gypsies and gays more than about ethnic Germans. It also means being against most armed revolts of uncertain prospects of success, since they necessarily lead to near-term increase in suffering.