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VoiceOfRa comments on [Link] A rational response to the Paris attacks and ISIS - Less Wrong Discussion
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My looking at history is that this isn't quite correct. It is the most restrained aggressor/tyrant who winds up getting targeted. To use an example I'm familiar with most of the Russian Tsars were rather despotic; however, two did make major liberal reforms, Alexander II freed the serfs, and Nicholas II make strides towards modernizing the country including introducing an elected parliament. Not-so-coincidentally, they were also the only tsars to be assassinated by revolutionaries.
That may very well be the case, and if so, it's positive evidence that Tsipursky Rage is not a relatively important factor in motivating peoples' behavior. Which is consistent with my instincts.
Causality could go the other way here - the reforms might have been (ultimately ineffective) attempts to address dissatisfaction among the people.
Probably not. Consider why there was an increasing amount of dissatisfaction among the people, after all the Tsars had always been brutal, it was only when the Tsar was less brutal that dissatisfaction seemed to manifest.
The main problem with that argument is that it assumes dissatisfaction is determined by the amount of repression. It's a factor, but there are others, like food, wars, and technical innovations.
This kind of question needs complex analysis and can't be answered that easily. You could plot a measurement of repression against a measure of dissatisfaction (assume the measurements are accurate), show that they corresponded perfectly from regime to regime, and even if you ignore confounders it still wouldn't show causality because you still wouldn't know which one came first.
That's sort of my point. That repression done right doesn't cause rebellions.
Well for starters if you look at them chronologically, you can see which one actually changed first.
LOL. The dead and the broken don't rebel much...
Good, now analyse what you mean by "broken" and we're getting somewhere.
In this context "broken" = "internalised the slave mentality".
So would you say the Germans and Japanese internalised the slave mentality after WWII?
No, I would not classify Germany and Japan post-WW2 as "dead and broken".
Temporary occupation by a foreign power is something a bit different, anyway.
How is there such a thing as "repression done right"?
What's the problem? Repression done right just means that a particular political system/approach/technique produces the desired results without the costs (including secondary effects and externalities) being too high. Moral outrage is not a particularly useful analysis tool.
Just like the best war is the one your enemy has lost before even realizing he's at war, the best repression is the one where the repressed population believes itself to be happy and in control :-/
My point was that "right" is a problematic term in this case. Using less loaded terms, you're describing "effective" or "successful" repression.
So, back to the original argument:
VoiceOfRa claims that [effective] repression doesn't cause rebellions. You seem to agree with me that it's mostly because the dead don't complain. Indeed, it's not very effective; if removing dissenters is your solution to everything, you'll end up a lonely tyrant.
"done right" is a sufficiently neutral expression often used in engineering context, I don't read moral overtones here.
That's just a tautology.
Not necessarily "mostly", but historically it has been a very popular way for a "successful" repression. It's a bit more difficult to pull off nowadays, though.
It depends on who you are repressing -- e.g. if it's an (ethnic, religious, cultural) minority, killing them all is very effective.
Because traditionally you kill the males and enslave the women, you can empirically find defeated populations in the genetic code of the descendants of the winners: they would have some matrilinear admixture, but none (or almost none) of the patrilinear admixture of the losers.
No, Lumifer said that the dead and broken don't complain.
History does not agree with you there.