TheOtherDave comments on On Walmart, And Who Bears Responsibility For the Poor - LessWrong

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

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Comment author: Viliam_Bur 26 November 2013 06:27:12PM 5 points [-]

It seems that one approach to this is for me to treat everyone well whether they work or not, and for me to provide additional incentives to people for doing the kind of work I want people to perform.

This seems to me almost what we have now. Yes, there is a problem about defining "treating well". However well you treat one group of people, if you treat everyone else better, the former will complain. These days in first-world countries the unemployed people are treated much better than an average working person was centuries ago. But that's irrelevant. We see that they are treated worse than other people are today, therefore they are not treated well.

Even if you start treating poor people much better than they are treated now, even better than the average people are now, just wait 10, at most 20 years, and they will start comparing you to Hitler, if they see that someone else is treated even better.

I agree that we should experiment more. Preferably many different experiments in smaller regions, so it is easier to stop things when they go horribly wrong. Seems to me a good first step would be giving more independence to regions; decentralizing the state power.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 26 November 2013 07:34:03PM 3 points [-]

This seems to me almost what we have now. Yes, there is a problem about defining "treating well".

Yup.

I agree that we should experiment more.

I'm all in favor of experimentation.

And if we're already experimenting to the limits of our existing regional independence, such that increased independence will relax the rate-limiting constraint on experimentation (which I doubt we are, but is I suppose possible), then yes, increased regional independence would make sense as a next step. Though perhaps it's best to do so in a small region, so it's easier to stop things if it goes horribly wrong.

Of course, if we believe for_ other_ reasons that decentralizing state power is a good idea, then we should endorse doing so for other reasons, but that's something of a nonsequitor.