This is known as Duverger's law. Bryan Caplan explains why it fails, here.

in no fair universe would mere sloppy thinking be a capital crime. As it has always been, in this our real world.

And, in no fair universe would the results of sloppy thinking be used as an excuse to create coercive policies that victimize thousands of sloppy thinkers for every sloppy thinker that is (allegedly) benefited by them. Yet, because even the philosophers, and rationality blog-posters of our universe are sloppy thinkers (in relation to artilects with 2000 IQs), some of us continue to accept the idea that the one-sided making of coercive laws (by self-interested, under-educated sociopaths) constitutes a legitimate attempt at a political solution. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I favor the thesis statement here ("Policy debates should not appear one-sided"), but I don't favor the very flawed "argument" that supports it. One-sided policy debates should, in fact, appear one-sided, GIVEN one participant with a superior intelligence. Two idiots from two branches of the same political party arguing over which way to brutalize a giant body of otherwise uninvolved people (what typically amounts for "policy debate") should not appear "one sided" ...except to the people who know that there's only one side being represented, (typically, the side that assumes that coercion is a good solution to the problem).

Hal, I don't favor regulation in this context - nor would I say that I really oppose it.

This is a life or death issue, and you don't have a moral opinion? What purpose could you possibly have for calling yourself a "libertarian" then? If the libertarian philosophy isn't consistent, or doesn't work, then shouldn't it be thrown out? Or, if it doesn't pertain to the new circumstances, then shouldn't it be known as something different than "libertarianism"? (Maybe you'd be a "socialist utopian" post-singularity, but pre-singularity when lots of people have IQs of <2,000, you're a libertarian. In this case, it might make more sense to call yourself a Hayekian "liberal," because then you're simply identifying with a historical trend that leads to a certain predicted outcome.)

I started my career as a libertarian, and gradually became less political as I realized that (a) my opinions would end up making no difference to policy

Gosh, I'm glad that Timothy Murphy, Lysander Spooner, and Frederick Douglass didn't feel that way. I'm also glad that they didn't feel that way because they knew something about how influential they could be, they understood the issues at a deep level, and they were highly-motivated. Just because the Libertarian Party is ineffectual and as infiltrated as the major parties are corrupt doesn't mean it has to be. Moreover, there are far more ways to influence politics than by getting involved with a less-corrupt third party. This site itself could be immensely influential, and actually could obtain a more rational, laissez-faire outcome from politics (although it couldn't do that by acting within the confines established by the current political system). Smart people should act in a smart way to get smart results: even in the domain of politics. If politics is totally corrupted (as I believe it is) then such smart people should act in a manner that is philosophically external to the system, and morally superior to it.

and (b) I had other fish to fry.

This is a legitimate concern. We all have priorities. That's actually the purpose of philosophy itself. If I didn't think you had chosen wisely, I probably wouldn't be on this site. That said, nothing stops you from at least passively being as right as Thoreau was, over 100 years ago.

My current concern is simply with the rationality of the disputants, not with their issues - I think I have something new to say about rationality.

Rationality has something to say about every issue, and political issues are especially important, because that's where one mostly-primate MOSH has a gun, and a stated intention of using it.

I do believe that people with IQ 120+ tend to forget about their conjugates with IQ 80- when it comes to estimating the real-world effects of policy - either by pretending they won't get hurt, or by pretending that they deserve it.

As if these were the only two options. (And as if regulation helped the poor! LOL!) This makes a "straw man" of libertarianism. Walter Block points out that the law of unintended consequences indicates that the abuse of force, as minimum wage "regulation" allegedly intended to help the poor, actually hurts them. He also points out that the people making and enforcing the policies know this, because they have the evidence to know it, but that they often don't care, or are beholden to perverse interests, such as unions who wish to put less-skilled labor out of business. Occasionally, if such regulation hurts the poor in combination with a set of regulations and "corrections" to those regulations, so one mustn't narrow their criticism to just one political intervention. It's a good idea to think about this until you comprehend it at a deep level.

But so long as their consequential predictions seem reasonable, and so long as I don't think they're changing their morality to try to pretend the universe is fair, I won't argue with them whether they support or oppose regulation.

This is a moral failing on your part, if you think that your argument could possibly lead to a better outcome, and if you WOULD argue with them about the right to contract with cryonics companies, in the case where a person you love will either die for good, or have the chance of life. This is not a criticism of you, because I go through my day in a continual stream of moral failures, as does everyone who lacks the ability to solve a really large moral problem. If my IQ was 2,000 and I allowed to prison industrial complex to continue to operate, and even paid taxes to support it, that would be an immense moral failing. If, with my far lower IQ I pay taxes because I'm stupid and coerced, that's a lesser moral failing, but a moral failing none the less. Unless I stop complying with evil, as Thoreau did, I'm guilty of a moral failing (Thoreau was only guilty of a mental and physical failing). Lysander Spooner and Frederick Douglass were both guilty of physical and mental failing as well, but to a lesser extent. They were fairly effective, even if they were far less effective than an artilect with and IQ of 2,000 would have been.

p( overall fairness of law | unfairness) is probably a bad way to look at this, because it's using a suitcase word "unfairness" that means something different to different people. Even given this context, I could point out that the universe trends toward fairness, given intelligence (but that the world is very unintelligent now, because it's only at human-level intelligence, which is USUALLY scarcely more philosophical than animal intelligence). The concept of individual rights requires emotional distance, given occasional "unavoidable under any system" bad outcomes. The bad outcomes are often too difficult to analyze for "unfairness" or "fairness" but bad outcomes that seem cruel are always useful to the politician, because every law they make definitely enhances their illegitimate power. If we're smart enough to recognize that this is a universal, and that this has caused the complete degradation of our once-life-saving-but-now-life-destroying system of property and law, then why shouldn't we always point it out? The abolitionists only gained ground in defeating chattel slavery when they refused to be silent.

Moreover, since the common law has been thrown out, the politicians and their agents will predictably have free rein to enforce the new laws in whatever manner they choose. This is also a known fact of reality that can and should factor into every argument we make.

You can see the dead mother holding the unlabeled bottle of "sulfuric acid," but you can't see the society that refrained from ever going down the path of a regulatory big brother, where the courts and the media had functioned properly in their information-sending capacity for 100 years. You can't see the carefulness of a society that reads labels because it might really matter, since the government can't and won't protect you; and you also don't see the benevolence of a society that hasn't been trained to mindlessly trust everything that carries an FDA-label. You can see the bad result, but can't imagine the good alternative. If you compound this error by appealing to force to solve the problem, you mark yourself as a low-intelligence human. This is clear to anyone who has been paying attention. The fact that you say that you neither favor nor oppose regulation indicates that, on this issue, you had better things to do than pay attention.

But let's consider the admittedly "unfair" but vastly "fairer" universe as it looks with far less regulation, and let's not make the stupid (unwittingly self-destructive) blunder of assuming regulation the saved life of an idiot. In actuality, in the unregulated universe, there are orders of magnitude fewer dead mothers, from all causes, not just mindless mistakes of their own causing. Additionally, there is then a pressure against "moral hazard" in that universe. Without this moral hazard, the universe is far more intelligent, and thus far fairer.

You'll also never see the 100 years of unregulated progression in the direction of the laissez-faire "fairer" universe. You only see the alleged "fast track" to justice (where the legislators have drowned us all in unenforceable laws with perverse outcomes for over 100 years), and you begin arguing in that muddy environment. Of course you'll lose any argument unless you argue based on a deep philosophical conviction, because the subject will remain narrow, and the political side of the argument will be able to keep the focus of the discussion sufficiently narrow. If you attempt to reference the larger picture, you'll be accused of being "impractical" or "off topic."

Would you have "argued" with a slavery advocate in the time of abolitionism? (Or at least "stated your opposition to them.") Would you have argued with a Hitler supporter in 1930 Germany? If you'd like to think that you would, then next time someone defends the truly indefensible (not what is considered to be indefensible by the sociopath-directed conformist majority), then you should point out that their ideas are stupid and murderous. It's the least you can do for the mother whose only choice of medicine is an FDA-approved version of sulfuric acid.

If you mean that some people are Evil and so take Evil actions, then ... well, yes, I suppose, psychopaths. But most Bad Consequences do not reflect some inherent deformity of the soul, which is all I'm saying.

I'd prefer to leave "the soul" out of this.

How do you know that most bad consequences don't involve sociopaths or their influence? It seems unlikely that that's not the case, to me.

Also, don't forget conformists who obey sociopaths. Franz Stangl said he felt "weak in the knees" when he was pushing gas chamber doors shut on a group of women and kids. ...But he did it anyway.

Wagner gleefully killed women and kids.

Yet, we also rightfully call Stangl an evil person, and rightfully punish him, even though he was "Just following orders." In hindsight, even his claims that the democide of over 6 million Jews and 10 million German dissidents and dissenters was solely for theft and without racist motivations, doesn't make me want to punish him less.

I wonder if 1,000 people upvoted this comment, in series with 1,000 people voting it down. I'd like to know 1/(# of reads) or 1/(number of votes). Can we use network theory to assume that people here conform to the first-mover theory? (ie: "If a post starts getting upvoted, it then continues to be upvoted, whereas if a post starts getting downvoted or ignored, it continues to get downvoted or ignored, or at least has a greater probability of being so.")

I suspect Mr. Eggfart's IQ of 75 to have something to do with it.

He also might be a sociopath with an IQ superior to Einstein's. He also might be a John von Neumann, (successfully?) arguing in favor of nuking Russia, because he thinks that Russia is evil (correct) and that Russia is full of scientists who are almost as smart as himself (maybe correct), and because it's logical to do so (possibly correct, but seemingly not, based on the outcome), or he might think that everyone is as logical as possible (incorrect), or he might not have empathy for those who don't take the opportunities they're given (who's to say if he's right?). In hindsight, I'm really glad the USA didn't nuke Russia. In hindsight, I'm very glad that Von Neumann wasn't killed in order to minimize his destructiveness, but that democracy managed to mitigate his (and Goldwater's) destructiveness. (Goldwater was the better candidate overall, on all subjects, but his willingness to use the bomb was a fatal, grotesque, and unacceptable flaw in that otherwise "better overall." Goldwater's attitude towards the bomb was similar to, and seemingly informed by, von Neumann.)

I do support punishing sociopaths legally, even if they didn't think it was wrong when they raped and murdered your wife. What the sociopath thinks doesn't diminish the harm they knowingly caused. The legal system should be a disincentive toward actual wrong. When the legal system operates properly, it is a blessing that allows the emergence of market-based civilization. The idea of a "right" is not necessarily a deontological philosophical claim, but a legal one.

As a consequentialist, I don't necessarily hate sociopaths. I understand why they exist, from an evolutionary perspective. ...But I might still kill one if I had to, in order to serve what I anticipated to be the optimal good. I might also kill one in retaliation, because they had taken something valuable from me (such as the life of a loved one), and I wished to make it clear to them that their choice to steal from me rightfully enraged me (vengeance, punishment).

While I don't think that (even righteous) punishment is the grandest motive, I also don't deny others their (rightful) desires for punishment. There is a "right" and a "wrong" external to outcomes, based on philosophy that is mutually-compatible with consequentialism. If we were all submissive slaves, there would be a lot of "peace," but I still wouldn't likely choose such an existence over a violent but possibly more free existence.

The Caplan work, The Totalitarian Threat, as a Word Document, is excellent, as is his book "Myth of the Rational Voter," (a brief speech summarizing the book's thesis), but neither work covers the primary dissenting points raised in this thread.