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All politicians are bad and politics in general too? That would be a grim and unconstructive view. The US is a country of 330M people, the world is a community

All politicians are bad and politics in general too? That would be a grim and unconstructive view. The US is a country of 330M people, the world is a community of 8B people. If we want to be able to live side by side, we need rules and policies. It's always going to messy. I would love it if in the next few decades we improve "the game" and figure out better ways to incentivise the players towards common good.

barelyauser 3y ago
8B ruled by less than 100,000. Would go as far as to argue less than 10,000. "The game" is brutal. The players only care for themselves. "The game" is as unfair as it gets. Most don't live side by side, they survive inspite of others. Competition is brutal. Got sick with cancer? Sorry, lose all "points". Want to buy X? Sorry, me (cancerless) will out bargain you.
- rebolek 3y ago
  How did you come to that number? It looks really wrong but you certainly have something to support it.
  - barelyauser 3y ago
    Really wrong? Consider China. Consider Putin in Russia. Consider the current socioeconomic scenario in US. Jerome Powell (and others, for various reasons) makes decisions and millions have their lives affected. Power is very concentrated.
- andruby 3y ago
  Yeah, I don’t like the game either. Not at all. How can we change it though? Looking at history, changes come through either (usually bloody) revolution, or through politics themselves. So unfortunately, someone needs to play the game in order to change it.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
We don't want to live "side by side" which is why we have separate nations. Granted that concept is being degraded to mere economic zones in which fungible units can be cycled though until worn out.
AbrahamParangi 3y ago
One of the fundamental mistakes that I think people make is to anthropomorphize things which do not actually act like regular humans. Corporations are the most obvious one because corporations are made of people but do not actually act like regular people. If you put a black box around most corporations and someone asked you what was in it, you’d say the box contained a sociopath. I am not moralizing here, by the way. I am not claiming that corporations should be less sociopathic. Maybe they should be but we’ve had much better success in aligning sociopathy than in making the amoral, moral - see capitalism vs communism - so I think it’s an open question. Another group of entities which, while comprised of people, does not act in the way you’ve come to understand a human to act is politicians. The incentives to act in whatever way that is most effective totally dominates their behavior. A politician who does not do what the job asks (amass political power) will not be a politician for long.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  > The incentives to act in whatever way that is most effective totally dominates their behavior. I think that's where we seem to differ? "Whatever is most effective" I'll grant democracy as practiced has many side effects and incentive traps. However, it also does generally align politician's goals with their voters, under threat of being kicked out of office.
  - AbrahamParangi 3y ago
    I will say it aligns them much better than authoritarianism, but also I’m not at all saying that democracy is bad or that because politicians are effectively sociopathic we should not have politicians. Famously, the worst system of government except for all the others. I’m only saying that effectively sociopathic agents do not deserve the courtesies, the benefit of the doubt that we afford regular people.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      I'd characterize it as "people with sociopathic tendencies." I don't believe there are that many politicians who literally don't believe anything they support and are only doing it because they think it will win them elections. Greater than zero, but less than most. Most spend a non-trivial amount of time on electioneering, and a non-trivial amount of consideration on the re-electability impacts of a given decision, but also do things for a variety of other reasons (e.g. personal convictions, campaign promises, lobbying, etc).

barelyauser 3y ago

8B ruled by less than 100,000. Would go as far as to argue less than 10,000. "The game" is brutal. The players only care for themselves. "The game" is as unfair as it gets. Most don't live side by side, they survive inspite of others. Competition is brutal. Got sick with cancer? Sorry, lose all "points". Want to buy X? Sorry, me (cancerless) will out bargain you.

rebolek 3y ago
How did you come to that number? It looks really wrong but you certainly have something to support it.
- barelyauser 3y ago
  Really wrong? Consider China. Consider Putin in Russia. Consider the current socioeconomic scenario in US. Jerome Powell (and others, for various reasons) makes decisions and millions have their lives affected. Power is very concentrated.
andruby 3y ago
Yeah, I don’t like the game either. Not at all. How can we change it though? Looking at history, changes come through either (usually bloody) revolution, or through politics themselves. So unfortunately, someone needs to play the game in order to change it.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago

We don't want to live "side by side" which is why we have separate nations. Granted that concept is being degraded to mere economic zones in which fungible units can be cycled though until worn out.

AbrahamParangi 3y ago

One of the fundamental mistakes that I think people make is to anthropomorphize things which do not actually act like regular humans. Corporations are the most obvious one because corporations are made of people but do not actually act like regular people. If you put a black box around most corporations and someone asked you what was in it, you’d say the box contained a sociopath. I am not moralizing here, by the way. I am not claiming that corporations should be less sociopathic. Maybe they should be but we’ve had much better success in aligning sociopathy than in making the amoral, moral - see capitalism vs communism - so I think it’s an open question. Another group of entities which, while comprised of people, does not act in the way you’ve come to understand a human to act is politicians. The incentives to act in whatever way that is most effective totally dominates their behavior. A politician who does not do what the job asks (amass political power) will not be a politician for long.

ethbr1 3y ago
> The incentives to act in whatever way that is most effective totally dominates their behavior. I think that's where we seem to differ? "Whatever is most effective" I'll grant democracy as practiced has many side effects and incentive traps. However, it also does generally align politician's goals with their voters, under threat of being kicked out of office.
- AbrahamParangi 3y ago
  I will say it aligns them much better than authoritarianism, but also I’m not at all saying that democracy is bad or that because politicians are effectively sociopathic we should not have politicians. Famously, the worst system of government except for all the others. I’m only saying that effectively sociopathic agents do not deserve the courtesies, the benefit of the doubt that we afford regular people.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    I'd characterize it as "people with sociopathic tendencies." I don't believe there are that many politicians who literally don't believe anything they support and are only doing it because they think it will win them elections. Greater than zero, but less than most. Most spend a non-trivial amount of time on electioneering, and a non-trivial amount of consideration on the re-electability impacts of a given decision, but also do things for a variety of other reasons (e.g. personal convictions, campaign promises, lobbying, etc).