Yeah this is related to CF. If you have too few (zero) ideas surviving criticism, or too many (you aren’t satisfied with just picking any surviving idea; you want to differentiate more), then you can change the goal. You can brainstorm some reasonable new goals, analyze them, and find a goal where X is refuted but Y is non-refuted (or vice versa), instead of both refuted or both non-refuted.
You may find that for all the goals you consider, they’re neutral between ideas X and Y (both refuted or both-non-refuted) or they favor X (don’t refute X and do refute Y), but none of the goals favor Y. In that case, unless you have a criticism of doing so, choose X.
You may find some goals favor X but some other goals favor Y. In that case you’ll have to critically analyze the goals and find flaws in some of them if you want to make a well-reasoned choice between X and Y.
I didn’t know about that. Huh. I only knew about the other component and that was described as peaceful to me.
I don’t remember if he did. I don’t think so.
Its possible he’s trying to sell an agenda. Though, for that particular lawyer, his views center a lot more on populism then party lines (he dropped out of Yale to a different school because of the elitism in Yale). In his opinion (at the time and probably now) many people want Trump. Trump also represents the little guy (in the scheme of the government, not in the business world and stuff obv). So in his head I think he justified everything with: Trump is the democratically elected person who represents the little guy, therefore anything he does is good.
I don’t think he has been either. That was kinda my point.
I agree. As far as I can tell Elliot has actively avoided those kinds of things.
With what you said? No. My point was this:
@Neo was talking about how Elliot (and others) should talk about and get involved in politics more. He disagree with Elliot not really talking about it much. My point was that Elliot talked about it a fair bit before and nothing really happened. I don’t think Elliot stopped talking about politics because his speech was ineffective. afaik he stopped because politics is tribalist and toxic. The way I took @Neo’s opinion was that if we all got involved in politics more things could be better, but Elliot used to be a bit more involved and things didn’t really change and things wouldn’t really change much now if Elliot got involved back in politics.
It’s hard to tell some of the big impacts off the top of my head. That sounds important to know.
Big impacts that politics can have is maybe like abortion laws, like having to have the kid or not. I spend money so maybe politics will impact that. Like, maybe prices will go way up cuz of a political decision changing the market.
Is my vote being a very tiny increment towards positive change the reason why I don’t have to be super informed about the stuff i listed? Like, my vote is going to be a small increment so it’s hard to mess up.
“very tiny” means a very very small change. Since there’s millions of us in the US the increment will be very small.
“positive change” means a change that’s good I think. Like, a change in the right direction or a change for something better.
I think I see why you don’t have to be super informed or particularly competent cuz the benefit isn’t that high. Like, you don’t have to get so many issues right cuz you’re like capped at how much good you can get from voting well. The goal of being a very tiny increment towards positive change isn’t that big I’m thinking.
Making a tiny increment towards positive change doesn’t sound that bad of a goal and not having to be super informed about the stuff I listed sounds better than getting every issue right and not messing up.
Yeah, in that scenario one is voting 51% of the time well. That looks like a net positive for politics.
If people were voting 90 percent of the time well that voting 51% of the time well would be bad.
Voting 51 percent of time well being better than not voting means that lots more are voting badly(50% of the time or less). You can help by voting 51 percent of the time.
I saw some discussion here mentioning Mamdani and I wanted to share something I found interesting:
I don’t know what the consensus on him is publicly, but it seems like a lot of people like him. What I found interesting was that my brother told me that a lot of the Indian/Bengali’s we grew up with are supporting Mamdani all over social media. Which would be whatever except for the fact that, afaik of Mamdani’s positions, many of them disagree with.
A big one I know many of them disagree with is the LGBTQ stuff. I’d say around 80% of the people I grew up with (and their families) are anti-lgbt. Quite heavily so.
Idk how many of them feel on all the government stuff. I think many of them had general conservative opinions about government shouldn’t do too much to just indifference to the issue.
I share this because I just thought the support for him here odd. Idk how to put it but it seemed to me kinda tribal/racist? It felt like they saw a popular Indian/Muslim dude in politics and felt like they should support him. If they’re was someone with the identical position of Mamdani but wasn’t Mamdani I don’t think they’d care (which there are, afaik, his positions don’t look unique, could be very wrong here). Heck a lot of them probably would disagree with him if pointed out on individual issues (though I haven’t talked to any in a while, so who knows?).
I like this politician’s approach. The context is different though. Someone drew a nazi symbol into a flag, and the politician apparently had no part in drawing that image. Elon made a gesture and got accused of his own gesture being a nazi salute. I can imagine in the politician’s case thinking “who drew this and is trying to sabotage me. Let me get to the bottom of this and make clear that I didn’t draw this.” I can imagine in Elon’s case thinking “ Bro chill, I was just gesturing to the crowd in a heart felt way. Fuck what the mob thinks.”
My main point is the way Elon reacted aligns with what certain people think is the right way to react, and isn’t necessarily proof of malevolence.
Nassim Taleb even talks about it in one of his books. Something about an efficient way to make a rumor true is to deny it.
I’d consider it sufficient if Elon came out and publicly admitted to doing a Nazi salute. Or if there was a private recording that got leaked of Elon admitting he was doing a nazi salute. Or if witnesses in his camp came out and said they had conversations or overheard conversations of Elon saying he planned on doing a nazi salute. Stuff like that.
It’s tribalist, yeah. It was similar with Obama as well. Some people wanted to support a fellow black man and thought it would be good to have the first black president.
To be fair, there may be benefits to getting someone in your tribe elected if you’re part of said tribe. Especially if your tribe was historically discriminated against by other tribes and lacked power. It also can lead to an awakening. “Woah, someone who looks like me is in this x position. Maybe I can do x things too.”
I disagree that things wouldn’t change much if @Elliot got into politics and marketed his content well. Same if he marketed his philosophy better. I’m not saying he should do that though.
Do you think you know how to market CF philosophy better? If so, please do it. Anyone can market it, not just me. People can also make suggestions.
I think Rand had an important point about marketing in The Fountainhead:
"… Let me do the talking. There’s nothing you can do. When facing society, the man most concerned, the man who is to do the most and contribute the most, has the least say. It’s taken for granted that he has no voice and the reasons he could offer are rejected in advance as prejudiced—since no speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It’s so much easier to pass judgment on a man than on an idea. Though how in hell one passes judgment on a man without considering the content of his brain is more than I’ll ever understand… You could tell them why they should hire you so very much better than I could. But they won’t listen to you and they’ll listen to me. Because I’m the middleman. The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line—it’s a middleman. And the more middlemen, the shorter. Such is the psychology of a pretzel.”
and
Kent Lansing said, one evening: “Heller did a grand job. Do you remember, Howard, what I told you once about the psychology of a pretzel? Don’t despise the middleman. He’s necessary. Someone had to tell them. It takes two to make every great career: the man who is great, and the man—almost rarer—who is great enough to see greatness and say so.”
In other words: unless Elon says it was a Nazi salute you won’t think its a Nazi salute.
Hmm. Are you against inferring things? Like let’s go far out: if Elon had a swastika behind him and then did the gestures he did, would those constitute a Nazi salute? Even if he never admits to it? I think maybe you would say it is in that case, based off of this:
Maybe? I do think there’s a chance Elliot could have an impact on current politics at some point if he put effort in that direction.
Question do you have any thoughts on the stuff about abstaining from politics shared to you earlier? Here’s a post from @ActiveMind sharing some stuff Rand said about not currently getting involved in politics:
Like do you think the world would be better if Elliot put effort into the political side of things? Or do you think the world would be better by focusing on philosophy and other stuff?
I’m not against inferring things. In that example, it would feel strange to me if Elon Musk was standing in front of a swastika, so I’d find out if it was AI. But, if it wasn’t, I’d guess he might be doing a salute. I’d also wonder why he wouldn’t just do a clear salute at that point. If he’s aware he’s standing in front of a swastika, why not “say it with your chest” at that point?
~yeah my point was based around him being behind an actual flag (as opposed to an A.I. one).
Wdym by “say it with your chest”? Like say “Heil Hitler” and all that? I mean, sure. Let’s go all out and say he does that.
My point was would all that be enough for you to say its a nazi salute? Even if, for whatever reason. Elon denied it? I think it would be. I think the issue is we disagree about where to draw that line.
You don’t think the video (the regular normal one at the speech, no talking about swastika backgrounds or anything) is enough. The only way you’d accept that as a nazi salute is Elon’s own words admitting to it, yet I think you would think its a nazi salute, regardless of Elon’s denials, if he said it with his chest and in front of a swastika.
Has he? Not asking in a mean manner or anything. I know Elliots intellectually talked about politics before. His stuff is probably higher quality politics stuff, but in terms of straight “effort” I think a lot of people do that. I think a fair amount of people go to protests, do (pointless) political debates, talk about politics with friends and family, etc. I think people are quite active in politics (though I could be very wrong about this), just not in good, productive, rational ways.
This isn’t to say Elliot has done nothing, but what makes you say he’s done more than most at politics(effort wise)?
I understood your point and I did say I infer things. To clarify, the list I gave of things I would consider enough evidence to conclude that it was a nazi salute was not exhaustive.
Him standing in front of a nazi flag and doing the gesture is another example where I’d guess he was doing a nazi salute.
In my experience, most people aren’t very active in politics, but that’s anecdotal.
What people put effort into when it comes to politics is key. For example, if people go march for and advocate for policies that destroy the means of error correction, it would be bad, regardless of how much effort they put into it. If more people focused their effort on similar politics Elliot has, it would be a good thing.