From what i can tell these people genuinely think they are representing the public, and that the public parts that disagree with them have been bribed/lied to so much by corporate influences that they essentially need to “show them the truths”
Im swedish so i cant know exactly how the us system or people work but.
From what i can tell these people genuinely think they are representing the public, and that the public parts that disagree with them have been bribed/lied to so much by corporate influences that they essentially need to “show them the truths”
Im swedish so i cant know exactly how the us system or people work but.
I used to be significantly more woke and leftist. I were for a while very sympathetic to socialism. Im now libertarian, very sympathetic to capitalism and to charity, but skeptical of governments ability to actually improve things. And coercive politics and actions are generally a terrible idea.
i cant really remember why and what made me believe certain things and change my mind, but ill try
I think i saw the world, and could see a ton of suffering, both in my country, in the usa, and globally. The chief obvious cause was that they were poor. I also saw that there were prominent rich people, that spent their money on things that seemed frivilous, all while people were dying. When i asked the question why they wernt donating their money, i got responses like “its their money, economic freedom, etc”
At that time i didnt have the best jnderstanding of how they WERE contributing to the world by producing goods, services and systems. And i didnt have a sense of how things were in the past, and i think i assumed that the goods and services that were around were a constant thing, that were robust as long as people didnt take too much of them.
I think i saw wealth and progress as kinda renewable resources, like a waterfall.
And in that context, it made no sense why some people would get to hog all of the bananas for themself.
I additionally were increadibly skeptical of arguments around lowering taxes: i cant remember my exact reasoning but i think it was something like “but people are already working for far less money then you are, why do you get to decide policies that gives you more money? We can spend it on the poor!”
The idea that people majorly changed their behaviour in responses both striked me as:
Odd because people seemed to work all the time without those incentives (my perspective was skewed because i had artistic interests and there people basically PAY to be able to work there, and because i was and am unusually altruistic)
And like saying that these people were special and needed a bribe to do what they should intrinsically want to do anyway.
I appreciate your response, it's really insightful as to why people think a certain way. The part I found most interesting was that you thought all of the things we enjoy, the goods and services, just kind of existed. I have long suspected that people thought this way and kind of took everything for granted. Like our standard of living we enjoy will just always be high no matter what they do and they can just siphon off as much from the private sector for whatever political purpose they want to attain with no impacts at all. In fact a socialist once told me that we live in a "post scarcity world".
I think lots of people in the general public think this way, but the thought leaders at the top of the chain I believe are arrogant, even if it's an implicit arrogance rather than being disdainful. The fingerprints of this can be found throughout all of the paternalistic regulations and laws that we live under. Either explicitly or tacitly they believe that they can make better decisions for everyone and that people are too naive to take care of themselves.
I have made some really radical changes in my thinking as well. I was previously on the opposite end of the spectrum though as a typical American conservative. I was always pretty pro-free market, anti-government and somewhat liberal on some social issues though so I was really open to the conclusions drawn from economics and libertarianism in general.
I think i thought of things and the world as a shared envirement (the commons) that had a certain amount of things, and that people could make new ideas and products and such, but mostly in small ways. And that doing it too much would exploit the world or someone else. So the main way to make the world better and to make us better off was to be enviremental, to know how to do the same things with less resources. Or by learning how to live personally with less things, to not have an extravagant lifestyle.
This seems to be the main idea behind degrowth movement as well, a movement i severely disagree with now.
as for the paternalism:
I think i looked at myself and saw that as a consumer there was tons of things i couldnt know, that were extremely stressful to decide and think about. And that when i read up on those things, i saw that other people didnt know all of these things.
I think my rationale for heavy regulation and such was a sort of "its mean and unrealistic to expect everyone to keep track of all of this, and its much more efficient to just decide that bad actions and things cant happen"
It wasnt so much that i thought people were stupid, it was more a desire to be caring and not overwhelm people with decisions.
Im not sure exactly what made me change my mind here: I think it was mostly a lot of small positive experiences and lots of reading about unintended consequences of regulations that backfired. (i loved freakanomics, and i love the "great moments in unintend consequences" series by reason.tv)
And also seeing how new innovations got delayed by the regulations, because they didnt fit.
From what i can tell these people genuinely think they are representing the public, and that the public parts that disagree with them have been bribed/lied to so much by corporate influences that they essentially need to “show them the truths”
Im swedish so i cant know exactly how the us system or people work but.
I used to be significantly more woke and leftist. I were for a while very sympathetic to socialism. Im now libertarian, very sympathetic to capitalism and to charity, but skeptical of governments ability to actually improve things. And coercive politics and actions are generally a terrible idea.
i cant really remember why and what made me believe certain things and change my mind, but ill try
I think i saw the world, and could see a ton of suffering, both in my country, in the usa, and globally. The chief obvious cause was that they were poor. I also saw that there were prominent rich people, that spent their money on things that seemed frivilous, all while people were dying. When i asked the question why they wernt donating their money, i got responses like “its their money, economic freedom, etc”
At that time i didnt have the best jnderstanding of how they WERE contributing to the world by producing goods, services and systems. And i didnt have a sense of how things were in the past, and i think i assumed that the goods and services that were around were a constant thing, that were robust as long as people didnt take too much of them.
I think i saw wealth and progress as kinda renewable resources, like a waterfall.
And in that context, it made no sense why some people would get to hog all of the bananas for themself.
I additionally were increadibly skeptical of arguments around lowering taxes: i cant remember my exact reasoning but i think it was something like “but people are already working for far less money then you are, why do you get to decide policies that gives you more money? We can spend it on the poor!”
The idea that people majorly changed their behaviour in responses both striked me as:
Odd because people seemed to work all the time without those incentives (my perspective was skewed because i had artistic interests and there people basically PAY to be able to work there, and because i was and am unusually altruistic)
And like saying that these people were special and needed a bribe to do what they should intrinsically want to do anyway.
Uh crap, i need to go sorry for this sudden end
I appreciate your response, it's really insightful as to why people think a certain way. The part I found most interesting was that you thought all of the things we enjoy, the goods and services, just kind of existed. I have long suspected that people thought this way and kind of took everything for granted. Like our standard of living we enjoy will just always be high no matter what they do and they can just siphon off as much from the private sector for whatever political purpose they want to attain with no impacts at all. In fact a socialist once told me that we live in a "post scarcity world".
I think lots of people in the general public think this way, but the thought leaders at the top of the chain I believe are arrogant, even if it's an implicit arrogance rather than being disdainful. The fingerprints of this can be found throughout all of the paternalistic regulations and laws that we live under. Either explicitly or tacitly they believe that they can make better decisions for everyone and that people are too naive to take care of themselves.
I have made some really radical changes in my thinking as well. I was previously on the opposite end of the spectrum though as a typical American conservative. I was always pretty pro-free market, anti-government and somewhat liberal on some social issues though so I was really open to the conclusions drawn from economics and libertarianism in general.
To be more specific:
I think i thought of things and the world as a shared envirement (the commons) that had a certain amount of things, and that people could make new ideas and products and such, but mostly in small ways. And that doing it too much would exploit the world or someone else. So the main way to make the world better and to make us better off was to be enviremental, to know how to do the same things with less resources. Or by learning how to live personally with less things, to not have an extravagant lifestyle.
This seems to be the main idea behind degrowth movement as well, a movement i severely disagree with now.
as for the paternalism:
I think i looked at myself and saw that as a consumer there was tons of things i couldnt know, that were extremely stressful to decide and think about. And that when i read up on those things, i saw that other people didnt know all of these things.
I think my rationale for heavy regulation and such was a sort of "its mean and unrealistic to expect everyone to keep track of all of this, and its much more efficient to just decide that bad actions and things cant happen"
It wasnt so much that i thought people were stupid, it was more a desire to be caring and not overwhelm people with decisions.
Im not sure exactly what made me change my mind here: I think it was mostly a lot of small positive experiences and lots of reading about unintended consequences of regulations that backfired. (i loved freakanomics, and i love the "great moments in unintend consequences" series by reason.tv)
And also seeing how new innovations got delayed by the regulations, because they didnt fit.