Few understand this.
1,000People are also trading
@skibidist how on earth would the illegal immigrant turn in anyone without getting deported themself?
@TheAllMemeingEye That's why this new legislation is called for .. similar to how other categories of criminals can sometimes avoid prosecution by helping prosecute their accomplices
@skibidist ah ok, so it's like after they get caught they can do that to avoid the final deportation.
However, 100 still seems too high a bar, I think many people in the modern day would struggle to name 30 people they personally know by name, let alone info on how to catch them, 10 seems like a more plausible even if still difficult target.
@TheAllMemeingEye I think they should voluntarily come forward with a list of, say, 50 names. They would be briefly detained and their status adjusted following a successful verification and transfer of the 50 illegals to El Salvador
@TheAllMemeingEye Noo, this type of utilitarian thinking is how you get murderous totalitarian systems. The most relevant quantity is vibes, then public finance
Noo, this type of utilitarian thinking is how you get murderous totalitarian systems
Afaik there has never been any government that has been remotely utilitarian, so I'm not sure what you're referencing here
The most relevant quantity is vibes, then public finance
To clarify, we're comparing how good these things are at these variables, right? Because one (deportations) is overwhelmingly bad in almost every important metric, while the other (financial responsibility) is almost by definition good but likely highly differs from what people think it looks like
@TheAllMemeingEye
> To clarify, we're comparing how good these things are at these variables, right? Because one (deportations) is overwhelmingly bad in almost every important metric, while the other (financial responsibility) is almost by definition good but likely highly differs from what people think it looks like
What if that's just left-wing propaganda? The plot Jim posted and Economist published suggests that deporting all MENAPT immigrants would be positive under financial metrics, let alone deporting the low end of MENAPT immigrants (say, asylum seekers from Africa & Arabs)
> Afaik there has never been any government that has been remotely utilitarian, so I'm not sure what you're referencing here
When people say they want an utilitarian government, they effectively want a Soviet-style murderous dictatorship in virtually every case.
@skibidist
> When people say they want an utilitarian government, they effectively want a Soviet-style murderous dictatorship in virtually every case.
And it's really so straightforward in practice. Like when they made some bogus utilitarian calculations during COVID and used it to justify totalitarian control.
The plot Jim posted and Economist published suggests that deporting all MENAPT immigrants would be positive under financial metrics
Does the Economist explain what the causal mechanism is? It seems nearly impossible for a working age population to be consuming more government resources than they generate via work.
let alone deporting the low end of MENAPT immigrants (say, asylum seekers from Africa & Arabs)
If MENAPT stands for Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, and Turkey (seemingly redundant, Turkey is very much within the Middle East), and you consider Africans and Arabs to be the "low end", then does that mean you consider the "high end" to be Turks, Kurds, Iranians, and Pakistani people? Seems like a rather arbitrary line to draw without evidence. Also aren't asylum seekers just people who are fleeing from danger? That seems independent of their ability to produce economic value.
When people say they want an utilitarian government, they effectively want a Soviet-style murderous dictatorship in virtually every case.
This seems like far right propaganda? I am the only person I know who I am aware wants a utilitarian government and I very much do not want anything like the Soviet Union. As you say, they were a murderous dictatorship, such systems vastly increase suffering and are very anti utilitarian. I'm pretty sure their guiding philosophy was more of a disorganised mishmash of virtue ethics and power hungry egoistic corruption.
And it's really so straightforward in practice. Like when they made some bogus utilitarian calculations during COVID and used it to justify totalitarian control.
Comparing having rarely enforced rules about social distancing, facemask use, and vaccination during a global pandemic that killed several Holocausts worth of people to the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union is laughable and almost totally ruins your credibility if you're being serious. I've seen the Soviet torture chambers IRL, getting lightly told off for coughing on people is nothing remotely like it.
@TheAllMemeingEye
> high end" to be Turks, Kurds, Iranians, and Pakistani people?
That's what the evidence reveals, but it's also obvious from experience.
> Does the Economist explain what the causal mechanism is? It seems nearly impossible for a working age population to be consuming more government resources than they generate via work.
Idk but doesn't seem impossible to me at all.
> As you say, they were a murderous dictatorship, such systems vastly increase suffering and are very anti utilitarian.
What mechanism do your propose for calculating the utility? I am assuming it's not the free market, so you will need to have commissars in charge to decide the utility and coerce people into behaving in ways that maximize what you believe to be the utility, no? Seems hard to do without the use of brutal force.
Comparing having rarely enforced rules about social distancing, facemask use, and vaccination during a global pandemic that killed several Holocausts worth of people to the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union is laughable and almost totally ruins your credibility if you're being serious. I've seen the Soviet torture chambers IRL, getting lightly told off for coughing on people is nothing remotely like it.
credibility schmedibility
That's what the evidence reveals, but it's also obvious from experience.
Hmm, the data seems interesting, but could you elaborate on the experience you refer to?
What mechanism do your propose for calculating the utility?
Personally I'm a negative leaning utilitarian, so in most cases the bad of extreme suffering dominates my utility calculations. For the Soviet Union, a decent estimate seems calculable from the number of soldiers sent into meat grinders, the number of civilians subject to war crimes, the number of people being malnourished or starving to death in famines, the number of suspected political enemies being tortured / enslaved / executed, the grief by loved ones of those killed etc. Overall it seems pretty clear that what they were doing was among the worst things to ever be done at such scale.
I am assuming it's not the free market, so you will need to have commissars in charge to decide the utility and coerce people into behaving in ways that maximize what you believe to be the utility, no? Seems hard to do without the use of brutal force.
How about this for a more sane rephrasing:
For-profit businesses are unlikely to have societal wellbeing as an objective, so utilitarian political decisions would likely need to be made by fairly elected politicians following the advice of highly knowledgeable and experienced academic researchers from non-profit organisations. Like any functional system of government to ever exist, policies will be be enacted through laws, which are enforced by police. However, since the government is utilitarian, they know that it is important for law enforcement and the justice system to be as gentle and compassionate as possible, so no beatings, killings, torture etc. that characterise totalitarian states, instead it's more like arrest restrainment followed by humane reformative imprisonment if you've done significant crimes.
@TheAllMemeingEye
> Hmm, the data seems interesting, but could you elaborate on the experience you refer to?
My personal one. I work with software and there is clear hierarchy of talent US > (maybe >=, but not really) EU > Eastern Europe >>>>>>>>>>> India, Pakistan >>>>>>>> Middle East > Africa and then outside of software I see similar hierarchy in immigrants' typical demeanor. I also have individual cases that very strongly contradict each of those generalizations, but the averages are what they are.
> fairly elected politicians following the advice of highly knowledgeable and experienced academic researchers from non-profit organisations
Sounds indistinguishable from our current system in theory. How does the utilitarianism come into this? I claim that you would either need to fundamentally change human nature (essentially make it not derived from a monkey) or create a brutal regime to repress the primal urges. Otherwise, the utilitarian party will always be defeated by someone like Donald Trump running on an emotionally-charged platform. Or someone who makes some good sounding promise that may not make sense from a rational perspective, but is appealing to the monkey.
Sounds indistinguishable from our current system in theory.
Both in the UK and US the politicians are not elected fairly (due to first-past-the-post and gerrymandering) and their advisors often tend to be yesmen picked for loyalty rather than actually competent experts.
How does the utilitarianism come into this? I claim that you would either need to fundamentally change human nature (essentially make it not derived from a monkey) or create brutal regime. Otherwise, the utilitarian party will always be defeated by someone like Donald Trump running on an emotionally-charged platform.
The idea is that successful advocacy for utilitarianism (and other aspects of my views e.g. empiricism, rationalism, effective altruism, leftism etc.) converts the population into supporting it and thus voting for it. I and I suspect most other people in the western world with political opinions simultaneously believe that it would be best for a specific political ideology to be running things and that the best way to come to power is via democracy. Being pro democracy doesn't mean automatically thinking the current output of democracy is the best possible output.