COVID policies were generally and universally bad policy because they were based on the massive error of getting wrong the actual risk of harm. For example, knowing how low the risk was for young adults it made absolutely no sense to close universities and send kids home. And knowing how low the risk was for children it made no sense to close schools.
The political problem for the panic-stricken media and politicians was an approach to Covid that did not create universal alarm was unacceptable to them! So everyone had to be inconvenienced and play stupid in order to make pretend this would protect grandma.
I disagree. Although what was done suffered the problems AK states, I think it was initially right. It allowed tightening or loosening as info increased. The problem was it should have been relaxed or abandoned long before it was. When that should have happened is a bit of an open question but clearly sooner.
In March 2020 there was massive evidence that COVID was not a threat to anyone but the very old and sick. I remember reading at that time that the average age of a Covid death in Italy was higher than the average age of mortality! What were we doing having a panic about an illness that was demonstrably only a threat to people older than the average age of death?
Most often, muddling through is the best approach; don’t commit yourself until it is clearly necessary, by which time you may have more relevant information.
An example of large organization bureaucracy outside academia: When I consulted to Citibank in the mid-1990s, it was using colors on its (matrix-ed) organization chart and talked about "green dollars" versus "blue dollars" (i.e., internal cross-charges). Talk about "Who's on first?"
Because businesses face competition, there are slow feedbacks based on Profit, to check too much bureaucracy. In govt, without that feedback, a clear 8 year term limit offers far better expected trade-offs than any other reform mentioned, other than ending the whole Department, I.e. of Education.
Yesterday commenter Swami described himself as someone who “rejects all parties and subscribes to no particular political philosophy.” This provided me with a good excuse to abandon my planned reading and spend the night with Simone Weil instead, starting with her essay “On The Abolition of All Political Parties.” Now today we read in Zvi Mowshowitz’s review of The Edge that:
“’Indeed, Riverians inherently distrust political parties, particularly in a two-party system like the United States where they are “big tent” coalitions that couple together positions on dozens of largely unrelated issues. Riverians think that partisan position taking often serves as a shortcut for the more nuanced and rigorous analysis that public intellectuals ought to engage in. (466)’
That is Nate Silver bending over backwards to be polite. Ask most members of The River, whether they back one party, the other or neither, and they will say something similar that is… less polite.”
So how might Weil fit into this? In her own words:
"To assess political parties according to the criteria of truth, justice and the public interest, let us first identify their essential characteristics.
There are three of these:
A political party is a machine to generate collective passions.
A political party is an organisation designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of all its individual members.
The first objective and also the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth, without limit.
Because of these three characteristics, every party is totalitarian – potentially, and by aspiration. If one party is not actually totalitarian, it is simply because those parties that surround it are no less so. These three characteristics are factual truths – evident to anyone who has ever had anything to do with the every-day activities of political parties.
As to the third: it is a particular instance of the phenomenon which always occurs whenever thinking individuals are dominated by a collective structure – a reversal of the relation between ends and means.
Everywhere, without exception, all the things that are generally considered ends are in fact, by nature, by essence, and in a most obvious way, mere means. One could cite countless examples of this from every area of life: money, power, the state, national pride, economic production, universities, etc., etc.
Goodness alone is an end. [… …]
Political parties are organisations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice. Collective pressure is exerted upon a wide public by the means of propaganda. The avowed purpose of propaganda is not to impart light, but to persuade. Hitler saw very clearly that the aim of propaganda must always be to enslave minds. All political parties make propaganda. A party that would not do so would disappear, since all its competitors practise it. All parties confess that they make propaganda. However mendacious they may be, none is bold enough to pretend that in doing so, it is merely educating the public and informing people’s judgment."
Although I have only seen her name mentioned once on Substack, perhaps Weil maintains some unrecognized social influence to this day ? This is not to suggest that Weil would count herself among The River. If anything, I would guess she would see herself in The Wilderness. And her political thought is perhaps the least of her work, the collection of which runs to some 20 volumes despite her short life. Weil’s thought on bureaucracy, epistemology, psychology, sociology, and many other topics is fascinating and well worth reading IMO.
Modern commentary (well, the stuff I like) often lacks grandiosity; it is so quotidian and, dare I say, dull. But at least we are spared the rhetoric of the sages, like "Political parties are organisations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice." That's supposed to be profound. But it's mostly dressed up insults, "look how smart and above it all that I am."
Well, you make two points – one regarding the Weil’s claim being “rhetoric” and one about
Weil herself “That's supposed to be profound. But it's mostly dressed up insults, "look how smart and above it all that I am."
Political parties are obviously a means to gaining power over others. If they are indeed benevolent, truth seeking institutions, that would be news to me, but I am willing to entertain your evidence. Personally, I think insulting political parties, or even hating them, gives them more than they merit. They deserve far worse than hate: they deserve refusal to their demands for the attention without they cannot exist.
Regarding Weil, herself, she would probably agree with you. During herlife she was very critical of her own role as a philosopher and engaged in endless self-criticism. Most of her work first appeared in print post-posthumously. She died August 24, 1943 in England where she had been working with the French Resistance doing many things including working as a nurse. Her death from tuberculosis was hastened by malnutrition stemming from her refusal to consume more than than the daily ration then in effect in France. (https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/37517/the-subversive-philosophy-of-simone-weil )
She hand-wrote On the Abolition of Political Parties in 1943 and sealed it in an envelope which she gave to a friend. It did not appear in print until 1950. She wrote it following her resignation from the French Resistance organization in protest of moves to resurrect the political parties that had been in place immediately preceding the German conquest. Previously she had take furloughs from her university position to work incognito in factories. She went to Spain during the civil war but her near-sightedness rendered her comically unsuitable and despite begging repeatedly to be sent on dangerous missions her fighting apparently consisted of taking a few shots at passing airplanes. The unit with whom she fought was finally rid of her when she accidentally stepped in a pot of hot oil by a cook fire.
One might, however, trace the sincerity of her belief back to one of earliest pieces on the Iliad in which she wrote:
"the only people who can give the impression of having risen to a higher plane, who seem superior to ordinary human misery, are the people who resort to the aids of illusion, exaltation, fanaticism, to conceal the harshness of destiny from their own eyes. The man who does not wear the armor of the lie cannot experience force without being touched by it to the very soul."
It is an extreme, ridiculously false statement that political parties are "benevolent, truth seeking institutions". It is equally extreme and false that they "are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice." The latter does not add to our understanding.
Weil seems like in many ways a fine person. She may have written a number of fine things. But that is very much not one of them. It made me think of H.L. Mencken. He wrote some very good, perceptive things. But so much of his stuff, especially as he aged, was "See how many different ways I can insult."
Besides the Golden Rule and Silver Rule, (eloquently discussed on Econtalk this week), the practice of gratitude is the most valuable aspect of religious teaching, specifically I have in mind the Bible. The fact that people are less often discussing the Golden Rule and practicing gratitude in church on a weekly basis is a huge negative for our country. I’m not defending religion or churches of supernatural belief, nor defending all religious dogma, but there is good dogma and bad dogma is there not? Can we say that the dogma of trying to be grateful at least once per day is a good dogma? Can we say that the dogma of the Golden Rule is a good dogma in most cases? Maybe the Golden Rule isn’t universal in the case of certain punishments, but for everyday stuff it’s the best we have. For example I advocate for the IDF assassinating certain terrorists. I’m grateful they have that capability. I believe justice has been carried out in doing so minus collateral damage. Is this according to the Golden Rule? No, but I’m not a terrorist. How can we put ourselves in the shoes of a terrorist in an attempt to determine what the best punishment should be to promote a longterm best outcome. The best outcome is him being killed. Agree?
How can we resurrect the old tradition of gathering at church to discuss the Golden Rule and to say what we’re grateful for? Maybe we don’t need or don’t want a church for this. Maybe we can do it better on Substack and at the family dinner table.
This gets me thinking about other positive things we can build. For example, how can we implement betting in Substack in order to promote better discourse? It might be hard to convince the people running Substack that this would be a good idea, but the payment system here at Substack is already so convenient we might not need their support. For example let’s say you disagree with Joe Smith’s post on feminism. You would propose a public bet. In one month or some period of time in the future, six months maybe, you both agree to post your best article on feminism. Whoever receives the most Likes on their post after five days wins a monetary prize which could be quite modest, like $100. The loser pays the winner. Even if you have to fork over the $100 to your opponent, you might make up the difference plus a large margin in gaining new paid subscribers that discovered you through notoriety of the bet or were inspired by your words.
What are the weaknesses of this setup? The biggest is the meaning of Like Button. As part of the bet you would define what an affirmative vote of the Like Button means. For example, you could define it to mean This Post is Superior to the Other. The Like Button could be made only accessible to paid subscribers. Payment of the $100 would be made through the existing Substack Founding Member payment method.
Isn’t this the next easiest step toward something like FITS or prestige hierarchies? We need to get the incentives right. Each person should vote using the Like Button the winner of these bets. The goal should be profit seeking and loss avoidance based on the meaning of the Like Button.
Then there is ideal prestige and expedient prestige. I don’t consider Christopher Rufo to be of higher prestige than Arnold Kling, but I still think Rufo make a valuable contribution considering our current situation with higher education and DEI infiltration into government. As the situation changes the meaning of prestige changes. What is prestige when it comes to eliminating a terrorist or enforcing the First Amendment in a DEI soaked America? What can we say about the prestige of Trump winning the presidency? It might help the Supreme Court.
This chip aims to restore vision by directly stimulating the visual cortex“ I read this as simulate the first time around. That would be exciting. Now I see it says stimulate. Is that like almost simulate? How does that work? Would emulate be a better word here? Thanks Arnold.
The great thing about you sharing positive things like this is that it helps us be more positive too. It tends to cause a chain reaction of positive thinking. For example I realize that if if exercise it makes me feel better and causes me to do other positive things. Same with eating “positive” food. It leads to feeling positive and in turn me being “more productive.”
Personality psychology is not entirely reliant on self-reporting surveys; clinicians observe personality traits through extended conversations with their patients. I suspect it was these observations which led to surveys as a means of further validation of their tentative conclusions.
COVID policies were generally and universally bad policy because they were based on the massive error of getting wrong the actual risk of harm. For example, knowing how low the risk was for young adults it made absolutely no sense to close universities and send kids home. And knowing how low the risk was for children it made no sense to close schools.
The political problem for the panic-stricken media and politicians was an approach to Covid that did not create universal alarm was unacceptable to them! So everyone had to be inconvenienced and play stupid in order to make pretend this would protect grandma.
I disagree. Although what was done suffered the problems AK states, I think it was initially right. It allowed tightening or loosening as info increased. The problem was it should have been relaxed or abandoned long before it was. When that should have happened is a bit of an open question but clearly sooner.
In March 2020 there was massive evidence that COVID was not a threat to anyone but the very old and sick. I remember reading at that time that the average age of a Covid death in Italy was higher than the average age of mortality! What were we doing having a panic about an illness that was demonstrably only a threat to people older than the average age of death?
Most often, muddling through is the best approach; don’t commit yourself until it is clearly necessary, by which time you may have more relevant information.
An example of large organization bureaucracy outside academia: When I consulted to Citibank in the mid-1990s, it was using colors on its (matrix-ed) organization chart and talked about "green dollars" versus "blue dollars" (i.e., internal cross-charges). Talk about "Who's on first?"
Because businesses face competition, there are slow feedbacks based on Profit, to check too much bureaucracy. In govt, without that feedback, a clear 8 year term limit offers far better expected trade-offs than any other reform mentioned, other than ending the whole Department, I.e. of Education.
Yesterday commenter Swami described himself as someone who “rejects all parties and subscribes to no particular political philosophy.” This provided me with a good excuse to abandon my planned reading and spend the night with Simone Weil instead, starting with her essay “On The Abolition of All Political Parties.” Now today we read in Zvi Mowshowitz’s review of The Edge that:
“’Indeed, Riverians inherently distrust political parties, particularly in a two-party system like the United States where they are “big tent” coalitions that couple together positions on dozens of largely unrelated issues. Riverians think that partisan position taking often serves as a shortcut for the more nuanced and rigorous analysis that public intellectuals ought to engage in. (466)’
That is Nate Silver bending over backwards to be polite. Ask most members of The River, whether they back one party, the other or neither, and they will say something similar that is… less polite.”
So how might Weil fit into this? In her own words:
"To assess political parties according to the criteria of truth, justice and the public interest, let us first identify their essential characteristics.
There are three of these:
A political party is a machine to generate collective passions.
A political party is an organisation designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of all its individual members.
The first objective and also the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth, without limit.
Because of these three characteristics, every party is totalitarian – potentially, and by aspiration. If one party is not actually totalitarian, it is simply because those parties that surround it are no less so. These three characteristics are factual truths – evident to anyone who has ever had anything to do with the every-day activities of political parties.
As to the third: it is a particular instance of the phenomenon which always occurs whenever thinking individuals are dominated by a collective structure – a reversal of the relation between ends and means.
Everywhere, without exception, all the things that are generally considered ends are in fact, by nature, by essence, and in a most obvious way, mere means. One could cite countless examples of this from every area of life: money, power, the state, national pride, economic production, universities, etc., etc.
Goodness alone is an end. [… …]
Political parties are organisations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice. Collective pressure is exerted upon a wide public by the means of propaganda. The avowed purpose of propaganda is not to impart light, but to persuade. Hitler saw very clearly that the aim of propaganda must always be to enslave minds. All political parties make propaganda. A party that would not do so would disappear, since all its competitors practise it. All parties confess that they make propaganda. However mendacious they may be, none is bold enough to pretend that in doing so, it is merely educating the public and informing people’s judgment."
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/simone-weil-on-the-abolition-of-all-political-parties
Although I have only seen her name mentioned once on Substack, perhaps Weil maintains some unrecognized social influence to this day ? This is not to suggest that Weil would count herself among The River. If anything, I would guess she would see herself in The Wilderness. And her political thought is perhaps the least of her work, the collection of which runs to some 20 volumes despite her short life. Weil’s thought on bureaucracy, epistemology, psychology, sociology, and many other topics is fascinating and well worth reading IMO.
For those not familiar with her, please forgive me for encouraging you to become acquainted with her incredibly remarkable biography via her Encyclopedia Brittanica entry: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simone-Weil A nice overview of her work can be found at: https://iep.utm.edu/weil/ And Stanford’s Plato encyclopedia has a much more detailed and lengthy entry: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simone-weil/ The Anarchist Library has free copies of some of her work.
Modern commentary (well, the stuff I like) often lacks grandiosity; it is so quotidian and, dare I say, dull. But at least we are spared the rhetoric of the sages, like "Political parties are organisations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice." That's supposed to be profound. But it's mostly dressed up insults, "look how smart and above it all that I am."
Well, you make two points – one regarding the Weil’s claim being “rhetoric” and one about
Weil herself “That's supposed to be profound. But it's mostly dressed up insults, "look how smart and above it all that I am."
Political parties are obviously a means to gaining power over others. If they are indeed benevolent, truth seeking institutions, that would be news to me, but I am willing to entertain your evidence. Personally, I think insulting political parties, or even hating them, gives them more than they merit. They deserve far worse than hate: they deserve refusal to their demands for the attention without they cannot exist.
Regarding Weil, herself, she would probably agree with you. During herlife she was very critical of her own role as a philosopher and engaged in endless self-criticism. Most of her work first appeared in print post-posthumously. She died August 24, 1943 in England where she had been working with the French Resistance doing many things including working as a nurse. Her death from tuberculosis was hastened by malnutrition stemming from her refusal to consume more than than the daily ration then in effect in France. (https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/37517/the-subversive-philosophy-of-simone-weil )
She hand-wrote On the Abolition of Political Parties in 1943 and sealed it in an envelope which she gave to a friend. It did not appear in print until 1950. She wrote it following her resignation from the French Resistance organization in protest of moves to resurrect the political parties that had been in place immediately preceding the German conquest. Previously she had take furloughs from her university position to work incognito in factories. She went to Spain during the civil war but her near-sightedness rendered her comically unsuitable and despite begging repeatedly to be sent on dangerous missions her fighting apparently consisted of taking a few shots at passing airplanes. The unit with whom she fought was finally rid of her when she accidentally stepped in a pot of hot oil by a cook fire.
One might, however, trace the sincerity of her belief back to one of earliest pieces on the Iliad in which she wrote:
"the only people who can give the impression of having risen to a higher plane, who seem superior to ordinary human misery, are the people who resort to the aids of illusion, exaltation, fanaticism, to conceal the harshness of destiny from their own eyes. The man who does not wear the armor of the lie cannot experience force without being touched by it to the very soul."
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/simone-weil-the-iliad#:~:text=the%20only%20people,the%20very%20soul.
Such indeed perhaps is the lot of all philosophers, however, I am willing to argue that Weil was sui generis in grasping that reality.
It is an extreme, ridiculously false statement that political parties are "benevolent, truth seeking institutions". It is equally extreme and false that they "are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice." The latter does not add to our understanding.
Weil seems like in many ways a fine person. She may have written a number of fine things. But that is very much not one of them. It made me think of H.L. Mencken. He wrote some very good, perceptive things. But so much of his stuff, especially as he aged, was "See how many different ways I can insult."
Besides the Golden Rule and Silver Rule, (eloquently discussed on Econtalk this week), the practice of gratitude is the most valuable aspect of religious teaching, specifically I have in mind the Bible. The fact that people are less often discussing the Golden Rule and practicing gratitude in church on a weekly basis is a huge negative for our country. I’m not defending religion or churches of supernatural belief, nor defending all religious dogma, but there is good dogma and bad dogma is there not? Can we say that the dogma of trying to be grateful at least once per day is a good dogma? Can we say that the dogma of the Golden Rule is a good dogma in most cases? Maybe the Golden Rule isn’t universal in the case of certain punishments, but for everyday stuff it’s the best we have. For example I advocate for the IDF assassinating certain terrorists. I’m grateful they have that capability. I believe justice has been carried out in doing so minus collateral damage. Is this according to the Golden Rule? No, but I’m not a terrorist. How can we put ourselves in the shoes of a terrorist in an attempt to determine what the best punishment should be to promote a longterm best outcome. The best outcome is him being killed. Agree?
How can we resurrect the old tradition of gathering at church to discuss the Golden Rule and to say what we’re grateful for? Maybe we don’t need or don’t want a church for this. Maybe we can do it better on Substack and at the family dinner table.
This gets me thinking about other positive things we can build. For example, how can we implement betting in Substack in order to promote better discourse? It might be hard to convince the people running Substack that this would be a good idea, but the payment system here at Substack is already so convenient we might not need their support. For example let’s say you disagree with Joe Smith’s post on feminism. You would propose a public bet. In one month or some period of time in the future, six months maybe, you both agree to post your best article on feminism. Whoever receives the most Likes on their post after five days wins a monetary prize which could be quite modest, like $100. The loser pays the winner. Even if you have to fork over the $100 to your opponent, you might make up the difference plus a large margin in gaining new paid subscribers that discovered you through notoriety of the bet or were inspired by your words.
What are the weaknesses of this setup? The biggest is the meaning of Like Button. As part of the bet you would define what an affirmative vote of the Like Button means. For example, you could define it to mean This Post is Superior to the Other. The Like Button could be made only accessible to paid subscribers. Payment of the $100 would be made through the existing Substack Founding Member payment method.
Isn’t this the next easiest step toward something like FITS or prestige hierarchies? We need to get the incentives right. Each person should vote using the Like Button the winner of these bets. The goal should be profit seeking and loss avoidance based on the meaning of the Like Button.
Then there is ideal prestige and expedient prestige. I don’t consider Christopher Rufo to be of higher prestige than Arnold Kling, but I still think Rufo make a valuable contribution considering our current situation with higher education and DEI infiltration into government. As the situation changes the meaning of prestige changes. What is prestige when it comes to eliminating a terrorist or enforcing the First Amendment in a DEI soaked America? What can we say about the prestige of Trump winning the presidency? It might help the Supreme Court.
This chip aims to restore vision by directly stimulating the visual cortex“ I read this as simulate the first time around. That would be exciting. Now I see it says stimulate. Is that like almost simulate? How does that work? Would emulate be a better word here? Thanks Arnold.
The great thing about you sharing positive things like this is that it helps us be more positive too. It tends to cause a chain reaction of positive thinking. For example I realize that if if exercise it makes me feel better and causes me to do other positive things. Same with eating “positive” food. It leads to feeling positive and in turn me being “more productive.”
Personality psychology is not entirely reliant on self-reporting surveys; clinicians observe personality traits through extended conversations with their patients. I suspect it was these observations which led to surveys as a means of further validation of their tentative conclusions.