[Wellsy]

Cue shitpost… *clears throat*
Do people generally know what is best for them or is the capacity of many so thwarted that some degree of intervention is warranted?

If people do not know well enough the constraints and avenues if their own lives, can someone else really make a decision better than them for them?

Why make poor people jump through hoops for money?
Why have employees who go through training to be professionals and continue with training each year while having to deal with the agenda of managers instead if simply being allowed to talk to one another and get shit done?

If one can know better of what to do in another's life, what legitimizes intervention of paternalism?

Why is it typical to think everyone else is an idiot but not yourself? Why aren’t you subject to ideological limits that make you stupid?

How do we distinguish the capacity of someone to be truly self directed and not just a useful idiot?

It seems to me we get frustrated with others and see them as manipulated but never sincere believers with reasons to truly believe what they believe and thus want to do what they do.

[Puffer Fish]

Here's something else to consider. People who live in places that are full of lots of idiots are more likely to support paternalism, whereas people who live in places where the majority of people are responsible and/or have to be (or are able to be) more self-sufficient are more likely to believe in autonomy.

I think that's one of the reasons that explains the urban/rural divide.

[Wellsy]

Here's something else to consider. People who live in places that are full of lots of idiots are more likely to support paternalism, whereas people who live in places where the majority of people are responsible and/or have to be (or are able to be) more self-sufficient are more likely to believe in autonomy.

I think that's one of the reasons that explains the urban/rural divide.

This doesn’t really state much more than idiots are paternalistic associating it with people in cities.

I do speculate it that people on cities experience a lot more collective management in their day to day lives compared to people who are rural where government services and such a more limited. As such they may be more comfortable with such decisions of a government managing something. But this minimizes the incompetence or destruction of government services in things rendering ones experience quite against relying on such things.

[ness31]

What do you mean by Paternalism? Government or benevolent elders in your community?

How do we distinguish the capacity of someone to be truly self directed and not just a useful idiot?

Good question. I think it might come down to motives.

[wat0n]

Cue shitpost… *clears throat*
Do people generally know what is best for them or is the capacity of many so thwarted that some degree of intervention is warranted?

If people do not know well enough the constraints and avenues if their own lives, can someone else really make a decision better than them for them?

Why make poor people jump through hoops for money?
Why have employees who go through training to be professionals and continue with training each year while having to deal with the agenda of managers instead if simply being allowed to talk to one another and get shit done?

If one can know better of what to do in another's life, what legitimizes intervention of paternalism?

Why is it typical to think everyone else is an idiot but not yourself? Why aren’t you subject to ideological limits that make you stupid?

How do we distinguish the capacity of someone to be truly self directed and not just a useful idiot?

It seems to me we get frustrated with others and see them as manipulated but never sincere believers with reasons to truly believe what they believe and thus want to do what they do.

Honestly, my approach is far simpler: If taxpayer money is being transferred, I don't see anything wrong with imposing constraints and duties on the recipient.

[late]

The Modern world, which we started building after the Civil War, comes with rules.

The OP is an antebellum fantasy.

[Wellsy]

What do you mean by Paternalism? Government or benevolent elders in your community?

I was thinking of this contrast between Mills point that the state can only legitimately interfere to stop harm in contrast with an idea that the state should be more oternalistic and be used as a means to ensure certain social goods are achieved because people without interference will make poorer choices.
[url]rickroderick.org/104-mill-on-liberty-1990/[/url]

So Mill comes up with a very radical principle, and it’s called the “Harm Principle”. The only legitimate ground… This is Mill’s Harm Principle. Actually he presents two, but again for the sake of being concise, we are going to discuss one I consider the most important. Mill’s Harm Principle is the following. The only legitimate ground for social coercion is to prevent harm to others, period. The Harm Principle. The only time the State can interfere with our liberty is to prevent us from harming others. That is a very wide standard indeed, because today that would shut down huge sections of it, wouldn’t it?
…

The two principles – I want to mention them again – that stand in the way of it, or at dispute with it. One is the Offence Principle I have already mentioned. The other is a principle of Paternalism. And it’s a principle that I have to admit – given my political proclivities I have to admit it, it’s okay – that the liberal tradition at least in its earlier incarnations was guilty of. And that’s the Paternalism Principle. Which is we can interfere with people for their own good. That also is inconsistent with Mill, because on Mill’s view of liberty, the best judge of your own good is you.

Which would have led, if you had believed a Mill style liberty argument, and combined it with an argument I am about to make in a minute, you would have had an elegant public policy for dealing with poverty. And that’s to close down a multi-trillion dollar bureaucracy and give poor people money. Under the principle that free people will know better how to spend their money than others know how to spend it for them.

And since what makes poor people poor is that they don’t have money, it seems remarkably elegant to solve the problem by giving it to them. It is so remarkably and shockingly elegant, all it would do is reduce the population of this city by one half. I mean that’s all it would… [take]. And they could go live somewhere else, right? There would be more room to walk around the parks and stuff. No joke, I mean if that’s poverty – not having money – reducing it would be giving money. And the only counter argument must come from this spirit of Paternalism. That means someone must know better than they do how to spend it. Again, on Mill’s grounds that’s not a very good account of liberty.

Then it made me think of the broader attitude that others are stupider than ones self and thus need to be coerced to the ‘right’ ends and can’t be left to decide amongst themselves. It just seems in many cases that people are not seen as having the means to make decisions individually or collectively and so are managed or mediated by another person in some way, to impose limits on their decisions. A bit like how I as a teacher am the limit on students in my class.

So are people really so stupid, i being one of them, a person, can they be helped in achieving a level of self direction and governance and its simply they are not provided the means to adequately become as such? Or are we of the masses stupid? Democracy is dumb and we need an elite to decide for us, parents of facets of society.

Good question. I think it might come down to motives.

My take is that one must know the reason for why one acts to be free and not just an arbitrary reason as thats to be subjected to a situation more so than to make a free decision. To must understand a situation adequately enough that one sees the solution clearly, one has good reasons to think a certain end makes sense.

[ness31]

Paternalistic institutions exist more for the order of society. The larger a community, the more the individual appears to be curtailed. I’m not entirely sure these structures of oversight ever worked out how to leave the individual that has their shit together, alone, without overt social stratification. Perhaps technology will help solve that, and hopefully not in the form of a social credit system.

We’re a hierarchical kind of species aren’t we? Leadership just kind of happens, and people appreciate guidance that comes from legitimate power.

Should people have their welfare in the form of a BasicsCard. Never.

[ckaihatsu]

It seems to me we get frustrated with others and see them as manipulated but never sincere believers with reasons to truly believe what they believe and thus want to do what they do.

Well, what are their *politics*, to begin with -- ?

[ckaihatsu]

people without interference will make poorer choices.

So UBI basically. My standing critique with UBI is that it preserves the *private sector* -- 'cause, y'know, the *bailouts* and everything. Government doesn't need to fricking *outsource* everything to corporations. I think the public / government has more of an interest in *not* habitually paying-out for the cost of profits, along with the typical budget overruns.


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self direction and governance

Consciousness, A Material Definition

Spoiler: show

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why one acts to be free and not just an arbitrary reason as thats to be subjected to a situation more so than to make a free decision.

I think machine politics (and lifestyles) is alive and well.

[ckaihatsu]

Paternalistic institutions exist more for the order of society. The larger a community, the more the individual appears to be curtailed. I’m not entirely sure these structures of oversight ever worked out how to leave the individual that has their shit together, alone, without overt social stratification. Perhaps technology will help solve that, and hopefully not in the form of a social credit system.

We’re a hierarchical kind of species aren’t we? Leadership just kind of happens, and people appreciate guidance that comes from legitimate power.

Should people have their welfare in the form of a BasicsCard. Never.

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Golf, Booze & Guns: Inside Boomer Paradise | The Bubble (Full Film) | The Short List

[late]

I think machine politics (and lifestyles) is alive and well.

You are making mush again, google Tammany Hall.

[ckaihatsu]

You are making mush again, google Tammany Hall.

I don't *think* so, late -- you *know* how party politics is and how internally top-down it is, ultimately.

[late]

I don't *think* so, late -- you *know* how party politics is and how internally top-down it is, ultimately.

Tammany Hall was 'externally' top down.

Btw, party politics didn't used to be monolithic. There used to be a saying, "all politics is local". Most of the time coalitions would form around an issue, irrespective of party.

[ckaihatsu]

Tammany Hall was 'externally' top down.

Btw, party politics didn't used to be monolithic. There used to be a saying, "all politics is local". Most of the time coalitions would form around an issue, irrespective of party.

Back when you were buddies with the dinosaurs, right -- ? (grin)

The influence of money in recent presidential campaigns and elections has been *gargantuan*, making each election like the Superbowl of politics (and/or empire).

Sorry, but I'm going to have to insist that 'machine politics' lives, *especially* in light of such massive corporate campaign contributions and the vested interests they represent.

[ckaihatsu]

issue

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Anatomy of a Platform

Spoiler: show

[ckaihatsu]

The oligarchs’ election

Patrick Martin
3 August 2015

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/0 ... s-a03.html

[late]

Back when you were buddies with the dinosaurs, right -- ? (grin)

The influence of money in recent presidential campaigns and elections has been *gargantuan*, making each election like the Superbowl of politics (and/or empire).

Sorry, but I'm going to have to insist that 'machine politics' lives, *especially* in light of such massive corporate campaign contributions and the vested interests they represent.

The change happened in the 1990s, look at The Party is Over, I think it was written by Lofgren.

They are different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_machine