No, an ad hominem would be if I said, “Scott Alexander is a loon, and he’s saying that politics has lots of toxoplasma; therefore, politics must not have lots of toxoplasma.” But that’s not what I’m saying. I am saying “you’re backing up your argument by taking a bunch of blogs and op eds as evidence, but blogs and op eds aren’t a very good authority so you haven’t supported your claims well.”
Something more effective would be to just reference, say, the Pew study looking at American political attitudes. That would be a good data point, and it would be easier than pouring through an op ed. That way we know that you’re supporting your argument with good evidence and we can immediately see how it’s relevant to the issue at hand. And we aren’t being told to accept the elaborate narratives and points of view of bloggers and editors at face value.
I agree with these sentences from Scott Alexander:
Well the 1% and 99% figures are clearly over-exaggerated. And I don’t think this is much of an issue at all with typical political cycles. SCOTUS rulings, for instance, get made and overturned with fairly equal difficulty (just have the president and senate appoint judges with the right views; it’s essentially symmetric). Major legislation gets repealed, but rarely; even the ACA might be preserved in part, because of the need for it and the reliance upon it.
On the flip side, making new institutions is not particularly difficult; it’s practiced all the time with passing new laws, establishing new agencies, etc., and this does not seem to be an overwhelmingly difficult practice to me. Most of American governmental history has been the successive construction of new and better government institutions against resistance, not a destructive war in which institutions are constantly created and destroyed.
I think it would be worthwhile to take a more detailed look at legislative history in order to pursue this line of thought.
If you’re playing to win, your actions are often predetermined by the game’s structure.
Whew, I hope you don’t expect everyone to read through that when they see your comment. I see that and I hear, “If you’ve read Scott’s winding 10,000 word essay, you’re in my ingroup and you get to know what I believe and why I believe it. If you haven’t, then come back to me after you’ve finished; otherwise, you don’t know enough to refute my argument, because I’m using it as a source.”
Scott’s essay is about game theoretic problems between actors leading to inevitable conflict. I’m not sure in what sense you use the term ‘predetermined’ but it certainly isn’t the case that pushing a side in partisan politics leaves the world no different.
My model: someone who works to make the game better for everyone, in a way that doesn’t strongly favor one side or the other, often finds this surprisingly tractable due to lack of opposition.
This, again, is something that would warrant an investigation of policymaking history, especially since you’re citing a blog by someone who, as far as I know, has not played a key role in any policy shifts, despite presenting it as their chosen strategy.
The institutions discussion seems to have gone off the rails. Our original disagreement was about whether governance constitutes a tough technical and economic problem. I think it does. You apparently think it doesn’t. I don’t think we’re going to make progress resolving this disagreement easily.
Our original disagreement was about whether governance constitutes a tough technical and economic problem.
No, our original disagreement was over whether partisan political activity is better than trying to systemically reform political arenas.
You apparently think it doesn’t.
No, I just think that partisan political activity is a good avenue of improving governance. I’m not making any broad claims about governance being easy or not.
I don’t think we’re going to make progress resolving this disagreement easily.
Of course not, if you want to pursue a discussion about policymaking without actually referring to legislative history.
No, an ad hominem would be if I said, “Scott Alexander is a loon, and he’s saying that politics has lots of toxoplasma; therefore, politics must not have lots of toxoplasma.” But that’s not what I’m saying. I am saying “you’re backing up your argument by taking a bunch of blogs and op eds as evidence, but blogs and op eds aren’t a very good authority so you haven’t supported your claims well.”
Something more effective would be to just reference, say, the Pew study looking at American political attitudes. That would be a good data point, and it would be easier than pouring through an op ed. That way we know that you’re supporting your argument with good evidence and we can immediately see how it’s relevant to the issue at hand. And we aren’t being told to accept the elaborate narratives and points of view of bloggers and editors at face value.
In any case I would encourage you to avoid calling out fallacies as a rhetorical strategy, as explained here: https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/1lh4ip/what_is_the_name_of_this_type_of_logical_fallacy/cbz62ls/
Well the 1% and 99% figures are clearly over-exaggerated. And I don’t think this is much of an issue at all with typical political cycles. SCOTUS rulings, for instance, get made and overturned with fairly equal difficulty (just have the president and senate appoint judges with the right views; it’s essentially symmetric). Major legislation gets repealed, but rarely; even the ACA might be preserved in part, because of the need for it and the reliance upon it.
On the flip side, making new institutions is not particularly difficult; it’s practiced all the time with passing new laws, establishing new agencies, etc., and this does not seem to be an overwhelmingly difficult practice to me. Most of American governmental history has been the successive construction of new and better government institutions against resistance, not a destructive war in which institutions are constantly created and destroyed.
I think it would be worthwhile to take a more detailed look at legislative history in order to pursue this line of thought.
Whew, I hope you don’t expect everyone to read through that when they see your comment. I see that and I hear, “If you’ve read Scott’s winding 10,000 word essay, you’re in my ingroup and you get to know what I believe and why I believe it. If you haven’t, then come back to me after you’ve finished; otherwise, you don’t know enough to refute my argument, because I’m using it as a source.”
Scott’s essay is about game theoretic problems between actors leading to inevitable conflict. I’m not sure in what sense you use the term ‘predetermined’ but it certainly isn’t the case that pushing a side in partisan politics leaves the world no different.
This, again, is something that would warrant an investigation of policymaking history, especially since you’re citing a blog by someone who, as far as I know, has not played a key role in any policy shifts, despite presenting it as their chosen strategy.
The institutions discussion seems to have gone off the rails. Our original disagreement was about whether governance constitutes a tough technical and economic problem. I think it does. You apparently think it doesn’t. I don’t think we’re going to make progress resolving this disagreement easily.
No, our original disagreement was over whether partisan political activity is better than trying to systemically reform political arenas.
No, I just think that partisan political activity is a good avenue of improving governance. I’m not making any broad claims about governance being easy or not.
Of course not, if you want to pursue a discussion about policymaking without actually referring to legislative history.
You said: “Politics is an adversarial game, as opposed to being a tough technical or economic problem”. I was responding to that.
I’m tapping out of this discussion.