There is not only one possible set of principles. Principles are systematised structures of thought or behaviour. There's more than one such structure someone might have - when we talk about a principled greek philosopher, we might expect their principles to differ from a principled modern european governmental leader. Your "this system of principles is the only one" idea is rather narrowminded.
I believe in the system of democracy like I believe in a screwdriver. It's good for some things. It is not a faith, nor is it the only tool. In practice, people who approach it as a faith to be believed in rarely do anything worthwhile - from the various French republics to the founding fathers of the United States, we see a remarkable variety in how democracy is structured, restrained, and tooled to make a government. We see the choices they made in slowing the influence of democracy in some areas as pragmatic measures to deal with a useful-but-not-worshipped tool. A radical pro-democracy group at any of these pivotal points of history would've made something quite different.
One thing you are correct about is that I do not see democracy as something good in itself - I see it as an element in a government useful for a lot of purposes. My conception of the public good is what I argue for and would like to optimise in government, not directly liberty or democracy. Conceptions of public good vary quite a bit from person to person, of course - I'm arguing mine. Perhaps you might want to say that democracy is not a principle to me, rather a tool that I pragmatically would use to serve my principles.
Censorship is not simple, neat, or wrong. It is a dangerous tool, to be used very sparingly because it easily corrupts a government that uses it broadly, because it makes people unhappy, and because it cements a society into a path. In some circumstances it is appropriate, but the social harm it combats must be great and it should be distrusted as a measure.
I believe the position of free speech as an absolute, like other autonomy/liberty-absolutism, is in fact what is simple, neat, and wrong.
We have a choice between several options, and we should choose the one that's least bad, even if it's still not great. That's still a principled stance.
I don't believe the Declaration of Independence is the best work of political philosophy written. It was the prelude to a failed government (said government was later replaced by the constitution), but it was interesting in its ideals and effects. None of us are constrained to agree with it.
The harm to the welfare of the region from the United States is not from people acting in a principled way for our notion of the good of the world. Historically it's been from European and Americans seeking access to raw resources and other profitable things. American and British intervention in Iran (and India) was claimed to be for the good of the people, but there was very little in that claim but PR.
It's closer than you'd think - we're talking about parties that say "We will institute Sharia if elected". I suggest you read about the Muslim Brotherhood.
Our tradition of debate to settle matters would not work everywhere - when you have a number of deeply religious, radicalised members of a genocidal or theocratic party, there's very little you can say to them to get many of them to change their mind. Their ideas are not usually inconsistent - you're not going to poke holes in them. They're likely to not even listen to debates anyhow - they'll listen to their media and show up on ballot day but otherwise you won't even be able to engage them. They live in a different mental world than you do - different notions of justice, of how people should relate, different norms, and they watch different news. I don't believe my views are weak, because mine are consistent too and if I had followers and were comfortable spoon-feeding them a reality I cooked up, I could. Free speech will not solve the problem of separate mental worlds though when people spend from cradle to grave in their own societies and mental worlds completely disjoint from one's own.
I used to do a lot of debates - generally when you have two sufficiently intelligent debaters with reasonably consistent positions and a debate format that prevents/discourages soundbytes, most debates boil down to differences in values, which is the limit to intelligent discussion. At that point, nobody wins by logic - at best you might sway a few people by aesthetics of your position.
On the comparison to theology, I would not say that it's necessarily better in the practice you mention of disqualifying others - I would hope it's better because of its other content though. I am not suggesting forcing politics to be deeply convergent to avoid disqualification anyhow - a society would generally want to have a pretty decent room for democratic consideration even if it doesn't allow anything. If we look at Iran, we see that their parliament and legal system have space reserved for some non-muslims even in the framework of an Islamic Republic. The Ottoman Empire was in some ways similar.
I disagree. Permitting people to stand for election who would commit atrocities when it's likely they would win seems far worse to me. You're right that it's hard to decide what the limits should be, who should enforce them, etc. I don't think saying there should be no such limits is sensible either though - there are limits on all democracies even in broadly democratic societies. These do not always end in disaster - holocaust denial is illegal throughout much of Europe, and no great disaster has befallen them because of that. The Supreme Court of the United States has a very delayed connection to democratic structure (intentionally) and there is a minimum age needed to become president here, regardless of popular support. Not all limits on democracy or free expression result in horrors.
In contrast to political rhetoric, in real life it's quite possible to build a good home on what looks like, from the point of theory, to be a "slippery slope".
It's not fundamentalist about liberty, and it's different than the way you consider these things, but I don't understand the "cowardly" claim. I am simply moderate about democracy - I don't think it's a death pact. I acknowledge it's benefits and its flaws, and, like fire, consider it very useful in some circumstances, properly framed and used for the public good. I would rather us not think in terms of people deserving punishment because of their choices - that seems cruel to me, when we have alternatives.
Coming up with a formulation about something where you can be very binary about it "we either do or we do not" and ignore the complex interactions between things we value seems to me like it'd lead you to either an oversimplistic or confused philosophy - you can't aim to maximally satisfy many values while claiming each value is satisfied fully. Comprimise and nuance are necessarily part of any political philosophy.
No - disagreement within certain bounds is fine (healthy in most cases). It permits exploration of various approaches to problems, provides means to limit the overambitious and corrupt, and generally makes people more satisfied with the state. Democracy has many benefits, and when possible a state would be wise to incorporate it in some form into its various institutions.
There are things that are pretty much outside the realm of democratic deliberation, and some that at least require more stringent requirements than simple majority (declaring laws unconstitutional and the greater effort needed to amend the constitution are a framework that meets this purpose).
Democracy is a nuanced, often-useful tool. It's not the "one true tool", nor is it our faith.
Consider the alternative. Think about what it'd be like to live in a state where naming a teddy bear after Mohammad or disrespecting the Bible gets an angry mob calling for your death.
This is not the society we live in in the United States (well, not so much - some unfortunates like Matthew Shepard have found a few people willing to kill him, but their acts are at least broadly condemned, and if we look in the past, we see some pretty horrific things like witch trials that had broad-enough support to work in public).
No, more like "we'd like to have democracy, but if you're pushing religious rule, genocide, or similar you can't come to the party, and if there are enough of you like that, the party's cancelled until things change".
These are people who have their hands out for a screwdriver that have publicised their intent to face-stab not long after they get it.
The problem is that a number of people don't think these ideas are loony. These are not western societies where we can take for granted that enough people will be incredibly hostile to the idea of Bible or Quran specifying to great detail the shape of society that that will never happen. These are societies where such ideas could easily take hold, and in many cases, it's taken strong leaders to prevent that.
These strong leaders have not all been saints - they range from people as great as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to people as unlikable as Saddam Hussein or Gadaffi. Not all of them were adamantly anti-religious, although they stood/stand against a type of populist theocracy that's far more repressive than what they provide. Mubarak is somewhere between.
Most strong Arab governments (largely non-democratic) are quite hostile to their more radical elements, even if their own form is not particularly great. Democracy in such states would lead to disaster.
"The screwdriver is a nuanced tool that's not right in every circumstance and should not be the only or even the primary tool in our toolbox" != "throw away all screwdrivers because they're not perfect".
Little phrasing quibble - we're still applying our own values - what we need to do is stop applying the value-conclusions that are common and more suitable for our particular situations in areas where they would actually serve our values very badly.
I disagree. I think anyone intending to create religious rule should be disqualified from being elected.
Political liberty is less important than personal liberty. Given a choice between living under a strict Sharia-enforcing government, democratically elected, and a more libertene western government with the political form of an autocracy, I'd pick the latter every time. I believe most people would if they understood the contrast. In practice, it's doable to have a democracy-with-limits.
To the extent that the ban of the Muslim Brotherhood (a theocratic group pushing for stricter religious rule) in Egypt is effective, I say "Bravo!". When people complain about political, religious, or other repression from a government, it's generally a good idea to find out what kind of group exactly is being repressed.
Ahh, that makes sense. I wasn't sure if you were meaning to imply that there is only one true set of first principles that we somehow get a priori, or were just suggesting that all free-market-principalists (do or should) derive their philosophy from the same first principles. I don't think the latter completely makes sense, but the former is very broken.
I don't know a lot about Chu, but over the years I've worked at a University, I've come to the conclusion that people skills and scientific skills are largely orthoganal - some people have both, but a number of researchers are either extraordinarily shy and nonconfrontational or egomaniacs, neither of which make good leaders. I hope that Chu is of the sort that's good at both.
Kinda, except you wouldn't be able to tell others that you think you own things you put on their computer. Distributing cakes to hungry people, laced with laxatives or poison is a dick move. Likewise, going to poor people and asking them to sell themselves into slavery isn't kosher - don't be surprised when people decide that that way of behaviour isn't cool and start locking you out (or invalidating or ignoring your claims to own information). You care about the freedom of developers to restrict society, we care about the freedom of society from restrictive developers. These freedoms are incompatible - we choose the latter.
We all know why GNOME is ill
on
Qt Becomes LGPL
·
· Score: 3, Funny
It caught Mono through an ill-considered tryst with Miguel;)
Rather than you attempting to restrict what people do with their computers:) How horrible it is that someone might tell you not to restrict others! That's telling someone what to do! It's bossy and mean!
Slashdot Mirror
Err? Were you meaning to reply to me? I don't understand how what you're saying connects to anything I said here.
There is not only one possible set of principles. Principles are systematised structures of thought or behaviour. There's more than one such structure someone might have - when we talk about a principled greek philosopher, we might expect their principles to differ from a principled modern european governmental leader. Your "this system of principles is the only one" idea is rather narrowminded.
I believe in the system of democracy like I believe in a screwdriver. It's good for some things. It is not a faith, nor is it the only tool. In practice, people who approach it as a faith to be believed in rarely do anything worthwhile - from the various French republics to the founding fathers of the United States, we see a remarkable variety in how democracy is structured, restrained, and tooled to make a government. We see the choices they made in slowing the influence of democracy in some areas as pragmatic measures to deal with a useful-but-not-worshipped tool. A radical pro-democracy group at any of these pivotal points of history would've made something quite different.
One thing you are correct about is that I do not see democracy as something good in itself - I see it as an element in a government useful for a lot of purposes. My conception of the public good is what I argue for and would like to optimise in government, not directly liberty or democracy. Conceptions of public good vary quite a bit from person to person, of course - I'm arguing mine. Perhaps you might want to say that democracy is not a principle to me, rather a tool that I pragmatically would use to serve my principles.
Censorship is not simple, neat, or wrong. It is a dangerous tool, to be used very sparingly because it easily corrupts a government that uses it broadly, because it makes people unhappy, and because it cements a society into a path. In some circumstances it is appropriate, but the social harm it combats must be great and it should be distrusted as a measure.
I believe the position of free speech as an absolute, like other autonomy/liberty-absolutism, is in fact what is simple, neat, and wrong.
I have principles. They differ from yours.
We have a choice between several options, and we should choose the one that's least bad, even if it's still not great. That's still a principled stance.
I don't believe the Declaration of Independence is the best work of political philosophy written. It was the prelude to a failed government (said government was later replaced by the constitution), but it was interesting in its ideals and effects. None of us are constrained to agree with it.
The harm to the welfare of the region from the United States is not from people acting in a principled way for our notion of the good of the world. Historically it's been from European and Americans seeking access to raw resources and other profitable things. American and British intervention in Iran (and India) was claimed to be for the good of the people, but there was very little in that claim but PR.
It's closer than you'd think - we're talking about parties that say "We will institute Sharia if elected". I suggest you read about the Muslim Brotherhood.
Our tradition of debate to settle matters would not work everywhere - when you have a number of deeply religious, radicalised members of a genocidal or theocratic party, there's very little you can say to them to get many of them to change their mind. Their ideas are not usually inconsistent - you're not going to poke holes in them. They're likely to not even listen to debates anyhow - they'll listen to their media and show up on ballot day but otherwise you won't even be able to engage them. They live in a different mental world than you do - different notions of justice, of how people should relate, different norms, and they watch different news. I don't believe my views are weak, because mine are consistent too and if I had followers and were comfortable spoon-feeding them a reality I cooked up, I could. Free speech will not solve the problem of separate mental worlds though when people spend from cradle to grave in their own societies and mental worlds completely disjoint from one's own.
I used to do a lot of debates - generally when you have two sufficiently intelligent debaters with reasonably consistent positions and a debate format that prevents/discourages soundbytes, most debates boil down to differences in values, which is the limit to intelligent discussion. At that point, nobody wins by logic - at best you might sway a few people by aesthetics of your position.
On the comparison to theology, I would not say that it's necessarily better in the practice you mention of disqualifying others - I would hope it's better because of its other content though. I am not suggesting forcing politics to be deeply convergent to avoid disqualification anyhow - a society would generally want to have a pretty decent room for democratic consideration even if it doesn't allow anything. If we look at Iran, we see that their parliament and legal system have space reserved for some non-muslims even in the framework of an Islamic Republic. The Ottoman Empire was in some ways similar.
I disagree. Permitting people to stand for election who would commit atrocities when it's likely they would win seems far worse to me. You're right that it's hard to decide what the limits should be, who should enforce them, etc. I don't think saying there should be no such limits is sensible either though - there are limits on all democracies even in broadly democratic societies. These do not always end in disaster - holocaust denial is illegal throughout much of Europe, and no great disaster has befallen them because of that. The Supreme Court of the United States has a very delayed connection to democratic structure (intentionally) and there is a minimum age needed to become president here, regardless of popular support. Not all limits on democracy or free expression result in horrors.
In contrast to political rhetoric, in real life it's quite possible to build a good home on what looks like, from the point of theory, to be a "slippery slope".
It's not fundamentalist about liberty, and it's different than the way you consider these things, but I don't understand the "cowardly" claim. I am simply moderate about democracy - I don't think it's a death pact. I acknowledge it's benefits and its flaws, and, like fire, consider it very useful in some circumstances, properly framed and used for the public good. I would rather us not think in terms of people deserving punishment because of their choices - that seems cruel to me, when we have alternatives.
Coming up with a formulation about something where you can be very binary about it "we either do or we do not" and ignore the complex interactions between things we value seems to me like it'd lead you to either an oversimplistic or confused philosophy - you can't aim to maximally satisfy many values while claiming each value is satisfied fully. Comprimise and nuance are necessarily part of any political philosophy.
No - disagreement within certain bounds is fine (healthy in most cases). It permits exploration of various approaches to problems, provides means to limit the overambitious and corrupt, and generally makes people more satisfied with the state. Democracy has many benefits, and when possible a state would be wise to incorporate it in some form into its various institutions.
There are things that are pretty much outside the realm of democratic deliberation, and some that at least require more stringent requirements than simple majority (declaring laws unconstitutional and the greater effort needed to amend the constitution are a framework that meets this purpose).
Democracy is a nuanced, often-useful tool. It's not the "one true tool", nor is it our faith.
Consider the alternative. Think about what it'd be like to live in a state where naming a teddy bear after Mohammad or disrespecting the Bible gets an angry mob calling for your death.
This is not the society we live in in the United States (well, not so much - some unfortunates like Matthew Shepard have found a few people willing to kill him, but their acts are at least broadly condemned, and if we look in the past, we see some pretty horrific things like witch trials that had broad-enough support to work in public).
No, more like "we'd like to have democracy, but if you're pushing religious rule, genocide, or similar you can't come to the party, and if there are enough of you like that, the party's cancelled until things change".
These are people who have their hands out for a screwdriver that have publicised their intent to face-stab not long after they get it.
The problem is that a number of people don't think these ideas are loony. These are not western societies where we can take for granted that enough people will be incredibly hostile to the idea of Bible or Quran specifying to great detail the shape of society that that will never happen. These are societies where such ideas could easily take hold, and in many cases, it's taken strong leaders to prevent that.
These strong leaders have not all been saints - they range from people as great as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to people as unlikable as Saddam Hussein or Gadaffi. Not all of them were adamantly anti-religious, although they stood/stand against a type of populist theocracy that's far more repressive than what they provide. Mubarak is somewhere between.
Most strong Arab governments (largely non-democratic) are quite hostile to their more radical elements, even if their own form is not particularly great. Democracy in such states would lead to disaster.
Why should you be allowed to elect a leader that puts an imam in my bedroom?
"The screwdriver is a nuanced tool that's not right in every circumstance and should not be the only or even the primary tool in our toolbox" != "throw away all screwdrivers because they're not perfect".
Little phrasing quibble - we're still applying our own values - what we need to do is stop applying the value-conclusions that are common and more suitable for our particular situations in areas where they would actually serve our values very badly.
I disagree. I think anyone intending to create religious rule should be disqualified from being elected.
Political liberty is less important than personal liberty. Given a choice between living under a strict Sharia-enforcing government, democratically elected, and a more libertene western government with the political form of an autocracy, I'd pick the latter every time. I believe most people would if they understood the contrast. In practice, it's doable to have a democracy-with-limits.
To the extent that the ban of the Muslim Brotherhood (a theocratic group pushing for stricter religious rule) in Egypt is effective, I say "Bravo!". When people complain about political, religious, or other repression from a government, it's generally a good idea to find out what kind of group exactly is being repressed.
The Iraqi Information Minister? He'd at least be entertaining..
Ahh, that makes sense. I wasn't sure if you were meaning to imply that there is only one true set of first principles that we somehow get a priori, or were just suggesting that all free-market-principalists (do or should) derive their philosophy from the same first principles. I don't think the latter completely makes sense, but the former is very broken.
I don't know a lot about Chu, but over the years I've worked at a University, I've come to the conclusion that people skills and scientific skills are largely orthoganal - some people have both, but a number of researchers are either extraordinarily shy and nonconfrontational or egomaniacs, neither of which make good leaders. I hope that Chu is of the sort that's good at both.
It depends on the architecture, of course.
Not meaning to defend the author, but more bothered by what you say here - what if someone chooses different first principles?
Kinda, except you wouldn't be able to tell others that you think you own things you put on their computer. Distributing cakes to hungry people, laced with laxatives or poison is a dick move. Likewise, going to poor people and asking them to sell themselves into slavery isn't kosher - don't be surprised when people decide that that way of behaviour isn't cool and start locking you out (or invalidating or ignoring your claims to own information). You care about the freedom of developers to restrict society, we care about the freedom of society from restrictive developers. These freedoms are incompatible - we choose the latter.
It caught Mono through an ill-considered tryst with Miguel ;)
Rather than you attempting to restrict what people do with their computers :) How horrible it is that someone might tell you not to restrict others! That's telling someone what to do! It's bossy and mean!
It sucks to give Poland a feather for its cap while it's under the thumb of such a pair of opportunistic bastards though.