The Madeleine & Anvi Gallery of Excellent Effortposts

[Antonio the Sixth]

I don't see what's excellent about that post. It's just the kind of rhetoric about Progress that Mikado's implicitly critiquing. "The mistakes of the past", "leave things broken", etc.

So no mistakes were ever made in the past and nothing is broken?

Of course not, but the problem I have (and I don't know if Mikado shares this) is that Progress implies a continuum with barbarianism at one end and utopian supermen at the other. Taken to its extreme that thinking gave us the USSR and fascism. And what follows from this is that a dogmatic notion of Progress implies inevitably and permanence, which is obviously absurd. I think abolishing segregation and the invention of birth control were good things, but I don't think they form part of a steady march towards a "better world". This kind of atheist religious thinking is neatly summarised in that quote about the "arc of history bending towards justice" or whatever. I don't think there's any reason to believe that's the case.

You are the one who made the "rhetoric of Progress" into a strawman. Train's post was merely an apt rebuttal of the opposite extreme, which Mikado is increasingly espousing in his recent remarks.

But anyway, this thread isn't for arguing, so if you want to respond let's move to the thread where that post was from.

[Oakvale]

I don't see what's excellent about that post. It's just the kind of rhetoric about Progress that Mikado's implicitly critiquing. "The mistakes of the past", "leave things broken", etc.

So no mistakes were ever made in the past and nothing is broken?

Of course not, but the problem I have (and I don't know if Mikado shares this) is that Progress implies a continuum with barbarianism at one end and utopian supermen at the other. Taken to its extreme that thinking gave us the USSR and fascism. And what follows from this is that a dogmatic notion of Progress implies inevitably and permanence, which is obviously absurd. I think abolishing segregation and the invention of birth control were good things, but I don't think they form part of a steady march towards a "better world". This kind of atheist religious thinking is neatly summarised in that quote about the "arc of history bending towards justice" or whatever. I don't think there's any reason to believe that's the case.

You are the one who made the "rhetoric of Progress" into a strawman. Train's post was merely an apt rebuttal of the opposite extreme, which Mikado is increasingly espousing in his recent remarks.

But anyway, this thread isn't for arguing, so if you want to respond let's move to the thread where that post was from.

This is why these threads are a bad idea. A post quoted here is forever Good or Excellent and any debate will be neutered.

[traininthedistance]

I don't see what's excellent about that post. It's just the kind of rhetoric about Progress that Mikado's implicitly critiquing. "The mistakes of the past", "leave things broken", etc.

So you think no mistakes were ever made in the past and nothing is broken?

Effort posts usually require a good deal of... well effort. Not two short paragraphs typed in 90 seconds.

Yeah, that was not an "effortpost" by any stretch of the imagination.

[politicus]

Most movements don't actually consider the human costs of disruption of norms on actual living, breathing people, for whom such disruptions are not statistical aberrations but real crises with real consequences. Inaction is always easy to measure and quantify, action is trickier to justify or examine because those policies have not yet actually been instituted.

There's the kernel of a good cautionary tale in the first sentence here, but the rest goes deeply off the rails super fast.  Like, seriously, the idea that people are good at measuring and quantifying the costs of inaction just flies so directly in the face of every piece of evidence we have.  I mean, yes, of course "action for action's sake" is not something we should do.  But I'm quite confident that's not the problem we have right now, and behaving as if it is overcorrects us into absurdity.

To take one example, it is easy to call for "saner" environmental policies,

Ooh, good example.

but to what degree can we be sure that the (real) harm caused to future generations by climate changes outweighs the (equally real and immediate) harm to those whose livelihoods are dependent on producing coal, oil, and natural gas,

Okay, what about the real and immediate harm our current system has on people who get asthma and cancer from particulate pollution, or lose their water supply due to fracking, or are already getting hit with desertification, aquifer loss, more and stronger floods, etc? This isn't just some future-generation thing, even by your ludicrous standards there ought to be justification for some action seeing as there are victims already.  Unless of course victims of the status quo don't count as real victims in your mind.

or to the massive costs needed to renovate the power grid,

You think infrastructure lasts forever?  We'd need to renovate that sh*t sooner or later anyway, you don't get to count that as an extra cost.  And, anyway, there are a lot of investments that would pay for themselves over a pretty quick timeframe anyway, but for whatever reason (inertia, lack of upfront capital, bureaucratic obstacles) don't get built.  I mean, do you seriously think that there are no such worthy investments to be made? Not even just w/r/t the power grid, but in general?

or to the extra expense of transportation to those struggling to get by as is?

Oh, god, really? This disingenuous rot? Protip: those people who are actually most struggling to get by wouldn't see their transportation costs rise under a sane enviro policy.  To make that claim requires both a stunning ignorance of a) the reality for millions of people, and b) the actual sorts of solutions that are being offered on this point.

Also, BTW, our transportation system as currently designed is quite literally a grisly horror show. People getting maimed and killed trying to cross the street is a real crisis with real consequences.  But that's just the way it is, so those victims don't count, amirite?

(One of these days I need to start a thread about the invention of jaywalking, BTW– which is an underrated and forgotten case of societal change being harmfully thrust on people in exactly the way you bemoan.  Let's be perfectly clear– some changes are bad, and I'm happy to decry them when they should be decried. But I guess in your mind, it's been made, we shouldn't fix it, too late no backsies?)

We cannot quantify the harm of inaction over the next century, so how do we know the consequences of global climate change then outweigh the costs of action now?

[citation needed]

If you want to say that we cannot pinpoint things to the dollar and cent, sure.  But we can– and do– have enough evidence to make a reasonable, and overwhelmingly compelling, guess.  The plausible range might be wide but even on the lowest end of impacts/costs there are a lot of things we'd need to do. (And, of course, wouldn't a healthy risk-averse conservativism behave as if to prepare for the worst-case scenario?)  I mean, I guess you can be a radical skeptic if you so wish, but at a certain point I have to wonder how you square that with the existence of industrial and post-industrial technology in the world today.

Either that, or you're engaging in the most sharply sloping time discounting I've ever seen, basically to the point where future generations hold no moral weight in your calculus.  But, of course, there are people alive today who are those future generations.  Apres moi, le deluge?

This bias of action or just doing something to look like you're doing something over the alternative solution of actually weighing whether the consequences of inaction outweigh the consequences of action is very distasteful.

Again, no such bias actually exists!  You've given me exactly zero indication that you take the "consequences of inaction" seriously– or that people in general take it seriously.

Of course the well-being of people can be improved by the efforts of other people. I'm distrustful of any attempts to do that on a systematic level. You improve people's lives by covering for your coworker when she goes to take her kids to the doctor or by volunteering at your local food bank. That doesn't make the world a better place, though. The world is neither good nor bad, the world simply is. You can make other people's lives more pleasant and your own more pleasant by extension, though.

Again, what counts as "systematic"?  Was the New Deal too "systematic" for you?  What about the introduction of an income tax?  Or the Voting Rights Act?  Fighting Jim Crow was a pretty systematic societal change, now wasn't it.  Freeing the slaves, now that was a shake-up, pity the poor plantation owners being disrupted.  Are you saying that anything worth doing, is worth doing solely through small-scale private charity?  Are we floating in a sort of timeless jelly where past actions have no impact on the present, where present actions have no impact on the future?

Look, I'm not saying that you should have to view the world as "good or bad".  I'm certainly not saying that human civilization has an inherent teleology, that "the arc of history bends toward justice" (Though I will admit that MLK's quote, while not necessarily accurate, is useful for those of us who give a sh*t about trying to keep it from bending toward injustice.)  I'm not saying you have to believe anything. 

I am merely saying that you should acknowledge that the observable universe seems to obey predictable laws.  And that we can draw inferences from those laws, and act accordingly. In short, as Gully said that there is such a thing as evidence, and sometimes the evidence really does say, loud and clear, that action is necessary.

[Beet]

File this one under "just a post I agree with a lot" but still-

This is good news for progressives. Again, an FYI to liberals on how the American political system works: Congress passes the policy and the President enforces them.

Obama's Presidency has been more moderate than people who voted for him in 2008 primaries wanted because he spent 2 years with Harry Reid being too limpwristed to pass any agenda items with 59 Senate seats (59 Senate seats), and then 6 years under Republican rule in one or both chambers.

If the left wing of the Democrat got enthusiastically behind supporting Hillary Clinton for President, did GOTV with Latinos for Hillary, defended Hillary against any drummed up scandals, she could win the popular vote by 10 points or more. She absolutely could. That's enough to flip even the gerrymandered House downballot AND the Senate with all the 2010 inductees up for re-election.

Then you have Nancy Pelosi back as Speaker of the House and Chuck Schumer as Senate majority leader, who would probably abolish the fillibuster.  The bills being passed through those chambers to get signed by Hillary or else from 2016-2018 would be so ridiculously left wing I would join the Tea Party.

But instead, you have these supposedly educated and intelligent liberals giddily hoping Hillary collapses without a defense so they can, at best, look forward to 4 years of Elizabeth Warren doing nothing (#NoThing) with a Republican Congress and, at worst, Scott Walker getting the same treatment from a Tea Party controlled House/Senate supermajority.

[anvi]

Thanks for the thought, politicus!  I'm certainly not Sam Spade legend material, but I'm happy to know my sometimes very long-winded efforts are worth an occasional thread-title.   

[politicus]

Thanks for the thought, politicus!  I'm certainly not Sam Spade legend material, but I'm happy to know my sometimes very long-winded efforts are worth an occasional thread-title.    

You are welcome!

...

I started working on this while Julia Gillard was Prime Minister. How's that for an effortpost?

Beautiful!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can someone explain to me why Bushie is so hated here? Don't know much about him so...

Bushie a chronically unemployed, morbidly obese, developmentally disabled Oklahoman in his late thirties who has been financially dependent on his parents throughout his entire life. His journal ("Update") has been the premier feature of the Forum Community board for the better part of the past decade.

One factor behind Update's appeal¹ is Bushie's comically abusive behavior toward others. He frequently lies to his own family. When he has work, he's a skiver. His treatment of animals and the elderly is downright horrifying. Throughout all of this, he insists that he is an upstanding person and a good Christian. "You do not dare insult my good name." is one of his mantras. For more examples, Google the following: site:uselectionatlas.org "my good name" + update

¹Other than the simple and oh-so-good-natured pleasure of reading about the pratfalls of a disabled and obviously deeply troubled man, that is.