tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post1183914884578513007..comments2024-03-21T03:55:51.565-07:00Comments on Omniorthogonal: Conflict Theorymtravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-55057562310981526722018-03-22T01:49:21.774-07:002018-03-22T01:49:21.774-07:00Inherent functional generators is probably a littl...Inherent functional generators is probably a little strong, but the premise is pretty simple, if you recognise that conflict has the capacity to obscure the path to the true resolution of conflicts in rational compromise, you want to give power to people whose interests align more to truth than propaganda, while also balancing that with pushing to strengthen actors whose displayed interests and strategies head towards increasing justice as it is currently understood.<br /><br />This isn't precisely an endorsement, it's an investigative procedure; so even if we don't have a watertight ethical definition of the bounds of whistleblowing, we can still support it's expansion in areas that we believe have obscured the calculation of just outcomes with their power relationships. We can say that society is making certain patterns of mistake, and either act within a conflict domain to lessen them, or leave that to someone else.<br /><br />I'd like to say that this varies from the standard “progressive” model of supporting vanguard groups because it also supports disinterested or even misanthropic academics etc. but more recently, the political storms around fact checking and so on suggest that the dividing line has moved to match this more closely.<br /><br />So we end up with something like a conflict theory, but which "side" is the right side can shift according to their strategies and the current state of knowledge, as they align or dis-align to current systemic patterns of knowledge production. In another sense, you could say that "avoiding mistakes" becomes a self-conscious side of it's own, although that reveals the flaws and capacity for co-option that is possible if this perspective is taken too far..Josh Wnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-69413393149385805832018-03-22T01:39:26.888-07:002018-03-22T01:39:26.888-07:00I have a lot of sympathy for a "mistake"...I have a lot of sympathy for a "mistake" theory of politics, in the sense that when given two participants of equal power, negotiating carefully, they will do best if they find a compromise synthetically, and if you look at conflict resolution or arbitration structures that are designed to artificially make participants equal, that is what they tend to seek.<br /><br />But this mutually beneficial position is sort of like the calculated equilibria of neoclassical economics; you assume that all conflict-based components cancel out, leaving a mutually comprehensible optimisable situation for both participants.<br /><br />The problem comes when you try to apply the same reasoning to situations with people with varied power, then instead of the conflict related part you exclude from consideration being the earnest effort of conflict-resolution-experts to bring equal parties to the table in a negotiation, it becomes the efforts of people to get parties to accept as a starting point things they have recently won from them, according to the current dynamics of the conflict between them.<br /><br />In other words, the mutually agreed rationally accepted state of facts, "the best reasonable state of affairs for both parties", becomes "the best you can accept seen as I took your house".<br /><br />In that sense, a true "mistake theory" which is not based on an avoidance of conflict, but it's rational resolution, would be happy to reopen those wounds, and would recognise certain kinds of gains from conflicts as illegitimate, and not a reasonable starting point.<br /><br />At the limit, you'd consider how people's interests would be treated in a hypothetical world of equal power, such as the various "veil of ignorance" approaches.<br /><br />Once you reject that as too theoretical, and stop collating people's different assessments of their own priorities and interests, and then optimising political solutions from a position of absolute justice, then you have a theory that either blindly follows trends in conflict, seeking to help people set the appropriate amounts of money for ransom, given the resources available to a kidnappee's family, or alternatively your realism must force you to consider the existence of conflict.<br /><br />If it does not, then this "peaceful" model of politics will be constantly embroiled in conflict against it's will, as the perfect accompaniment to unexpected attacks, helping to secure their gains, and it's foundations, will constantly shift as the conflict moves underneath them, making it less and less useful analytically the more the power relationships it assumes are uncertain or time varying.<br /><br />Considering mistakes within the context of conflict, without assuming that justice can be known completely, results in an iterative and normative approach, in that political theory describes what you need to do next to act politically at the current state of knowledge.<br /><br />It is forced to be normative because it takes a side, in the sense that unlike the hypothetical world in which all parties will agree to the most rational approach, it is expected that some people's interests and resource positions gained according to illegitimate modes of conflict, will be found inevitably to be unjust, and so they will have an interest to act against clarity itself, perpetuating mistakes.<br /><br />So even if you're focusing just on seeking a clarified state of affairs, you will have to define it in terms of direction, setting up some state-space surface that the system should pass through to become more just, given our current state of knowledge, and more able to determine future surfaces. Then because you have considered people as inherent functional generators of certain kinds of misunderstanding, or reductions of it, you'll end up proposing redistribution of power according to whether people will help to move it through that threshold, even if you leave the details of that to conflict theorists.Josh Wnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-91963846621576099012018-03-12T20:50:36.893-07:002018-03-12T20:50:36.893-07:00@Mupetblast
You are just as privileged as Hanson...@Mupetblast<br /><br /><i> You are just as privileged as Hanson. So that particular criticism won't get us anywhere.</i><br /><br />What criticism? I am not saying Hanson is wrong because he is privleged, I՚m saying that his ideology is suspiciously self-serving. Consider the possibility that I am just as privleged as Hanson but pushing a less-self-serving set of ideas. <br /><br /><i> "That՚s the really irritating thing about these antipolitics people, they end up being apologists for the established order."</i><br /><br /><i> The status quo is up to its eyeballs in partisanship and ideologues, so that description seems way off. </i><br /><br />Again, I՚m not really sure what you are saying (or that you understand what I am saying). I agree that “The status quo is up to its eyeballs in partisanship and ideologues”, the people who pretend that it isn՚t can՚t help become unconscious apologists for it. If you believe that the current order of power just somehow is a reflection of reality, and any attempt to change it is “politics”, you are a tool. <br /><br /><i> I think what you mean is that by muddying the waters of confident leftism with doubt, they are effectively boosting the established order. </i><br /><br />Huh?<br /><br /><i> But "established order" isn't very informative. For the alt right - to whom Hanson et al. are aspie cucks or something - and evangelicals, Muslims, Scientologists etc. the established order is described differently than you'd describe it. </i><br /><br />Everyone may have different descriptions of the established order, but that doesn՚t make power into something amorphous and subjective. Charles Koch and George Soros both have more power than I do, no matter what I or anybody else thinks about it, and even evangelists or the alt.right will acknowledge it, even if (especially if) they want to change it. <br /> <br /><i> Mistake theory allows us to hash out our differences and look for common ground. (Barring this, property rights help, but you seem to dislike libertarians as much as liberals.)</i><br /><br />I think you have a mistaken notion of "mistake theory", which is not about "hashing out" anything (that is conflict-y!) but in denying or avoiding conflict entirely. Read the original SSC posts if you don't believe me. <br /><br /><i> You seem steeped in zero sum conflict thinking. It's weird to see it coming from the left. </i><br /><br />I can՚t really imagine why you would think that.<br /><br />Take an example dear to the libertarian heart, two individulals engaged in a business transaction and negotiating over it. Like, say A has a house on the market and B is a buyer. Their goals are very much in conflict, since A wants the highest possible price and B wants the opposite. But, they have a mechanism for resolving their conflict which has presumably non-zero-sum results. <br /><br />That is an apolitical example of conflict, possibly irrelevant, but it is a lot better captured by “conflict theory” than by “mistake theory”, which would require some objective standard of who deserves the house (or something -- it doesn't actually make much sense). Political conflicts get resolved by other mechanisms, but even so the normal process is negotiation and finding settlements that resolve the conflict. Of course sometimes you need a revolution, which I guess is more zero-sum, but hardly weird "coming from the left".<br /><br /><i>Ut's a very Schmittian attitude. </i><br /><br />Not really, Schmitt had a very particular version of conflict theory that I (obviously) don՚t endorse. I actually had a whole section on that in the original post, but cut it because it was going in yet another direction...may eventually finish and post it. <br />mtravenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-38847867855653858192018-03-12T15:28:53.084-07:002018-03-12T15:28:53.084-07:00You are just as privileged as Hanson. So that part...You are just as privileged as Hanson. So that particular criticism won't get us anywhere.<br /><br />"That՚s the really irritating thing about these antipolitics people, they end up being apologists for the established order."<br /><br />The status quo is up to its eyeballs in partisanship and ideologues, so that description seems way off. I think what you mean is that by muddying the waters of confident leftism with doubt, they are effectively boosting the established order. But "established order" isn't very informative. For the alt right - to whom Hanson et al. are aspie cucks or something - and evangelicals, Muslims, Scientologists etc. the established order is described differently than you'd describe it. Mistake theory allows us to hash out our differences and look for common ground. (Barring this, property rights help, but you seem to dislike libertarians as much as liberals.)<br /><br />You seem steeped in zero sum conflict thinking. It's weird to see it coming from the left. It's a very Schmittian attitude. Then again it's also weird to see the "right" coming off as cultural relativists asking us to tolerate all POVs and open our mind. But that's another conversation. We live in interesting times...Mupetblasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05679108807930898123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-91931571264151066672018-03-09T22:10:59.423-08:002018-03-09T22:10:59.423-08:00@Dain – I think you are missing the point, and so ...@Dain – I think you are missing the point, and so is Hanson. Conflict is everywhere, it certainly informs every aspect of American life (which, contrary to th post you linked, has always managed to find a way to provide separate institutions for different races, classes, and ideologies). To think that the existing order somehow descended from heaven and it is only those unruly people who are trying to change it who are guilty of conflict is the standpoint of the privileged. <br /><br />That՚s the really irritating thing about these antipolitics people, they end up being apologists for the established order. <br />mtravenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-34510446842051487872018-03-09T21:56:43.176-08:002018-03-09T21:56:43.176-08:00@Exuberance – yes, engineers and nerds tend to be ...@Exuberance – yes, engineers and nerds tend to be the kind of people who aren՚t very good at politics. But they aren՚t stupid and know that it՚s important. There are two possible reactions to this: try to redefine the world so politics is not so important (the general thrust of libertarianism and the vaguely related ideologies around rationalism), or, man up and realize that politics is one more element of reality that has to be taken into account, given the engineering profession՚s job of being designers of real-world artifacts and systems. mtravenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-7253165312637410352018-03-09T06:58:24.886-08:002018-03-09T06:58:24.886-08:00Nice. Illuminates a question that has puzzled me,...Nice. Illuminates a question that has puzzled me, i.e. why are most engineers so passionately dismissive of politics. In the light it might be explained as a consequence of thier training: how their trade (claims to) solves problems. Their weak skills in conflict (resolution) amplifies that. As does the bewilderment at the hands of events emerging from political actor around them. Naturally anger emerges when your both powerless and awoke to the the discovery that you highly trained skills are of limit help.exuberancehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02180872922559635562noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-56201721447257762102018-03-08T17:12:51.273-08:002018-03-08T17:12:51.273-08:00Good piece. Recalls this new one from Hanson: http...Good piece. Recalls this new one from Hanson: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/03/study-resistance-to-widened-political-polarization.html<br /><br />Could be restated as "Study Resistance To Widened Conflict Theorizing." Conflict theory puts people in a very zero sum mood, to put it mildly. <br /><br />It's been the American privilege to avoid rampant political conflict in everyday life, unlike many of areas of the non-developed world where politics (conflict rhetoric) colors and determines everything of any interest to the human animal. Those days may be coming to an end...Dainhttp://dryhyphenolympics.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com