Do you really think so? It seems to me that people who are prone to irrational choices are highly likely to assess the results of those choices irrationally, leading to further irrational choices.
Hehe. He’s one of them thar blue-eyed, blond-haired Asians?
I agree that Alabama and Mississippi are racists, but I also don’t believe in evolution. I’m not a Christian, I just believe in God, Heaven, and Hell. There is no proof of evolution just like there is no proof of the garden of Eden. Nobidy knows what happned in the beginning. Alabama and Mississipi may be right about not believing in evolution, but they are wrong 2 claim that life started with Adam and Eve because this discriminates against other religions
Evolution has nothing to do with “what happened in the beginning”. It covers what’s been happening since then. You are talking about abiogenesis, which is something completely different.
It’s like saying you don’t believe in gravity because there is no proof for string theory.
Just to make it clear, it is also not very appealing to many of us who are members of that demographic.
I think a few of my brain-wrinkles smoothed out while I read this.
What about the irrationality, or just plain greed and selfishness, of corporations and other powerful interests? They can act in ways that will benefit themselves while hurting large numbers of others. What feedback will limit them? We need a government that will keep them in check. That government may not be perfect, but at least it is answerable to the people to a greater extent than those other interests.
Libertarians worry about the power of government, but seem unconcerned about the power of other institutions that would be unleashed by the weakening of government.
It all depends on the feedback mechanism and the reinforcement schedule. If you hook up one lever to a pellet dispenser and another to a battery you can teach a mouse which lever to push in minutes. Because in life so much of bad consequences happen well after the irrational act it can take a long time for people to learn, but over time they do. In politics the laws are not passed until a year after the election and the consequences of the law may not appear to years after that. Plus each politician votes of such a variety of laws that voting rationally is almost an impossible notion.
I am glad we had so many volunteers to show irrationality is not confined to Alabama and Mississippi. Since Santorum served in Congress for seventeen years I am sure all of you can point to numerous bills he sponsored targeting gays and minorities.
There is plenty of proof for evolution. You just haven’t learned it.
You might be thinking about the origin of life, that’s different from evolution. Life arising from non-life isn’t fully understood, but the scientific mass of evidence points very, very, very strongly against Adam and Eve.
If a corporation harms me with a lousy product, I can buy a different product. If they treat me poorly as a worker I can quit. They have no power to compel me to do anything I do not want to do. If the people decide to stop patronizing a business it will be out of business. Compare the Fortune 500 from forty years ago to the one today. Many of those rich and powerful companies no longer exist.
If I do not like what the government is doing I can move to a different country, completely upending my life. The government can take my money and my liberty for any reason it wants to. If I object I had better hope enough of my fellow citizens agree with me or I am SOL.
If a corporation harms you by poisoning your air or water, or ruining your land, you can certainly buy a different product, but there’s no guarantee that others will stop buying from them, particularly if those others live hundreds or thousands of miles away. Government can pass and enforce laws to put limits on pollution.
I’ll always maintain that a popularly elected government that has checks, balances, and independent branches is, while not perfect, a better bet than unchecked corporations (or warlords, or biker gangs, or whatever).
One thing you have to realize is that, in a vacuum of governance, one of those other unchecked powers will eventually become a de facto government. One which is not in any way planned or designed to give a say to you or I.
Unless the bad product has killed you, of course, like in that libertarian wonderland of China. Oh, if there is a big enough stink the government even executes the exec who killed you, but that doesn’t seem to stop them or help you.
We might also think about our own 19th century libertarian wonderland know for pure food and drugs.
Fact is, ripping off and even poisoning your customers can be an excellent business model, especially since when you do go out of business you just set up elsewhere.
Assuming you can get a job elsewhere when you quit, and assuming that the jobs open to you are any better. Triangle fire, anyone? Or was that caused by government interference?
How many of them went out of business because of ripping off their customers? There are plenty of other reasons for businesses to close, so this statement means absolutely nothing. And, like I said, if your business model is to rip off your customer, going out of business from time to time is expected and hardly the end of the world.
Agreed, that is why government is a necessary evil and I am not a libertarian. Government exists to keep citizens from harming each other or foreigners from harming citizens. However, the poor feedback mechanisms and the information problem mean that government is a very crude instrument. Thus we should only rely on government when all available alternatives have failed.
The incentives for politicians are to promise solutions to every problem and thus grow government ever larger, but we need to remember in every government solution the guys Ms Pelosi interviewed get to have a vote too.
Well you have to understand that China’s government is too small and feeble even for a radical like me. If China had a government that was large and powerful enough to contend with its corporations than obviously no bad things could happen.
I’m not sure having the screen name of an ancient Chinese tyrant makes one Asian, but in any case I’m obviously referring to “straight males,” the Aryans of the putative Rick Santorum reich.
I imagine I’ll catch flack for this but my experience has been that this sort of ignorance manifests itself to varying degrees in both parties. I’ve got relatives in Arkansas and Louisiana that legitimately believe Obama was born in Kenya (not that they’d consider voting for him anyway). However, I’ve also got relatives in Michigan and Ohio who genuinely believe that all businesses are inherently evil, and would sooner vote for a racist, homicidal maniac (that supports big labor) over any candidate representing the GOP. Ignorance is ignorance.
Qin is apparently the son of Korean immigrants, but the rest of your description of a Santorum presidency is a tad hyperbolic.
Just as Obama never had the power to take guns out of our hands, Santorum as POTUS won’t be able to round up undesirables and cattle train them anywhere. It’ll be a few years before we, as a society, get to the point where such an attempt wouldn’t be caught on camera, end up online in a matter of hours, and shock/outrage the entire country.
Even in the South, acceptance of homosexuality among the younger set is almost common. Acceptance of homosexual marriage is less common, but it’s also getting there among younger Southerners.
Of course, I still believe Santorum would do whatever he can to lead the country in that direction, even if he doesn’t consciously characterize his beliefs and actions in that way.
As for the willful ignorance of Southerners, it definitely exists. I saw it on full display while growing up in Arkansas and currently while living in Texas. Facts really don’t matter. It’s the “Truth” that matters, even if the “Truth” contradicts observable and objective fact.
Best I can say is that we’re not all like that and some of us do our best to fight those stereotypes.
As you said, you can move anywhere you like. There’s even a few places with no government to speak of, which is pretty much your idea of paradise, eh?
Cleveland is no one’s idea of paradise.
And they should get to have a vote. And the rest of us, if for no reason other than our own well-being, should be willing to sacrifice whatever is needed to bring them up to a decent level of education and understanding.
This is what the anti-tax “don’t give my money to other people” folks don’t seem to get. Those other people also get to vote, and it’s in everybody’s interest that they have the education and understanding to cast their vote in a way that is at properly informed.
Of course, “properly informed” doesn’t automatically mean that they’ll always agree with me, or you. We obviously shouldn’t demand that. It just means that they’ll have a better grasp of the facts then they do now and will be able to vote on their own values based on facts rather than fiction (at least to a greater extent than they do now).