The Hubris of Cultural Planning

[magus341]

Culture is a strange animal. In fact, it's odd that we have a word at all for such a diverse set of information, norms, institutions, art, knowledge and behaviours. Anything passed down from parent to child could be culture, and really all human knowledge that is commonly held could properly be called "culture

Comments

[psyllogism]

I wish more people were willing to freely discuss ideas using reason and discourse :-(

Also, I'm starting to distrust many online reviews because of reports of advertisers manipulating the system, writing their own anonymous positive reviews on Amazon, etc.

I like everything I've heard about "Nudge"... I think I should read it sometime.

[magus341]

I'm pretty sure I have a copy I can lend you. It's good, but they tend to equivocate a bit. They pull: "Here is a reasonable use of paternalism", therefore that justifies a more intrusive/strong version of paternalism. Just be careful in accepting their conclusions and think actively about what are the exact conditions when you think paternalism is justified. Think about situations when government agents suffer from biases as well private agents. Overall, it's a thought provoking book that people across the political spectrum need to consider whether they agree or disagree. When I first read it, I mostly agreed with it, especially when normal paternalism can be replaced by libertarian paternalism. Now, I'm a little more skeptical.

[archwright]

Reason and discourse? REASON AND DISCOURSE? That is liberal bias if I ever heard it. Yeah...

The more people I talk to, the more I realize that we--as a society--are shifting away from intellectual discourse. Everything from what gas company you buy from to what gender(s) you fuck seems to be completely off the table of reason and solely into the realm of fear mongering.

Maybe, if I want to make my points to people, I should forgo logic take up boxing. At least, I'll get some satisfaction out of the "debate" then.

Of course, I did know some people who were self-proclaimed to be "good discussion." Most of them are even worse than the pugilists out there. Todd was a master at starting from an absurd, unarguable premise then following logic from there. Nihilism is satanic, Buddhism is Nihilistic, therefor Buddhism is satanic... right.

Then again, psyllogism and magus341 make up half of the people I know that I can have a serious intellectual discussion with. (Ok, maybe slightly less than half, but you know what I'm saying)

[psyllogism]

I'm suspicious of the "shifting away" bit. I'm not sure we as a species have ever seriously had a whole society/culture based on reason and discourse. Some small subgroups, certainly. But not a society.