Why giving ignorant people the freedom to screw up is bad for society

[quikchange]

I'd been thinking about putting this argument into words for several days now after discussing the issue with several people recently but this blog entry finally prompted me to actually do it. I'm a big proponent of individual freedoms, generally ranking them higher than other desirable goals like financial security, professional recognition,

Comments

[adamspitz]

I don't remember what I said in our conversation a few months ago. It's certainly possible that my opinions have changed significantly since then. Today, I don't think I'd "decree" that parents or other people "should" anything. I'd say that I might (depending on the specifics of the law) be willing to vote for a law that reasonably-clearly specifies certain conditions under which it would be legal to take a child away from his parents. (But it'd probably be pretty easy to convince me to change my mind about this

[quikchange]

You're living in a dreamworld if you think the police can deal with the problem effectively. They can't.

[adamspitz]

What do you mean by "effectively"?

I'm not saying that this course of action will fix the whole problem. I'm saying that I don't know a better alternative.

[quikchange]

Yes, there's no good solution to fix crime, which is why I've been trying to figure out a way of preventing it. It's a reasonable assumption that happy, well-educated and healthy people with something to lose (e.g. property or social status) are unlikely to commit violent crimes. If we can create a system in which just about everybody can be that way without having to struggle valiently for it then we will nip crime in the bud. But neither do I wish to relinquish my freedoms (nor anybody else's) in search of this. It's not an easy problem to solve but certainly one that is worth discussing.

[adamspitz]

I think you're using the word "fix" to mean something different than what I meant by it. When I said it, I meant both dealing with crime after it's happened, and also making crime less likely to happen. I was trying to say that I think that letting people know that they're responsible for building their own futures, and letting them know that they'll be punished if they hurt people, is the best way I know to make them less likely to hurt people

[quikchange]

You're correct that I concede the flaws in my proposed solutions so far but am not convinced that no such solution exists.

Even people against whom the odds of success and happiness are heavily stacked occasionally beat those odds. That means that the others could technically have done the same but didn't because they either didn't care enough or didn't believe that it was possible or simply weren't sure how to go about it. All of those are psychological roadblocks. While I remain unsure how to tackle apathy, the lack of self-confidence and knowledge could largely be overcome if all those people had somebody there to act as a mentor for them. I think that there are actually nonprofit organizations that attempt to tackle this problem by matching up successful people willing to act as mentors with people who could really use such mentors. Perhaps this is a better route to solving the problem. What do you think?

[adamspitz]

I don't think it quite follows, logically, to say that if one person whom you've classified in this "odds heavily stacked against him" category succeeds, the rest of them could have done the same. Everybody's circumstances are different. (This is #7 on that list I mentioned yesterday.) But I do believe that almost everybody can succeed.

I like the mentor idea better than I like the test idea or the ad idea. If these people are willing to help (using their own resources) and the receivers are willing to accept the help, I say go for it. :) One thing I like about the mentor idea is that it's more personal than the tests or the ads.

[quikchange]

Yeah, I like that about it too. And in the spirit of putting my time where my mouth is, I think I'll look into mentoring somebody (probably a high-school kid) next year.

[ramou]

Mine was a general reply. In fact, it is my belief that a basic education is a much better route to ensuring that people grow up capable of making sound decisions. You don't teach them that drinking and gambling have bad effects, you teach them to think for themselves, to have a few different ways of thinking under their belts and give them some context about the world they live in.

The things you mention as being simple for the gov't to tell people are probably not so simple as that, and while it's cheap and simple for the gov't to blurb it for people, the more expensive route, proper education seems like it would do a better job in the long run.

[adamspitz]

Sure, that sounds fine to me.

(You mentioned earlier that you'd like this to be organized by the government and paid for through taxes, and I'm not sure why. But I think that issue might be off-topic for this thread.)

[quikchange]

Agreed. While that would go a long way towards solving the problem, it does omit one thing. I can't think of a good way to help kids whose home life is highly nonconducive to studying. Those kids are the ones most likely to end up being in gangs that commit violent crime once they have nothing more to lose.

[quikchange]

It's not that it's hard to do but that people don't realize it's important or useful to know these things. Take the case of carbonated beverages impeding calcium absorption, for instance. It's a useful thing to be aware of but you can't expect most people to spend a lot of time reading medical journals to learn that sort of thing. If it's too new to have been picked up in a high-school nutrition class and isn't widely reported on TV news then very few people will hear about it.

[adamspitz]

Sounds to me like a business plan. If enough people want to be informed of things like this, can you find a way to make money doing it? (A TV show, or a magazine, or even a blog?) Heck, I bet you could find people who'd be willing to write blogs or websites about this kind of stuff for free, just because they'd enjoy it. Are there not things like this already?

If not enough people want to be informed of things like this, or they want it but they're too lazy to do it, I don't see how the government announcements will help.

[quikchange]

Do people want to buy designer products? Probably not until the marketing people have created such a desire through an effective ad campaign.

I suppose an effective ad campaign for a service that keeps people apprised of useful discoveries might be a good idea. I'm glad to see this discussion has finally resulted in something that sounds promising :-)

[adamspitz]

I'm still skeptical - I suspect that you wouldn't have many customers. But if you think this is something that people care about enough to be willing to pay for your service, and you're willing to launch this ad campaign using your own money, I've got absolutely no objection whatsoever - more power to you. :)

[adamspitz]

I think this approach might work.

What do you mean by public service announcements (those words have negative connotations in my mind)?

I would not go so far as to have the government take direct actions (say, put advertisements on loudspeakers in malls). I would have chosen different words to describe the government's involvement - say, cheap books on useful topics, public television with relevant information, or subsidies for people which make useful information available free/cheaply online.

I think this follows along Adams' comment above. The idea is to make things easy to get to, without pushing anything on people. The government saying something like "I think this is useful for you to know, so I'll try to make it easy for you to get to it, but it's your responsibility to go out, find it and learn it." Oh, and make it clear that it's not a complete set of useful things to know - just a set of things that would be hard for the average Joe to find out.

-- Alex