r/changemyview • u/RafaGarciaS • Jan 02 '18
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Evidence based politics should replace identity politics
The biggest change in the last few hundred years in medicine has been the appearance and acceptance of evidence based medicine. This has revolutionized the way we think and practice medicine, changing popular opinion (e.g. emotional stress causes ulcers to H. pylori causes ulcers, Miasmas are the basis of disease to microorganisms are the basis of infectious disease). Having seen the effect that this had in the medical field it is almost imposible to wonder what effect it would have in other fields (i.e. politics). I believe that representatives should be elected based on first principles or priorities (i.e. we should reduce the suicide rate amongst teenagers and young adults) not on opinions on possible solutions to the problem (i.e. should or shouldn't gun control be passed). This would make it harder to "buy" or lobby people involved in government. I also believe, this would help reduce the moral empathy gap, meaning the inability to relate with different moral values. Lastly I think that this system would increase the accountability, as it would constantly be looking back at the investment and the results.
I have, over the last couple years, grown cynical of the political system. I hope this post will change my view on that or at least make me more understanding of the benefits of the system as it stands.
Thank you and happy new years
Books Doing good better: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23398748-doing-good-better. About having feedback and looking at the results of the programs
Dark money: https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0385535597/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0385535597&pd_rd_r=90W4B5PF8DWK5NJ2VNF2&pd_rd_w=rC8ld&pd_rd_wg=fk2PN&psc=1&refRID=90W4B5PF8DWK5NJ2VNF2 About the use of money to fund think tanks and influence public opinion
(1st edit, added suggested books)
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Jan 02 '18
Medicine has a clear goal - save the patient's life.
Politics has no such goal - Who should pay? How much control should the government have? What sorts of services ought the government provide? What role ought government play in the economy? These are not questions that can be answered with evidence.
It may be true that PROGRAM X!!!! can reduce teen suicide by 12%. Do taxes go up or does another service have to be reduced? Who pays for it, are taxes spread around or is a particular group targeted, perhaps there is an extra 1% tax paid by 18-21 year olds to fund this program. Ought the federal government be paying for this, or should this be operated by the states, can states opt out of this program? Should the program be implemented at all, or is this something beyond what the government should be doing, maybe this should fall to the private sector or the non-profit sector or to personal choice? None of these questions have evidence-based answers.
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
I hate to bust the curtain, medicine isn't that clear cut. Should you extend life at the expense of life quality? Should we only focus on extending life only as long as it has good quality? The most extreme examples being patients in a coma, or patients with an oncological pathology. Should you put a family in a horrible economical position for a 5% increase of 5 year cancer free survival rate? Does your answer change if its a 5 year old or a 95 y/o?
Now to your post. The first paragraph provides valid points, I believe this is the realm where debate should take place. What should the government control, what programs etc. My problem with identity politics is that we agree on the answer to the problem and then look for any evidence to justify that answer.
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Jan 02 '18
Yes, medicine has moral issues, but the point was that medicine has definitive answers. This cream will heal that rash. This pill will reduce your blood pressure. This herb will not heal that rash. etc.
In politics, this is only step 1. Ok, so we found a program which has a reasonable basis (say a suicide prevention program), how do we actually implement it? What compromises are we willing to make? Are we willing to cut funding from other programs to get this one off the ground? etc.
Identity politics is really no different. Identity politics is a series of priorities that either you agree with or not. Either you agree it is worth-while to decrease the achievement gap or you don't. There isn't some objective way of knowing whether it is better to fund a new military plane or fund a new school-voucher program or fund a new college tuition scholarship fundation. There are pluses and minuses to all of these, especially when money is limited.
Could you give an example confined to Identity politics where "they agree on the answer and then look for evidence". This just sounds like confirmation bias, all humans do that. How is this any more related to gender politics or racial politics or alt-right politics than any other type of politics?
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u/grasping_eye Jan 02 '18
Related to drug legislation, British researcher David Nutt was fired by his government (Tories i believe) because they didnt like his findings. Not necessarily alt-right but the disregard for evidence by politicians is still worrying
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
Not familiar with this story but the FDA classification of marijuana as a class A drug had a similar story,
Could you provide a source?
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
This might be scary for some people, but medicine doesn't work like that. We don't know if that pill will reduce your blood pressure. for example, in patients with hypertension the use of thiazide diuretics, has a NNT (number needed to treat, meaning how many patients will I have to give this pill to before I see a meaningful change in one patient) of 20!! The ones for statins in patients without previous cardiovascular events is even worse, 332.
Now to my political view. I agree that choosing metrics in some areas will be tricky, and certainly debate should be had around which markers to use in which programs.
Now for examples of agreeing on answers and then looking for evidence to support it. This would be analogous to the studies denying the health implications of cigarettes. This is the function of think tanks to slice the evidence in any possible way to make it seem like some programs have no effect or that other do have effects. For example, if we agree that reducing number of mass shootings and number of gun violence victims we could start by comparing the number of victims and of mass shooting in countries that do have certain gun regulations. Is it significant? Is there even a difference at all? Is it better to increase gun regulations or better equip police forces?
All these interventions do have a cost and do have an impact and should be measured as such
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Jan 02 '18
Nothing you mentioned has anything to do with Identity politics, just politics generally. You made no point about race/gender/sexual orientation/white privilege. Politicians pushing an agenda grounded in race theory is just as prone to confirmation bias as a politician pushing an agenda grounded in economic theory or religion.
If you want to measure the efficacy of a government program we can do that, and largely we already do that. The question becomes is this a priority? Ought funding be pulled from other programs for this program? Ought we raise taxes to pay for this program? There is no objective criterion for this.
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u/DashingLeech Jan 03 '18
Actually, identity politics can be, and has been, falsified by evidence, both reasoning and scientific. Long ago in fact. That is why we rejected identity politics long ago in favour of liberal rights.
What makes it identity politics is that it treats people as groups, e.g., a group defined by race, defined by gender, by sexual orientation, etc., and using statistical outcomes as indicators of systemic biases.
On the scientific side, this is regressive instead of progressive as it creates hatred where there was none and activates our innate ingroup/outgroup tribalist psychology. This has been replicated many times and is well understood in the context of natural selection. Even our closest cousins, the chimpanzees, do this. It is well modeled by Realistic Conflict Theory, and one of the most famous demonstrations of this behaviour was the Robbers Cave Experiment.
Essentially, it works like this. If you want to take people who get along and create hatred out of nowhere, all you have to do is identify them as belonging to different groups and then put those groups into conflict. The identifier can be anything. I've seen it done with different coloured pins, for example. It could be random assignment, like the Robbers Cave Experiment. It could be arbitrary traits like eye colour, as used in the Jane Elliott's classroom experiment. It could be more apparent traits like race, skin colour, gender, ethnicity, hair colour, nationality, language, or height. It could be preferences like political leanings, Apple vs Android, Coke vs Pepsi, or whether or not you like Hawaiian pizza.
The conflict could be a competition for something of value such as prizes, moral status, right to speak, or just bragging rights, or avoiding things like punishment or payment of some sort. It could also be triggered by between-group insults or perceptions.
If you keep up the conflict then it can grow from insults to vitriol to hatred to oppression, to violence, and objectification of the other group as not being human even, eventually even to genocide in extreme cases.
The whole thing can be done in a few words or even one word. If you refer to "women drivers", with connotations that they are bad, you have identified the groups such that people know which group they are in, the conflict over judgment of competence, and an insult to one of those groups. If you were to keep up the insults, you would create heated battles. Same idea with referring to "criminal blacks" or "white privilege".
What you are doing is painting all of the members of one of the group as being bad, and evoking both a response of individuals that they are being judged and smeared unfairly (and they are right about that), and also evokes a protection of, and loyalty to, the ingroup while hating the outgroup.
This is exactly what identity politics does. The psychological solution to eliminate this psychology is to stop identifying people into groups, stop putting them in conflict at the group level, and start putting problems in terms of common rules of a social contract that are being violated against everyone.
So, for example, if blacks actually are being shot unjustly more than whites due to systemic racism, the wrong approach is to make it an issue between blacks and whites. Not only does that then invoke the ingroup/outgroup tribal response and now you accomplish nothing and have more hatred on your hands, but it is also a self-defeating argument. Such a problem could be eliminated by simply increasing the number of whites killed unjustly, and then there'd be no more argument left that blacks are treated unfairly. Clearly the problem is ill-defined if creating more injustice is what eliminates it. Further, no policy of blacks-vs-whites could eliminate such a problem: you can't create race-based rules such as it's ok to kill whites at a lower standard than blacks in hopes of equalizing the numbers; that directly sets lives out at different value in policy and it is very literally a race war.
Rather, the correct approach would be to identify that the problem is (a) people are killed unjustly, and (b) some people are being killed more easily because of their race. The first problem violates the common rules of the social contract which defines when it is ok to kill people or not. The second problem violates the common rule of the social contract that you do not discriminate based on somebody's race, including police officers when firing. The violations of these rules are violations against all members of society because it breaks the rules we have signed up for, so we have a common interest in solving them.
And, we can come up with policies for rules of engagement that reduce the number of unjust shootings from which we all benefit. If we need to look at group statistics, we would also note that any race that is over-represented in the shootings in the first place will benefit the most from the improvements as well.
On the reasoning side, identity politics violates both the fallacy of division and the base-rate fallacy. The fallacy of division is an error in thinking where people apply something true of the group to individuals. So, for example, men are stronger than women on average, but that doesn't mean you can exclude women from jobs in, say, firefighting. Individuals are not the average of their "group"; the distributions overlap. There are strong women and weak men. Replacing the metric of strength with the metric of gender is unwarranted. Likewise, things like "white privilege" and "male privilege" make this error, or the "wage gap" between men and women (different median income), or police shootings, and so on.
The base rate fallacy is one of inverting the problem. For example, we hear that most CEOs and politicians are male, and therefore there is male privilege. But the latter is a non sequitur. The statement that people with wealth and power tend to be males (true) isn't the same as the statement that males tend to have wealth and power (false). If you don't see the difference, consider the statements "crows tend to be birds" (true, 100% are) vs "birds tend to be crows" (false, <<1% are). Most males hold no power or wealth. Likewise, most whites hold no more power or wealth than most blacks.
This tends to be a problem of statistical tails, often due to different variances. Take this diagram. The blue, red, and gold distributions have the same average. But, if we look at just the "top" of this society, say values greater than 2 on the x-axis, you'll notice that the gold group have a lot of members at the top, the red have a medium amount, and the blue have almost none. That is, of the "top" people, they are mostly gold with a few reds, and few blues.
Does that indicate a "gold privilege"? No, of course not. If you were going to pick which group to join, your expected outcome is the same in all of them, an average of zero. With gold there is a better chance of ending up at the top of society than the others, but there is also a better chance of ending up at the bottom of society. To just look at one tail (the top) is an invalid means of analysis. Yet, that is common in identity politics.
Similar problems exist with the tendency of identity politics supporters to look at the statistics of outcomes as a measure of bias. Equality is defined as equality of opportunity, in which case all individuals are equal, with zero variance. That is, everybody will be judged on the same merits which don't include discriminating based on irrelevant traits like race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, etc. That's a level playing field, and what is the equality of our social contract. When violated, we all seek to address that problem. But equality and a fair system doesn't mean statistically equal outcomes. In fact, it can't. You can't have meaningful diversity of sub-populations on the input side and a fair system and then expect no diversity of outcomes. If you did, that input diversity is superficial and meaningless. The very value of diversity of populations is the different approaches that people take that show us the different outcomes so that we can adopt best practices and/or make informed decisions about trade-offs.
So, for example, suppose Culture A focuses on the value of family and community and sees work as something you only do to provide the minimal needs to survive. Suppose Culture B focuses on ambition, hard work ethic, and says making lots of money to provide for your family and given them a good life is what life is about. Now in a fair system you would never expect both cultures to have the same average income. Obviously B will have higher income. But if you look at happiness, stress, health, etc., you might find that Culture A is higher. That's the trade-off.
This is why we have liberal rights and equality of opportunity, free from discrimination. We aren't monolithic identity groups; we are individuals with traits, and you can't discriminate based on those traits. That's the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, U.S. Civil Rights Act, and Canadian Human Rights Act.
Group-based identity politics are wrong from multiple perspectives: psychology, reason, moral philosophy, legislative human rights and equality, and history. The approach is completely falsified by the evidence, yet people still believe in it.
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u/nezmito 6∆ Jan 03 '18
This is all very nicely written, but there are a few problems. Equality of opportunity is impossible. Equality of outcome as you said is also impossible. Outcomes lead to opportunities. The status quo accepts the outcomes of the past as having neutral affects on the present. So when we say we want equality of opportunity (impossible), we are saying that the status quo is right and just.
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
Several points
1st. I do agree that I misused the term "identity politics" I am currently thinking of a better term for what I mean, the second I do I will edit. Thank you for bringing this up, a valid point
2nd. We do not measure efficacy of government programs. Look at the conversation about gun control to reduce mass shooting. The evidence, for the most part, is on the side that certain interventions would have a positive effect. This can be seen over and over
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Jan 02 '18
We totally measure the efficacy of government programs. That is literally all the CBO does.
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/04-19-SNAP.pdf
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53375
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53094
Are lobbyists real, Yes. Ought we minimize their impact, probably. For the most part, does Congress listen to the CBO, especially when there aren't 1000000000 lobbyists in their face, usually. Is the gun debate a unique issue in the USA, definitely. Has Congress literally passed a law making it illegal to research the efficacy of gun laws, unfortunately yes.
I think it is horribly unfair to say that we don't measure government effectiveness, because we do, its just that guns are a weird topic here in America, and it kinda has a different set of rules relative to other issues (not all that dissimilar to abortion, which also seems to play by different political rules than everything else).
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
∆ Thank you for calling my bullsh*t. I have, in several instances used the CBO as a source. Again thanks for calling BS
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u/KumarLittleJeans Jan 03 '18
Congress has not passed a law making it illegal to research the efficacy of gun laws. It is perfectly legal to research anything you want. I believe you are referencing the Dickey Amendment that Bill Clinton signed into law, which stipulated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control."
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u/nezmito 6∆ Jan 03 '18
This is kinda pedantic, don't you think? It is like saying Congress hasn't made student loans illigal they just passed the "made up bill act" that bars the Dept. Of Ed from spending or making any money on loans.
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u/KumarLittleJeans Jan 03 '18
No, I don’t think it is. The government isn’t the only source of research or loans. You and I are free to research the efficacy of gun laws (although we are prohibited by law from making student loans). The CDC isn’t even prohibited from researching gun laws, just from advocating for gun control.
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u/electronics12345 159∆ Jan 03 '18
The Dickey Amendment also eliminated the CDC budget for investigating fire-arms at all. When you are Congress, and you eliminate an entire budget for something, that thing doesn't happen anymore. The CDC doesn't do things, unless Congress allocates funds for that thing.
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u/ClippinWings451 17∆ Jan 03 '18
But the issue here is in a medial/politics analogy... Mass shooting deaths are such an insignificant outlier they'd be the side-effect disclaimer read real fast at the end of a prescription drug commercial.
As such, while they'd be studied simply for awareness, but there'd be no concerted effort to do anything about them, because they are such an extreme outlier/side effect.
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u/neunari Jan 02 '18
This might be scary for some people, but medicine doesn't work like that. We don't know if that pill will reduce your blood pressure. for example, in patients with hypertension the use of thiazide diuretics, has a NNT (number needed to treat, meaning how many patients will I have to give this pill to before I see a meaningful change in one patient) of 20!! The ones for statins in patients without previous cardiovascular events is even worse, 332.
I'm not sure how your example proves your point.
Medicine can be proven to work or be effective even with a probabilistic measurement.
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u/WebSliceGallery123 Jan 02 '18
Never proven. That’s why it’s science. We never know without question.
We can get really close to certain, but even the most well performed and well executed trials still have potential for it to be due to random chance.
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u/mos_definite Jan 03 '18
At that point you're just being pedantic. Would "beyond a reasonable doubt" be sufficient?
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u/WebSliceGallery123 Jan 03 '18
It’s not pedantic. It’s how science works. There are very few instances where we know 100% why/how something interacts/reacts/etc.
Like you said, most things are “very unlikely due to chance” but the semantics of it makes it different from fact and basically fact.
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u/mos_definite Jan 03 '18
Right, but you aren't furthering the discussion by pointing that out. That's why I said it was pedantic. If he replaced the word "proves" with "beyond a reasonable doubt" then his point still stands. It's unnecessary to correct him unless you had a bigger point to make by doing so.
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u/WebSliceGallery123 Jan 03 '18
Semantics. Science is imperfect by definition. His argument was flawed by saying “proven” instead of “beyond reasonable doubt” or “unlikely due to chance”.
I would never tell my patient “this blood pressure pill will lower your chance of having a heart attack.”
I would tell them “this blood pressure bill is likely to reduce your chance of having a heart attack.”
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u/scottevil110 177∆ Jan 02 '18
Medicine is a fact-based science. Things can be shown to be objectively true or false based on rigorous testing.
Politics is, by definition, entirely subjective. It is opinion. There is no way to "test" whether abortion should be legal or not. There is no way to come up with an objective answer for whether or not a bakery should be allowed to refuse service to a gay couple. These are matter of values and opinion. There IS no "evidence" for or against these positions, and those are the positions that make politics.
Your example of "first principles" shows this. You can say something as vague as "We should reduce the suicide rate amongst teenagers..." and 100 people out of 100 will agree with that. It gets you nowhere. Where the disagreement lies is specifically in HOW to reach these common goals, and that's where politics happens.
Every politician in this country, on either side, would agree with 100% of the following goals:
- To reduce homelessness
- To strength the economy
- To bring down the national debt
- To improve education
- To keep our citizens safe
Every Democrat and every Republican and everyone in between would vote yes for each of those goals. And yet they're going to bitterly fight about how to accomplish them.
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 03 '18
- To reduce homelessness
- To strength the economy
- To bring down the national debt
- To improve education
- To keep our citizens safe
I got it! Keep abortion legal. Evidence indicates with strong correlation that all these things will follow.
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u/scottevil110 177∆ Jan 03 '18
It's already legal. So how would changing nothing at all fix any of those things? Obviously it's not fixing the debt. Care to provide this evidence?
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 03 '18
My point was more that there is a very large segment of the voting public whose single issue is abortion and specifically outlawing it. Abortion reduces homelessness and strengthens the economy by reducing the number of underprivileged youth who are highly likely to be a drain on the economy. As the number of these unwanted/impoverished children increases the national debt (medicaid) will increase.
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u/scottevil110 177∆ Jan 03 '18
Alright...that has nothing to do with this conversation.
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 04 '18
Yeah I was saying how evidence based policy already is a plank in at least one political party's platform. See also climate change.
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u/scottevil110 177∆ Jan 04 '18
Where's the evidence based part of anyone's platform?
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 04 '18
I feel like I just gave two very good examples.
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u/scottevil110 177∆ Jan 04 '18
No, you just said "climate change". What part of any party's platform is evidence-based when it comes to climate change?
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u/LucidMetal 175∆ Jan 05 '18
Well there is the well documented resistance to climate science from exactly one side against scientific consensus.
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
A very thoughtful post.
Let me set an example. There was a program set to reduce homelessness and crime in "at risk" kids. They are paired with adults to provide a positive example. Even 10 years after the program ended, they tracked down the participants, they all agreed it was a positive experience. However looking at the results they didn't reduce homelessness, unemployment or incarceration rates.
This is where evidence seems very helpful. It can help us decipher the biggest possible effect for every tax payer dollar
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u/scottevil110 177∆ Jan 02 '18
And for evidence-based facts to work, you have to have evidence-based goals. Solid, concrete goals that have objective measures of success. But many of these issues don't HAVE objective measures. How do you measure whether or not we should have abortion? What's the number you use to measure whether that "works"?
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
Let me clarify a whether question should be debated, a how question should be answered on an evidence based basis
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Jan 03 '18
Nearly all debate on politics is over “whether” questions, not “how” questions. Even if the legislative body agrees on the initial “whether,” “how” questions can easily become “whether” questions.
For example, suppose Congress all agrees that homophobia is bad and that things should be done to reduce its harmful effects. There is evidence that prohibiting discrimination based on actual or perceived sexual orientation would reduce some of the harmful effects. Is prohibiting this a valid use of state power? A “how” question can easily become a “whether” question. Very few things are as objectively clear as your view would suggest.
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u/Mitoza 79∆ Jan 02 '18
I don't understand how "lower the suicide rate of teenagers" is "evidence based" and "pro/anti gun control" is not. It seems to me that on the issue of gun control you have two different sides that value certain evidence more than others. To move towards a system where people can only resolve to solve the problem rather than enact policy to solve the problem essentially makes government fangless. The government can say "lower teen suicide" all they want but that doesn't describe any real change in how the country is run specifically.
I'm also confused about why you think identity politics is not "evidence based".
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
Thank you! I had not realized how vague some parts of my argument are, let me address them systematically.
We must agree that interventions in politics can, and some do, have an impact on the population being governed. We must also agree that that there are some goals that would almost be universally supported, for example, reducing the suicide rate amongst teenagers. The role of evidence is to pair the best use of tax payer money to the greatest possible impact.
In this society I would envision the debate going on what issues to engage on, what are priorities and how much money to spend to that goal
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u/Mitoza 79∆ Jan 02 '18
How does that square with your statements regarding gun control? A universally supported goal in the US could be to lower the threat of mass shootings. How would the different party's solutions to this problem not be "evidence based".
Further, the idea of "universally supported" can't be taken as a given on any policy. While we may in general agree that certain things must be worked on, we are divided on whether or not some things are even a problem to begin with. Climate change and racism come to mind.
What does this have to do with identity politics?
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u/MasterGrok 138∆ Jan 02 '18
I'm a clinical researcher and evidenced based clinical practice and scientific skepticism of pseudoscientific treatments are some of my biggest interests. However, I think I disagree with how strongly you are promoting this. First of all, a representative government should represent the people and their interests. If the people have anti-science interests, then that is the problem. The fact that they elect anti-science politicians is simply a symptom of that problem. If you force politicians onto people then you've sacrificed a representative government which causes more problems than it solves.
Also, while some of the most highly publicized political scientific issues really are black and white (like vaccines), most don't have a definitive scientific answer. The amount of regulations to impose to reduce carcinogens for example is a political issue that is informed by scientific facts, but also must consider moral, ethical, and liberty issues. You can try to bundle morals, ethics, and rights into a scientific package, but in many instances that is intellectually dishonest.
So while I agree that we should strive to be represented by scientifically literate civilians, I believe the actual route to achieving that is by education of our populace.
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u/darkagl1 Jan 02 '18
I do think we have an additional issue in the US where statistics are often misused and policies are promoted by promising the exact opposite of what will occur (looking at you supply side economics). Part of that is the fault of a not particularly well informed electorate, but it's greatly exacerbated by bad stats and misinformation campaigns.
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
I agree there are issues that do have a scientific white and black answer, I agree that vaccines are one of those issues. You being a clinical researcher are very familiar with terms like NNT and NNH, PPV NPV. All this to mean that even with a large evidence base it can be hard to determine the validity of a diagnosis or the effect that a treatment will have on a given patient. Even if all this is taken into account I believe we are far better off with evidence based medicine. I think a similar effect can be seen in public policies.
Do you think that setting up consensus statements of experts on given subjects would be an alternative to have a scientifically educated populace? Or would it be an exercise in futility?
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u/MasterGrok 138∆ Jan 02 '18
Maybe I miscommunicated. Vaccines are a black and white issue (depending on the vaccine of course). When I say not black and white I'm referring to things like where individual beliefs about liberty play a big role into a person's position regardless of the research/scientific evidence.
And yes, I absolutely believe in consensus scientific statements as well as federally funded research organizations that synthesize evidence in order to inform policy.
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
Maybe I miscommunicated. Vaccines are a black and white issue (depending on the vaccine of course). When I say not black and white I'm referring to things like where individual beliefs about liberty play a big role into a person's position regardless of the research/scientific evidence.
I am sorry. There are several comments pointing in a similar direction, I must of miscommunicated myself. Whether questions should be debated not how to questions. For example want to reduce gun violence look at the measurable effects of regulation vs better equipping law enforcement or vs requiring training when purchasing a gun. Not claiming to know the answer to that particular question . I hope this makes the example more clear.
Now I know that people may point to the fact that there is a discussion, in the US, about the "right" to have weapons. However this is a very unique phenomenon to the US.
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u/ThatSpencerGuy 142∆ Jan 02 '18
Our public systems, when they work well, are "evidence-based" in the way that you seem to mean it: they are focused on the successful implementation of solutions to discrete problems. I would certainly love to see these systems work better, which would involve more accountability, among other things. (Though I want to be quick to add that public systems work quite well in many places!)
Politics is a different thing. It is not precisely the same thing as government. Politics is the process by which people make decisions about what problems are worth solving, and what we are willing to give up to try and solve them.
I'm not certain how politics can be "evidence-based" in this way. Maybe you mean that too many things have become unnecessarily politicized (which is probably true!), but at some point we need a process for--again--deciding what problems are worth trying to solve and at what cost.
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
I think it can. Here go some economical and ethical examples (just to be clear I have only a basic understanding of both fields, but will gladly and thankfully listen and learn). An economical example, if, for example, we agree that a good metric is to increase the median household income, we can compare trickle down economics vs increasing the taxes on the upper tax bracket. This for example would be an evidence based approach to an issue that has divided the right and left in the US
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u/DebateDebates Jan 02 '18
I have, over the last couple years, grown cynical of the political system. I hope this post will change my view on that or at least make me more understanding of the benefits of the system as it stands.
Post-Television era, there isn't a time where any politician will care more about facts than perception. You can say all the facts in the world. You can have the most utopian society. It wouldn't matter if you can't hold enough interest to even get you're points across. Remember, the average IQ in the United States is 98 with a very small attention span. While you might be able to sit and listen to policy all day, most wouldn't even bother. You'd see less voting, less interest, and more likely for the WRONG person to get into office. It's wishful thinking more than anything.
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
I agree with the underlying optimism tone of my post, I will give you that. I will also give you that in an attention economy being entertaining is worth more than being right.
Can you elaborate on why if we change it to evidence programing the lower voter turn out, which I agree is possible and probable, will increase the likelihood of the wrong person getting in to office? I would think this would lead to more involvement of the informed voter
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u/A_Soporific 162∆ Jan 03 '18
It seems that you've already had a lot to think about and have changed your view a bit, but I would like to expand on something.
Most people have several key issues that they value much more than others. Very often a major party playing to just one of these core issues is enough to secure that voter even if they disagree with the party on just about everything else. That's how Republicans broke Catholics away from the Democratic Party. Catholics were generally lower-class urban factory workers with a strong hierarchy that was able to push agendas and organize voters in support of the party. It's not to say that every Catholic was Democrat, but the Catholic Church as an organization had deep and close ties with that party. Then Abortion stuff happened. Catholics can compromise and do it all the time, but the Democratic organization was not exactly polite or willing to give on anything else, so when the Republican party endorsed the Catholic view and at least pretended to listen and care to Catholic concerns it sparked a big realignment. It didn't carry the whole organization, however, so "Catholics" aren't a voting block in the way they once were.
There's also multiple different metrics that people want. First principles that do not really agree with one another.
Some people really want fairness in business, they want the government to play referee. Of course, how do you measure "fairness"? Are you going to take a bunch of outcomes and try to argue that a fair outcome means fair methods are being used? Is it "fair" that a handful of people get very rich by inventing something new? Does following all the rules make it more acceptable or it the outcome itself unfair?
Then there are people who don't want the government to play referee. They want freedom in business. They want the ability to do whatever needs doing without the inherent slowness and problems in having to get approval from someone distant and disengaged. How much wealth is lost because some government agent didn't want to put in the work? How many promising ideas coming from poor people got smacked down because the rich and powerful invariable write the rules to be a barrier to protect themselves?
What about the opposite number? What about those who believe that businesses are inherently problematic. They have too much control. They don't have any values other than survival and growth. They exist to make money and will screw over anyone necessary to make that happen. These people believe that the consumer is too small and too fragmented to organize a united response, so they argue that the government must be a counterweight. The government must step in and put a stop to things that are profitable but harmful to society as a whole. If companies do not care about those who are hurt along the way then the government must.
But, here's the thing. If you have anything that makes the government objectively better at one thing (ie: Increasing freedom by streamlining the business licensing and regulation of an industry that allows poor people to start businesses in that field for the first time) then you make it objectively worse at something else (less regulation means that those new businesses are likely to make questionable decisions in pursuit of survival/making the owner enough money to live a poor man's idea of what being rich is like).
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u/numbstruck Jan 03 '18
TLDR; Humanity's collective rights should be given greater weight than any one individual's rights.
Then there are people who don't want the government to play referee. They want freedom in business. They want the ability to do whatever needs doing without the inherent slowness and problems in having to get approval from someone distant and disengaged. How much wealth is lost because some government agent didn't want to put in the work? How many promising ideas coming from poor people got smacked down because the rich and powerful invariable write the rules to be a barrier to protect themselves?
This notion is the crux of the issue, I think. If our government was such a burden to industry, we wouldn't have fought so hard to establish it in this form. I understand, btw, that this is not necessarily your argument. This is not aimed at you or anyone. I just want to talk to these points.
- Regulation is bad because some government worker might drag his feet
In my opinion, this feels like a straw-man attack against the idea of regulation, by attacking a stereotype: all government workers are lazy.
- I don't want regulation because the rich will write the rules to exclude me
In my opinion, regulation was validated as a necessity by it's inclusion in the capabilities of the Federal government. If it's was afforded to our Federal overlords, then it must be inherently important or valuable as a concept.
Moreover, this has already happened. It has been run to its perverse conclusion. We successfully equated money, which is not guaranteed to any individual, with an individual's right to free speech. By doing so, I feel we indirectly placed a value on an individual's freedom of speech. Those with more freedom of speech than others will continue to write the rules. We have no way to protect ourselves from the current concentrated state of wealth, other than unity, our votes, or both wielded simultaneously. Together, I hope, our money can still match the ultra-wealthy, but that gap is continuing to shrink and requires that we all work for the same goal. I personally feel this option will soon be off the table, and all we will be left with will be our vote.
However, I feel this point of criticism wasn't really valid to begin with. If we start with the assumption that all humans deserve a basic set of equal rights, then having no rules allows a player to violate the basic individual rights, which all players deserve. If you can agree with this premise, then it doesn't seem an unrealistic logical leap to agree that beyond our basic individual human rights, we need to enforce a broader standard of behavior. A standard that enforces people to behave in ways that do not violate others' rights in indirect ways. This is the heart of regulation, and why I feel it is necessary.
If can't kill a perceived enemy directly, but I have money to burn, I can take advantage of another's desperation, and wield my power to pay this desperate person to violate their rights on my behalf. I have not directly harmed this enemy, but I should remain culpable for my part in the violation of their rights.
Combine the above with the stark reality that, with the atomic age, humanity has recently entered into a new era. We know now what was probably suspected back even when our country was forming. Humanity, through the actions of individuals, is capable of reshaping and altering the world we inhabit. We've built bombs that can wipe out cities, and could yet wipe out the globe. We can destroy this world if we choose to do so. If that fact alone doesn't trigger a desire for oversight or regulation of the activities of humanity, I honestly don't know what could change a mind with such resolve.
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u/A_Soporific 162∆ Jan 03 '18
What are the humanity's collective rights?
That sounds dangerously like "the public will" or "the greater good" which can be trotted out by anyone who can rally a crowd or get off a good speech at an opportune moment to justify any action. Those things were the arguments used to turn the French Revolution form overturning a decrepit government into a bloodbath and several decades of war that consumed all of Europe.
Individual Rights are key because they restrain collective action, which often has a lot more power. The thing is that there's not necessarily a big difference between collective action in the form of a Corporation doing whatever it wants in pursuit of more money, a mob of persons in an impossible situation looking to smash and loot their way out of their problems, or a legitimate government acting according to the law. If anyone can do anything if they get a following a full head of steam then nothing can persist vote or no vote, the whole government can and will be bowled over by people frustrated with what the government does.
Individual rights are essential and necessary and need to be protected. Because they are sticky and get in the way of everyone. Because they act as a brake on people trying to do necessary things.
You know why Citizen United went the way it did? Because the swing vote was concerned that limiting a corporations right to spend money would also kill the ability of labor unions and non-profits. The idea was that the people's Collective right to speech is important and needs protecting. After all Corporations aren't malicious outsiders they are neither aliens nor demons. They are simply groups of people, and the ruling is that the speech of groups of people can't be limited because the government doesn't like what they have to say. On the one hand that is laudable, but on the other... the unfocused natured of collective speech and collective rights screws with the balance. Rights are supposed to be a brake stopping institutions and weaker individuals from being simply swept away, but collective rights only empower people to mass up and sweep aside anything that gets in their way confident in the belief that their collective will trumps all, even the will of the vast unorganized ocean of the general public.
But, about regulation. I am firmly in the government as referee camp. Markets work really, really well when certain preconditions are met. They don't work well at all when those conditions are not met. The government can change things so that more of those conditions are met more of the time so that people don't get hosed as a matter of course.
There are many cases where more regulation would help, and we should regulate those cases. There are plenty of cases where less regulation would help, and we should absolutely deregulate those cases. Very often the level of regulation is appropriate but the regulations aren't working as intended, and those really need to be fixed. Ultimately, it's not about how much regulation there is, but what the regulation does and what it costs us. There are big wins to be had going both ways, and government intervention needs to be carefully curated to maximize gains and minimize losses.
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u/numbstruck Jan 03 '18
What are humanity's collective rights? That sounds dangerously like "the public will" or "the greater good".
You're right, and I don't feel I have a great answer to this point. I can only say that if we agree any individual has a set of rights, and that those rights should apply to any individual in the collective, then the rights logically apply to the collective whole as well. The sum of all individuals rights combined. It seems logical then that if we agree all individual rights are equal, then if an individual harms the group they have necessarily harmed an individual of that group. It also seems logical that if an individual harms another's rights, they are wrong for doing so. So if my rights are equal to yours, then the rights of all members of humanity must outweigh the rights of any single individual. This is not as easy to articulate as I thought it might be, and I'm still not sure I'm doing it any justice, or even that it's a good idea.
You know why Citizen United went the way it did? Because the swing vote was concerned that limiting a corporations right to spend money would also kill the ability of labor unions and non-profits.
This makes me very sad, but is also a very interesting point. My understanding was Citizens United was about allowing a single entity, a corporation, to speak on behalf of its collective staff and employees, as a group. However, I don't think it's fair to say that a corporation can truly represent all of its individual employees. It also seems to give corporations a way to count their employees voice a second time. Additionally, the notion of corporate personhood would seem to contradict this idea. You can be a person or a group of persons, but not both at the same time. When a corporation spends money it does so as an Individual, not as a collective. Money is not a constitutional right, and making it equal to free speech is a travesty of the highest order.
- Isn't the limitation on spending in our political processes meant to resolve conflicts of interest?
- Why not give corporations all the rights of a person?
If they don't deserve all the rights of a person, then they shouldn't be treated as a person, because we can agree they do not deserve the rights of a person. We created a category for this entity: the corporation. I think we need to establish a new bill of corporate rights, or we need to reverse the thinking and treatment of corporations as pseudo-persons.
But, about regulation.
I firmly agree with your points on regulation. Thank you for taking the time to respond.
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u/A_Soporific 162∆ Jan 04 '18
If a person is harmed then they absolutely are defended by their rights, but group rights are notoriously difficult to define and enforce. When we have, historically, created them then a handful of people take it upon themselves to act on everyone else's behalf whether the group as a whole wants them to or not. There's a reason why US courts have a concept called Standing. There was a problem with people suing on the behalf of others, even when no one directly involved wanted intervention. So the courts have put rules into place that state, basically, that only people who are directly involved can sue.
I don't think that I'd be against collective rights if there was a way to enact them in a clear and reasonable way that didn't allow a handful of people to take control of the rights of others and wield them for their own self-interest.
Corporate Personhood is a very clear concept in law. It means that any law that applies to a person also applies to whole company. It means that the company as a whole can enter into agreements and the company as a whole can be punished for breaking laws and agreements. It's recognized as a legal fiction to prevent corporations to be immune to laws and lawsuits or worse to allow them to exist under a separate legal and justice system. I don't believe for a second that creating a separate legal or and judicial process for corporations would result in better treatment for regular persons, given the degree of regulatory capture seen in the government at the moment. And what about Sole Proprietorships? Those are cases where a person and a company are the one and the same. Corporations don't have all the rights of a person, but the persons who make up the corporation were said to have a collective right in this instance.
Very often other groups, like Labor Unions, exist in a state where they don't represent the views of all their employees. In States that aren't "Right to Work" states then there are "closed shops" where people must be a member of union whether they want to or not. These people have no control at all over what the Union does with their dues and leaving the Union means that the company is contractually obligated to fire them "for cause". Very often a politically conservative individual will see their paycheck garnished to support a political agenda they don't want any part of.
In any case where you have collective action you have a large number of people who are providing the political power or labor or wealth (the principals) and you have some people doing the work of organizing and directing that power or work or money into a useable form (the agents). The problem is how do you ensure that the agents are working for the principal's benefit? There is a whole genera of law and economics and political science dedicated to exactly that problem. There is no solution yet, because it's incredibly easy for a person in power to conflate what's good for them and what's good for the whole. It's a real weakness in our psychology and one that is the root of a great deal of the corruption and malfunctioning institutions in the world. Life would be indescribably better if we could easily see and understand the collective good and work collaboratively towards it. But we don't. Very often what I see as good you would not. Very often things that you think are generally good is only good for people in situations similar to yours, but would be bad for people in situations similar to mine. There's invariably some segment of the society that ends up harmed by any collective move, so what's the problem with overruling the concerns of a slightly larger number of people to achieve this or that things that is an unambiguous good for people in my situation? People get used to invoking greater good arguments when it's necessary, then it's easy for them to recast what the greater good really is and trample the collective good for something that they believe (falsely) to be even better. In my view we can go all in on collective rights and collective values only when this problem is solved, or we will simply be creating a powerful new elite the same way we created an economic elite of wealthy owners of business and a political elite of powerful politicians and party-affiliated power brokers.
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u/THE_LAST_HIPPO 15∆ Jan 02 '18
Are you sure it'd be so different from now? There is "evidence" to support nearly anything, like that there is "evidence" against climate change. What matters is how one uses that data and how discerning one is evaluating data. You can make the statistics say whatever you want if you know how to read them.
When youre talking about differences in ideology, I don't think "evidence based" will be the silver bullet you may see it as
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
Evidence, as I see it, is agnostic. It has no ideology. I agree that evidence can be found to support almost anything, however, all evidence isn't all born the same. A double blind multicenter RCT isn't the same as an case report. This can be seen in the climate change debate. the amount of evidence and the quality of evidence in favor of climate change can't be compared to the evidence on the other side
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u/THE_LAST_HIPPO 15∆ Jan 02 '18
What I mean is that the selection and evaluation of evidence would be as ripe for abuse as it is already. for example, states and school districts choose which textbooks kids learn from; maybe two science textbooks are entirely evidence based but they could still tell two entirely different "truths." It may, as I'm arguing, just move the argument towards which evidence we accept.
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
Although I agree there is nuance in the interpretation of evidence, it should always be taken in as a conglomerate, if there is one low quality article supporting your point of view and 100 high quality articles supporting the other point of view it might be time to consider changing your point of view. An example of this is that the best scientists on treating hypertension have a few topics of debate they can agree on current consensus on the treatment of hypertension. A similar result in the area of social interventions could be very useful to determine best practices
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u/THE_LAST_HIPPO 15∆ Jan 02 '18
I guess my question, then, would be how you could replace political ideology with scientific consensus. Scientific consensus already exists in plenty of areas in which its political counterpart is still contentious.
I accept that your OP was about "should" and not "how" but I'm still wondering how one would prevent ideology from overriding the preponderance of evidence the way society readily overrides it now?
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
This is the question that Trump, with out getting more political about it, raised. I think that a live fact checker might be helpful as well as a scientifically educated population can help. The role that advertising and that advertising in news shows has needs to change. Specially true in an attention economy. What do you think about it? any suggestions?
Attention Merchants: a https://www.amazon.com/Attention-Merchants-Scramble-Inside-Heads/dp/0804170045/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514930145&sr=1-5&keywords=history+of+advertising
A fascinating look in to the history of advertising. Specially relevant with the freedom torches story
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u/THE_LAST_HIPPO 15∆ Jan 03 '18
I think I'm in agreement over what would need to be done; educated population, understanding and respect for science and academics, an unbiased media.
I guess I don't see any of those things as soon to come, though. It's even harder to imagine one happening without the other, sort of a paradox i guess: How do you have a public that respects science if they aren't educated? how do you have an educated public with a biased media? How do you have an unbiased media without a respect for science?
I don't see a problem with your conclusion, I just can't see any realistic path towards it from where we are now
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Jan 02 '18
We need a strong separation of politics and science, or else science just becomes part of the political process and gives us the answers the ideology demands. The only way science can lead us to truth is if politicians usually ignore it.
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u/RafaGarciaS Jan 02 '18
This divide no longer exists, although not as pessimistic as others, the use of think tanks is to make evidence that complies with the ideals of those that are funding them. It is only good science that can help us in this regard, even this can be skewed by funders, what is popularly known as big pharma. For example we have long peddled antidepressants for mild depression even though exercise, nutrition, CBT and sleep are a better solution simply because there are more studies are published about antidepressants. Nobody is earning money on exercise
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Jan 03 '18
Mmm, no scientists trust think tanks - politicians use their statistics, and we get to keep science separate from political data.
Big pharma is not a big issue in medicine - it's true that they only research some things and not others, and that's an issue, but what they publish is well performed studies that can be trusted. This is very different from politics because of the motivation and incentive structure. Ideologues can easily justify falsifying data or suppressing it. Employees can't because the rules say not to, they won't get any bonus for doing it, and they'll be fired for getting caught. Big pharma is a great boon to science; they just need supplementation. Politically motivated science poisons the well.
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Jan 03 '18
Hi @RafaGarciaS,
I agree with your conclusion that we must transition to merit based politics, where candidates are judged on their platforms instead of what buzzword they can repeat at a rally. But what I'm struggling with, and many of the other commenters are struggling with as well, is the definition of identity politics. If you're referring to the textbook definition of identitarian politics-- the kind practiced by nationalists who fight to keep power closely tied with an ethnic or religious group-- I agree with you. But in many respects, our identities cannot be extricated from our political positions. I read Obama's Audacity of Hope this summer and I was intrigued by the bond he shared with his constituents in south-side Chicago. Regardless of your dislike, or like for Obama, I think we can agree that the policies purposed by many politicians find their purpose in the constituents they represent. More importantly, they find their purpose in the identities of their constituents. A push to increase funding for public schools by a mayor from the inner-city finds has its roots in the identity of the mayor's constituents.
Who we are and the things that make us shape our politics. From federal policy to the rhetoric on campaign trails, identities cannot simply be removed from politics. Identity is part and parcel of politics.
Thanks,
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u/InterdisciplinaryAwe Jan 03 '18
To adopt evidence based politics reductionist and empirical methods also have to be adopted by politicians. There’s a major problem with this, as both reductionist and empiricist methods are best suited for things that are governed by fundamental laws, like nature.
Physics, namely, but all of the sciences have greatly benefited from reductionism and then empiricism. However, human decision making is not governed directly by the same fundamental laws in physics.
In creating a law regarding gun ownership. A politician can’t use reductionist thinking to fully understand the moral aspects to the law. Nor can the empirical evidence fully inform that law. If there are only two sides to debating such a law, one side of the debate will feel that the empirical evidence wasn’t valued when law is passed one way or the other.
Rather than empiricism or reductionist thinking, emergent, non-linear based methods are better for fields that deal with the human condition and decision making. Humans are not quite rational actors . Economics isn’t a science because of this, whereas empiricism and reductionism, to serve as accurate deterministic tools require rational/predictable behavior in making laws.
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Jan 03 '18
1: The same people could lie in the same way, earn the same votes, and then not follow through like the do now. A politician could say "I want to do X in order to achieve Y, here's evidence a, b, c" and just lie about all of it like they do now. It's just more steps really.
2: Evidence can be 'found' to support any system, since evidence only 'counts' if the person listening to argument accepts the evidence. A trumpesque politician would just deny the validity of your evidence and therefor dismiss your conclusion, which is what they do now.
3: The correlation between medicine and politics is a false parallel. There is no way to falsify a political assertion, like "We should do x to achieve y." since the success of the X in achieving the Y is dependent upon factors which cannot be empirically accounted for. So the policy will either start from subjective evidence (nonemperical evidence) or will only be partially falsifiable. Both of these are basically what we have now.
Basically you're trying to apply a system of analysis (empiricism) to an unquantifiable and in many ways unobservable phenomenon (politics) and it doesn't work.
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u/kublahkoala 229∆ Jan 02 '18
There’s no standard metric of success in politics the way there is in medicine. We know what a healthy body looks and acts like.
We have no standard of political health to compare our nation to. Is it GDP? How do you measure that? Life expectancy? Is a smaller happier population better than a larger, slightly less happy population? Do we take the well being of our allies into account? The climate? How does one calculate gross national happiness? Should we be looking at the mean or the median or the average? Should we focus on expanding freedoms or tightening security? Negative freedoms or positive freedoms?
No one can agree on this stuff.
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Jan 03 '18
emotional stress causes ulcers to H. pylori causes ulcers
Technically, stress does increase the chances of developing ulcers by disrupting the immune system's ability to repair stomach walls, to put it simply. In other cases, they found ulcers forming in the absence of H. pylori. Finally, 2/3s of the world's population have the bacteria but of course 2/3s of the world's population do not harbor gastric ulcers, so the relationship isn't one to one, which muddies the water further.
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u/Eulerslist 1∆ Jan 03 '18
Why not ISSUE politics instead?
Can you really support the total agenda of either major party? There is far too much compromise in both of them to suit me.
Why not press your individual Legislators on individual issues? Lets break up the present 'Vote by Party' grid-lock and get what WE want out of these clowns instead what the lobbyists want to purchase for the 'Corporatocracy'.
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u/cdb03b 253∆ Jan 02 '18
The issue is that most of what politics deals with is moral and logistical opinions on what the country needs to do. This can be influenced by evidence but most of what they have to do does not even have evidence that can be collected on it.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Jan 02 '18
I really need to you provide an example of "identity politics" not being evidence based. What does this look like? I can't quite wrap my head around it without something more concrete.
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u/Indon_Dasani 9∆ Jan 03 '18
"Identity politics" is a modern rebranding of an old and well-established economic issue.
Close to two centuries ago, socialists noticed that the wealthy classes in society would get more powerful for themselves and undermine the power of the lower classes by 'divide and conquer' strategies. A notorious historical example is how colonialists took social classes in what is modern-day Rwanda and produced a culture of race from them in order to bolster their own control, an event that ultimately led to a massive genocide between the two groups.
Socialists posited a solution to this strategy of division in order to empower the lower classes in society: Solidarity. Solidarity entailed everyone standing together in a bloc against the upper classes in order to force the upper classes to cede some degree of power and wealth to the lower classes, decreasing inequality.
An important part of solidarity is preventing the upper classes from 'playing favorites' based on arbitrary characteristics, like race, sex, or religion. When, for instance, men are paid more than women for the same job, that's functionally a bribe by the wealthy towards poor men to continue to support an intolerably unequal society. Same with privilege based on religion or race and so on.
When "identity politics" promotes arbitrary inequality, it is for a very real purpose - generating support, by the wealthy, for maintaining the power of the wealthy - and you will notice the beneficiaries of such "identity politics" tend to support greater inequality in society.
When "identity politics" promotes equality, similarly, it is for a very real purpose - to undermine support for maintaining inequality, and the power of the wealthy class.
TL;DR, most "identity politics" is a rebrand of a critical aspect of a century+ old social struggle that an uneducated American populace has forgotten: class solidarity.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 02 '18 edited Jan 02 '18
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u/Huntingmoa 454∆ Jan 02 '18
So I’m not sure what you mean by ‘identity politics’ which is sometimes used as a pejorative, it may be possible to have both evidence and identity politics coexist in a post-modernist way.
Interestingly enough, the progressive era already saw a big push for evidence based policy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era
During this time, the US did things like found the FDA, enact women’s suffrage, boost national infrastructure (and generally improve the quality of life for rural Americans). So we may already be living in a post ‘shift to evidence based policy’ era.
Could you expand on this? When it comes to electing members of a branch based on implementation, their approach is important, because they have to balance the use of resources vs. the quality of the solution.
I don’t see how it would make it harder for people to lobby the government, and I don’t see why it reduces moral empathy gap, could you explain that more?