As I’ll explore in a later essay, the pandemic policy responses did not make sense if public health was the goal. If, however, hoarding authority and maximising resources to public health, while minimising the complexities of competence, were the functional goals, Covid-19 responses made perfect sense.
The purpose of this substack is to build a ready-made audience. At the moment, we have 1700 subscribers. We're hoping to have 5000 by the time Lorenzo's series wraps up. That's a decent ready-made audience to present to potential publishers.
That is great news. I hope we don't have the usual multi-year wait to get a book published. Perhaps there is some way to get the book out sooner rather than later.
I am quite taken aback by the extent to which I've come to almost universally similar conclusions. I take such instances of convergent evolution as evidence that my perception is aligning well with reality. I would love to have a discussion with you at some point.
The writing initially struck me as a little bit disjointed, but this piece grew on me.
It was refreshing to see laid bare so many of the actual realities underlying the human condition that some expect me to just ignore.
Incentives matter, people have different inherent capabilities and desire which are stratified across all kinds of categories, bureaucracies do perpetuate themselves and thus attempt to increase their authority and scope, children are not adults, everyday systems of social life do reward and punish people based on what is valued this can be deranging.
The heroic editing efforts of Helen Dale improved the piece. Which does suffer a little that it was originally part of a larger essay, but I am trying to keep the size of each essay down. (Ideally, to about 2500 words plus references: not a target always reached but generally sought.)
“When the progressive approach of ‘politically handing out the social goodies’ (relying on bureaucracies treated as if they were systematically altruistically competent) became dominant, various indicators of social progress among the descendants of American slaves either stalled or cratered.”
My father-in-law worked with victims of Hansen’s Disease - leprosy. One of the symptoms was a loss of the sense of touch. People with the disease could hurt themselves terribly by continuing to walk on a broken or twisted ankle or by putting their hand on a hot stove without knowing it. Leprosy breaks the feedback loop connecting cause and effect.
Doting parents and paternalistic governments can create a sort of moral leprosy by relieving children and others from the need to face the consequences of their own actions. Unfortunately, this often means that innocent people must bear those consequences. As the penalties for destructive and self-destructive actions are eliminated, and as the rewards for productive behavior are reduced, we can expect destructive activity to increase and productive activity to decrease.
You are going to enjoy the next two essays. Especially Essay 13: Truth is a weak social signal.
Excellent stuff.
As I’ll explore in a later essay, the pandemic policy responses did not make sense if public health was the goal. If, however, hoarding authority and maximising resources to public health, while minimising the complexities of competence, were the functional goals, Covid-19 responses made perfect sense.
I look forward to reading that essay. Thanks!
I wonder whether Lorenzo could assemble these essays into a book. That would be a great thing to have.
Precisely the plan, as you'll see from my pinned post: https://helendale.substack.com/p/worshipping-the-future
The purpose of this substack is to build a ready-made audience. At the moment, we have 1700 subscribers. We're hoping to have 5000 by the time Lorenzo's series wraps up. That's a decent ready-made audience to present to potential publishers.
That is great news. I hope we don't have the usual multi-year wait to get a book published. Perhaps there is some way to get the book out sooner rather than later.
I am quite taken aback by the extent to which I've come to almost universally similar conclusions. I take such instances of convergent evolution as evidence that my perception is aligning well with reality. I would love to have a discussion with you at some point.
The writing initially struck me as a little bit disjointed, but this piece grew on me.
It was refreshing to see laid bare so many of the actual realities underlying the human condition that some expect me to just ignore.
Incentives matter, people have different inherent capabilities and desire which are stratified across all kinds of categories, bureaucracies do perpetuate themselves and thus attempt to increase their authority and scope, children are not adults, everyday systems of social life do reward and punish people based on what is valued this can be deranging.
Looking forward to the next piece!
The heroic editing efforts of Helen Dale improved the piece. Which does suffer a little that it was originally part of a larger essay, but I am trying to keep the size of each essay down. (Ideally, to about 2500 words plus references: not a target always reached but generally sought.)
The next essay is much “cleaner”.
Is the larger essay published anywhere? I'll have to come back to this and give it another go. Atm I'm finding it borderline unreadable.
It was broken into two essays. The second part is the next instalment. This essay suffered from me still wrestling with the material.
“When the progressive approach of ‘politically handing out the social goodies’ (relying on bureaucracies treated as if they were systematically altruistically competent) became dominant, various indicators of social progress among the descendants of American slaves either stalled or cratered.”
My father-in-law worked with victims of Hansen’s Disease - leprosy. One of the symptoms was a loss of the sense of touch. People with the disease could hurt themselves terribly by continuing to walk on a broken or twisted ankle or by putting their hand on a hot stove without knowing it. Leprosy breaks the feedback loop connecting cause and effect.
Doting parents and paternalistic governments can create a sort of moral leprosy by relieving children and others from the need to face the consequences of their own actions. Unfortunately, this often means that innocent people must bear those consequences. As the penalties for destructive and self-destructive actions are eliminated, and as the rewards for productive behavior are reduced, we can expect destructive activity to increase and productive activity to decrease.
A rule of life, in fact a version of selection pressures — you get more of what you subsidise and less of what you tax.