If someone's idea for the way society should function include downsides or tradeoffs, this does not automatically make it a bad idea.
If your ideas for how society should function also include zero downsides or tradeoffs, your ideas are probably not very good.
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Almost like entropy is a thing, everything in life is on a spectrum, and there’s more than one side.
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i like the comparison to speed limits. decreasing the free way speed limit to 35 would save many elderly people's lives because they have bad reaction times. but we choose to have higher speed limits for convenience.
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That's always struck me as the best single definition of a utopian: somebody who sincerely believes that "the good life" can be achieved (whether for individuals or communities or whole societies) with no downsides or trade-offs whatsoever.
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For some reason, westerners have convinced themselves that perfection is possible, and that when they see imperfections in the world they need to immediately take control of everything and straighten it out. Worse, they think they're uniquely capable when no one else ever was.
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This tweet needs a short book dealing with the value and bullshit around things described as "pareto improvements"
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It amazes me just how frequently there are "unforeseen consequences" that were entirely and completely obvious if they had just stopped to think about it for two goddamn seconds.
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I don’t even think Pareto Improvements exist at a societal level. Every policy has trade-offs. And some of them are very obviously worth the trade-offs.
It’s a growing habit to comPLETELY ignore trade-offs and consequences nowadays. If the sound-bite is good, we love it.
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It’s our society’s obsession with Pareto Efficiency that will be our downfall.