so your point is "steelmanning is kind of pointless; the people who disagree with you don't actually hold the steelman view, they hold a much dumber and more naive view, and you're not even really being kind to them by ascribing views they don't hold"?
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @diviacaroline
like "it's pointless to argue about the academic/theoretical versions of political opinions, because ~nobody holds them, they hold simpler and dumber positions; people hold dumb positions because of real concerns plus misunderstandings/ignorance/internal limits"
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
I think it can be fun and you can maybe find your people by doing it. And maybe you. Sn even fund a think tank and influence policy on the margin or whatever. But today I’m more interested in the thing that prevents people from understanding the basic argument.
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Replying to @diviacaroline
like, what is *actually* going on with people who don't get prices?
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @diviacaroline
I usually explain it like...most people do not "do business" even if they work in the private sector. Most people don't sell a thing and decide how much to charge for it. Most Americans (I think?) have never haggled.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @diviacaroline
I know someone whose reaction to "this makes it harder to open a factory or office" was a sarcastic "oh my heart bleeds for you" (implicitly: "if you employ people or rent a working space you are so rich/powerful you can't have any real problems.")
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @diviacaroline
for the record, LOTS of people who are not rich or powerful have at least one employee or are self-employed or have had to find and pay for their own working space.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @diviacaroline
But like...if making business decisions is not a thing you have done or a thing your culture sees as aspirational, then you probably see "businessmen" as people who have large boxes of goods and are willfully/greedily refusing to give them away for free.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @diviacaroline
It is true that the *very* poorest people are usually not "doing business", but I'm not sure the correlation holds above about $50,000 a year? Lots of well-paid employees who never set prices or sell things or negotiate, lots of not-super-rich people who own auto repair shops
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @diviacaroline
Like, a lot of people think "Why can't you just pay workers more/treat workers nicer/charge less for your products/give away all your money? You *can*, you're just selfish."
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Sometimes that's true; the "rich person" *could* share more, they just choose not to.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @diviacaroline
And sometimes the "sharing" that the "rich person" is supposed to be selfishly choosing not to do, is literally impossible (like Bloomberg giving every American a million dollars).
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Replying to @s_r_constantin @diviacaroline
sometimes it's a weird hybrid, like: you *could* give all the money in your business's bank account to the poor. But then you would not have a business any more. Would you want everyone to do this? If so, where would the stuff come from?
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