Skin in the game is critical. So much is kicking the can of consequences down the road. Like our physical health, it's just going to suck more to get back to a healthy standard of life.
Exactly. Change the incentives change the system. Bureaucrats are not evil, theyre just thoughtless, very skilled at dehumanizing everyone who is not beneficial to them, and always act in self interest.
Evil is an unchecked system. Chuck Mangione accomplished nothing by shooting that CEO.
However, when a system or institution does harm, individuals should be held accountable. Not just pay fines and do it all over again.
Your idea about "skin in the game" tracks with me. It parallels a schema that I have been developing to understand why there is relevatively less protest and unrest when an authoritarian regime settles in. Society divides itself into essentially three fluid groups in response to policy: the affected, the offended, the oblivious. Those affected are the only group that has skin in the game. As long as this group remaims numerically small, distant or powerless to harm policymakers' positions, then policies, however destructive, will pass into legislation and people will turn a blind eye to their impact (DOGE's destruction of foreign aid). The offended will always come out for a protest and create cute signs and selfies. They will post videos on substack but will not do anything that would actually jeopardize their position, pushing them into the affected category, i.e. giving them "skin in the game". Their offense is performative. Finally, there is the vast army of the oblivious, who don't know what they don't know and have no idea that there are real people affected by policy...until they become affected. This can be used as a structure for analysis of policies, to estimate who is likely to be affected, offended and oblivious and how these proportions change as policies are implemented. Giving people more "skin in the game" will involve moving people from oblivious and offended to affected, into positions where they can effect real change.
I think that's a good sort of the population broadly. But I think there has to be another group, and one of significant size. These are the people who have immersed themselves in the "movement," turned off their critical faculties, and are willing to sacrifice for it. They have drunk the Kool-Aid.
I've recently been reading Hoffer's excellent "The True Believer," which talks about mass movements and what type of people join them. Worth a read.
The veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq would like to have a word with you. The larger problem is that we have lived through a stupid age. There are advantages to living in a stupid age, but eventually the road runs out, and you must get Smart.
This is the last stupid President, and we have to gird ourselves for electing smart ones now from now on.
Skin in the game is critical. So much is kicking the can of consequences down the road. Like our physical health, it's just going to suck more to get back to a healthy standard of life.
Exactly. Change the incentives change the system. Bureaucrats are not evil, theyre just thoughtless, very skilled at dehumanizing everyone who is not beneficial to them, and always act in self interest.
Evil is an unchecked system. Chuck Mangione accomplished nothing by shooting that CEO.
However, when a system or institution does harm, individuals should be held accountable. Not just pay fines and do it all over again.
Chuck Mangione was a jazz trumpet player. Luigi Mangione was the shooter. I've made the same mistake,
Your idea about "skin in the game" tracks with me. It parallels a schema that I have been developing to understand why there is relevatively less protest and unrest when an authoritarian regime settles in. Society divides itself into essentially three fluid groups in response to policy: the affected, the offended, the oblivious. Those affected are the only group that has skin in the game. As long as this group remaims numerically small, distant or powerless to harm policymakers' positions, then policies, however destructive, will pass into legislation and people will turn a blind eye to their impact (DOGE's destruction of foreign aid). The offended will always come out for a protest and create cute signs and selfies. They will post videos on substack but will not do anything that would actually jeopardize their position, pushing them into the affected category, i.e. giving them "skin in the game". Their offense is performative. Finally, there is the vast army of the oblivious, who don't know what they don't know and have no idea that there are real people affected by policy...until they become affected. This can be used as a structure for analysis of policies, to estimate who is likely to be affected, offended and oblivious and how these proportions change as policies are implemented. Giving people more "skin in the game" will involve moving people from oblivious and offended to affected, into positions where they can effect real change.
I think that's a good sort of the population broadly. But I think there has to be another group, and one of significant size. These are the people who have immersed themselves in the "movement," turned off their critical faculties, and are willing to sacrifice for it. They have drunk the Kool-Aid.
I've recently been reading Hoffer's excellent "The True Believer," which talks about mass movements and what type of people join them. Worth a read.
The veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq would like to have a word with you. The larger problem is that we have lived through a stupid age. There are advantages to living in a stupid age, but eventually the road runs out, and you must get Smart.
This is the last stupid President, and we have to gird ourselves for electing smart ones now from now on.