For example, "I put the family first" can be a principle.
But then you must put your family first, both when it's convenient for you and when it isn't.
Otherwise it's not a principle.
2/11
ON PRINCIPLES
The recent censorship events have shown that many don't understand what's a principle.
If you only practice it when convenient, it's not a principle.
1/11
For example, "I put the family first" can be a principle.
But then you must put your family first, both when it's convenient for you and when it isn't.
Otherwise it's not a principle.
2/11
They keep us focused on the long term when the short term would misguide us
For example, I do not like Trump. And yet, yesterday I defended his free speech. Because I believe that defending free speech is ultimately good for everyone.
3/11
They protect us from the problems we didn't experience and from what could go wrong.
They are there for when we think they could be transgressed. They are there for when we think it makes sense to skip them.
4/11
Rights are preserved by granting them to our enemies.
The moment we cease to grant them when inconvenient for us, we cease to have them too.
The moment we destroy their sanctity, we open the door to someone else taking them from us.
5/11
However, in practice, lines can be moved. Say, someone could define an opinion creating emotional discomfort as violence.
6/11
Anyone who worked in a company knows that Core Values become meaningless as soon as lines are drawn, explicitly or implicitly.
Eg, we request respect for people, unless you're a star performer.
It won't work
7/11
This is because violating principles has second-order effects, and in the long term, they catch up with you.
8/11
Five out of six times, you'll be better off.
And some idiot-yet-intellectual might even justify that the average outcome is positive. And he might be right.
But if you keep doing it, the bullet eventually hits you.
9/11
10/11
WHY IS ERGODICITY IMPORTANT? AN EXAMPLE
— Luca Dellanna (@DellAnnaLuca) December 17, 2020
My cousin was born in a mountain village in the French Alps. Like many there, he learned to ski before reading.
I am a good skier, but I remember the humiliation when I was 14 and he was 6, seeing him surpass me, swift as a bullet.
More from For later read
I shared this on my FB page and asked, can ya really blame him?
I was half kidding. I also assumed someone would think of what I did pretty quickly and waiting for the comment to mention what I assumed was obvious.
The timing. I was sure someone else had thought of it.
But no one did. 20+ comments in people discussed the morality or bad sense or libertarian perspectives. Someone even said I’m thinking about doing that. No one said what I thought was obvious. Have you thought of it? Is it obvious to you?
Here’s a clue...recognize it?
How about this?
The author discusses it with Mike Wallace in 1958
I was half kidding. I also assumed someone would think of what I did pretty quickly and waiting for the comment to mention what I assumed was obvious.
The timing. I was sure someone else had thought of it.
Columbia professor: I do heroin regularly for 'work-life balance' https://t.co/6aq9cnGfPG pic.twitter.com/3OmmaHKORx
— New York Post (@nypost) February 19, 2021
But no one did. 20+ comments in people discussed the morality or bad sense or libertarian perspectives. Someone even said I’m thinking about doing that. No one said what I thought was obvious. Have you thought of it? Is it obvious to you?
Here’s a clue...recognize it?
How about this?
The author discusses it with Mike Wallace in 1958
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2/The good news: It's now an issue that everyone's talking about, and that everyone cares about.
3/More good news: Florida's proposition to give felons voting rights won. But it didn't just win - it won with substantial support from Republican voters.
That suggests there is still SOME grassroots support for democracy that transcends
4/Yet more good news: Michigan made it easier to vote. Again, by plebiscite, showing broad support for voting rights as an
5/OK, now the bad news.
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2/The good news: It's now an issue that everyone's talking about, and that everyone cares about.
3/More good news: Florida's proposition to give felons voting rights won. But it didn't just win - it won with substantial support from Republican voters.
That suggests there is still SOME grassroots support for democracy that transcends
4/Yet more good news: Michigan made it easier to vote. Again, by plebiscite, showing broad support for voting rights as an
5/OK, now the bad news.
We seem to have accepted electoral dysfunction in Florida as a permanent thing. The 2000 election has never really
Bad ballot design led to a lot of undervotes for Bill Nelson in Broward Co., possibly even enough to cost him his Senate seat. They do appear to be real undervotes, though, instead of tabulation errors. He doesn't really seem to have a path to victory. https://t.co/utUhY2KTaR
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 16, 2018
