I’ve seen a couple critiques of sclerotic bureaucracy lately that feel insightful but a little off to me. (americanmind.org/features/the-g…, medium.com/@curtis.yarvin…, medium.com/incerto/the-in…)
They all primarily focus on calling the officious “expert” bureaucrats *incompetent*. “Complacent”, “idiot”, etc. The tone is primarily one of contempt. “These people have proven terrible at their jobs in a crisis; let’s fire them and put someone competent in charge.”
This is rhetorically effective — it goes on the offense, it makes the author look strong — but I think it’s a misplaced emphasis.
Yes, the WHO, the CDC, the FDA, and the Trump administration have screwed up so badly that they should lose all credibility.
But really the problem isn’t that there exist people who are bad at stemming a pandemic. Being an idiot, in itself, doesn’t have to harm anyone. What’s dangerous is idiots *in positions of authority.*
If you don’t have good solutions to COVID19 that doesn’t make you a bad person.
If you don’t have good solutions but you send men with guns after the people who do, *now* you have blood on your hands.
If you don’t have good solutions but you send men with guns after the people who do, *now* you have blood on your hands.
We do not, in fact, have a shortage of competence, dedication, courage, or generosity. A lot of people have risen to the occasion spectacularly, and a lot more would do so if they had clearer guidance about how they can help.
Striking the tone of “we just need to put competent people in charge instead of these morons” has several harmful effects.
First, it’s alienating to anyone who is insecure about whether they’re doing enough to help. “Oh no, am *I* useless? Am I the bad guy in this story?” No. The only possible “bad guys” here are those in positions of authority who are preventing effective response.
If you are an ordinary person who is staying home, taking care of your kids, or putting yourself on the line to do an essential job, you’re already a good guy. If you’re doing “a little” to help, your help matters.
You *do not* want to demoralize the helpers. You want to encourage them to keep going, not get burned out, support each other. You want to make helping look *accessible* so more people do it. You want to recognize that different kinds of people can help.
Secondly, and relatedly, “just put someone better in charge” is not that simple. The people who are currently in charge have their jobs for reasons. Someone chose to hire, elect, or appoint them. Those people probably don’t agree with you on who would be “better.”
It is a valuable informational service to accurately identify who fucked up. We used to call that “journalism.” It helps people decide whom they can trust and whom they can’t.
It is not valuable, but rather wishful thinking, to say “someone should do X” unless you are specifically advertising to the potential someones.
This is a really good thing about @robinhanson’s style of activism that more people should emulate: he makes actual, novel, positive proposals. “We could do this, and here’s why it would be better than the status quo.” Right or wrong, it contributes new information.
A *serious* proposal, even if it’s a rough draft, is written to and for the people you’re trying to recruit to do the thing. It says “here’s something you might want to do.” It’s constructive in that sense.
If you’re writing about how the Establishment is bad, who are you writing to, and what are you teaching them or encouraging to do?
You could be doing the “journalism” thing I mentioned earlier — informing people that their leaders screwed up. That’s good.
Or you could be trying to change minds about a broader cultural attitude...which is what I’m constitutionally suspicious of.
Telling people “you don’t think this yet but you Should” or “you won’t like this, but it’s true” is a dominance trick. It’s a neg. it plays on the fear of being criticized.
“Only a [insert terrible name here] would disagree with me” is a rhetorical tactic for getting weak-minded people to passively go along with you. It’s not a way to attract competent people to actively buy in and help you.
It’s kind of like — I find it skeevy to guilt-trip people into giving to charity. “You SHOULD be more generous.” The reality is, people are already pretty generous. You can provide donors *value* by offering them unusually good opportunities to help.
“Put more effort/attention into MY favored project or I’ll withdraw my approval from you” is a song anyone can sing, and the loudest, nastiest voices are the best at it. I don’t think it’s a smart tactic for those whose causes are actually good.
Yes, I admit I’m sensitive about this personally. I think shaming people for not being good enough causes a lot of toxic side-effects. I know sometimes the right thing to do *is* to try harder, but there are ways to encourage effort that install less malware, I think.
Good exhortatory content makes doing a hard thing look necessary, exciting, and *doable by you*. Skip the last part and you just demotivate people.
