Thread by @swardley

X : Are you a communist?
Me : No. I'm not a capitalist either.
X : Then what are you?
Me : I'm an "undestand your landscape and use appropriate methods"-ist.

X : That doesn't make sense.
Me : Did to Deng Xiaoping. It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.
X : He was a communist.
Me : He was a pragmatist. He understood how to use tools to a nation's favour (including the market) and how to avoid dogma.

X : But you're more of a communist than a capitalist.
Me : Nope. They're both tools to me. I don't like either as a one size fits all dogma. The market and central planning have contexts in which they are useful and others in which they are not.
X : But you favour democracy?

Me : Yep but that has nothing to do with economic models. On the issue of democracy we have problems with representation and other systems can be usefully combined i.e. sortition for the House of Lords.
X : Democracy needs capitalism and vice versa.
Me : Oh dear.

X : But you believe in individual freedoms?
Me : To a point. There are times when the collective benefit outweighs the individual but it's dangerous to go down that path without an understanding of context. It's a bit like the people vs process question.
X : You've lost me.

Me : Two opposite beliefs - people over process vs process over people. In some cases opposite beliefs are exclusives. However in many cases they are not. Opposing beliefs can happily co-exist in a single collective if applied to the right context using a suitable principle.

The problem is, if you can't see the context then you can't apply a suitable principle and so we end up with one size fits all whether economic systems or questions of rights or something as simple as project methods. It can be very dangerous to set precedents without context.

X : Like requiring everyone to have a vaccine?
Me : Touche. If context is understood and a principle is defined on the context then that I see no argument with it but without the context then such a precedent can be highly dangerous. We do not in general understand context ...

... this is also part of the reason for our society's desperate need to have that whole We vs Me discussion. Instead we seem to keep lurching into one size fits all dogmas and forming factions around these. Not healthy.

X: You don't everyone should be vaccinated?
Me : Against COVID? Quite the opposite. Everyone should be vaccinated and we should continue to take precautionary measures in pursuit of zero covid. However, setting a principle of mandating medical intervention requires context ...

... you want to be very careful with just handing individual rights (regardless of context) to any collective authority. Understanding context is how you balance individual vs collective needs ... same with the economy.

X : But how do you do that in practice?
Me : First there needs to be an understanding of the landscape, of our context and hence a whole discussion on the balance between Me (the individual, the ethics of choice, the transaction) and We (the collective, ethics of care, duty).

X : Is that happening?
Me : Not even close. If anything, we're becoming even more factional around beliefs and one size fits all dogma. It was even in your opening question - communist or capitalist?

X : If you believe it's dangerous to hand individual's rights to Government without context then all rights should be held by the individual.
Me : That's also dangerous. In general, it's a bad idea to take action, to make choices without context, without situational awareness.

X : That's a recipe for inaction.
Me : Look, you might like to be the general that tells the troops to fire the guns, it doesn't matter where just fire them ... action, action, action!

I like to take a moment to look before we fire.

X : You're in favour of zero covid?
Me : We should be adapting to a virtual world as much as possible, cutting out physical interaction and replacing it with virtual. That interaction is at the heart of our existing economy (hence our inertia) and the continuation of covid ...

... with a zero covid approach, investing in providing basic needs, adapting our economy to a virtual world then as we manage covid we can re-introduce physical interaction. Do it too soon and you just encourage adaptation of the virus to any defense (i.e. vaccination) we create.

If you want to counter this, you need to think about not only what Government and people need but also what the virus needs. Think of it like firefighting, physical interaction is the accelerant here, you want to starve the virus of what it needs.

It's why I don't agree with opening up at this moment, we should be embracing online learning further and have been implementing supporting structures to ensure basic needs (including educational) are met. The vaccination program by the NHS is wonderful but opening up ... no.