The KL divergence (number of bits needed to encode one message with the coding scheme of another) is extremely high here between perspectives, so communicating the shared values here may be hard.

You might appreciate taking an opportunity to just listen a bit to where some more downtrodden people are if you have that opportunity come up organically. I've lived in the perspective that you share, and I've lived in others, and it just took me cumulatively a lot of traveling and talking and listening to people to hear and develop other opinions and ways of seeing things (not just how other people in my in-group said how they saw things -- perhaps one of the fronts of some of the most toxic assumptions that I've ever made about people in the end). I ended up changing my opinions to different models as a result.

If the parent message appears to mostly fit within the "I'm angry, so I'm going to burn down the world and do what I want and get my revenge and just take my anger out, including on people who have no control whether or not I get to hurt them in my selfishness" kind of category, I'd encourage you to look a bit deeper at the core of it. It's really hard to summarize lives in bullet points, but having lived within one category of oppression and knowing many people who are oppressed, it's hard to fully communicate what it's like, why people feel like it's the only option, and how it's a way that people are trying to enact change while still minimizing damage on the whole (strange as it may seem. the silent story of people being pushed down in civilly trying to change things is horrifying. i don't pine for violence myself, but i understand it for those who have been downtrodden in the ways that they have).

I know that's not really directly answering it, but walking a mile is really the best solution that I know of that we have in all of the crazy division that there is today.

Yet, still robbing me. This KL difference idea is absolutely interesting though, as I think the view I have is a normal and pretty conventional liberal view. Don't steal from people, don't extort, don't be a bandit, etc. I think compassionate distance is probably the only way to coexist with people who couldn't agree on those things, as to me it's really alien. Sort of interesting to view an idea from the ouside like that though.

Thank you for the moderation in the answer, I appreciate it.

What's perhaps even stranger is that physically we're hardwired to generally have the same emotional needs, though obviously with some variety, and that most ways of being are different strategies for meeting those emotional needs. This is a topic discussed in Nonviolent Communication and I rather appreciate it.

What I have seen a number of times is that there's a turning point once I see how someone is meeting a basic emotional need with a particular strategy, and the through-line to it. Without that through line, things can be a bit scary as they don't seem to follow causal rules from the outside, and we're all limited in our models.

I don't always stay in really close to people advocating for violence, for example, as that's not a culture I entirely prefer. I've come to a belief after a while that nearly everyone is an extremely rational agent in their decision-making, and that it's actually the information presented to the person inside their brain at the point of the decision-making that is oftentimes the culprit for the vast differences in behavior for certain people. I've seen it from traumagenic mental health disorders to even normal differences in political opinion. Realistically I can't quite get in to that place of reasoning to speak with that person always, and it's not even really my place to do that or maybe even try. But it is humanizing, and it has helped me keep my head on straight instead of writing someone off so I don't feel disturbed by an unknown unknown rolling around some proverbial emotional garden.

Daryl Davis is another person I really respect and like as well. I look up to a lot of how he handled those kinds of clashes, as the way it resolved for him always has been so strange and mysterious to me. Incredible story, tbh.

I'll leave off with this quote from him here. Of course the goal is not necessarily to convert someone always to a different belief system, but I think it can maybe then be reinterpreted here as finding a peaceable middle ground:

"When they see that you know about their organization, their belief system, they respect you. Whether they like you or not, they respect the fact that you've done your homework. Just like any good salesman, you want a return visit and they recognized that I'd done my homework, which allowed me to come back again.

That began to chip away at their ideology because when two enemies are talking, they're not fighting. It's when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence. If you spend five minutes with your worst enemy — it doesn't have to be about race, it could be about anything...you will find that you both have something in common. As you build upon those commonalities, you're forming a relationship and as you build about that relationship, you're forming a friendship. That's what would happen. I didn't convert anybody. They saw the light and converted themselves."

While you fear potentially being robbed, perhaps the masses feel they have already been robbed by the current economic system.

The masses don't feel that way at all; a bunch of college trots do.

Perhaps you need to examine the inequities which have allowed to you amass the wealth you fear being robbed of? In short, profiting off the exploitation of others, if even indirectly, shouldn’t be viewed solely as “earning things”. Further, wealth obeys a power law distribution. Always has. Does that make it fair or right?

Lastly, would you prefer to part with some of your wealth by choice or be parted with it (and maybe your life) by force when economic inequalities pass a tipping point? Regardless of morality and notions of property ownership and personal wealth, history has plenty of examples of violent revolution when the rich few neglect the many. So, rightly or wrongly, sharing the wealth may be a survival strategy, as it were.

>Perhaps you need to examine the inequities which have allowed to you amass the wealth you fear being robbed of? In short, profiting off the exploitation of others, if even indirectly, shouldn’t be viewed solely as “earning things”.

Maybe you need to examine the inequalities in effort that cause so many people to slack of at school and work and spend all their free time watching television or the like, then the inequalities in wealth wouldn't be so surprising to you.

This argument belongs to a broader theory called "Culture of Poverty" (poor peoples' values rather than structural issues lead to poor choices which perpetuates a cycle of poverty). It was popularized by sociologists in the 50s and 60s, but has since been discredited and is not taken seriously by modern sociologists.

The HN communists are a sad phenomenon, but inevitable I suppose. Each generation has to learn that it's a stupid idea for themselves, it seems.

I went to school with the kids of business owners and executives and the biggest refrain I heard was "why do I have to do well in school when I'm just going to work at/inherit my dad's company?" as they partied their way through school and well after it. And they were right.

The funny part there is the level of intellectual laziness in that answer itself.

It’d be nice in some ways if it were that easy, wouldn’t it? Poverty would be easily ignored because it’d be chosen. Except, as noted above, even then, when economic disparities pass a tipping point, violent revolution tends to happen. So even if that idea were correct, the rich cannot afford to ignore inequality either.

I'm sure many aristocrats would have framed the revolutions against them this way. And if you are willing to look at it from the right angle a great many revolutions throughout history come down to more or less this.

You can claim it's not right, but there's right and there's the reality of human nature. Push the populace hard enough they WILL push back.

Soon the elite will have amassed enough power through technology that they could put down any revolution. This terrifies me tbh.

The most dangerous innovation in this regard is advances in brain scanning is it could make it trivially easy to find the resistance. But robots and AI are factors too. If the rich don't need the labor of the poor it will certainly shift the balance of power.

> most dangerous innovation in this regard is advances in brain scanning

What terrifies me more than the idea of brain scanning that works is the (IMO more likely) deployment of "brain scanning" that doesn't work (but is used anyway) and creating a 21st century witch hunt.

AI is very impressive, but people are getting so used to it performing magic that they believe it can do anything while preserving the veneer of objectivity that algorithms earned in the pre-ML days.

It won't matter if the "brain scanning" actually works or not. Examining the history and effectiveness of polygraphs is enlightening -- even now, polygraphs are used as though they are effective, and in a different light, are an example of an intimidation tactic.

LLMs have led to significant advancements in brain scanning. [0]

[0]https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1354ju1/scientists...

> Soon the elite will have amassed enough power through technology that they could put down any revolution.

As long as the elite still need other lower-class humans, e.g. chauffeurs, nannies and cooks, or security, the revolution can still get to them.

If the chaos so many rich preppers are gearing for comes to pass - their wealth won't protect them. As this[0] article points out: in an apocalypse, there will be nothing stopping their armed ex-special-forces security guards from taking over their New Zealand compounds and throwing them out - or worse. Their status as elites is preserved by the very institutions they are undermining.

0. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prep...

> long as the elite still need other lower-class humans, e.g. chauffeurs, nannies and cooks, or security

Isn’t this the point of the fears of AI and automation? A truly sovereign individual, singular, against all others.

If AI and Automation make it so things like nutrition, traveling, security, and shelter don't require humans than wouldn't that mean it's easier to provide these basics to everyone?

Power tends to concentrate. As democracy had to force itself into existence, so will horizontal AI. The natural condition is automated dictatorship.

The people who own the automation are not interested in sharing. If the choice was between providing basics for others or letting them die in the streets, they'll choose the latter. It's a choice that plays out everyday.

If you abuse someone to the point that they break then it's hard to blame them for their actions against you. It's tragic to see someone feel that they have no other avenue than violence.

Once you've reached that point, it's not just "violence." It's self defense.

Who's being robbed: a citizen of the developing world without health care or clean drinking water, or a wealthy computer programmer trying to make online ads 1% more effective?

Theft is defined as the seizure of private property without the consent of the owner, the victim is irrelevant. Leftists always have to make this strange argument where definitions are bent to label an action one way when it happens to a group they support, and another way when it happens to one they don’t. Why can’t you just say “I believe stealing is justified if it would benefit society” instead of “it’s not stealing when we do it to you”?

>Theft is defined as the seizure of private property without the consent of the owner

This is a very contentious definition and central to the question being asked. You can't pass it off as already decided without any debate.

Two situations for your definition, you tell me whether something is stolen:

1) You sell me a Ford Pinto that you know is likely to explode in a crash due to a design defect. I sue you after I'm burned up and win. I seize your private property by court judgement. Have I stolen from you?

2) A slave takes an apple from his master's orchard without permission and eats it. Has he stolen?

Arguably, both cases are theft. We simply decide whether or not it is acceptable with the principle that force is only and always justified in response to force. See how easy it is to be consistent?

> See how easy it is to be consistent?

Consistent on the definition of "theft", yes indeed. However, it's way harder to be consistent on the definition of "theft" while you also consider theft to be inherently immoral. And that's the center of this subthread. motohagiography asked..

> How is this not literally just a threat to rob people if they don't give up their stuff, and why would anyone take it as anything less?

.. as a clear argument against the base morality of the original comment. This being seen as such hinges singularly on the fact that theft, in all forms, is inherently immoral. If you define theft as any time private property is taken, irrespective of circumstances, then you also have to concede that theft isn't always immoral.

Thus, the whole original argument would have to make not only the case that the original suggestion of wealth redistribution is theft, but that it's immoral theft. That consistent, broad definition of theft thus becomes much less useful as a qualifier.

That’s correct, we are arguing that “I need it more” is not a good justification to violently robbing someone, is that a problem?

Rightist always have to make this strange argument where private property exist outside of the threat of violence.

No private property in nature bud. The rules are what we decide they are.

You start from the premise that the property is yours, that it's belonging to you was granted via some divine right. It was granted by the state.

Edit: The only property you own is that which you can violently defend.

I don’t recall making that argument. Instead, I’ll argue that both you and I believe in private property, so this isn’t a valid point you can use against me. The only difference being that I am consistent.

You don't own anything because everything was given to you. You don't own the atoms that make you up. You don't own the air you breath.

It's all social constructs however through these constructs societies may be built, art fashioned, science discovered, tools invented. What's up for debate is the best means for which to accomplish that.

Because that's not a universally held definition only "leftists" disagree with?

First, even where property rights are accepted, a well considered definition generally has a caveat is made that property can't be taken "arbitrarily" or "unlawfully" or through a "legally established public necessity" or so on. In practice, every society which has had a legal concept of private property has also simultaneously had the concept that the government could certainly seize said property under certain conditions, and this has generally been treated as legally legitimate and not illegal robbery so long as it serves some common good. If you don't have such caveats, you run into all manner of issues justifying things like:

>Eminent Domain

>Taxation

>Court ordered seizures

>Civil forfeiture

You can also just just straight up deny the right to private property exists altogether. And not even necessarily from the obvious left wing perspective, you can just say the entire realm belongs to the king, so the king taking things to redistribute as they see fit is not theft, since everything was the King's to begin with.

Beyond those arguments, the probably most crucial argument here is that the poor's private property was stolen to begin with through government corruption and unindemnified torts to end up with this status quo, and how is restoring private property to its rightful owner theft? It is the very essence of protecting the right to private property! Particularly when people are calling for this private property to be restored through legal reform or through government overthrow (legal reform through extraordinary means). Not through simple anarchistic robbing of people who exist nearby you.

As for why people don't simply roll over and say they're pro-robbery, if you robbed somebody, you are a criminal and what you possess is not your property and subject to restoration to its rightful owner. People want to go beyond robbery, they want it to be legally established that people have absolutely no legitimate right to what they currently possess. If you start out on this path by calling what you're doing "robbery" you're already fighting an uphill battle before you even get started.

This has nothing to do with legality. I simply stated that taking someone's things by force is still theft when it benefits you. I still consider all four of your examples to be theft. Like I said in the other comment, whether we consider theft to be justified depends on the situation, but whether it's theft doesn't depend on your belief that it's justified. You lack the consistency to win this argument and it shows.

If something is or isn't the crime of robbery has nothing to do with legality?

> I still consider all four of your examples to be theft

Fair enough but do you at least recognise that your position is not mainstream, which might explain why people don't simply accept it beyond simply being leftists?

"Private property" is an inherently political term. To take an extreme case, for much of human history it was perfectly acceptable to own other people. Once you accept the abolition of slavery as morally correct, then you've accepted that property rights aren't completely inviolable in all circumstances.

Wealth & power distributions are a little more complex than just 'having stuff.' In biological bodies, excess concentrations of resources in a single organ is associated with illness, exacerbation and proliferation of other conditions, and eventually failure and death. Intense wealth concentration strikes me as the social equivalent of diabetes.

I like this analogy and again find myself wishing that one could keep a collection of people to check for comments from.

Thank you for sharing, I'd like to adopt this style of commenting more in the future.

You can draw a similar parallel with cancer, including the whole "the more you have the more you get" feature of wealth.

In the same way that a chargeback is not a theft from the merchant--a higher authority steps in and corrects the record. Property rights exist because the people consent to them. If there's sufficient consensus, they can be revoked in the same way.

>Property rights exist because the people consent to them.

You clearly have absolutely no understanding of what "rights" mean. They're based on deontological arguments, that's why they're called "inherent" rights, not based on some weird utilitarian notion that anything can be morally right if enough people believe it is. By your view of rights raping someone would be okay if enough people want to do it.

> They're based on deontological arguments

You clearly have absolutely no understanding of how "rights" work in the real world. There is no divine force enforcing your god-given right. There's only power. The reason the current "rights" even exist, is because they are enforced through power - if I steal from you, police comes over to my place and beats the shit out of me. Remove the police (and all other forms of power) from the equation, and you can wipe your ass with your "rights".

Or in other words, deontology is just glorified astrology, a bunch of mumbo-jumbo poppycock.

> By your view of rights raping someone would be okay if enough people want to do it.

You're trying to reduce this argument to absurdity, but in many ancient civilizations, rape, in some contexts, was considered okay.

I'm not an arbiter of what's right and wrong. I'm just some guy who gets to decide which rights I'll stand up and defend, and which ones I'll allow to lapse.

Bodily autonomy, I'll defend in all cases.

Property, not so much. It's part of a bargain. If the people with an outsized share of the property don't exercise their control over surpluses to ensure some degree of decency for all (which they haven't) then they're in breach of the social contract, and is time for a discontinuity in property rights that gives us a different set of people to try out the same contact on.

What we successfully defend, and what we allow to lapse, for whatever reasons, is what determines what their rights are.

Some rights are intrinsic, sure, but what makes you believe that property rights are, and especially abstract property rights that aren't rooted in actual physical possession or use? (i.e. some registry somewhere saying that X is yours actually giving you a natural right to control what other people do with X).

And lest you claim that this is some kind of extreme communist take on it, here's Thomas Jefferson on the subject:

"It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all... It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society."

It seems very convenient that "rob" doesn't include things like wage theft, destroying "the commons" for the sake of personal profit, or whatever the fuck happened in 2008. With a more expansive view of what "rob" means, one could argue that people have been getting robbed for years.

Define robbery. Taking the US as an illustrative example legalising corruption in politics through Citizens United, the government subsequently effectively pumping investors portfolios with the poor's money through QE, and then proceeding to raise taxes on the poor by not adjusting brackets for inflation all not robbery because there's this veneer of legitimacy and legality and two parties you can vote for that will do the same thing? All justified by the too big to fall doctrine that simply the bankruptcy of the wealthy is apocalyptic but the bankruptcy of the poor does not matter? Lets not also mention Exxon making record profits by getting government subsidies and further subsidising its own profits by making the world poorer with its pollution

In any case, the economics of the world are a totally unsustainable and inefficient concentrating of wealth which will eventually cause consumerism and the engine of world economics to collapse blowing up the entire wealth pyramid. On top of these economic issues, global warming and the fact that oil demand seems to be plateauing (So we can't kick the true costs of energy down the road) is suddenly going to make being poor much more expensive. So regardless of who is robbing who, at some point sheer practicality will prevail and redistribution to the poor will need to happen (people can call this robbery if it makes them feel better), and if it doesn't happen voluntarily, it is likely to result in an eventual revolution.

it’s robbery because the users here, myself included, would be on the losing end of wealth redistribution. If it’s the other way round it’s good business.

Of course, it's only robbery when those wealthier than me have gotten ahead. The fact that I make dramatically more than some random African Worker for ChatGPT obviously doesn't mean I have to give up any of my money. It's the 1% who need to forfeit their money - to me!

Yo, this is some really good bait!