{"id":81523,"date":"2022-04-14T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=81523"},"modified":"2022-04-12T08:05:41","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T13:05:41","slug":"for-your-own-good-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=81523","title":{"rendered":"For Your Own Good"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Years and years ago, on a NARN broadcast at the “Back to the Fifties’ car show at the Fairgrounds, James Lileks made a point that summed up why “progressivism” is so noxious to so many people; there would, and could, never be an electric equivalent of the 1965 Ford Mustang. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Progressivism isn’t about muscle, happiness, abundance<\/em>. It’s about shared misery – spreading it, virtue-signaling it (and, if you’re one of the “Big Guys”, quietly and flagrantly avoiding it). It’s no accident that it’s the “progressives” that are still wearing masks as they walk their dogs, alone, down empty streets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is, poor societies don’t solve problems. It takes prosperity to innovate. Leftists never get that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not everyone on the left believes in the virtue of wallowing in privation for “the common good”. Ruy Texeira – author, TED talker and public radio regular guest, who describes himself as a committed liberal – writes an excellent piece in the National Review<\/em> about all the things the Democrats are getting wrong. It’s a longish and excellent read (and might require a subscription, i dunno)…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and makes a similar point; Democrat disdain for prosperity (among the proles, at least – nobody’s coming for Zuckerberg’s spare yacht) is hurting them among the normies<\/a>, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Energy is a big fault line:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Closely related to Democrats\u2019 relative indifference to economic growth is their lack of optimism that a rapid advance and application of technology can produce an abundant future. More common is fear that a dystopian future might await us thanks to AI and other technologies. This is odd, given that almost everything ordinary people like about the modern world, including relatively high living standards, is traceable to technological advances and the knowledge embedded in them. From smartphones, flat-screen TVs, and the Internet to air and auto travel to central heating and air-conditioning to the medical devices and drugs that cure disease and extend life to electric lights and the mundane flush toilet, technology has dramatically transformed people\u2019s lives for the better. It is difficult to argue that the average person today is not far, far better off than her counterpart in the past. \u201cThe good old days were old but not good,\u201d as the Northwestern University economic historian\u00a0Joel Mokyr puts it.<\/p>

Doesn\u2019t the Left want to make people happy? One has to wonder. They show more interest in figuring out what people should stop doing and consuming than in figuring out how people can have more to do and consume. They rarely discuss the idea of abundance, except to disparage it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Texeira may never do lunch on Nob Hill again, but it’s worth a read. <\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Years and years ago, on a NARN broadcast at the “Back to the Fifties’ car show at the Fairgrounds, James Lileks made a point that summed up why “progressivism” is so noxious to so many people; there would, and could, never be an electric equivalent of the 1965 Ford Mustang. Progressivism isn’t about muscle, happiness, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321,20,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-left","category-democrats","category-liberal-tyranny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81524,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81523\/revisions\/81524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}