kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (08/06/86)
From: <Name withheld at sender's request>
I've noticed that computer programmers, engineers, etc.
seem to be more prone to libertarian viewpoints than judges,
lawyers, social workers, etc., ...
Perhaps this is partly because judges, etc, have to meet political
criteria to obtain and retain their jobs. Look at the wringer
Rehnquist is being put through for having dissented too many times.
Inside every lawyer is a politician thinking of running for office.
He has a better chance if his politics are conventional.
Judges, many lawyers, and most social workers are paid by the
government. They are likely to think of what they are doing as
important, and the way they are paid for it as being reasonable.
Most judges, etc, are not exposed to any opinions except mainstream
ones. Most technically educated people are more well read than most
liberal arts types. Not in 19th century British literature, but in
modern authors such as George Orwell, Robert Heinlein, Ayn Rand,
Nathaniel Branden, Vernor Vinge, and L. Neil Smith among many others.
I get the impression that the most recent literature that is taught
to liberal arts students is from around the turn of the century. At
that time socialism was in vogue among the literatti, and most of the
better writers (Jack London, H.G. Wells, Upton Sinclair, Edward
Bellamy) were socialists.
I wonder if this is because libertarian
views are reductionist, breaking social systems into small,
autonomous interacting components. Individuals with a
non-engineering background seem to have a ?paternalistic
?wholistic non-reductionist (or reducing to levels above the
autonomous individual) focus.
Yes, I think that is part of it. Only technical types seem to
realize the enormous complexity of the economy, the immense quantity
of information processing that goes on, and how only a distributed
system can hope to handle it.
The social 'sciences' types ironically often think that all that is
necessary for things to run smoothly is for everyone to have good
intentions. Engineers know that good intentions are neither necessary
nor sufficient for anything.
People without a good undertanding of how systems work, and by
system I mean everything from a computer network to a forest to the
news media to a civilization, have this strange idea that there must
always be an ALPHA MALE running things. In a country, he is the king
or the premier or the emperor or the president. In a forest he is the
Lord God. In a computer network he is a computer person at one of the
sites. In the news media, he is the secret head of the media.
In fact none of these beings perform the functions usually imagined,
and some of them don't even exist. But most people without a good
technical education find it incredible that things will (or do) run
just fine without these folks.
Some people even go so far as to deny the existance of seperate
major organizations, and insist that there must be one small group or
one man secretly running everything behind the scenes. For instance
the Trilateral Commission, the Bavarian Illuminatti, the Godfather,
God, the Devil, little green men from another planet, etc, etc.
Try explaining to your nontechnical friends that trees can grow
without anyone pulling, that computer systems can run just fine
without systems staff around (for a week or two at least), that people
live in harmony not because of an enormous criminal justice system but
because they are acting in their own self interest, that the Voyager
probes, once they got free of Earth, were pushed almost entirely by
their own momentum rather than by powerful rockets and constant
attention from the ground, and that the US economy would get along
just fine even if Volcker and Reagan went away.
Reagan is responsible for very little of what good things have
happened and for very little of what bad things have happened. He is
often wrongly blamed for everything from terrorism in the middle east
to bad weather in the southeast. He is often wrongly credited for
everything from low inflation to the Statue of Liberty restoration.
One of the few important things he does have partial control over is
the tax rate. I am glad he opposes any tax increase. I am dismayed
that most of Congress does not agree with him.
Or is it just that the utility functions (values) used
by libertarians differ from that of non-libertarians in the
tradeoff of short term pain versus long term gain? Examples would
include hot topics such as job displacement: an individual loses
his job because the local plant closes/relocates, but the long
term effect for other individuals is positive because they can now
buy cheaper (if relocation of plant) products than before, or
shareholders have more income from dividends that can be spent
elsewhere, etc. ...
Well, that too is important. Libertarians tend to think with their
brains rather than with their glands. The worse things are not always
the most photogenic things. Jet crashes are more newsworthy than car
crashes, but which kills more people? AIDS is more horrifying than
heart disease and cancer just because it is newer. Nobody even made a
million dollars on a movie by portraying a large corporation or a
wealthy person in a sympathetic light. (Next time you see a heart-
rending performance of a poor person being downtrodden by the cruel
rich, keep in mind how much money those actors REALLY have.) A
bankrupt farmer or an unemployed steel worker make better news copy
than a tax increase. How much news coverage did this year's
multibillion dollar social security tax increase receive?
Why do you request anonymity? What do you fear if your name is seen
across the net? You've seen how opinionated I am, and they haven't
taken away my security clearance yet. :-)
...Keith
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