YouSaid · the spoken record

Michael Huemer

lines on the record: 120
first: 2021-05-28
most recent: 2021-05-28
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Yeah, I mean, I found him kind of anti charismatic, but I think about half the country found him anti-charismatic, so to speak. But you still have to explain why half of them found him.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's my read on dictators, right? They let them act like they're totally confident. That this is the right policy because they don't actually care if it kills lots of people or not, right? The normal person would be worried What if I'm doing the wrong thing? But then that worry would make them look unconfident, and then people would not support them.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, if you're the leader and you're like putting forward your new policies, you do it with total confidence because you don't care if it's wrong.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, Stalin was probably a charismatic character, although, like, I haven't seen him. But because ordinary average people don't admire moral virtue, they admire power. Like they admire somebody who appears strong and confident, right? But the people who are very strong and confident are often bad people. So like the reason why they're strong is because they crush all opposition. And the reason why they're confident is that they do not give a shit about other people. Like if you don't give a shit what other people think and you don't care what effect you have on other people, then you don't worry. Like you're not worried when you're talking to them because you don't care what they think about. And you're just taking actions.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They might have not known because they didn't want to know, right? So I think there's a phenomenon that horrible people are often charismatic, right? Or, you know, charismatic to ordinary average people.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think the left wing people think that exactly. But I mean, they are like sort of. Actually, I mean, I'm not quite sure I understand the idea, right? So because I'm not quite sure I understand what the systemic racism is, right? I was going to say they're accusing the government of being racist, but I'm not even sure that that's what it means. Well, what do you mean? I'm not sure that systemic racism means that. Anyone is actually racist, right?”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not sure they are questioning the legitimacy of the government. The social justice warriors, rather than just criticizing some of its policies, right? So, I mean, in my view, questioning their legitimacy would be saying like they shouldn't have any entitlements that ordinary citizens don't have. So, if ordinary citizens aren't entitled to tax each other, then the state shouldn't be able to tax. So, you know, something like that.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that might be why people kind of try to take the side of the government, right? And then you asked about, well, people are often very critical of the president. And I guess I think it's because people are distinguishing the government from the current officeholder. It doesn't feel like you're being disloyal to the government. What you're saying is you just want like the other party. You wanted the other party to be in power, which they're also like, you know, half of the government or something like that.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But my idea is there's a little bit broader phenomenon that people will instinctively take the side of those who have power over them. And there's an evolutionary explanation for why this would be, right? People have said about Stockholm syndrome that it's a survival mechanism, which by the way, there's evidence for thinking that it worked because like the kidnappers in that case said like they were thinking of shooting the hostages but they couldn't do it because of the emotional bond that they had formed with the hostages so it might have worked. And my more general point is it's common in human societies for someone to have power over others and if the people in the weaker position form an emotional bond with a powerful people that may help them to survive and prosper.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So the original Stockholm syndrome, just for anyone who doesn't know, refers to there's a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, whatever like decades ago, probably 1970s or something. Where the robbers took some people hostage in the bank vault and then basically it turned out that the hostages kind of emotionally bonded with the kidnappers. At one point they thought that the kidnappers were protecting them from the police. At the end the hostages didn't want to go out without the kidnappers because they were afraid that the police would shoot the kidnappers once they got them alone, okay? So anyway, and then I think one of them like tried to aid in the legal defense, like started up a legal defense fund for kidnappers. Okay. And this is a phenomena that occurs periodically in hostage situations, right? It wasn't just that one case. So like, you know, FBI negotiators are trained to be prepared for Stockholm syndrome. Now, what happens with the government isn't literally exactly that. They're not literally kidnapping us.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a quotation at the end that I put at the end of the book from the Chinese philosopher Matzu, which was, you know, like whatever, some thousand years ago or something. But he says, you know, to kill one man is a capital crime. And to kill 10 men is to multiply the crime by tenfold. And to kill 100 men is to multiply by 100fold. And this, the rulers of the world all recognize, but when it comes to the greatest crime of all, making war on another state, they praise it because that's just like it's just murder, but bigger, right? And so he says, you know, if a man on seeing a little black says it is black, but when seeing a lot of black says it is white, then it's clear that this person cannot distinguish black from white. And similarly, the rulers of the world cannot distinguish right from wrong.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, this is what's common to libertarians. They think that you should apply the same moral standards to the state that you apply to ordinary people, and they do that. And then, right? And so when the state does something like the state commits murder, the libertarians go, murder. partisans of conventional political views go oh well i guess they shouldn't have done that but you know but we're not going to call them murderers or anything like that”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I don't think so. And I mean, this is discussed in chapter seven, where I argue that what differentiates libertarians from everyone else is skepticism about authority. That is the basic libertarian view. By the way, many libertarians deny that this is what What unifies libertarianism. But I think they deny that because they haven't read my book. When they read my book, they will understand that they may not even understand what I mean by authority.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anarcho capitalism is controversial. So, anarcho capitalism is the extreme version of libertarianism, right? So there are not very many of them, but there are a substantial number of libertarians, right?”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have like in the book in chapter six, I have a series of explanations for why people might have this bias in favor of the state. Based on different findings in psychology, right? But I mean, one of the obvious things, like maybe the most obvious things that people have a bias towards the status quo, right? And like there's just very clear independent evidence of that. Like without talking about the problem of political authority, there's independent evidence that there's a bias for the status quo. So this explains why people in different societies with very different customs tend to think that their customs are superior to those of other societies. Like how could that be? Like it has to be that they're biased in favor of the way things are done in their own society, right?”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so that's part of it. Another thing is the ethical intuitions that I'm appealing to, so things like you shouldn't go up to people and just like steal their money or, you know, like threaten people with violence to get their money and then lock them in cases and stuff like that. These are not controversial intuitions, right? Like these are intuitive reactions that any normal person would have, regardless of whether they're Democrats or Republicans or libertarians. Thing about the state having authority is not so uncontroversial, right? So there's a significant number of people who are called libertarians who do not have any intuitive reactions that the state has authority, right?”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, common sense, ethical intuition. I mean, so there are intuitions that you would apply to kind of ordinary people, and then there'd be intuitions people have about the state. But I think if you raise this issue with most people, they will see that some sort of explanation is required, right? So like most people have the initial reaction that the government has authority, but they will not generally say, and yeah, that's just self-evident and needs no explanation. Like most people can see that it needs an explanation, right? And so then they will try to give an explanation. Then it will just turn out that none of the explanations are any good, right? So, I mean, right. So part of the reason why we don't just go with our initial intuition about politics is that we also, you might say, we have the intuition that it requires an explanation, right?”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That most people think they have a kind of status that puts them above other ordinary people. And so the question is why do they get to do all this stuff that nobody else can do? And why should we obey them?”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Example, if I decide that I'm going to collect money from other people to give to the poor, right? Like I started a charity and collecting money to help the poor. And I decided I'm not getting enough contributions voluntarily. So I decide to just like force people to pay, right? If I do this, this is called extortion. And I'm going to wind up in jail, right? But besides that, I'm going to wind up in jail. Most people will be disapproving of this and think that number one, I shouldn't be doing that. Number two, they don't have to pay me. Okay. But when the government does this, this is called taxation and, you know, social welfare programs, which is generally most people approve of. And they think that the government is entitled to do that and that we are obligated to pay. And that's just an illustration of the idea that the government has a special moral status.”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so here's a copy of the book, and you can order it on Amazon. That's the important thing. Or anywhere. Yeah, so the problem referred to in the title is a philosophical problem about government. Basically, the problem is what's the basis for the government's authority? And what I mean by the government's authority is, so first of all, it's usually thought that the government is entitled to give other people commands and force them to obey in situations where nobody else would be entitled to give command to force people to obey, right? So like they could give commands that you don't already have to do, but you have to do them because only because the government commanded it. And then the other part of this notion of authority is that it's generally thought that you have a moral obligation to obey, right? To obey the law merely because it's the law. And again, you know, the law could be things that you're not already obligated to do, right?”
2021-05-28 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source