The Goodness Cluster
The blog-commenters come at me one by one, a seemingly infinite supply of them, like masked henchmen in an action movie throwing karate chops at Jackie Chan.
“Seriously Scott, do better,” says each henchman when his turn comes, ignoring all the ones before him who said the same. “If you’d have supported American-imposed regime change in Venezuela, like just installing María Machado as the president, then surely you must also support Trump’s cockamamie plan to invade Greenland! For that matter, you logically must also support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and China’s probable future invasion of Taiwan!”
“No,” I reply to each henchman, “you’re operating on a wildly mistaken model of me. For starters, I’ve just consistently honored the actual democratic choices of the Venezuelans, the Greenlanders, the Ukrainians, and the Taiwanese, regardless of coalitions and power. Those choices are, respectively, to be rid of Maduro, to stay part of Denmark, and to be left alone by Russia and China—in all four cases, as it happens, the choices most consistent with liberalism, common sense, and what nearly any 5-year-old would say was right and good.”
“My preference,” I continue, “is simply that the more pro-Enlightenment, pluralist, liberal-democratic side triumph, and that the more repressive, authoritarian side feel the sting of defeat—always, in every conflict, in every corner of the earth. Sure, if authoritarians win an election fair and square, I might clench my teeth and watch them take power, for the sake of the long-term survival of the ideals those authoritarians seek to destroy. But if authoritarians lose an election and then arrogate power anyway, what’s there even to feel torn about? So, you can correctly predict my reaction to countless international events by predicting this. It’s like predicting what Tit-for-Tat will do on a given move in the Iterated Prisoners’ Dilemma.”
“Even more broadly,” I say, “my rule is simply that I’m in favor of good things, and against bad things. I’m in favor of truth, and against falsehood. And if anyone says to me: because you supported this country when it did good thing X, you must also support it when does evil thing Y? (Either as a reductio ad absurdum, or because the person actually wants evil thing Y?) Or if they say: because you agreed with this person when she said this true thing, you must also endorse this false thing she said? I reply: good over evil and truth over lies in every instance—if need be, down to the individual subatomic particles of morality and logic.”
The henchmen snarl, “so now it’s laid bare! Now everyone can see just how naive and simplistic Aaronson’s so-called ‘political philosophy’ really is! Do us all a favor, Scott, and stick to quantum physics! Stick to computer science! Do you not know that philosophers and political scientists have filled libraries debating these weighty matters? Are you an act-utilitarian? A Kantian? A neocon or neoliberal? An America-First interventionist? Pick some package of values, then answer to us for all the commitments that come with that package!”
I say: “No, I don’t subcontract out my soul to any package of values that I can define via any succinct rule. Instead, given any moral dilemma, I simply query my internal Morality Oracle and follow whatever it tells me to do, unless of course my weakness prevents me. Some would simply call the ‘Morality Oracle’ my conscience. But others would hold that, to whatever extent people’s consciences have given similar answers across vast gulfs of time and space and culture, it’s because they tapped into an underlying logic that humans haven’t fully explained, but that they no more invented than the rules of arithmetic. The world’s prophets and sages have tried again and again over the millennia to articulate that logic, with varying admixtures of error and self-interest and culture-dependent cruft. But just like with math and science, the clearest available statements seem to me to have gotten clearer over time.”
The Jackie Chan henchman smirks at this. “So basically, you know the right answers to moral questions because of a magical, private Morality Oracle—like, you know, the burning bush, or Mount Sinai? And yet you dare to call yourself a scientific rationalist, a foe of obscurantism and myticism? Do you have any idea how pathetic this all sounds, as an attempted moral theory?”
“But I’m not pretending to articulate a moral theory,” I reply. “I’m merely describing what I do. I mean, I can gesture toward moral theories and ideas that capture more of my conscience’s judgments than others, like liberalism, the Enlightenment, the Golden Rule, or utilitarianism. But if a rule ever appears to disagree with the verdict of my conscience—if someone says, oh, you like utilitarianism, so you must value the lives of these trillion amoebas above this one human child’s, even torture and kill the child to save the amoebas—I will always go with my conscience and damn the rule.”
“So the meaning of goodness is just ‘whatever seems good to you’?” asks the henchman, between swings of his nunchuk. “Do you not see how tautological your criterion is, how worthless?”
“It might be tautological, but I find it far from worthless!” I offer. “If nothing else, my Oracle lets me assess the morality of people, philosophies, institutions, and movements, by simply asking to what extent their words and deeds seem guided by the same Oracle, or one that’s close enough! And if I find a cluster of millions of people whose consciences agree with mine and each others’ in 95% of cases, then I can point to that cluster, and say, here. This cluster’s collective moral judgment is close to what I mean by goodness. Which is probably the best we can do with countless questions of philosophy.”
“Just like, in the famous Wittgenstein riff, we define ‘game’ not by giving an if-and-only-if, but by starting with poker, basketball, Monopoly, and other paradigm-cases and then counting things as ‘games’ to whatever extent they’re similar—so too we can define ‘morality’ by starting with a cluster of Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, MLK, Vasily Arkhipov, Alan Turing, Katalin Karikó, those who hid Jews during the Holocaust, those who sit in Chinese or Russian or Iranian or Venezuelan torture-prisons for advocating democracy, etc, and then working outward from those paradigm-cases, and whenever in doubt, by seeking reflective equilibrium between that cluster and our own consciences. At any rate, that’s what I do, and it’s what I’ll continue doing even if half the world sneers at me for it, because I don’t know a better approach.”
Applications to the AI alignment problem are left as exercises for the reader.
Announcement: I’m currently on my way to Seattle, to speak in the CS department at the University of Washington—a place that I love but haven’t visited, I don’t think, since 2011 (!). If you’re around, come say hi. Meanwhile, feel free to karate-chop this post all you want in the comment section, but I’ll probably be slow in replying!
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Comment #1 January 7th, 2026 at 9:12 pm
Seems like you should read up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
Comment #2 January 7th, 2026 at 9:31 pm
David Karger #1: I know the concept of “sealioning” but never found it helpful — it suffers from the fatal flaw that, in the original cartoon, the sea lion is clearly the more sympathetic character and is right. (Or at least, that’s what my Morality Oracle tells me. 🙂 )
Comment #3 January 7th, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Scott: my overwhelming feeling on reading these kinds of posts is that there’s been a massive failure in communication. Your parodic characterizations of the “henchmen” blog-commenters are just that. They’re actually worse than caricatures in that they often don’t even rhyme with reality, at least not to my ear. I’m not sure what to do about it tbh.
Re Maduro, the point I think a lot of people were trying to make, over and over in different ways, was that whether what happened was good or bad is more complicated than whether *all else being equal* a liberal Venezuela is preferable to an autocratic Venezuela. Process, laws, norms are important as well — they’re key to the enlightenment liberalism you love and of course also to many of the ideals we associate with America — and it’s reasonable to worry about the longer term effects of breaking them in order to achieve various short term goods. On one hand, I’d be surprised if you didn’t understand this simple point. On the other, I don’t remember you so much as acknowledging that it’s a legitimate thing to worry about.
Comment #4 January 7th, 2026 at 10:32 pm
John #3: I agreed that there could be all sorts of bad second-order or third-order effects, as there were with previous US interventions. Especially if Trump is going to leave the gangster regime in place, I expect the effects to be more likely bad than good. I also would’ve been happier if US law had been followed, which it obviously wasn’t. The part I deny is that there’s any “norm” of the form “election-overturning autocrats like Maduro get permanent immunity from being invaded and overthrown” that’s worthy of upholding. The norms I care about are the ones that say that Gonzalez is the rightful president of Venezuela.
Comment #5 January 7th, 2026 at 11:50 pm
Scott #4: But I don’t think anyone in that comment thread said that election-overturning autocrats like Maduro should get permanent immunity from being invaded and overthrown. Perhaps my eyes skipped a few crucial lines, but I can’t find any comment that expresses this particular opinion. It seemed most people simply thought that even though this may seem good now (removing a callous dictator) and has certainly generated much jubilation amongst Venezuelans, there is a significant risk (and this because the administration doesn’t seem to have thought much of this through, partly because they ignored the law) that things could turn very sour in the long run. Of course many people displayed poor reading comprehension, and that one person attempted to psychoanalyze you, but I don’t think too many people liked Maduro.
One of my main criticisms in that thread was in response to your claim that international law does more harm than good. I think that’s fairly incorrect regardless of the beliefs one has about this particular scenario; even if one disagrees with my assessment, I still think it’s a strong enough claim that requires really strong justifications. In response, you said that too many governments in the UN with voting power are still illiberal, and at some point it became clear (from some of your rather vivid language in the comment thread, both here and in your “Deep Zionism” post which I only read later) that this antipathy of yours towards international law and norms isn’t really from a belief that “might makes right” or that “the law was and forever will be a farce” or even that “certain illiberal nations must be removed from the UN,” but instead that the UN found Israel to be guilty of a genocide. At that point it became clear that there’s no real convincing to be done here and that we probably just disagree on a few facts and ways of organizing the world even though we’re both liberals (I think); I’m not sure I can convince you on any of those facts or dispositions, and I’m not even sure I have the right to do so.
Comment #6 January 7th, 2026 at 11:55 pm
I have nothing against Karikó, but how did she end up as an example for morality?
Comment #7 January 8th, 2026 at 3:53 am
Some people just like talking smack to you. Maybe they’re not smart enough to comment on the CS posts, I don’t know but don’t let it bother you too much, you’re doing fine. The vast majority of people see you as reasonable even when they disagree with you…
Comment #8 January 8th, 2026 at 7:20 am
domotorp #6: While there are many other examples that would’ve worked equally well, she saved millions of lives by standing up to blankfaces and courageously pursuing scientific truth, which seems pretty good in my book?
Comment #9 January 8th, 2026 at 9:58 am
Here’s my mental model for this discussion.
The moral state of the world, M, is a sum of many, many contributions. For this discussion, there are a few relevant ones. R for removing Maduro. F_US for the future state of Venezeula as determined by the US. O for other implications of the US capturing Maduro.
M = R + F_US + O + …
I take Scott’s main point is that R > 0 (where “good” means that M is positive or at least bigger).
I also think Scott is saying F_US is probably negative, given that the US has not allowed Machado to take over. But, F_US has a larger uncertainty than R because it depends on future events.
I think probably everyone reasonable agrees on those statements.
My main point — I am not sure if I am really disagreeing with Scott or not — would be that I think we can have reasonable Bayesian priors that the sum R + F_US + O is negative, meaning that M is smaller than it would be had Trump not invaded.
I say that because Trump has articulated no plan to give the Venezuelans a democratically elected government, and has only expressed interest in exploiting them by extracting their oil. And, we can’t neglect O, because statements by Trump’s administration indicate that they are at least talking about going after Greenland, Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico. There are other things that I think could also appear in O, like the fact China may take from all this that they have a rationale to invade Tibet, but those are more uncertain.
So what do you do with that? Is the relevant quantity R? Is it R+F_US+O? Are there other terms in M that balance out this incident?
My personal feeling is that the net effect of this incident on M is very likely negative, and that should be the headline. But, I don’t disagree that R is positive. And I don’t disagree that the net change in M is uncertain because it depends on events that have not yet occured.
Comment #10 January 8th, 2026 at 10:07 am
Somehow I had a massive brainfart when writing the previous comment. Of course, I meant O should probably include an increased risk of China invading *TAIWAN*, not Tibet.
Also in retrospect I probably should have used notation that included Venezuela, like F^V_US, instead of F_US.
Comment #11 January 8th, 2026 at 10:11 am
Didier Drogba’s headband #5: OK. If someone opened by saying, “yes, of course Maduro should’ve been overthrown so that legitimately elected leaders could take charge — but not like this; here’s how it should’ve happened instead,” I’d be open to that discussion and would likely even agree with them.
Regarding “international law,” I’m open to arguments that the concept does more good than harm.
But yes, the more people insist to me that “international law” (or the norms of all decent educated people, or the consensus of all academic humanities fields, etc etc) mean that dictators get impunity as long as they’re anti-Western, that Israel needs to be dismantled, and that Jews once again need to be at the mercy of those who would exterminate them — the more I’m going to respond like G. K. Chesterton did, in the famous passage where he says that if the whole logic of the modern world implies that little girls can no longer have long hair, then I’d rather set fire to the entire modern world. (The hair length of little girls is not the hill that I personally choose to die on. 🙂 )
Comment #12 January 8th, 2026 at 10:31 am
Gavin #9: Thank you; that’s very well expressed! You had me on your side as soon as you wrote the value of the action as a sum of multiple components. 😀
Comment #13 January 8th, 2026 at 10:41 am
So here you embrace the fact that you have no coherent philosophy that can be treated rationally between different situations, that your sense of morality is tautological and based on your gut intuition of what a 5-year-old would do (what his parents told him of course), and the main advantage is that you can judge people who “aren’t in your cluster” as immoral. You figure this is the best way to be, you don’t know a better way and aren’t going to look for one no matter what the internet says.
I’m all for dismissing slippery slopes and considering things case-by-case, but this is a big oof. I thought it was a good thing to reject groupthink, not go for it whole hog? Isn’t the role of a public intellectual, professor writing commentary on moral sociopolitical issues, to apply some sort of framework to a question and see where it leads – not to start with their immediate preformed, emotional opinion, declare that basically correct, and work backwards to figure out “who’s with me?”
“I will always go with my conscience and damn the rule” – this is dismissing logic in favor of stubborness, outright. Just say you’re completely closeminded and not open to any discussion on certain issues, or maybe this is your way of doing it. Obviously we have our biases but the logical and moral puzzle is to figure out WHY to damn the rule, and of course, to examine one’s conscience. Which I guess you are outright refusing to do
Comment #14 January 8th, 2026 at 10:57 am
Didier Drogba’s headband #5:
“I think that’s fairly incorrect regardless of the beliefs one has about this particular scenario; even if one disagrees with my assessment, I still think it’s a strong enough claim that requires really strong justifications. […] antipathy of yours towards international law and norms isn’t really from a belief that “might makes right” or that “the law was and forever will be a farce” or even that “certain illiberal nations must be removed from the UN,” but instead that the UN found Israel to be guilty of a genocide.”
I think that the UN falsely accusing Israel of genocide is downstream of the other bad stuff that Scott and others mentioned when talking about international law. I can’t speak for Scott but personally, I think that conflict-related international law is bad not because of its idealistic content, but rather because of the international organs charged with defining and enforcing that law. Those institutions have been hijacked by third-world dictators and anti-Enlightenment/anti-liberal movements like the far-left that support those dictatorships. Just about all of the unfairness of the UN comes from that, and the invective campaign against Israel (which long predates the genocide accusations of 2023) is just one symptom of the rot. It is a particularly big symptom, though, when one looks at the share of UN resolutions targeting Israel versus UN resolutions targeting all other countries combined. Other symptoms are the appointment of autocrats as goodwill ambassadors and chairmen of UN human rights commissions, the fact that just about every sanctions regime against the world’s dictatorships originates from outside the UN, the petty corruption and mismanagement that resulted in UN peacekeepers introducing cholera to Haiti, and so on.
I don’t think its unfair to say that if a good law is implemented badly, then the law becomes a farce. If the intent of international law is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then we can judge organizations like the UN based on how their resolutions etc., agree with this declaration. And what do we see? We see a blankfaced refusal to deal with the autocracies and their torture prisons and the numerous wars and genocides and oppression going on across the world. It is no mystery why: the world’s dictatorships and hybrid regimes hold a solid majority in the UN, and they collectively enforce an omerta protecting one another from accountability. So yes, international law is a farce, and this is a structural problem at the UN and at the other various human rights/international law agencies around the world. Change the structure, and international law might no longer be a farce. Except, you cannot actually change the structure, since the UN derives its legitimacy from having every government being a member.
There is another, deeper reason why international law is a farce: it is all bark and no bite. There is no world police agency capable of enforcing international law, as the planet’s military capabilities are controlled by the various national governments. So, to enforce “international law”, the UN, Red Cross, ICC, etc. can only issue strongly-worded statements and toothless warrants. This is actually a good thing, when considering that dictators and far-left ideologues control these organizations. It also means that international law is a hopeless farce, both badly implemented by corrupt and rotten bodies, but also not actually enforceable the way that laws within nations are enforceable.
As for the question, does international law produce more harm than good? I would say yes. Since international law is not actually enforceable, the entire thing can best be seen as a large propaganda apparatus. It has a halo effect as a result of its founders’ idealistic intentions, and its grandiose mandate to rid the world of aggressive war, tyranny, discrimination, etc. What does that apparatus do with all of that legitimacy and moral power? Take a look at where the General Assembly and Human Rights Council focus most of their resolutions over the past three decades. Anyone who actually cares about human rights, and does not just hate Israel, should be appalled at the sheer waste of time and resources if nothing else. And there are many idealistic people out there, who can feel their eyes filling with tears when reading old documents like the UDHR, who decide to dedicate their lives to making the world more peaceful and tolerant and free, and therefore join the organizations who have that written on their mission statements. What do those idealists find themselves doing? Rubber stamping “Israel is evil resolution #123456”. International law, as currently practiced, does more harm than good since it is a large global propaganda apparatus dedicated towards spreading antisemitism in its incarnation as far-left “antizionism”. If it didn’t do that, and instead applied the law fairly and evenly, then I would say that for all of its uselessness it at least does more good than harm. I cannot say that about actually existing international law.
https://unwatch.org/database/#dictatorships-at-un
Comment #15 January 8th, 2026 at 11:06 am
Just wanted to say that this is a much better conversation so far. I’m not sure how much else there is to be learned or said here re Venezuela specifically, but at least people aren’t talking past one another. Thanks, Scott! And Scott #4: sorry about missing your agreement regarding second or third-order effects.
Comment #16 January 8th, 2026 at 11:50 am
Scott #11: International law does not require that the state of Israel be abolished. Where did you get that from? Israel is a member of the United Nations. It is a sovereign state, with just as much legitimacty as the United States, France, Italy, Japan, or any other sovereign state. The so-called Palestinian right of return is also not guaranteed by international law, see https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/499/ (full paper at the link https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/1949-kent34upajintll1492012pdf ).
Even Noam Chomsky https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/israel-palestine-and-bds/ writes “Nor is [the Palestinian ‘right of return’] dictated by international law. The text of UN General Assembly Resolution 194 is conditional, and in any event it is a recommendation, without the legal force of the Security Council resolutions that Israel regularly violates. Insistence on [the Palestinian ‘right of return’] is a virtual guarantee of failure.”
Comment #17 January 8th, 2026 at 11:52 am
AI alignment is a hard problem. Even human alignment is a hard problem – that’s called politics. The fact that human alignment is the same thing as politics is something I’ve noticed before.
Comment #18 January 8th, 2026 at 12:14 pm
Gavin #9 Scott #12
How could we obtain a reasonable estimate of the moral state of the world prior to the arrest of Maduro? One method would be to weight UN General Assembly votes by the proportion of the global population that each country represents. I took a quick look at a recent vote condemning the “unlawful” presence of Israel in Gaza-124 For/14 Against/43 Abstentions and so far more than a majority of global population For when considering population by country.
I question the overall rectitude of global morality. I agree democracy with well developed democratic institutions likely better than the alternative and that one must individually make a judgement as to the specific facts. Some of the worst dictators in history started their political journeys with electoral success and so in fact democracies do make mistakes.
My point is not that democracy isn’t inherently superior but just that in fact the world has not migrated to liberal democracy post the optimism of post WW 2 that has long been claimed to be inevitable. The post post WW 2 strategies of the world’s liberal democracies have been unexpectedly ineffective.
My view is that in fact the liberal democracies themselves are now facing increasing existential risk while largely continuing with the status quo path or even internally moving away from liberal democratic principles. It will be difficult to develop new strategies without accepting that the old ones have failed. One position could be that no other potentially effective strategy is possible that wouldn’t compromise our principles. In this case, considering foes, liberal democracies may become and interesting experiment that failed. Another might be-things are great and so let’s continue-that leads to the same ultimate conclusion it seems to me.
Comment #19 January 8th, 2026 at 1:08 pm
I just saw Iran shut down internet access countrywide.
Comment #20 January 8th, 2026 at 1:43 pm
Approving Trump for anything he does is a bit like approving ChatGPT in a game of chess for making some good initial moves. It can only lead to regret down the line:
Comment #21 January 8th, 2026 at 2:14 pm
Much like John #15, I think this has gone much better than the other comment thread and I’m pretty satisfied with my contributions to this discussion, so I probably won’t add too much more beyond this comment. I’m also going to disregard all the parts of AF #14’s comment because it’s all poorly reasoned gibberish that I’m not especially interested in engaging with; except to mention that if some think the left (or the “far-left,” whatever that means these days) has overreacted to Israel’s actions in the aftermath of October 7th, I fear they may be very surprised by what many young people on even the moderate right believe these days (and I say so as someone who (1) disagrees with the vast majority of hard leftist positions on most topics (2) is frequently in conversation with people on the left and right regardless of how often I agree with them). I have no right to speak decisively on the matter, but I really worry that “antizionism is antisemitism” has ultimately led to a significant resurgence of antisemitic instincts especially among young (non-Jewish) people throughout the political spectrum. Even though I think of myself as a Zionist (in the sense that I think Israel must have a right to exist as itself, not in the “Deep Zionism” sense, I frequently hear of my (especially right-leaning) friends suddenly finding an avenue to express antizionist sentiments among antisemites, and the longer they spend time among these types the more antisemitic they become. But I’m sure you’ve heard some form of this in the past, so I won’t press the issue (especially, since, like I already said before, I have no chance of convincing you on this particular matter since it pertains to your identity).
On international law: I will never claim international law has done no harm, as it certainly has done at least some harm in practice. I also won’t attempt to claim that it has so much power; if it did, the worst of Scott’s fears about the UN’s reactions to Israel would’ve been borne out by now. International law doesn’t mean that dictators get impunity as long as they’re anti-Western, that Israel needs to be dismantled, and that Jews once again need to be at the mercy of those who would exterminate them. I agree that perhaps a few reforms to the UN Security Council are worth considering, but even simple things like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions and later protocols, the many trade agreements and alliances, the law of the sea — I don’t think a counterfactual world in which all of these things do not exist is a better world than the world we have today. If you agree with that, I don’t know how it’s then possible to claim that they have done more harm than good (a different claim — that I still disagree with but that I can at least tolerate — is that they have done about as much harm as would have happened without them).
Final word on Maduro: If the US wanted to actually do some good for the Venezuelan people, much effort should have first been invested in actually dismantling the Maduro regime and dramatically reducing the influence of the goons there. It would have only required a little more tact — certainly nowhere near the level of Operation Grim Beeper, certainly achievable according to the commentary of many experts on the issue — and would have actually freed Venezuela from their socialist dictatorship; we’d see Venezuelans celebrating in Caracas (which hasn’t happened), not in Miami. After that, Machado should’ve been placed as the president, and had that happened I wouldn’t even be too fussed about the resource extraction that is going on now and was always going to happen. Either way, I hope things end well for them in the end; all I have insisted throughout is that although it is better for Venezuela to have no socialist dictators, the situation right now could easily devolve into something worse than it currently is or something slightly better but still bad enough, which could itself have been very easily prevented with just a bit of tact.
With that, I think I’ve said my last words here. Thanks for approving my comments!
Comment #22 January 8th, 2026 at 3:29 pm
MT #13:
So here you embrace the fact that you have no coherent philosophy that can be treated rationally between different situations…
Do you know anyone who successfully reduced morality to an articulable list of if-then rules, without any horrifying implications? If not, then why blame me for being honest about it?
As far as I know, people who performed heroic deeds most often did so not because they followed from some moral theory, but because doing otherwise violated their consciences. It’s interesting after the fact to construct and debate theories that explain as much as we can about what these people were doing, but we shouldn’t confuse the cart and the horse.
Comment #23 January 8th, 2026 at 4:39 pm
Just passing by to say Cuba is next guys. Keep safe, because the world will only get more dangerous. Hopefully for dictators and not democratically elected leaders, but i am not holding my breath
Comment #24 January 8th, 2026 at 6:28 pm
John,
“worse than caricatures in that they often don’t even rhyme with reality”
Seemed a pretty good accounting of the conversation in last thread to me!
Comment #25 January 8th, 2026 at 6:43 pm
Allow me to go ahead and quote one of those people that argues about how to ground morality in somethingother than people’s individual consciences:
“I hold that moral intuitions are nothing but learned prejudices. Historic examples from slavery to the divine right of kings to tortured confessions of witchcraft or Judaism to the subjugation of women to genocide all point to the fallibility of these ‘moral intuitions’. There is absolutely no sense to the claim that its conclusions are to be adopted before those of a reasoned argument.”
– Alonzo Fyfe
Source: https://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2009/06/objection-to-desire-utilitarianism.html?m=1
Speaking for myself, to some extent querying a “morality oracle” shaped by one’s upbringing and society can in fact be dangerous, because there have been a lot of moral questions throughout history that the consciences of “good people” have gotten horribly wrong, but in practice I don’t know if we as humans actually can do much better.
Comment #26 January 8th, 2026 at 8:02 pm
Hello Scott,
Your closing paragraph reminds me of a quote from philosopher Eleonore Stump. Here is Stump’s version of what you said:
“It’s true that our moral principles and our ethical theories rely on reason. But we build
those principles and theories, at least in part, by beginning with strong intuitions about
individual cases that exemplify wrongdoing, and we construct our ethical theories around
those intuitions. We look for what the individual cases of wrongdoing have in common,
and we try to codify their common characteristics into principles. Once the principles
have been organized into a theory, we may also revise our original intuitions until we
reach some point of reflective equilibrium, where our intuitions and theories are in
harmony. But our original intuitions retain an essential primacy. If we found that our
ethical theory countenanced those Nazi experiments on children, we’d throw away the
theory as something evil itself.”
As for the voice of the critics in your dialogue: “So the meaning of goodness is just ‘whatever seems good to you’”. A few thoughts on this, adding to what you said. Some concepts are defined as combinations of other concepts. But following GE Moore and Derek Parfit, it is plausible that not all words are like that; some words point to concepts that are basic and primitive and cannot be defined in simpler terms. ‘Possibility’, ‘necessity’, ‘validity’, ‘number’, arguably ‘time’ (in some conceptions), and ‘sensation’, are basic, simple ontological categories. Surely ‘goodness’ and ‘objective reason’ are plausible candidates for such fundamentality. As for “Seemings…” These are not embarrassing or spooky at all. Arguably, we cannot be justified in believing anything except through seemings. Following philosopher Michael Huemer, I think phenomenal conservatism is an attractive and probably correct view of epistemic justification. It says ‘seemings’ confer defeasible justification to beliefs, and ought to be trusted, unless and until a stronger ‘seeming’ rebuts or undercuts the first seeming. I think scientists and regular people behave as if this is correct. Why do we trust evolution? Because the cross-disciplinary observations *seem* overwhelmingly to count as evidence in its favor. Do we trust the rational intuition, i.e. the ‘seeming’, that a simple theory that explains observed data is likelier to be true than wildly ad hoc theories that explain the same data? Why do we trust that there is an external world, a past, other minds, statements like 1 + 1=2, 4>3? Why trust the rules of inference in a proof that there are an infinite number of primes, or that the practice of induction is justified and the laws of physics continue to run smoothly over non-observed events, etc.? It is because these things seem true, and ‘seeming true’ counts in favor of belief.. ‘Seeming’, or rational intuition, is a plausible prima facie conferer of epistemic justification.
If one grants this, significant logical consequences follow. It seems to be true–and because of the seeming I am prima facie justified in believing–that “I should not torture innocents for fun, even if I really want to torture more than anything, provided I have the freedom to control my actions.” That statement does not seem to be false; it also does not seem ‘neither true nor false’. It seems to be true, and independent of the attitudes of observers (including my own). Moreover, ‘should’ in that statement seems to operate with some type of dominating ‘normative authority’, for lack of a better word. It has a binding quality that other normative systems that are made purely by convention fail to have (i.e. if I make a book of rules that normatively requires a person to hurt arbitrary innocent individuals, and the word to specify this succinctly is defined as ‘should!’. Though both the real ‘should’ and ‘should!’ are normative in some sense, it *seems* clear that the normal ‘should’ has an authority or bindingness that creates a system of *objective reasons* which supports its norms.’ This ‘rational authority’ or ‘normative force’, or ‘fittingness,’ is also seen in other contexts, such as in Bayesian priors and epistemically forming beliefs.
Just by knowing how ‘should’ is used, and using our inner truth detectors for a priori statements, we can analyze the properties of truth-apt ‘should’ or ‘good’ statements (deontic and evaluative statements), and then as (arguably, but plausibly) the best explanatory account of the data coming from our a priori intuitions (i.e. the statement is true and independent of observer and has normative force), find that transcendent, nonphysical, objective principles exist…just like truths of numbers and possibilities and necessities exist, and these are not merely truths of physics.
So in other words, yes, there is reason to think there are principles of good and bad, right and wrong; that they are related to objective reasons in a strong sense, where ‘reason’ is not reducible to states of desire or instrumental means of the agent in question.. There are several other arguments to think this. I find the other reasons and arguments and thought experiments equally persuasive, or even more persuasive. I am just mentioning a quick an easy argument from Huemer, and also Huemer’s deeper epistemology of phenomenal conservatism, which sets up the ability to make an inference to objective norms.
Comment #27 January 8th, 2026 at 8:38 pm
John #3:
“Process, laws, norms are important as well — they’re key to the enlightenment liberalism you love and of course also to many of the ideals we associate with America — and it’s reasonable to worry about the longer term effects of breaking them in order to achieve various short term goods”
The Trump administration will of course have received legal advice and will argue they did rely on specific legal frameworks to justify the extraction and capture of Maduro. In other words, they will say they have abided by “process, laws and norms”.
As has long been debated, the failure of international and domestic law is perhaps more a linguistic one than anything else – language is unable to capture an infinitely complicated reality ahead of time. As a result, interpretation by fallible human beings is required.
This leaves the door open for political, activist and partisan judges, UN organizations, NGO’s etc to make pronouncements under the guise of “international law” that the masses internalize as objective truth. In my view, Israel is the canonical case study here.
Why might so many judges, academics, UN organizations, NGO’s, special rapporteurs etc all come to the same “international law” conclusions re Israel?
I think Thomas Sowell gives a compelling reason to explain a part of it when he said: “The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.”
Comment #28 January 8th, 2026 at 8:48 pm
Scott,
I thought I would mention this to you (and to others on the board), since this post is about objective principles of justice, good and bad, rational argumentation for finding what is right and good, geopolitics, and how to engage people who disagree. About a month ago I began a conversation with a work colleague about the Israel/Hamas war, which quickly deepened into the justification for Zionism in general. I am a Zionist, like you, Scott. I was going to recommend to you (Scott), and to anyone here, a book and a philosopher that I found helpful, and that you might like. (Come to think of it, I am sure you (Scott) and others here have probably already heard of this individual and have already read the book). The philosopher is Chaim Gans, and the book is, ‘A Just Zionism’. https://www.amazon.com/Just-Zionism-Morality-Jewish-State/dp/0199812063 (See his other later book as well.) This is a non-religious, extended philosophical argument for the justification of a Jewish democratic state, based on universal principles of justice and rationality. I found Gans’ argument impressive, and according to ChatGPT, this is the best defense of Zionism in the current philosophical literature. Equally, a philosopher named Michael Walzer, who is a philosopher and one of the world’s leading experts of Just War Theory (or so says ChatGPT), has written to my mind convincingly and persuasively in favor of Zionism in various outlets like Dissent magazine. See here: https://dissentmagazine.org/article/anti-zionism-and-anti-semitism/
I want to know: if we steel-man the opponent, what premises would this opponent challenge in Gans’ argument? Again, I found Gans convincing. But why do other people not?
Comment #29 January 8th, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Scott, what are laws and constitutions but an attempt to reduce a common morality to a set of if-then rules that a population agrees on? My opinion is that horrifying implications result when someone who has seized power decides to impose their own power-hungry morality on a larger population.
I think that what is prompting the sealioning about the Trump administration’s other actions is this – the belief that endorsing a government’s actions means agreeing, at least to some extent, with the reasoning behind those actions and not merely the results of these particular actions. This is why those henchmen might assume you endorse other actions that are inspired by the same logic as the capture of Maduro.
I think it’s necessary for democracy that the reasoning and morality motivating a government’s actions be generally acceptable to the population. Perhaps you could throw shapes about how the will of a country full of people might be realized some other way.
Comment #30 January 8th, 2026 at 11:16 pm
https://www.jns.org/how-international-law-has-been-weaponized-against-israel/
How international law has been weaponized against Israel
The rules-based global order has expired in disgrace.
Another day, another libel against Israel in the name of international law.
The U.N. Human Rights Office has issued a report detailing what it calls Israel’s “systemic discrimination” against Palestinians in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, as well as eastern Jerusalem.
“This is a particularly severe form of racial discrimination and segregation that resembles the kind of apartheid system we have seen before,” declared the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.
This is the lie constantly deployed by Israel’s enemies to demonize and destroy it.
It ignores the fact that every restriction on the Arabs living in the “West Bank” is imposed by Israel only to prevent the murderous terrorist attacks that the Arabs living there perpetrate against Israeli civilians almost every day.
…
https://x.com/HillelNeuer/status/2008857137620107686?s=20
Comment #31 January 8th, 2026 at 11:32 pm
Didier #5 and #21 — I totally agree with you and I still can’t really understand how people (and especially Scott) can disagree with your point about international law. I guess the only explanation I can speculate about is the one of the “single-issue” voter: like those who look only at the abortion-opinion of a politician, regardless of if the person in question is candidating for a role which has any abortion-related role, and regardless of the position on arguably more important subjects, it appears to me that here Scott is taking the single Israel-supporting opinion to the whole UN. If that’s the case (sorry Scott, not trying the psychology again, just trying to understand), I can see the reasoning, but I vehemently disagree with it (like I do for both side of the abortion thing). Well, maybe not really a single issue, maybe more. Yet, IMHO tossing all the international law out because of some (even many) mistakes which are bad but so far inconsequential seems extremely dangerous to me, especially now. And you Didier listed some of the things (baby) that we would be tossing with the bad (dirty water), but I think there are more.
Let’s even entertain that option though. What we are left with? We have crazy, totalitarian people heading the most powerful nuclear powers in the world (US, Russia, China) and plenty of other crazy people in charge of other smaller nations. The EU is crumbling, thanks to Putin first and now Trump. Let’s toss the UN under the bus too.
Yeah, probably we should set the world on fire even without the problem of girl-hair-length and hope we can do be better. Heck, if only the atmosphere went into a giant chain reaction with the Trinity test, maybe we (or our parents) would have been all gone for good fast enough and without that much suffering which we are going through now not to mention the huge mess I see coming….
Comment #32 January 9th, 2026 at 1:55 am
Del #31: Yes, I was initially quite stunned that someone as singularly brilliant and spectacularly exceptional as Scott (yes I’m a bit of a [younger] fan, I read so many of his papers before finding this blog, sue me for gushing) would repeatedly assert that international law has done more harm than good, but once he gave his reasons in support of that assertion I observed that they all pertain to Israel and the Jews and the single issue of the UN’s decision to regard Israel as a genocidal state (and this is something many of the commenters in this thread also share, not just Scott). At that point it became clear that this is fundamentally an emotional issue and not one that one can purely be reasoned out of.
It’s at least somewhat similar to the people who happily cheer Luigi Mangione’s murderous pull of the trigger because they lost a loved one due to the manipulative policies of health insurance companies — just as it’s somewhat foolish (and perhaps even offensive) for me to tell these people with the hope of convincing them that ACKSHUALLY the health insurance system has had massive hidden benefits and that even though they have some manipulative tendencies (all of which can be fixed with minor reform) it is wrong to murder someone because of them, it is also somewhat silly for me to point out how much suffering would persist in the world if not for various international acts on sea exhibitions or the coordinated restoration of the ozone layer or the fact that the Nuremberg trials wouldn’t have happened without international law or the fact that we’d probably just turn a blind eye to prosecuting the offenders of the Rwandan genocide (which only got as bad as it did precisely because of a failure for the international community to step in on time)… I can mention all those things, but still not convince people on this particular matter.
Comment #33 January 9th, 2026 at 3:04 am
Some argue that violence has been in a long-term decline for millennia—well before the establishment of modern international law or the United Nations.
Comment #34 January 9th, 2026 at 4:53 am
DDh #32
The Nuremberg Trials were the outcome of war. There were no impartial balanced determinations of relative guilt. The Germans did the unconscionable and were held responsible. The actions of the Allies in defeating the Germans were rightfully not similarly judged.
The Allied soldiers that were fighting and dying against the Germans were not doing so after carefully considering the relevant arguments of moral philosophers. They were fighting because they knew viscerally a terrible thing had been birthed in Germany and they would stop it or die trying. No matter what North Korea et al consider acceptable international behavior, I will continue making my own determinations.
Comment #35 January 9th, 2026 at 5:31 am
This discussion has similarity to Potter Stewart’s observation-I know it when I see it. No matter the claimed letter of international law, I know evil when I see it and will act accordingly.
Comment #36 January 9th, 2026 at 6:05 am
you know, in 25 years of rolling back the democracy in Russia we’ve seen the evolution of commentators.
First, the pro-democracy commentators were marked as extreme and schizophrenic and paranoid. Many “broad-minded”, “rigorous”, academically sounding showed up. They reigned the discourse for several years, explaining how Putin is democrat and technocrat, and KGB past is past, and there’s nothing to worry about, and there will be elections and Putin not gonna overstay its term. The “broad-minded” pushed out liberal voices from public discourse.
Then “serious state theorists” entered the field and explained why strong power is good and doesn’t need to apologize, and of course we’re going to change the constitution. They also used some academic jargon and references explaining how democracy is just a formality, and international law is a joke, and the peoples’ will what matters, and NATO expansion bad, and Crimea is historically Russian, etc. They were mostly uncontested from pro-democracy side as the media had already been back in authorities’ hands. They pushed out the “broad-minded”, who suddenly felt used and deceived.
And then clowns entered the room and seized the discourse from “state theorists”. They used street vocabulary and all this “Kiev in three days”, “because we can”, “what are you gonna do” etc. They were mostly to please the crowd before the big beautiful war. They pushed out “serious state theorists”, who suddenly felt used and deceived.
And after the clowns the sycophants entered, “the most loyal”. There was no need to please the crowd and talk, the country was already deep in ugly war. They are mostly used to eliminate discontent inside the elite, because the rest has already been subjugated. Even clowns feel betrayed and unnecessary now, but it’s too late.
I mean, I just cannot take your henchmen’s “rigor” seriously, because it will probably just move to the next stage soon, moving authoritarian window further.
Comment #37 January 9th, 2026 at 7:55 am
Interesting quotes today from Trump:
`The U.S. president also told the Times he did not feel answerable to international law and was constrained only by his own conscience. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” he said.
“I don’t need international law,” he added.`
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-interview-us-greenland-grab-nato-preservation-choice/
Comment #38 January 9th, 2026 at 8:07 am
Didier Drogba’s headband #32,
I find it quite rude to talk about our host in the third-person – all on his own blog – without so much as trying to wrestle with his points in good faith. Seems quite trollish. What about, “I’ve said my last words here?” Why don’t you stick to your promises.
Comment #39 January 9th, 2026 at 10:02 am
Just for general interest-it appears China is not meeting its obligations under the ozone protection agreements.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01946-y?fromPaywallRec=false
Ozone hole maximum extent by year (bar chart on right of figure)
https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/ozone_concentration_20231031_crrected.png
Comment #40 January 9th, 2026 at 11:00 am
Adam Treat #37:
‘The U.S. president also told the Times he did not feel answerable to international law and was constrained only by his own conscience. “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” he said.
“I don’t need international law,” he added.’
That is utterly horrifying.
But we ought to be clear: it’s horrifying not because a good president wouldn’t sometimes act according to his own conscience, damn the votes of the UN or what others say is demanded by “international law.”
Rather, it’s horrifying because we all know Trump doesn’t have a conscience. If he did, he would always seek to act in concert when possible with the world’s other liberal democracies.
Comment #41 January 9th, 2026 at 11:07 am
Didier Drogba’s headband #32: Oh, I freely admit that “Holocaust bad / Never Again” is a moral lodestar for me—a fixed point that pretty much all my other principles and commitments in life need to move if necessary to accommodate. You might even say I’m emotional about it.
The irony is that much of our system of “international law” was also constructed in the aftermath of WWII around the principle of “Holocaust bad / Never Again.” Now, however, many want to use that same system to enable a second Holocaust, by declaring Jewish self-defense against their own genocide to be itself illegal and “genocidal.” It’s far from the first time in history that we’ve seen such a moral inversion. In the meantime, however, my fixed point has remained fixed, regardless of popularity.
Comment #42 January 9th, 2026 at 12:01 pm
Trump doesn’t care about international law and has a bad moral compass. The framework of international law doesn’t impose any consequence on him.
A president with a good moral compass might very well feel constrained, but I’d argue the consequence she would face would be her own conscience and not anything imposed by international law. That’s the upshot.
Toothless laws, international or no, don’t inhibit bad actors. They are a granfalloon at most.
Comment #43 January 9th, 2026 at 12:04 pm
Didier Drogba’s headband #21:
“I’m also going to disregard all the parts of AF #14’s comment because it’s all poorly reasoned gibberish that I’m not especially interested in engaging with”
Your dismissal of my argument is extremely rude.
For reasons that currently escape me, I will try again:
I do not object to the idealistic founding documents of international law, rather to how they are interpreted and implemented by corrupted international agencies like the UN and Red Cross.
I don’t object to the parts of international law dealing with trade disputes, copyrights, the sea, the ozone layer, etc.
I object to the parts of international law dealing with armed conflict, military occupation, and genocide, specifically because these laws have been implemented one-sidedly and in many cases redefined on the spot, specifically to hurt Israel while sparing the world’s various dictatorships and aggressor nations. Their implementation has failed to reduce conflict and genocide worldwide, as can be witnessed from the UN’s non-intervention in Bangladesh, Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, and Xinjiang.
The parts of international law dealing with armed conflict, military occupation, and genocide are the parts that give the UN its halo effect. The UN does not deserve its good reputation in dealing with any of these.
Given that international law is not actually enforced in these topics, and given that the UN wastes the resources it should devote in dealing with them to instead constantly condemning Israel, I would say that international law, as implemented, does more harm than good.
Is this still poorly reasoned gibberish to you?
Didier Drogba’s headband #32:
“that the Nuremberg trials wouldn’t have happened without international law”
The Nuremberg trials predate most of the post-WWII international law, and charges such as “crimes against humanity” were invented for those trials. It would be more accurate to say that international law could not have happened without the Nuremberg trials.
Comment #44 January 9th, 2026 at 12:35 pm
OhMyGoodness #34: And you are free to make those determinations as you see fit. I’m not at all opposed to people deciding to consult their individual Morality Oracles whenever they choose; it’s why I didn’t bring that up in any of my comments. My comments were in response to the precise claim that international law has done more harm than good. As I have said elsewhere, I think that particular claim is incorrect, and I have made my case for that.
Adam Treat #38: I didn’t mean to be rude to Scott, and I don’t know why you’d think I’m trolling here seeing as I have typed hundreds of words already on this comment thread all in good faith. And I don’t think I explicitly made any promises about those being my last words here; I said I thought they were going to be my last words here (turns out, they weren’t). To Scott: I sincerely apologize if any of my comments came off as rude to you, I only intend to present my opinion and my view of the facts here.
Scott #41: I fear you may have misinterpreted my comment. I have never claimed that you’re specifically emotional about the Holocaust and that I am not or trying not to be — it would be vile for anyone to not be emotional about such a horrible thing. What I have claimed again and again is that it seems your dismissal of international law is such that I cannot use the “laws of logic” to change your mind about its overall merits given the recent UN ruling, nor do I think I have the right to. I can even accept that in recent years there has been a moral inversion regarding the application of international law, one that should be rectified in earnest (again, I’ve stated severally that I would eagerly welcome a reform to these things); but that would do nothing for the claim that international law has done more harm than good.
Comment #45 January 9th, 2026 at 1:47 pm
Scott, I very agree with you, but for me it is even simpler in some way. A lot of people say that “If you support X, you logically should support X*” as if X and X* are isomorphic things. But they look similar only because they are stated in similar words. “If you support Trump’s invasion of Venezuela you should support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine” or “If you support Ukraine’s fight for freedom you should support Palestine’s fight for freedom” or “If you support John the firefighter’s intrusion into private property without permission you should support Frank the thief’s intrusion into private property without permission.” It isn’t even about morality or philosophical system, it is just different things in different circumstances, which hardly have anything in common between them.
Comment #46 January 9th, 2026 at 1:56 pm
Regarding the Nuremberg trials, the similar Tokyo Trial totally ignored the responsibility of the royal family (with the excuse that post surrender obedience of the population could only be achieved by sparing the Emperor) and had other massive blind spots, for example when it came to the infamous Unit 731, that did horrible human experimentation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
its commander walked free
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shir%C5%8D_Ishii
“Ishii was later granted immunity in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East by the United States government in exchange for information and research for the U.S. biological warfare program.”
Comment #47 January 9th, 2026 at 2:26 pm
And it goes without saying that pretty much no one who has ever been accused of war crimes has ever agreed with the charges
“Nazi views, often expressed by defendants and sympathizers, condemned the Nuremberg Trials as victor’s justice, a political show trial based on ex post facto laws (retroactive laws) by their enemies, rather than genuine legal proceedings, with accusations of hypocrisy, bias (ignoring Allied atrocities), and a conspiracy to delegitimize German actions and leaders, claiming their actions were normal wartime conduct or defense of Germany, even as the trials revealed undeniable evidence of systematic atrocities like the Holocaust. ”
“Japanese defendants and their supporters viewed the Tokyo Trial as “victor’s justice,” arguing it lacked legal basis (ex post facto laws), was biased, and hypocritical, as Western powers engaged in similar imperialism. Key defenses claimed laws weren’t established, challenged the tribunal’s fairness, and highlighted Western colonial actions, while many Japanese people accepted it passively as a consequence of defeat. ”
Comment #48 January 9th, 2026 at 2:44 pm
If I were looking for goodness and enlightenment, I’d look to other parts of the world, like some European countries (even with the rising xenophobia), rather than today’s US, which feels too violent, deeply racist, and surprisingly backward for a so-called developed, most powerful country… a status it likely won’t keep for long.
Comment #49 January 9th, 2026 at 2:52 pm
Gavin #9: that rationale is sound, and I tend to agree with you that, unfortunately, M is probably negative. But you forgot to add one variable to the equation: the 100+ people killed during the R action, which, for those people (and their families), makes M far more negative. If my country had an R-type problem, I would think twice about whether I’d want a foreign leader stepping in to solve it while putting my life (and my family’s) at risk.
Comment #50 January 9th, 2026 at 3:18 pm
AF #43: Yes I was rude to you, mostly because I was irritated by your original comment (which I still think isn’t logically coherent), but I apologize for that. But to respond to your particular comment: again, I think you’ve here misrepresented my position. I wouldn’t say that I am in favor of some kind of reform of the current system of international law if I thought it was absolutely perfect; in particular, regardless of the status of the claim “international law does more harm than good,” the particular claim that I have time and again argued in support of is “international law has done more good than harm,” and by has done I mean since its inception.
I also don’t know why you bring up the matter of Nuremberg here when you seem to yourself acknowledge that the Nuremberg trials wouldn’t have happened without international law; you yourself admit that “crimes against humanity” wouldn’t exist without international law, so how can you then claim that international law would not have happened without the Nuremberg trials when you just acknowledged that the Nuremberg trials would not have happened without a particular component of international law?
I think it’s now time for me to promise that I definitely will not be participating in this comment thread any longer; the strawmen are becoming unbearable to be honest. I will say something like “international law does more good than harm, look at all the good things international law has done and observe that there aren’t as many bad things international law has done through the years,” and again and again someone retort with “international law didn’t do anything for this particular bad issue and therefore international law is bad,” and I don’t quite know what to do with that; I don’t quite know how to react when I go “hmm, my antivirus software has done more good things than bad things for my computer” and someone retorts “no, international law has done more bad things than good things because take a look at the number of cache misses in this program execution.”
Comment #51 January 9th, 2026 at 5:33 pm
As someone wrote in another thread, a body like the UN and international laws are attempts at democracy at the level of nations, so that all nations (no matter their size) are represented and have a chance for their voice to be heard, and give more space to diplomacy…
democracy is imperfect, hard, and fragile, as we can see right now.
Without democracy at the level of nations, what’s left is unchecked unilateral force, which can seem really freeing until your country is on the receiving side of it. And this also makes the escalation of conflicts into world wars way more likely. In a nuclear world that’s something we should really fear.
Comment #52 January 9th, 2026 at 8:00 pm
Ty-ty #51:
“Without democracy at the level of nations, what’s left is unchecked unilateral force, which can seem really freeing until your country is on the receiving side of it.”
You remind me of The People’s Front of Judea committee meeting to Take Action^TM
Comment #53 January 9th, 2026 at 8:23 pm
Oh, the democratic choices!
Russians overwhelmingly voted for Stalin in 1930s and sincerely mourned his death.
Germans elected Hitler.
Iranians overthrew the Shah in favor of the currently collapsing islamist regime.
Cubans and Venezuelans embraced communism, and Vietnamese fought US for that.
Gazans chose Hamas.
New Yorkers voted for Zohran Mamdani.
It would seem that democratic choices of misinformed demos are not very democratic.
As for the native population of Greenland, they were being systematically exterminated by their Danish colonial masters until 1990s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_case
If we agree that it’s morally acceptable to liberate victims of genocide, perhaps Greenland would fit into that category. Not that I would support annexation against their will, but why don’t they get to actually have a referendum on that?
Comment #54 January 9th, 2026 at 9:31 pm
I have a question similar but not directly related to your examples.
Imagine a small country going through a constitutional crisis, caused by the fact that it doesn’t have a real constitution.
On the one side there’s an aristocratic institution of courts, where Justices collectively elect new Justices when some of their number retires, kind of like Venetian Doges but maximally simplified. As a result of doing that for 70 years they are a bit out of touch now. There’s absolutely no democratic input to the system, that’s pure aristocracy.
On the other side there’s a democratically elected parliament where people’s representatives managed to build a coalition that reached the two thirds requirement for actually making a constitution and limiting the power of the courts. That’s the people’s will and they are going to implement it.
Then imagine a guy who self-identifies as a democracy lover, because his moral compass tells him that the people deserve to have a say in the running of their country and because it has, historically, resulted in bloodless transfers of power, and all that. And this guy is totally like “democracy dies in darkness”, but when presented with the above situation he sides with the aristocrats without a slightest hesitation.
Not like someone in that Stonetoss comic about strange bedfellows, not like “oh, it stinks, but the democratically elected guy is actually just trying to escape jail so his constitution would suck and we should try democracy again in four years when someone else is in charge.” No, there’s no hesitation, no moral qualms, our democracy enjoyer is 100% on the side of the aristocracy and against the will of the people.
Can you explain this to me?
Comment #55 January 9th, 2026 at 11:22 pm
I believe that philosophers refer to the general framework of moral epistemology that Scott describes in this post as “ethical intuitionism”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_intuitionism.
Comment #56 January 9th, 2026 at 11:52 pm
I can’t believe Michael P has just included Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a mayor ten days into his new administration, on a list with Stalin, Hitler, the Shah, Hamas… genuinely mind-blowing. The Mayor has a lot of bad ideas (especially on economics) but I’ll be damned if I don’t find the crazed delusions he induces among his enemies very entertaining.
It’s even crazier when you consider that the current president of the United States somehow doesn’t make this list despite all his administration has done and will continue to do, yet Mayor Zohran Mamdani is on the list only ten days into his administration. Oh my goodness.
Comment #57 January 10th, 2026 at 8:04 am
Scott wrote in #41
“The irony is that much of our system of “international law” was also constructed in the aftermath of WWII around the principle of “Holocaust bad / Never Again.” Now, however, many want to use that same system to enable a second Holocaust, by declaring Jewish self-defense against their own genocide to be itself illegal and “genocidal.” It’s far from the first time in history that we’ve seen such a moral inversion””
But then there’s also this, within Israel itself, not from international groups:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/two-israeli-rights-groups-say-their-country-is-committing-genocide-in-gaza
the two humanitarian/human rights organizations in question are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicians_for_Human_Rights%E2%80%93Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B'Tselem
Is this also ground for those two Israeli groups to be disbanded?
Or maybe even evidence that “human rights” as a concept is just as fraught as the concept of “international law”?
Comment #58 January 10th, 2026 at 10:27 am
It is almost impossible, at least for me, to write a worthwhile comment given what I think (maybe?) is an unspoken expectation that the comment should be brief–a few paragraphs, tops.
In the original post, the henchmen call Scott’s access to an inner Moral Oracle laughable in the face of scientific rationalism. No space to explore the issue adequately here, but there is much to say. I mentioned a few reasons to believe in moral realism. See here for an even better short summary than the one I provided: https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2015/11/05/ethical-realism/. Still, the henchmen seem to be correct in pointing to a tension between *some forms of naturalism* and purported a priori knowledge found in epistemology, mathematics, and ethics. See this piece for very interesting thought experiments drawing this tension out in relation to morality (but also substitute in any other area of a priori knowledge): https://philpapers.org/archive/CRUGAM.pdf.
Of course, if the henchmen are correct, there would seem to be something epistemically self-defeating in their seemingly unqualified dismissal all stance-independent normativity knowledge, including normative reasons for belief. If we cannot have knowledge of, say, validity and rules of inference, or principles for setting priors according to Ockham’s razor vs anti-Ockham, we might have to adopt a global skepticism. Surely that is a reductio? But more to the point: why should we take for granted the henchmen’s view of reality: that Reason (with a capital R—and assume for the sake of the argument such a thing exists for the moment) plays no grounding, causal, or explanatory role in the shape of modal space or the character of psychophysical laws? The two are completely independent, say the henchmen. The space of metaphysical possibilities and necessities, and genuine metaphysical possibilities for physical law (as opposed to merely logical or epistemic possibilities), exists arationally as a brute fact; it has no continuity of pattern with, or deep connection to, principles of reason and favoring relationships that are objective and real and governing of normative disciplines.
But there may be good reasons to reject this view, or at least treat it as non-obvious. This is not the space to write an essay about these reasons, but I think a quote might be helpful. This quote is from Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, in an interview with Closer to Truth. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzwxJrPzwgA
She speculates that principles of value–specifically beauty–might explain the existence of the laws of physics. Value, beauty? In the order of explaining the character of physical laws, these could only (in that context) be stance-independent things. And they have an interesting connection to objective principles of reason, and are very difficult to square with an argument from a universe indifferent to value and ‘reasons for’ in the justificational sense (i.e. the pitiless universe of Dawkins, or the pointless universe of Weinberg).
Here is the quote from Goldstein:
“Second—and this is harder—they [the laws of nature] must also explain why they [the laws of nature] exist at all. Not just why they’re structured as they are, but why they are. That requires a kind of self-causation. They would have to bring themselves into existence. That sounds ridiculous—but who knows? If coherence goes all the way down, intelligibility all the way down, reasons all the way down—which is the naturalist point of view—then you’re pushed toward the idea that the ultimate level of explanation is something we may never reach, and can’t even fully conceive.
…
The ultimate explanation might be that these laws exist because of their sheer beauty—a Platonic idea. That beauty itself has generative power. The laws determine themselves and force themselves into existence. That’s the Platonic view: that mathematical beauty is causative, not just explanatory. Causation and explanation merge into one thing.
That’s a possible view. And if you’re really a naturalist—if you’ve signed onto the intelligibility train—you’re kind of pushed in that direction. That’s why I’m a Spinozist.”
Notice that this form of naturalism is *different* than the henchmen’s naturalism. Here, I think Goldstein is suggesting that modal space is NOT independent of principles of reason, but the lines of what is possible and admissible for metaphysical reality, and what is impossible, is selected on the basis of transcendent principles of rational beauty or intelligibility. I like this view, and I think it is close in spirit to axiarchaic views or even Plato’s views. If such a view is correct, a priori knowledge is not mysterious. I leave the reason why this is a case as an exercise for the reader, but note that the connection between value and intelligibility in the world and our minds (and the pathways of evolution leading to our minds, determined by physical laws) would on this account be nonaccidental. One needn’t imagine that ‘reason’ is intervening in the laws and changing them capriciously; but rather, Reason on this account is ‘the Hawking fire of reality’ setting initial conditions for the pscyhophysical laws to begin with. And–though it is no guarantee–it is adjacent to and friendly to theistic views, because once you have modal space being subject to principles of reason and value, it is very difficult to stop an escalation to a selector principle for some type of possible being, or possible world, or a set of worlds, with positive properties or characteristics. (One might gain support for key premises in certain ontological arguments this way.) Should this convince a skeptic? NO! Not in the form in which I have written it. And then there is this little thing called the problem of evil to account for–which is actually one of the best arguments in all of philosophy (at least in some of its forms…although even in the strongest of forms, there are interesting counterpoints and thought-experiments to challenge it). But a case could be made, I think, for DEEP intelligibility and REASONS-FOUNDATIONAL NATURALISM, as opposed to indifference-based naturalism ; there is just not space in this format to flesh this all out. I myself am hopeful for reasons setting modal space to make possible knowledge and even a maximal being that is also moral, like God. But who knows? That is a hope: I don’t claim to be able to do this just yet.
Comment #59 January 10th, 2026 at 10:56 am
Keane
“I’ll be damned if I don’t find the crazed delusions he induces among his enemies very entertaining.”
The suggestion that 82% of NYC’s population should be refused the right to vote for a socialist Muslim as their mayor makes a mockery of democratic values.
Comment #60 January 10th, 2026 at 11:35 am
Michael P #53
“Russians overwhelmingly voted for Stalin in 1930s” What kind of nonsense is this? Nobody ever voted for Stalin — lol. He wasn’t even the head of state. The head of state was Kalinin, who was elected by the parliament.
Comment #61 January 10th, 2026 at 2:24 pm
Ty-ty #59: What are you even talking about here? What precise connection are you making between the quoted part of my comment and your comment? And “socialist Muslim,” lol. One wonders whether you’d call him a “socialist Christian” if he was Christian instead.
Comment #62 January 10th, 2026 at 3:00 pm
My own process is kind of similar and not formalizable.
I look at the what benefit and what harm the decision will likely have and on whom in short term and long term and the world and society we live in, and then base my decision on that. But it is not utilitarianism, my decision function is not assigning numerical values to them and then sum them up, it is a more complicated function.
Sometimes it is clear cut good or a clear cut bad, sometimes it is harder.
When there is a conflict between following the law and the consequences, I think following the law is beneficial and the proper way is trying to change the law for the better rather than violating it. But if the consequences are overwhelming, to the level that a reasonable person would understand that the violation of the law was for exceptional and justifiable reasons (e.g. crossing on red light to save a child from dieing), then the harm from violating the law is low.
What I don’t like is that people go for the easy way of violating the law without actually really trying to change the law by convincing the vast majority of people about it, which is the difficult but proper and sustainable way of dealing with issues.
The tribal folks who are beholden to a particular good vs. evil story (like the US government is evil so we should always oppose whatever the US government does, or vice versa) don’t understand it and are only looking to find cases that they can use to validate their story (and ignore all the cases that invalidate their story). It is generally not very fruitful to argue with such people and their minds are closed to understanding.
Comment #63 January 10th, 2026 at 4:55 pm
The uncomfortable fact re: liberal democracy is that basically all the major elected leaders are extremely unpopular (see e.g. approval ratings of the G7 leaders in June 2024: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/13/welcome-to-the-most-unpopular-g7-summit-ever/), and basically every liberal democratic country is either collapsing from within, or in danger of being invaded (or actively being invaded) by a less liberal neighbor. If you judge a tree by its fruits, where does that leave us?
Here’s a good essay on this topic:
Western Civilization’s Immunodeficiency Disease
https://web.archive.org/web/20240520111826/https://www.postliberalorder.com/p/western-civilizations-immunodeficiency
It mentions James Burnham’s 1964 book Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism, which I haven’t read but was apparently quite prescient. There’s also a new book, The Collapse of Global Liberalism: And the Emergence of the Post Liberal World Order, by Philip Pilkington, one of the hosts of the Multipolarity podcast.
Comment #64 January 10th, 2026 at 6:50 pm
1. Yes, it is true that all the major elected leaders in liberal democratic nations are unpopular. But the nations that do not have liberal democracies have incumbents that are even more unpopular! Furthermore, it’s foolish to (insinuate the) claim that “the incumbents in liberal democracies are unpopular therefore liberal democracy must be abandoned.” Incumbents are unpopular for reasons that primarily pertain to their economic fortunes, which was always going to happen after 2008 and the fallout from that (and the increasing socialist tendencies that have followed since then will likely increase given the significant labor displacement that will ultimately be induced by automation), and was accelerated by COVID-19.
2. Which liberal democracies are collapsing from within or being invaded by a less liberal neighbor? Can’t think of a single one; in fact this entire thread started in response to a liberal democracy invading a socialist country under a dictatorship.
3. Postliberalism is an incoherent joke, and much of that essay and book is just gibberish — and yes, I read the entirety of the essay and half of the book before I realized I was wasting my time. In a way, I blame liberalism for postliberalism; liberalism was far too optimistic about the intellectual abilities of the people it sought to cater for, and ignored or minimized imagery, spectacle, aesthetic, all of that. I have come to accept the fact that posters like this are going to be far more persuasive than a carefully articulated series of arguments in its favor. The consequence is postliberalism, which is more a “mood” than anything else for people who feel sad or angry or who feel their inherent social status is threatened in some way and so adapt an “everything just sucks and it’s liberals’ fault” disposition. All of this is of course then exacerbated by the total consensus collapse that has been induced by social media (and hubs of political propaganda like X/Twitter).
Comment #65 January 11th, 2026 at 2:47 am
Keane #64:
1. It’s difficult to measure the popularity of authoritarian leaders because they don’t necessarily allow people to speak freely or conduct reliable polls. But the legitimacy of such systems does not rest on popularity or fair elections in the first place, so this comparison largely misses the point. I’m not claiming that “liberal democracy must be abandoned,” but rather that it appears structurally unsustainable and is likely to give way to something else regardless of whether people want it to or whether what follows is normatively “better.”
2. The most famous liberal democracy, the US, is arguably in the process of becoming more authoritarian along multiple dimensions (see e.g the increasing inability to hold credible elections, some of the Trump Administration’s actions, and the rise of Islamo–Marxism on the left) and is also potentially in danger of breaking into pieces. Canada and the EU (Greenland) face the threat of territorial aggression from the US, Taiwan (where I live) is under constant threat from China, and Ukraine is actively fighting a war of national survival against Russia (and here we see very clearly it doesn’t matter who’s “right” or has a “good” system of government or way of life but only which side is able to fight and win the war, which depends on state capacity, social cohesion, and the willingness to use force). A number of countries, for example the UK, seem in danger of imploding due to mass migration and declining state legitimacy. Israel is increasingly forced to choose between democracy and national security. Japan faces some threats from China and will need to remilitarize as the US loses its ability and willingness to defend Japan, but all things considered is in a pretty good position thanks to de facto one-party rule, a shared ethnicity and culture, and limits on mass migration, which together essentially constrain how much damage liberal democracy is able to do.
3. There already exist durable, functioning non-liberal systems of government, such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran (although Iran’s regime recently entered a period of serious instability). Whatever you think of these systems of government, they are not “moods” or aesthetic reactions; they are concrete institutional arrangements that have proven capable of maintaining order, defending themselves, and reproducing authority under sustained pressure. The idea that a liberal democracy could degrade into, or be replaced by, a non-liberal system is therefore not speculative or psychological; it is a historically routine outcome when existing mechanisms of legitimacy and coordination break down. Political systems persist only insofar as they perform these functions. When liberal democracies consistently fail at them, the relevant question is not whether non-liberal outcomes are emotionally satisfying or morally preferable, but which non-liberal arrangements are most likely to emerge once liberalism’s stabilizing mechanisms stop working.
Comment #66 January 11th, 2026 at 7:51 am
Ryan Landay #65
I agree with much of what you have to say and to me it appears the game is even afoot in Western Europe. This was the Eurozone vote condemning Israel as illegally present in Gaza-
UK-Abstain
France-For
Armenia-For
Austria-Against
Belguim-For
Bosnia-For
Croatia-Abstain
Czechia-Against
Denmark-Abstain
Estonia-For
Finland-For
France-For
Georgia-Abstain
Germany-Abstain
Greece-For
Hungary-Against
Iceland-For
Ireland-For
Latvia-For
Lithuania-Abstain
Malta-For
Netherlands-Abstain
Norway-For
Poland-Abstain
Portugal-For
Romania-Abstain
Serbia-Abstain
Slovenia-Abstain
Spain-For
Sweden-Abstain
Switzerland-Abstain
Turkey-For
Ukraine-Abstain
So only Austria, Czechia, and Hungary against. A very disappointing and watershed result in my view.
The UAE is canceling its program for its students to study in the UK because too many are being radicalized in the UK.
Islamo-Marxism is rapidly gaining strength in most of the Eurozone. Whoever believed that migration from Muslim countries would just be another ethnic group to be assimilated was mistaken. The cultural stability of Muslim countries throughout history was completely ignored. Now you have unassimilated Islamists representing a significant voting bloc in many countries.
The UK’s prosecution of opinions posted on the internet has exploded and these opinions often in reference to unassimilated Muslim groups. There have been threats to extradite and prosecute US citizens for their internet posts.
People may say whatever ther choose about the US being a fascist state but with respect to what-certainly not the EU.
This is another portion of the post WW2 liberal narrative that is crumbling. Some may consider a democracy dominated by Islamists a liberal democracy but I do not under a wider (but crucial) definition of liberal democracy. I don’t agree with Keane #64 Pt. 2.
Spain-
Comment #67 January 11th, 2026 at 11:47 am
OhMyGoodness #66,
Thanks for making me laugh with this: “Islamo-Marxism is rapidly gaining strength in most of the Eurozone.”
Sure, along with the rise of beef-eating vegans, paraplegic dancers, and analphabetic writers.
Comment #68 January 11th, 2026 at 1:27 pm
Jan Steen#67
I understand your point and should have written Islamists and Marxist’s. As best I know the Marxists support the emigre Islamists due to the tension they create in capitalist societies. The Marxists and Islamists are running dogs (to use the vernacular) at this point in time. I could also say that the Islamists are friends of the Marxists since common enemy but could never say that Marxism is a branch of Islam nor that Islam is a branch of Marxism.
Comment #69 January 11th, 2026 at 1:44 pm
Jan Steen #67
I saw an interview some years ago with a founding organizer of BLM who’d resigned. His reason for resignation was that he thought the hard core leftists who had become involved saw BLM primarily as a source of cannon fodder.
Comment #70 January 11th, 2026 at 2:15 pm
> No, I don’t subcontract out my soul to any package of values that I can define via any succinct rule.
I think this is great. The world is a better place when people _think_ and are open for other thoughts.
Equally important IMHO is:
– to not assign yourself to any group
– or at the very least not reduce that group to a set of rules that you have to adhere to as a member of that group (“I’m republican and thus against abortion in all cases”)
– not reduce other individuals to a group with a fixed set of rules
I see that last one happen a lot in discussions (everywhere, I don’t mean specifically here): “the far left does blah”, “republicans do yuck”, “Germans”, “women”…
Comment #71 January 11th, 2026 at 8:53 pm
1. Of course it is difficult to measure this popularity. But perhaps one proxy we have here is that people in authoritarian nations are usually very eager to leave (even when said authoritarian nation is quite wealthy), and, regardless of that, that was in response to the particular claim you made about the popularity of elected leaders in the context of whether the political system is a liberal democracy or not.
I’ll also add that I’m not trying to invoke a Fukuyamian “liberal democracy is the end of history” sort of thing here. Of course, as things progress, liberal democracy will probably give way to something else. What I am saying though is that if this new thing exists today, it is not going to be better than liberal democracy.
2. This entire paragraph is a classic example of something that happens in these internet conversations, where someone seems to be saying something that only exists in certain corners of social media but doesn’t substantively exist anywhere else. I know that recent public opinion (incidentally, since 2020) indicates that people trust elections less, but what’s the actual evidence of an increasing inability for the US to hold credible elections? Which of the left-leaning elections in the US are Islamo-Marxist? What does that even mean? Which prominent left-leaning electeds are Islamist? Which are Marxist? The most left-leaning elected who recently took office is Mamdani, but he’s only a socialist and of course you know most socialists are not Marxists. The example of Canada and EU doesn’t fit the bill for my question (which was about liberal democracies being invaded by illiberal neighbors). Taiwan is not being invaded by China. The Ukraine example, fair enough, but if we were serious that would’ve been snuffed out a while ago. The UK is not in danger of imploding at all (and, again, no evidence for this claim), but they are in a worse place than they were a decade ago, mostly because of the truly disastrous string of prime ministers they’ve elected (going all the way back to Gordon Brown) and the resulting terrible decisions they’ve made (most notably Brexit). I don’t understand how the Israel example fits here (and I don’t know enough about Israel anyway so I won’t claim anything with authority). I also don’t know why you’re bringing up Japan here (it hasn’t been invaded, and the only part of it that’s collapsing is the labor market under welfare demands), but it seems you’re one of those who uses “mass migration” as a boogeyman for everything and wanted an excuse to use it here so I won’t even take that seriously anymore.
3. Of course there exist functioning (at least in principle) illiberal systems of government; I have never doubted that! In fact, there’ll probably be at least one nation operating under an illiberal system until the eventual asteroid blows us all out. I don’t know whether you know about this stuff, but when I referred to “postliberalism” — the intellectual thread connecting the three recommendations you made — I didn’t mean “the thing that is not liberal democracy” or “the thing that must come after liberal democracy.” Postliberalism is an ideology of itself, much like liberalism. If liberal democracies consistently fail at improving the living standards of its populace (which hasn’t happened even though economic and social inequality has increased), then of course it will need to pave way for something else. But postliberalism won’t be that thing.
I’ll also add that it’s a bit silly to solely analyze the success of a nation based on how authoritarian it is. (Can’t believe I’m saying that, but hey, it’s 2026 and the Fed is about to have its independence stripped away, so crazy things everywhere I guess.)
There doesn’t seem to be much else to say here (people already seem to be writing fan-fiction about the “Islamists” who dared to condemn Israel’s actions), so I’m out of this conversation.
Comment #72 January 11th, 2026 at 9:09 pm
https://x.com/Scott_Wiener/status/2010464312792404192
There go your $1000, Scott.
Comment #73 January 11th, 2026 at 9:18 pm
Vladimir #72: At the time I donated, he had said nothing like that. Unless he changes course, I won’t donate a penny to him ever again.
Alex Bores is also great on AI policy (my rationalist friends have been raving about him), and he’s made strong pro-Israel statements too, so maybe I’ll support him for a while.
Comment #74 January 12th, 2026 at 12:55 pm
@Sych #60: “Nobody ever voted for Stalin”
My grandfather did, as virtually everybody else. You are underestimating the power of totalitarian propaganda. Everybody in USSR was thoroughly brainwashed into worshiping Stalin. When he died the nation wept. 100000 or so came to his funeral; 100 died in the stampede.
When the state executes everybody who doubts that the Leader is the father of the nation, the benevolent leader, the defender from the evil capitalism, etc., and all the excesses are somebody else’s fault, 99% sincerely believe that because most who don’t quickly perish. Sometimes those who worship the Leader also perish: thousands of political prisoners would keep writing him letters that they were unjustly accused, having no clue that he personally signed the list with their names.
Hitler said something to the tune that a nation is like a woman: it loves the one who f*ks her hardest. All the communist and fascist dictators of the 20th century behaved accordingly.
Comment #75 January 12th, 2026 at 4:06 pm
@keane #56 “president of the United States somehow doesn’t make this”
If he did, you wouldn’t be able to say that. Despite the “no king” protests, he never had absolute power, and he does not suppress speech. Unlike the “progressive” crowd that was censoring for years everything that wasn’t 100% aligned with the leftist orthodoxy, including preventing medical doctors from voicing their medical opinions. Also, unlike progressive, POTUS doesn’t support genocide perpetrated in the name of Islam.
Which reminds me of another example to add to the list of misinformed demos: “Queer for Palestine.”
Now, why would I add Mamdani (and Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tliab and AOC) to the list? Because of their rhetorics. This is how pretty much all fascist and communist dictators started: “expropriate expropriators”, “eat the rich”, etc. And pretty quicky this turns into violence. There is no money in Germany? It must be Jews. No food in Russia? It must be bourgeoisie. Ditto China, ditto Cuba, ditto Venezuela.
Another common trait among the dictators: “defund the police” and “encourage non-government thugs” at early stages. Brownshirts, etc. Mamdani and hundreds of publicly employed attorneys signed a letter condemning police protection of NY Jews against “pro-palestinian” (really antisemitic) riots. And, just as Ilhan Omar said that “there should be no violence against pro-genocide Jews”, Mamdani’s rhetoric is sufficiently ambiguous distance himself from the violence he’s encouraging.
There are many, many traits that “progressive” politicians share with 20th century dictators at the early stages of their rise.
Comment #76 January 12th, 2026 at 7:51 pm
@Michael P (75):
“If he did, you wouldn’t be able to say that. Despite the “no king” protests, he never had absolute power, and he does not suppress speech. Unlike the “progressive” crowd that was censoring for years everything that wasn’t 100% aligned with the leftist orthodoxy, including preventing medical doctors from voicing their medical opinions. ”
You’re debunking your own argument? I mean, people saying this for quite a long time; was it all over by the time they started?
Comment #77 January 13th, 2026 at 1:33 pm
Ben Standeven #76,
I don’t quite understand you. How does extreme censorship and almost totalitarian demand that everybody subscribe to “progressive” viewpoint on everything during Biden years debunks my assertion that Trump term is less totalitarian than the Biden’s one? It was the “progressives”, oddly aligned with jihadists, who behaved like fascists, aggressively pushing their ideology on everybody and silencing discent.
Comment #78 January 14th, 2026 at 12:07 pm
OhMyGoodness #66:
“Islamo-Marxism is rapidly gaining strength in most of the Eurozone. Whoever believed that migration from Muslim countries would just be another ethnic group to be assimilated was mistaken. The cultural stability of Muslim countries throughout history was completely ignored. Now you have unassimilated Islamists representing a significant voting bloc in many countries.”
The parties in the EU gaining votes fastest are the AfD in Germany, the Rassemblement Nationale in France and the Fratelli d Italia in Italy.
The AfD was founded in 2012 and is now the second largest party in Germany, quite close to the biggest one, the CDU. The Rassemblement Nationale is the largest party in France as are the Fratelli (founded 2013) in Italy. Meloni of the Fratelli is prime minister. All 3 parties belong to the radical right, are nationalistic and strongly opposed to migration. In Germany Muslim or Marxist parties have no representatives in parliament or government. The most left party, rather tiny, is called the Left and they support higher taxation for the rich but don’t oppose individual property, which would a requirement for naming them Marxists. Not the Islamists or Marxists gain control of the European nations.
Moreover: Migrants aren’t granted the right to vote. Citizenship is rarely conferred and only after decades of residency. To speak of a bloc of migrant Islamist voters doesn’t make any sense.
Comment #79 January 19th, 2026 at 3:44 am
Uspring #78
Thank you for this information. In the UK in 2021 about 6.5% of the voting population identified as Muslim and 80% of those supported Labour. Many of the parliamentary seats have much higher Muslim populations than the national average. Labour courts the Muslim vote. The Muslim Council of Britain has published commitments they seek from candidates and one of these has been-
“The UK should join 146 UN member states in “recognising Palestine, ending the Israeli occupation, and ensuring we are not complicit in the ongoing case of genocide”.
https://religionmediacentre.org.uk/news/general-election-2024-the-muslim-vote/
As for the future Muhammad was the most registered name for male births in the UK in 2024 and Mohammad was 19th.
You may think differently but I considerbthis a bloc of voters with substantial political clout.
I don’t have time to go through each country but France’s Muslim population is about 10% and against maybe 6% of the voting population but again their votes are very important to the Left in France.
Comment #80 February 2nd, 2026 at 5:19 pm
To transcendental people, “conscience” might be the input interface, where the “Holy Spirit” (or similar) delivers G-d’s idea of how to act. If I interpret Aurobindo in “Essays on the Gita” right, Hinduism shares that viewpoint with Christianity. Even people like Pol Pot, Hitler, or a serial killer have that conscience, but CHOOSE to shut it off. That shutting off is difficult at first, and routine later.
And, it is NOT learned rules, parents, teachers, phil/theo books, it IS and speaks to us/nudges us, so to say. And sometimes we even listen. (in this sense, I totally understand that Muslims prefer Sharia to common law and even the constitution (in Germany) – I do NOT understand, though, why they come here, or why they are invited by the left)
To atheists, there is no such external action, and thus we have to wire&rewire our brain (=”conscience”) according to … what, actually? What is good w/o G-d? How far do you get away from (not) “getting caught” (R.A. Wilson) as ultimate goal and rule?
Tyler#26 on “torturing for fun”: And WHY not? Golden rule (Bible)? Learned beliefs? ???
And that’s THE DIVIDE, probably even more so than right-left in politics … or rather the same?
On “International Law” (in the sense of AF#43’s objections):
There never was and never will be “I.L.”, it’s always “The Law of the Jungle, of the Strongest”.
AF#14 implicitly makes the point:
“There is no world police agency capable of enforcing international law”
… and if it was, THEY would be the strongmen, hence “Jungle” again, but legally approved.
I very much hope though that there NEVER will be such an agency, given the 200 or so states on earth and “modes of living” of the majority.
Drogba#32: Nuremberg was 100% Vae Victis, I.L. came (shortly) after. I am totally fine with Nuremberg, though. They should, however, have put FDR (posthumous), Churchill and bomber Harris in the dock as well. But as said, those were not Victi.
Ty-Ty#51: UN is not at all “democratic”. They vote in a 1-state-1-vote scheme,OK (US = Liechtenstein, China = Malta, except for vetoing), BUT a large majority of those states are themselves not democratic. We have a majority of dictators, nothing more.
Michael P#53: Germans decidedly did NOT elect Hitler. The NSDAP made 37% (=1/e) in 1932, and during democracy never more.
JanSteen#67: There is ideological overlap and a common goal and enemy.
Uspring#78 (OMG#79 is right): In Germany, we have 2 increasingly islamic parties, SPD and Linke/SED, whose representatives are more and more infiltrated with islamists. Citizenship and the Passport unfortunately is “thrown after” migrants after just 5 years of residence now. Migrant “Germans” mostly vote SPD/SED.
On “The Maduro Incident”:
I wonder, how many of the liberal faction would switch from “OK, BUT … ” or downright “How dares he ..” to “OK. Fine job!”, if – ceteris paribus (!) -the POTUS in question was Obama, not Trump …
Even if it was “all the oil to the US” in exchange for “Regime change, dismantling of SEBIN, and [hopefully] doing the same with Cuba”, this still would be an excellent choice for all of Latin America. Cuba-VEN have tried to destabilize the whole subcontinent (e.g. Chile, October 19, 2019). Anyway, I am somewhat confident that Machado/Gonzalez will factually, not just as puppets, rule VEN shortly.
Comment #81 February 13th, 2026 at 12:14 pm
I just read the “The Goodness Cluster” post on Shtetl‑Optimized and found it thought‑provoking and uniquely candid. It’s refreshing to see such a personal exploration of how someone reconciles deeply held values like support for democratic ideals and truth with the messy realities of complex global issues. I appreciated how the author engages directly with critics and explains his reasoning with both humility and conviction. This kind of honest, reflective writing, even when it involves difficult subjects, makes the blog feel intellectually rich and genuinely engaging. Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful, nuanced piece that invites readers to reflect on their own values and assumptions.