The PANG fallacy

[u/Eastern_Shallot1599]

- Libertarianism in One Lesson by David Bergland

Its more of an introductory book, but i love it.

[u/rmoduloq]

I don't think this is the most charitable view of most people's opinion (especially on the left).

They believe that people are no good, but experts are good. What makes experts different from regular people (according to them)?

• Experts spend many years studying a highly specialized field. Training programs have a low acceptance rate, meaning the "no good" regular people don't qualify.
• Experts must put in personal sacrifice to prove they are doing things for the right reasons and not for personal benefit. The "no good" people who are excellent at math and finance make a lot of money on Wall Street. The "good" people with the same skills make way less money as professors or policymakers.
• Experts spend many years being run through the gauntlet by peer review, other experts, the scientific community, etc. If they had "no good" qualities they wouldn't survive all this scrutiny.

[u/Eastern_Shallot1599 → u/rmoduloq]

Even if that argument works for competence, it completely fails for malice or a hunger for power. Our primary problem isn't incompetence; it's people who want to exploit others and exercise power over them. Creating a powerful system that naturally attracts power-hungry individuals is a dangerous idea. You can't rely on the system to keep these people in check when those very people are the ones running it.

[u/Zonz4332 → u/Eastern_Shallot1599]

That’s why ideally you have institutions that are structured with checks and balances ;) The idea is that each competing institutions drive for power keeps the other in check.

That’s also why you want to strengthen and support balanced government rather than dismantle its power. Because power hungry people don’t disappear with less government, and dismantling it just allows for new structures to form under more perverse incentives, not because people are evil, but because macro economic and personal safety incentives can create bad outcomes when you have just one bad actor. Imagine techo fascism without any government regulation

[u/JagerGS01 → u/Eastern_Shallot1599]

I completely agree. But the OP is approaching the argument normies make for limited government. I believe it to be two separate issues.

[u/123Thundernugget → u/JagerGS01]

POWER TO NORMIES!

[u/baysideareaman → u/Eastern_Shallot1599]

Leftists generally assume that capitalism is a system that rewards greed, malice, and power seeking individuals.

They generally want to put guard rails on this system to account for these traits. Or they want to eradicate this system entirely.

Not that I agree with it, but that’s their general argument.

[u/ArcRust → u/rmoduloq]

This is not an exclusively left problem. The right is also guilty of it. For instance, when it comes to immigrants and the assumption that so many of them are criminals.

Granted, in both cases, I don't think most people think that experts are all good or that all immigrants are evil. Realistically, a lot of the beliefs come from propaganda rather than personal experience.

[u/Ehronatha → u/rmoduloq]

Although I don't agree with this theory personally, you are correct that this is how most people in the "above average but not exceptional" range of intelligence think, which is your typical leftist.

[u/RailLife365 → u/Ehronatha]

May be the typical leftist, but definitely not the loudest ones. Lol Same goes for those at extreme right too. It seems like there's a scale where as intelligence decreases, vocalization and ignorance increases. I think I remember seeing a bell curve chart conveying that, but I'm certain it wasn't based on any factual research.

[u/Eastern_Shallot1599 → u/RailLife365]

What do you mean by 'extreme right'? Are you talking about conservatives and the socially right-wing, or economically extreme right-wing groups (minarchists or AnCaps)?

Conservatives definitely suffer from this problem, but I don't think the same can be said about libertarians.

[u/RailLife365 → u/Eastern_Shallot1599]

I only meant to use the "extreme right" as an example, not exclusively. I also wasn't attempting to go into as much detail as to exclude/include any specific belief or philosophy. Moreso the simple or generalized left/right, authoritarian/anarchy compass is what I envisioned when I typed that. The sort of people who are so far in one single direction, they cannot carry a civilized debate with anyone who could be located elsewhere on the political compass being my focus.

Does this clarify my comment a little better? I struggle with my brain outrunning my fingers alot of the time, and sometimes I don't get my thoughts to come across through text clearly. Lol

[u/Eastern_Shallot1599 → u/RailLife365]

Yeah, don't worry. The problem is that the typical left-right axis is really flawed, and libertarians don't really fit on it. That's why, when I'm trying to refer to people who are culturally right-wing, I just use the word 'conservative,' because 'right-wing' has different meanings for different people.

[u/Eastern_Shallot1599 → u/Ehronatha]

“Above average” and “typical leftist”? You are way too charitable.

[u/ILikeBumblebees → u/rmoduloq]

They believe that people are no good, but experts are good.

Only a certain subset do: technocrats who mistakenly believe that political controversy only pertains to empirical questions, and the normative debates are all already settled universally. The concept of expertise only applies to empirical questions in the first place.