[exstudent2]

> There's nothing admirable about "going against the grain" in itself.

There is if you think the grain is a corrupt and unfair system that needs dismantling. The enemy of my enemy is my friend thing.

I would consider myself to have overlapping social thoughts with most liberals but it's really terrifying to me to have an absolute aggregation of media and executive power (in our industry) along one line of thinking (even if I agree with most of it!). Power needs to be distributed, not consolidated.

[kenko]

> There is if you think the grain is a corrupt and unfair system that needs dismantling. The enemy of my enemy is my friend thing.

No, there still isn't, because you seem to have missed the "in itself" part. Even in the case you identify, what is admirable is going against a corrupt grain (and presumably, we'd want to actually make it "going against a corrupt grain in a way likely to improve matters"; corruption is multiple and going against corruption in one respect isn't necessarily to go in a less-corrupt-overall direction), not "going against the grain" in itself.

[exstudent2]

I mention it in another comment but the consolidation of power is a problem. It doesn't matter if I agree with those consolidating or not. I don't think Trump has a lot of support from the upper classes in the US. If he were to be elected he would be a weaker form of power than say Clinton being elected. That is a desirable outcome even if his policies are bad since he wouldn't be effective in rolling them out whereas Clinton would be more effective rolling out her possibly slightly less objectionable policies. There would be a greater loss to society in the latter situation.

[metheus]

Under what rubric is the more effective rollout of less objectionable policies a greater loss to society than the less effective rollout of more objectionable policies?

This dogma holds consolidation of power to be bad /in and of itself/, rather than because of a consequence, such as "consolidated power leads to suffering." If that's your opinion, fine, but it's no different than any other religion.

[exstudent2]

> Under what rubric is the more effective rollout of less objectionable policies a greater loss to society than the less effective rollout of more objectionable policies?

A small slice of a giant pie is bigger than a large slice of a tiny pie?

[metheus]

Ok, I understand. You literally mean that both of them will only introduce objectionable policies, not that "less objectionable" might mean, in some cases, "good."

I still don't see the outcome you predict.

TLDR; power consolidation is a risk factor that leads to actual bad policy, not something with actual, palpable negative value in and of itself. E.g. the power of the federal government to end slavery is a win in my book.

* * * *

Let's map "objectionability" onto a number line.

A neutral policy is zero. An objectionable one is on the negative side, a non-objectionable one is on the positive side. The magnitude of the objectionability or virtue yields the magnitude of the number.

I'll go with your presumption that both Clinton and Trump's policies are only found on the negative side of that line. And we'll deal with their policies in aggregate. We'll also assume that current policy is perfectly neutral, at zero:

<---------T-------------C-----0

T = Trump APV (avg policy value)

C = Clinton APV

0 = CPV (current policy value)

Let's map effectiveness to a float between 0 and 1. Simple. If Trump's policies are twice as bad as Clinton's, he has to be half as effective as she for them to equal out. Here's a little table:

APV, Effect, Total value, Who, Worse

-20, .05, -1, Trump, O

-2, .95, -1.9, Clinton, X

-20, .1, -2, Trump, X

-2, .9, -1.8, Clinton, O

-10, .05, -0.5, Trump, O

-2, .95, -1.9, Clinton, X

-10, .2, -2, Trump, X

-2, .8, -1.6, Clinton, O

The problem with that simplification is the assumption that CPV is at neutral, zero. And mapping effectiveness to a scalar factor of APV is also incorrect -- instead, it has to be understood as a normalization factor, attempting to return CPV to APV. The greater the effectiveness, the more quickly CPV achieves APV.

Should any factor bring CPV further negative than Clinton's APV, her effectiveness would become a force that lifts CPV. Meanwhile, Trump's is always attempting to pull CPV further negative towards his abysmal APV.

[ceejayoz]

> There is if you think the grain is a corrupt and unfair system that needs dismantling. The enemy of my enemy is my friend thing.

"The system sucks, so let's put ISIS in charge" is an example of "going against the grain" and a truly shitty idea. Some of Thiel's ideas are in this "against the grain and shitty" category.