You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you

[clutch]

Clutch, you're correct in the real world, but you're changing my thought experiment, which is different from answering it. The trolley problem doesn't exist in the real world either, but we can still learn things from thinking about it.

 

I hear you. But at least the trolley problem represents an event that can happen in reality. Your thought experiment is based on a premise that can arguably be never true in reality: Everyone's happiness can be simultaneously achieved.

 

That's actually the problem I have with many of the thought experiments used for moral arguments. Because what's morally "true" or "good" depends on the context and reality. If you abstract it out from reality, it becomes impossible to answer what's right or wrong.

 

Now, this doesn't mean that thought experiments do not have any value, as you suggest. IMO, the value is not in answering yes or no in the thought experiment world (and accepting some high-level truth axioms), and deducing real world judgments / actions based on that answer. That can be (and shown to be) dangerous. Instead, we should be posing such questions in the real world context, enumerating as much details as possible that should be considered, and debating the consequences, so that we can make better decisions when the problems are real. So I was just a bit irked when I saw your post...

 

BTW, "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt is a good book if you are into this stuff. Haidt developed the "social intuitionism" model, which basically describes the phenomenon portrayed in the carton from your original post.

 

[Liberty]

Fine, reformulate my thought experiment to be realistic in whatever way you want.

 

Ie. You're in a situation where you can safely release kidnapped children sex slaves. If you choose to do nothing, to me that's an evil omission.

 

Ie. You have information that would save someone innocent's life (you know they've been poisoned and know what the antidote is). If you say or do nothing, that's evil.

 

It's the whole Walter White watching Jane die without doing anything scenario...

 

Your point is also interesting, but not really what I want to get into. I was just pointing out that I disagree that there can be no evil in inaction.

[rkbabang]

"The Righteous Mind" came highly recommend to me by a good friend of mine. The dead tree edition is currently sitting on my coffee table next in line when I'm finished with the book I'm currently in the middle of ("Seasteading" by Joe Quirk).

[wachtwoord]

The quote is correct. But doing nothing as a "good" men is not evil in itself (of course according to me).

 

Thought experiment:

 

There's a button in front of you. If you push it, everybody in the world will stop suffering and be forever happy (kidnapped kids held as sex slaves will be freed, cancer patients will be cured, etc), each according to their very own definition of happiness. There's no catch, no downside, nothing bad happens to you if you don't push the button. You're aware of those rules, of everything that's going on, so there's no confusion.

 

I think that if you don't push it, that's an evil act, IMO.

 

I think it's been established that your thought experiment is so far detached from reality that is is not suitable to reflect on morality in the real world. It's actually the very reason why people's morals are often internally inconsistent: if you grant someone what they wish you must deny someone else that very something. Many people think it's 'good' to feed the poor, yet it implies taking resources away from people (or people that granted them those resources) that actually contributed to the world. This is why I personally consider a system people refer to as 'social' extremely unfair (even more unfair than the world in it's state without socialism) and anti-social.

 

For the sake of argument I'll answer the question anyway: No, to me not pressing the button is not evil (it's neutral by definition) but if what you write would be possible I would personally likely press it.

[Liberty]

So you don't believe in sins of omission. Ok. If we meet, I won't shake your hand, that'll be neutral.

 

My example clearly went as far as I could to make the situation overwhelmingly obvious, but you can come up with scenarios that are less far on that spectrum and realistic based on the same principle.

[RichardGibbons]

So you don't believe in sins of omission. Ok. If we meet, I won't shake your hand, that'll be neutral.

 

My example clearly went as far as I could to make the situation overwhelmingly obvious, but you can come up with scenarios that are less far on that spectrum and realistic based on the same principle.

 

Yeah, I think this is a great example supporting your first post in the thread.  You've basically proven your point, but if libertarians accept that there is a moral imperative to save kids from being raped, then huge part of their core beliefs come crashing down around their ears.  Thus, we get wachtwoord and rkbabang railing against your straightforward argument, just as the comic suggests they will.

 

Very elegantly done, Liberty.

[clutch]

I enjoy this kind of discussions so...

 

Here is even more obvious proposition than Liberty's. Say your kid has a terminal illness. You just found out that there is a drug that will cure the kid's illness. Will you act or will you omit? Are you still "neutral" if you decide not to do anything?

 

On the other hand, could you say that you are evil because you are not doing anything about the fact that people around the world are dying every day due to various preventable health reasons? I mean you know this is true, and you also know how to make contributions to help them, so what's the difference from the above proposition? Is it not evil to ignore them because your affect will be less dramatic as the magical button that was proposed in Liberty's proposition? Taking it to the extreme, shouldn't you devote your entire life to help whoever less fortunate than you, because otherwise you are doing "evil"?

 

So where do we draw the boundary? You may say, some situations are so obvious to be distinguished as evil or good (or neutral), like the first proposition I gave you above. But wasn't what Nazi's did also obviously evil? Yet there were tens of thousands who participated in the act?

 

Now, I also despise and condemn any nihilist or postmodernist who says there is no good or evil. That's just being completely irresponsible for your action. I just wanted to point out that distinguishing good vs evil is not obvious most of the times... And sometimes what looks to be obviously good can be evil, and vice versa.

 

 

 

[wachtwoord]

@RichardGibbons railing?  :o please go and re-read my very respectfully formulated post. I even say I would likelý do the nice thing. Not doing so is just not evil to me. It's also not nice. How is this hard to understand?

[rkbabang]

@RichardGibbons railing?  :o please go and re-read my very respectfully formulated post. I even say I would likelý do the nice thing. Not doing so is just not evil to me. It's also not nice. How is this hard to understand?

 

Because to a non-libertarian, anything they consider good is a right and must be mandated by force if necessary and anything they consider bad is pure evil and must be outlawed by force if necessary.  There is no grey area between must-do and must-not-do.  "I'd likely do it, but I wouldn't force someone else to." is an incomprehensible position.

 

[wachtwoord]

@RichardGibbons railing?  :o please go and re-read my very respectfully formulated post. I even say I would likelý do the nice thing. Not doing so is just not evil to me. It's also not nice. How is this hard to understand?

 

Because to a non-libertarian, anything they consider good is a right and must be mandated by force if necessary and anything they consider bad is pure evil and must be outlawed by force if necessary.  There is no grey area between must-do and must-not-do.  "I'd likely do it, but I wouldn't force someone else to." is an incomprehensible position.

 

To be completely honest, I consider forcing someone to do 'good' (or punishing him for not doing 'good') evil.

[onyx1]

@RichardGibbons railing?  :o please go and re-read my very respectfully formulated post. I even say I would likelý do the nice thing. Not doing so is just not evil to me. It's also not nice. How is this hard to understand?

 

Because to a non-libertarian, anything they consider good is a right and must be mandated by force if necessary and anything they consider bad is pure evil and must be outlawed by force if necessary.  There is no grey area between must-do and must-not-do.  "I'd likely do it, but I wouldn't force someone else to." is an incomprehensible position.

 

To be completely honest, I consider forcing someone to do 'good' (or punishing him for not doing 'good') evil.

 

It's what moralist's do to signal their personal virtue.

[Liberty]

@RichardGibbons railing?  :o please go and re-read my very respectfully formulated post. I even say I would likelý do the nice thing. Not doing so is just not evil to me. It's also not nice. How is this hard to understand?

 

Because to a non-libertarian, anything they consider good is a right and must be mandated by force if necessary and anything they consider bad is pure evil and must be outlawed by force if necessary.  There is no grey area between must-do and must-not-do.  "I'd likely do it, but I wouldn't force someone else to." is an incomprehensible position.

 

To be completely honest, I consider forcing someone to do 'good' (or punishing him for not doing 'good') evil.

 

I'll just move over rkbabang's strawman and go straight to the more interesting point: Situations aren't binary, and evils aren't all on the same level.

 

Not curing your sick child when you can is evil, and maybe someone forcing you to cure your sick child is also on some level evil, but are they equivalent? And is the good that comes from your child being cured more than balancing out whatever "evil" comes from you being forced to do something that you wouldn't do voluntarily? In the real world, there are many variables that need to be balanced out and taken into account, as inelegant as that makes the model to people who like to see everything in black and white.

[wachtwoord]

The only reason not curing your kid when it's sick is the following: taking care of the kid is a voluntary responsibility you took upon yourself (explicitly or implicitly).

 

If you don't have such a voluntarily taken responsibility ( e.g. someone took your sperm and impregnated themselves against your will) you have zero responsibility to lift a finger to save the child.

[Liberty]

The only reason not curing your kid when it's sick is the following: taking care of the kid is a voluntary responsibility you took upon yourself (explicitly or implicitly).

 

If you don't have such a voluntarily taken responsibility ( e.g. someone took your sperm and impregnated themselves against your will) you have zero responsibility to lift a finger to save the child.

 

I wasn't doing a trick question based on genetics, I was saying "your kid" as in "a kid you consider your own, that you raised and love" (biological or not).

 

It's not even a theoretical question. Some people have let their kids die voluntarily because of stupid religious beliefs. Is forcing them to cure the kid more evil than letting the kid die because they don't believe in medicine?

[Jurgis]

On the other hand, could you say that you are evil because you are not doing anything about the fact that people around the world are dying every day due to various preventable health reasons? I mean you know this is true, and you also know how to make contributions to help them, so what's the difference from the above proposition? Is it not evil to ignore them because your affect will be less dramatic as the magical button that was proposed in Liberty's proposition? Taking it to the extreme, shouldn't you devote your entire life to help whoever less fortunate than you, because otherwise you are doing "evil"?

 

So where do we draw the boundary? You may say, some situations are so obvious to be distinguished as evil or good (or neutral), like the first proposition I gave you above. But wasn't what Nazi's did also obviously evil? Yet there were tens of thousands who participated in the act?

 

Now, I also despise and condemn any nihilist or postmodernist who says there is no good or evil. That's just being completely irresponsible for your action. I just wanted to point out that distinguishing good vs evil is not obvious most of the times... And sometimes what looks to be obviously good can be evil, and vice versa.

 

Yeah, ethics is a harsh mistress. (But then I repeat myself).

 

Clearly there is no single ethics that people agree on. And even though I am no ethics expert, from what I've seen ethicists do not agree on single ethics theory. And ethics theories are possibly either too simplistic (pure utilitarianism) or too complicated to use in real life.

 

On the other hand, I think there are three areas where this is worthwhile to consider:

 

1. You can try to figure out what you want to do in your life. Do you want to donate/volunteer/help and how much? https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/  BTW, one of the arguments in ethics course by Peter Singer is that you might do most good going Buffett way - earning craptons of money and giving it to charity vs. just volunteering for free. So you can be investor and ethical too!  8)

 

Another part of this is that you can think whether buying a fancy meal in restaurant is better than buying simpler one and donating X to people in extreme poverty. Or other scenarios that might come up as you are thinking about this.

 

2. As we are progressing towards future where people can wield weapons of mass destruction single handedly, is it possible to agree on at least some common morality and ethics? Can we get there? Or are we doomed to strife/terrorism/wars to extinction? How can we get there?

 

Ideally we'd all be libertarian communists  8) loving each other and supporting each other because of the greatness of our hearts and minds. But is there a path to that?

 

3. AI. What kind of ethics systems can we impart on (super)human AI. Yeah, we can brush off this as "we'll do a variety of systems and it will work out", but that's even worse than human-based terrorism. If superhuman AI decides that Chinese are evil, it could just nuke them...  ::)

 

Anyway, interesting but very tough area.  8)

 

Peace and love and all that  :-*

 

 

[thowed]

I just finished this book, 'The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics'

 

https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Moral-Compass-Global-History/dp/1612194834

 

which covers the stuff discussed in this topic, amongst many other things.

 

I would definitely recommend it if you're interested in the background from different cultures and civilisations.

[RichardGibbons]

@RichardGibbons railing?  :o please go and re-read my very respectfully formulated post. I even say I would likelý do the nice thing. Not doing so is just not evil to me. It's also not nice. How is this hard to understand?

 

You're right--railing was the wrong word.  Sorry.  It's because I'm reading a book by Guy Gavriel Kay, so I naturally become flowery.  Overly, in this case.

 

It's hard to understand your position because, if you a deep evil being committed against someone and have the ability to prevent it, and yet choose not to, then you are complicit in the evil, and I believe that most people recognize that.  There actually isn't that much to discuss, simply because the case is so clear-cut (which I think was the point of that case).

 

One thing I was thinking about last night is this core belief and how it negatively impacts the communication of the libertarian message.  (I'm going to take at face value that you guys actually want a libertarian state, and aren't simply espousing libertarian beliefs because it's fun to complain about taxes.)

 

One seems to need to have these sort of core beliefs to be a libertarian.  But, to a great majority, some of these core beliefs are abhorrent (ignoring a child rapes) or impractical to the point of ridiculousness in the real world (taxation is theft, government exertion of force is almost always unethical), or inconsistent (people shouldn't hurt other people, but regulations that stop people from polluting shared resources are bad).

 

So then, if you're trying to persuade someone that libertarian ways are good, but you don't see any problem with ignoring a child rape, you're probably going to have a hard time persuading them that libertarianism is good, simply because child rape is so abhorrent.  In other words, your core beliefs essentially make it hard to persuade anyone to agree with you politically.  It puts you on par with the communists--passionate about their cause, consistent in their beliefs, and utterly unable to convince anyone because of the impracticality in the real world.

 

So your options seem to be persuade people as children (akin to organized religion), or deviate from your core beliefs enough to be able to make reasonable arguments (which most libertarians I've met don't seem to want to do.)  Neither one of these possibilities seems promising, but maybe there's a third option I'm missing?

 

It is interesting, because I think there's a lot to like about libertarianism, and people who believe in the free market should be naturally receptive to it.  But, if I look at myself, maybe the difference is that libertarians believe in the free market because of ideology, while I believe in the free market because of evidence that it works (and would be willing to abandon free markets if something better came along (and in fact do abandon free markets in medicine where better options have been proven).

 

I guess from my perspective, this is a pretty good outcome--the world gets to learn the libertarian ideas that work, and ignore the ones that are goofy.  But looking at it from a libertarian perspective, it would be frustrating, being unable to convince people of the rightness of libertarian ideas because the core beliefs prevent that.

 

I'm curious if you guys (wachtword, rkbabang, onyx) have a perspective on this.  (For you, is it as simple as believing your beliefs are so clearly correct that everyone should be persuaded by your arguments, so my point about problems persuading people doesn't make any sense at all?)

 

[clutch]

@RichardGibbons railing?  :o please go and re-read my very respectfully formulated post. I even say I would likelý do the nice thing. Not doing so is just not evil to me. It's also not nice. How is this hard to understand?

 

You're right--railing was the wrong word.  Sorry.  It's because I'm reading a book by Guy Gavriel Kay, so I naturally become flowery.  Overly, in this case.

 

It's hard to understand your position because, if you a deep evil being committed against someone and have the ability to prevent it, and yet choose not to, then you are complicit in the evil, and I believe that most people recognize that.  There actually isn't that much to discuss, simply because the case is so clear-cut (which I think was the point of that case).

 

One thing I was thinking about last night is this core belief and how it negatively impacts the communication of the libertarian message.  (I'm going to take at face value that you guys actually want a libertarian state, and aren't simply espousing libertarian beliefs because it's fun to complain about taxes.)

 

One seems to need to have these sort of core beliefs to be a libertarian.  But, to a great majority, some of these core beliefs are abhorrent (ignoring a child rapes) or impractical to the point of ridiculousness in the real world (taxation is theft, government exertion of force is almost always unethical), or inconsistent (people shouldn't hurt other people, but regulations that stop people from polluting shared resources are bad).

 

So then, if you're trying to persuade someone that libertarian ways are good, but you don't see any problem with ignoring a child rape, you're probably going to have a hard time persuading them that libertarianism is good, simply because child rape is so abhorrent.  In other words, your core beliefs essentially make it hard to persuade anyone to agree with you politically.  It puts you on par with the communists--passionate about their cause, consistent in their beliefs, and utterly unable to convince anyone because of the impracticality in the real world.

 

So your options seem to be persuade people as children (akin to organized religion), or deviate from your core beliefs enough to be able to make reasonable arguments (which most libertarians I've met don't seem to want to do.)  Neither one of these possibilities seems promising, but maybe there's a third option I'm missing?

 

It is interesting, because I think there's a lot to like about libertarianism, and people who believe in the free market should be naturally receptive to it.  But, if I look at myself, maybe the difference is that libertarians believe in the free market because of ideology, while I believe in the free market because of evidence that it works (and would be willing to abandon free markets if something better came along (and in fact do abandon free markets in medicine where better options have been proven).

 

I guess from my perspective, this is a pretty good outcome--the world gets to learn the libertarian ideas that work, and ignore the ones that are goofy.  But looking at it from a libertarian perspective, it would be frustrating, being unable to convince people of the rightness of libertarian ideas because the core beliefs prevent that.

 

I'm curious if you guys (wachtword, rkbabang, onyx) have a perspective on this.  (For you, is it as simple as believing your beliefs are so clearly correct that everyone should be persuaded by your arguments, so my point about problems persuading people doesn't make any sense at all?)

 

Do you mean libertarian as someone who considers the classical notion of liberalism as the utmost value?

 

If so, John Stuart Mills gives you a clear solution to resolve the types of problems you identified (e.g., preventing child rape). The most sacred value is individual freedom as long as one's freedom does not infringe or harm other's freedom. The society facilitates this by creating and enforcing laws to prevent harms against individual freedom.

 

So in your problem, anyone who commits child rape should be punished according to the law, because that person harmed the child's freedom.

 

There are a couple of tangents I'd like to add:

 

- So what if someone (non law enforcement citizen) watches a child being raped and decides not to do anything? With just the libertarian framework, it seems to me there is nothing wrong with this. But that's why you often pair it with some other moral framework, e.g., religion, to fill those gaps. So now you have not just completely utilitarian framework around liberty, but also some moral duties to do "what's right" for the humankind. This is why people on the right also tend to hold religious values.

 

- Libertarianism (at least the version I'm talking about here) is not anarchism. In libertarianism, there is a role that a state plays, which is to protect individual's freedom. But note that if you remove that particular role of the state and any religious framework, libertariansim degenerates into a complete anarchism.

 

(By the way, a similar analogue is also found with socialism. You want to achieve equality in a socialist society, but who decides and how do you achieve that equality? In the extreme case, you may say that a single most competent person should decide this (e.g., a philosopher king or Stalin) and you degenerate into totalitarianism. So you need a another political framework to make progress in a more "reasonable" way, hence you pair it with democracy).

[rkbabang]

Ideally we'd all be libertarian communists  8) loving each other and supporting each other because of the greatness of our hearts and minds. But is there a path to that?

 

I think there is, but then again I've been accused of being an optimist so take this with that in mind.  The path is through increased wealth.  It is simply easier to help others when you are wealthy and have a lot of free time on your hands.  People struggling 24/7 simply to survive and feed their families don't put a lot of effort into which charities they will support this year and where they will volunteer their time.  The more people who are freed from subsistence level poverty the more people will help each other. And the more wealth which exists in the world in total the better off humanity will be on average.  "Wealth inequality" doesn't concern me in the least as long as people are moving out of extreme poverty in large numbers. Thankfully the numbers of are all moving in the correct direction and have been since at least the beginning of the industrial revolution.  It is tempting to force people to do what you think they should do, but I think that always comes with unintended consequences which makes the cure worse than the disease in the long run.  Yes some people will hoard lots of wealth, never give anything to charity or help anyone, then pass 100% onto their children who will then squander it. But in the grand scheme of things taxes decreases total wealth in society, so fixing that problem with a few bad apples has a negative net effect on the world as a whole.  Most people are good.  Again the optimist in me coming out, but if that is true things will take care of themselves as we become more wealthy as a species. If most people aren't good, however, then we are doomed. And having powerful governments won't save us from that doom, rather they will be the cause of it (governments consisting of people as they do).

 

IMHO. In a world of nukes and biological weapons and the coming AI revolution, the only ethical framework which will enable the survival of humanity is the non-aggression principle.  You can't initiate force.  <--- period.    No exceptions.  This needs to be applied both to individual people and groups of people (regardless of how large).  Initiation of force simply can't be tolerated for any reason in a world where these things exist.  Once you start drawing lines elsewhere (well this group of people can initiate that amount of force for these reasons.  (i.e. The IRS can tax you because: democracy, or the US government can bomb whoever it likes because: its interests... And terrorism...And democracy.) those lines will be continually moved.  If humanity does not adopt this code en masse then conflicts will continue to be started and escalated, over resources and such, and eventually someone will use those weapons. 

 

[wachtwoord]

To expand on what's been instead of repeat I like to point out a reason why these dialogues rarely go anywhere. For this I'll take a small example from RichardGibbon's post (I hope you take no offense as I'm mostly reacting to your post anyway).

 

The things is, you take very strong statements I don't agree with and declare them to be true a priori. Examples are calling not stopping a child rape abhorrent and taxation is theft, government exertion of force is almost always unethical "ridiculous in the real world". Not only are these statements false according to me, also the tone is condescending, which is not exactly a catalyst for a fruitful discussion.

 

Following that you go into a long discussion based on those statements which I can't respond to because I believe the the fundament of your discussion to be flawed (and disrespectful).

[rkbabang]

Also the argument: "Most people are not going to like it when you say x" says nothing about the validity of x.

 

Is it possible for a small number of people to be correct and the vast majority to be wrong?  I would say it is.  I guess you could say that I don't think much of efficient market of ideas theory.

 

[wachtwoord]

Also the argument: "Most people are not going to like it when you say x" says nothing about the validity of x.

 

Is it possible for a small number of people to be correct and the vast majority to be wrong?  I would say it is.  I guess you could say that I don't think much of efficient market of ideas theory.

 

It's been my experience that in the general case the vast majority of the population is wrong.

[RichardGibbons]

To expand on what's been instead of repeat I like to point out a reason why these dialogues rarely go anywhere. For this I'll take a small example from RichardGibbon's post (I hope you take no offense as I'm mostly reacting to your post anyway).

 

The things is, you take very strong statements I don't agree with and declare them to be true a priori. Examples are calling not stopping a child rape abhorrent and taxation is theft, government exertion of force is almost always unethical "ridiculous in the real world". Not only are these statements false according to me, also the tone is condescending, which is not exactly a catalyst for a fruitful discussion.

 

Following that you go into a long discussion based on those statements which I can't respond to because I believe the the fundament of your discussion to be flawed (and disrespectful).

 

Thanks for the response, wachtwoord.  I think it answers my question very well.  I suspected that was the answer, but I was still curious.

[RichardGibbons]

IMHO. In a world of nukes and biological weapons and the coming AI revolution, the only ethical framework which will enable the survival of humanity is the non-aggression principle.  You can't initiate force.  <--- period.    No exceptions.  This needs to be applied both to individual people and groups of people (regardless of how large).  Initiation of force simply can't be tolerated for any reason in a world where these things exist.  Once you start drawing lines elsewhere (well this group of people can initiate that amount of force for these reasons.  (i.e. The IRS can tax you because: democracy, or the US government can bomb whoever it likes because: its interests... And terrorism...And democracy.) those lines will be continually moved.  If humanity does not adopt this code en masse then conflicts will continue to be started and escalated, over resources and such, and eventually someone will use those weapons.

 

The problem is that this doesn't work even for trivial examples.  It's as practical as the communists saying that the best economic system is everyone working to the best of their abilities and sharing the output of their labor.

 

(Unfortunately, I agree with your argument that someone is eventually likely to cause widespread destruction.)

[RichardGibbons]

Do you mean libertarian as someone who considers the classical notion of liberalism as the utmost value?

 

Almost everything I know about Libertarianism I've learned from COBAF.  Thanks rkbabang! :)  So for me, I use the word libertarianism somewhat as you describe: "The most sacred value is individual freedom as long as one's freedom does not infringe or harm other's freedom. "

 

But I don't mean this part: "The society facilitates this by creating and enforcing laws to prevent harms against individual freedom." Because rkbabang's prescription against use of force forbids taxes, which eliminates the ability create and enforce laws (well, unless you mean the guy with the most money who builds the biggest private army makes the laws, but that seems to violate the "freedom" thing).

 

(By the way, a similar analogue is also found with socialism. You want to achieve equality in a socialist society, but who decides and how do you achieve that equality? In the extreme case, you may say that a single most competent person should decide this (e.g., a philosopher king or Stalin) and you degenerate into totalitarianism. So you need a another political framework to make progress in a more "reasonable" way, hence you pair it with democracy).

 

Yeah, this makes sense to me, and the "pairing" strategy you talk about is new to me, and an interesting idea.  (That said, I think socialism is stupid also--there needs to be great rewards for innovation.)  I think your argument about why the right tends to have religious values is probably flawed.  I suspect it's actually based on attributes of the individuals involved (e.g. belief in authoritarianism, belief in luck vs. hard work responsible for success, intelligence etc.) rather than a deliberate pairing.

 

I think the optimal strategy for humanity is to throw out ideology, figure out what works, and moving in that direction, where "what works" means good happiness outcomes for most members of society, and almost no members of society for whom the outcome is abysmal.  (i.e. avoiding awful genetic lottery outcomes).