Drones and Reference Classes

I seem to have ended up on the conservative side of a debate in my old age.

Liberals tended oppose the use of drones ,automated killing machines. They do so because they see them as a morally inferior alternative to a fair trial. Which they would
be if all other things were equal. But all other things are not equal.

If someone’s gone to ground in a foreign country, and US surrounded .by a personal militia, and an outer ring of civilians, how doyiu arrest them and bring them to trial without holding a stating battle between your forces, and their, with a co miserable risk to any civilians?

Drone strikes look bad compared to civilian justice, but civilian justice isn’t a reasonable alternative where they are typical used.

Compared to typical military assaults .on the ground, they .look good. They are not quite an ideal surgical strike with .no collateral damage, but
they are closest approximation we ha’ve.

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Myopia Makes Politicians Seem Worse ThanThey Are.

The job of a politician is to allocate resources between many competing interests.
Since there are limited resources, most people will have you wait for their particular problem to be fixed. (Resources tend to be scant because voters don’t like paying to much tax) If a thousand people need their drains fixed, the first ten or so might get them fixed on day one, the last ten or so will have to wait for weeks or months.

People don’t like generally notice politics when things are proceeding as normal. They notice when there is a specific problem. That specific problem is the only issue to them. They have an ants eye view. If they are number 875 on the drain fixing list,that is an intolerable delay to them. But, from the eagles eye view, someone has to be numbers 875.

University Sackings: a Modest Proposal.

Whilst I disagree with the Moldbuggers about almost everything,the have bit of a point about academic institutions sacking professors for being too illiberal.

However restoring the monarchy (or whatever) as solution seems over engineered to me.

My modest proposal consists mainly of changing some names. Our implicit standard model is that there ks a core of mainstream u universities, which teach the Truth in an objectI’ve and unbiased way, and a periphery of institutions that have an agenda…the catholic and Baptist universities,and so on. I propose that we start calling the mainstream institutions Liberal Secular University of So and So. Since no one has much problem with a Catholic university sacking a theologian who converts to Mormonism , why would they have a problems with the Liberal Secular University of Springfield sacking a professor who converts to sci entific racism? Which they do already. So what changes mainly the name.

Maybe we should all stop pretemding we don’t have agendas.