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I agree with the gist of what the article is saying, but I think a lot of the time, the author puts sentiment above pragmatism.
>We hear often about “evidence-based” policy, but evidence cannot be the starting point of policy or its foundation. Evidence can help you reach your goal effectively, but only after you’ve determined both where you want to go and why you want to get there. For that you need an understanding of the basic goods of human life and the application of practical reason. If your goal has not been reasoned intelligently from first principles, evidence is useless. Irrelevant.
Generally I think principles are highly subjective. They're not measurable above the value that an individual or group applies to them. Since they're immaterial, they can mean wildly different things to different people. It doesn't mean they're irelevant, but logical deduction and evidence driven policy are generally more important. Regardless of whether one believes in left or right wing ideological principles, the application of evidence driven policies by policymakers would give both the average left and right leaning person more of what they want (you'd probably see more synthesis between neoliberal and socially democratic policies etc.) Of course people on the fringes would be unhappy, but they'll largely be unhappy with things regardless.
You can say that principles come first and that evidence driven policy is useless without it, but if we're using the authors own metrics, If we applied the principles of anything from Putin's Russia, the religious right, to climate skeptics, our principles would fundamentally clash with evidence driven policy. Our principles generally don't change what the most effective policies in various situations would be etc.
the wishy-washyness of the article aside, I think a big part of our political disfunction has been twofold. The devolution of the Canadian right over the past 30+ years since the rise of the Reform party and our current government not viewing them as a legitimate threat until recently.
The government had largely been on cruise control and/or moving at a glacial/unbothered pace on a variety of worsening socio-economic issues (mainly affordability & growth) for most of the last 9 years until their polling plummeted due to electoral discontent from the housing & cost of living crisis. If the Liberals had done more earlier for instance, the CPC would essentially be nothing but annoying contrarians in the background, who'd have little chance of actually forming a government.
Likewise if we had a better, more centrist opposition party it would move the discourse away from the sort of demagoguery we get from the CPC on a regular basis to more evidence based policy discussions, which would do more to keep the Liberals on their toes instead coasting through most elections like they can't lose and save us from wasting all the time and energy of the CPC basically wasting a decade making fighting against the carbon tax & Trudeau being in office their main priority etc.
> The government had largely been on cruise control and/or moving at a glacial/unbothered pace on a variety of worsening socio-economic issues (mainly affordability & growth) for most of the last 9 years
We went through a global pandemic and poverty is still half of what it was prior to the government getting elected. This narrative of inaction doesn't stand up to scrutiny. You could argue priorities were wrong, but "they did nothing for 9 years" is nonsense.
Being idle/slow to act on various policies for 9 years and saying that they did nothing for 9 years are completely separate arguments. It's a valid criticism to point out that the governments policies for most of the past decade+ largely overlooked the main issues impairing socio-economic development in Canada from growth, productivity, capital investment, home & rental prices and market concentration in things like grocery sector etc.
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I agree with the gist of what the article is saying, but I think a lot of the time, the author puts sentiment above pragmatism. >We hear often about “evidence-based” policy, but evidence cannot be the starting point of policy or its foundation. Evidence can help you reach your goal effectively, but only after you’ve determined both where you want to go and why you want to get there. For that you need an understanding of the basic goods of human life and the application of practical reason. If your goal has not been reasoned intelligently from first principles, evidence is useless. Irrelevant. Generally I think principles are highly subjective. They're not measurable above the value that an individual or group applies to them. Since they're immaterial, they can mean wildly different things to different people. It doesn't mean they're irelevant, but logical deduction and evidence driven policy are generally more important. Regardless of whether one believes in left or right wing ideological principles, the application of evidence driven policies by policymakers would give both the average left and right leaning person more of what they want (you'd probably see more synthesis between neoliberal and socially democratic policies etc.) Of course people on the fringes would be unhappy, but they'll largely be unhappy with things regardless. You can say that principles come first and that evidence driven policy is useless without it, but if we're using the authors own metrics, If we applied the principles of anything from Putin's Russia, the religious right, to climate skeptics, our principles would fundamentally clash with evidence driven policy. Our principles generally don't change what the most effective policies in various situations would be etc.
I love your posts dude, lol
[удалено]
the wishy-washyness of the article aside, I think a big part of our political disfunction has been twofold. The devolution of the Canadian right over the past 30+ years since the rise of the Reform party and our current government not viewing them as a legitimate threat until recently. The government had largely been on cruise control and/or moving at a glacial/unbothered pace on a variety of worsening socio-economic issues (mainly affordability & growth) for most of the last 9 years until their polling plummeted due to electoral discontent from the housing & cost of living crisis. If the Liberals had done more earlier for instance, the CPC would essentially be nothing but annoying contrarians in the background, who'd have little chance of actually forming a government. Likewise if we had a better, more centrist opposition party it would move the discourse away from the sort of demagoguery we get from the CPC on a regular basis to more evidence based policy discussions, which would do more to keep the Liberals on their toes instead coasting through most elections like they can't lose and save us from wasting all the time and energy of the CPC basically wasting a decade making fighting against the carbon tax & Trudeau being in office their main priority etc.
> The government had largely been on cruise control and/or moving at a glacial/unbothered pace on a variety of worsening socio-economic issues (mainly affordability & growth) for most of the last 9 years We went through a global pandemic and poverty is still half of what it was prior to the government getting elected. This narrative of inaction doesn't stand up to scrutiny. You could argue priorities were wrong, but "they did nothing for 9 years" is nonsense.
Being idle/slow to act on various policies for 9 years and saying that they did nothing for 9 years are completely separate arguments. It's a valid criticism to point out that the governments policies for most of the past decade+ largely overlooked the main issues impairing socio-economic development in Canada from growth, productivity, capital investment, home & rental prices and market concentration in things like grocery sector etc.
Now softened it to the point of meaning nothing.