{"id":423,"date":"2005-12-19T00:07:29","date_gmt":"2005-12-18T18:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/2005\/12\/19\/left-and-right-parallels\/"},"modified":"2005-12-19T00:07:29","modified_gmt":"2005-12-18T18:37:29","slug":"left-and-right-parallels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/classic\/200512\/left-and-right-parallels\/","title":{"rendered":"Left and Right parallels"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Longest Comment In The Indian Blogosphere<\/a> draws a parallel between the left and libertarians. It is not a particularly original parallel; many others have drawn it before. He is saying that just as the left was saying that “true” communism has not been really tried anywhere, it cannot be said to have failed, we libertarians are saying that just as there is no “true” free market anywhere, it cannot be said to have failed. I don’t think that parallel works, and here is why.
\n
\nYou go to Dr. Lefty with an ailment. His reputation is that he prescribes a very tough regimen. Very very tough. So you go upto him and sure enough, he gives you a long list of dietary restrictions, exercise routines and medicines. He also says: “Unless you follow this regimen exactly,<\/i> you have not really tried out this regimen”. So you ask him what the success rate has been. He says that he doesn’t know. Why? <\/p>\n

“It has never really been tried”.<\/p>\n

“Really?”<\/p>\n

“Yes really. A lot of people attempted<\/i> to follow this regimen, but they all failed to follow it.”<\/p>\n

“What happened to them?”<\/p>\n

“They all died painful and horrible deaths.”<\/p>\n

“Oh!” <\/p>\n

“But that is not the fault of the regimen. If it were followed fully, it would have a 100% success ratio. But no one followed it. For example, I prescribe 50 pushups a day. But that guy did only 49 and gave up on the last. Naturally, he died the next day. The problem was not that the regimen was a failure, but that it was not followed properly”<\/p>\n

If you are sane, I’d wager that you won’t be concerned about the semantic difference betwen “not following the regimen fully” and “following the regimen and yet failing”. You will get out double-quick and go to Dr. Libertarian, who also has a reputation for prescribing really tough medication. He says:<\/p>\n

“You have to follow the regimen exactly or else it won’t work fully”<\/p>\n

“How many people manage to follow it fully?”<\/p>\n

“No one.”<\/p>\n

“Huh?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, no one manages to follow it fully, but there are people who’ve reached 80-90%, and they have got 80-90% of the benefits.”<\/p>\n

“What if I follow it less, say 50-60%?”<\/p>\n

“Oh, then you get part of the benefits, but with side-effects. You may fall ill, get a backache, etc. It depends on which 60% you manage to follow.”<\/p>\n

“There is a Dr. Regulator who claims that though your regimen works at 80-90%, if it is followed 100%, then it will fail spectacularly.”<\/p>\n

“Why does he say that?”<\/p>\n

“He is drawing parallels with the discredited Dr. Lefty, who always said that his treatment has not really been tried, even as he was being led away in chains.”<\/p>\n

“How is that parallel valid? Dr. Lefty’s treatment fails spectacularly at any percentage below 100, and no one has managed to reach 100. On the other hand, my treatment does you good even if carried out partly. The only point of disagreement is that I say that it will work 100% if you follow the regimen 100%, while Dr. Regulator says that going 100% is dangerous. He might be right, but there isn’t enough evidence either way. Using a parallelism with Dr. Lefty makes no sense whatsoever in proving Dr. Regulator’s point.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Longest Comment In The Indian Blogosphere draws a parallel between the left and libertarians. It is not a particularly original parallel; many others have drawn it before. He is saying that just as the left was saying that “true” communism has not been really tried anywhere, it cannot be said to have failed, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}