Simone Weil is the patron saint of anomalous persons | Hacker News Reader

Simone Weil is the patron saint of anomalous persons

aeon.co

72 pointschesterfield13 comments

I really appreciated this article. I had never heard of Simone Weil but I just bought “Simone Weil: A Modern Pilgrimage”.

I also question how people can go about their lives ignoring the suffering of others, buy into the bullshit that is known as ‘political parties’, etc. I am looking forward to getting to know Simone Weil through Dr. Cole’s book.

Yeah I embarrassingly thought this was related to the 'shitty robots' girl at first but she certainly seems to have very interesting ideas to consider even if you don't agree with her.

Agree with her on the dangers posed by political parties. Most people don't seem to have a political position, they have a team.

While I wouldn't go as far as her I agree that political parties are problematic but perhaps also symptomatic of a larger underlying problem with the political structure - that the process of 'making the right decision' and the process of 'winning the election' have two separate strategies. I cannot say for sure if it is solveable or unsolvable and in what contexts or systems.

For instance we know now with game theory that first past the post essentially guarantees a maximum of two viable political parties and a candidate with a political party has a substantial advantage against an independent one unless there are truly unprecedented degrees of bad reputation to the only major political party.

One small advantage that political parties and representatives in general address is 'what to do when you don't know' and division of knowledge and labor. Even in the past when the domain of knowledge was smaller it wasn't really viable for everyone to know everything. It is essentially the Ian Stewart paradox on a societal level that “If our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we'd be so simple that we couldn't.”

Technocratic concepts had one proposal of limiting votes to experts in domains but that isn't really viable or a good idea. The fatal flaw is in deciding who is the expert and the even nastier feedback loop that has on incentives and truth seeking. Naked absurdities would prevail like miasmists denying germ theory to hold onto power.

I think the true question isn’t whether it is solvable, but if it can be solved by better means than a two party system (it can, just look in other nations).

Two party systems are good for simulating democracies because you effectively prevent newcomers from bringing fresh uncorrupted ideas into the discourse. The only way of delivering positive change that isn’t for the worse at the cost of the poor majority in such a system is crisis or very exceptional circumstances.

We all liked democracy, because it allows us to change regime without revolution, in a two party system with corrupt actors on both sides this is essentially impoasible

"first past the post essentially guarantees a maximum of two viable political parties"

aka Duverger's Law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

TLDR: Plurality form of elections results in two parties, because each side tries to form the smallest winning coalition.

It's great that the structural flaws of FPTP are becoming more widely known. Increases the likelihood of useful course corrections.

Keep in mind the effects of first-past-the-post voting systems, though. People would probably be more variable in their preferences if the game-theory effects of actually expressing them at the voting booth weren't generally negative.

When I first learned that the US had such a system (my picture of the US was naivly positive back then), I couldn’t understand why this can be called democratic.

because human life is relativistic, it's more about fitting in a clan than absolute truth

Fantastic article. Thank you for sharing. I'd come across some of her writings many years ago, but this motivated me to take a more in depth look. Just as I was looking for something new to read.

The photo used in the article (and in most others about her) is of Simone Weil when she was thirteen. That's a little unusual except in the case of child film stars where it's obviously relevant. As suggested, Weil later went out of her way to dress in such a way as to minimize her physical attractiveness.

It's too bad she didn't orbit near, in spacetime, to Lord Byron.

some real content for a change.

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