@amerika @theorytoe

> the more of a method-based system we have, the more it gets gamed.

Oh, absolutely. Rigidity encourages cracking instead of bending, and some people slip through cracks, some people sneak through cracks.

> There is also a utilitarian freedom argument,

There is, but I think the issue with politics is it is concerned with maximizing happiness for inert blobs of people that will be grey-content no matter what is happening. You have kids with no aptitude for math and Common Core tries to get them up to basic levels of arithmetic and it not only doesn't work (and backfires spectacularly) but it also blunts the sharp kids. Utilitarianism is probably a worse philosophy than anything else: I don't really care if psychopaths and parasites do well, as long as they don't hold anyone else back, and utilitarianism is basically "We didn't think that 'Harrison Bergeron' was satire, it was so heavy-handed that we assumed it must have been utopian."

> peel the laws back to 1850 or so,

Society improves the minute we bring back "fighting words" as a defense against assault charges.
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