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MayCaesar

@DrCereal

Full 100% correlation over a very large representative sample strongly hints at causation. Especially since causation is pretty obvious when considering what state socialism actually entails and how it must be launched and by whom.

There is a saying: "If it ain't broke, it ain't need fixin'". I do not necessarily share this approach in general, and, in my opinion, one should always strive to do better than done before - however, when we talk about experiments on the societal scale, affecting dozens millions individuals, it is better to stick to old proven approaches, then to try a system that has failed hundreds times once again, hoping that this time it will be gotten right. Don't you agree?

If a socialist society is to arise, it should arise naturally from a free market society. Forcing socialism on people inclined to live in capitalism is like forcing a heterosexual sex on a homosexual person: even if they can make it work somehow, it won't work well.

DrCereal

MayCaesar said:

@DrCereal

Full 100% correlation over a very large representative sample strongly hints at causation.

I'm not sure why this is such a common misconception. 100% correlation hints at 100% correlation; it does not hint at causation.

If a socialist society is to arise, it should arise naturally from a free market society. Forcing socialism on people inclined to live in capitalism is like forcing a heterosexual sex on a homosexual person: even if they can make it work somehow, it won't work well.

I'm honestly not sure the point of your post because we're already in agreement.

To clarify, I have no objections to socialism, at least in a form mandated by a state, causing the downfall of nations, but that must be proven independently of saying "there's a correlation". Saying "there's a correlation therefore causation" is nothing more than a lazy fallacy supplemented for an actual argument.

MayCaesar

@DrCereal ;

When it comes to time-sequential events, 100% correlation can arise in two cases: when causation exists, or when statistical uncertainties perfectly align to produce the direct match. The latter case is so extremely unlikely with more or less sizable data sets that it can be easily dismissed in almost all cases. Hence we are left with the obvious conclusion:

"If every time in history A was followed by B, then A probably causes B". If every time someone does not drink water for 10 days, they die, then chances are not drinking water causes people to die, rather than not drinking water randomly coinciding with dying to other causes every time. If every time someone declared a war and sent troops in, people killed each other, then wars with troops participating in them probably inherently cause people killing each other - it is hardly just a coincidence.

If every time state socialism was attempted, it led to totalitarianism, poverty and eventual and painful collapse of the economy and the state - then there is probably something in state socialism that does not work well in practice, rather than all those people were just somehow statistically unlucky.

Note that the causation does not have to be direct and can involve more than one step. For example, while the suicide rates strongly correlate with the individual being or not being transsexual, the actual connection is not "transsexual => inherently more prone to suicide", but "transsexual => discriminated in the current societies => has a much harder psychological life => more prone to suicide". In this context, socialism failing every time to the date does not exclude it from succeeding in the future, in a different environment - but that future is likely pretty far away.

Marius

One of the reasons I don't support socialism is that it basically justifies a larger role for government to play and as someone who doesn't trust government to do much its hard to sympathize with the idea that government can take care of us. If you were to look at the Soviet Union's government, they controlled everything. While socialism use to be the workers own the means of production, it now defined as the state owning the means of production. So, understanding that the Soviet Union was 100 percent a state controlled society and by the early 90's they ended up falling apart can you really blame people's suspicion of socialism being good? Not only do I think it doesn't really work in improving the lives of people I also think it isn't just. I never viewed government as a tool to fix society but a necessary evil to ensure our natural rights to life, liberty, and estate and even that could be argued against in some fashion. Overall the government should do as little as possible in everyday lives.

DrCereal

@MayCaesar
Let me provide you with a possible, alternate explanation for why socialist states collapse that will neither be causation (It should be kept in mind that we're talking about direct causation here.) or random chance:
1. Nations A, B, and C adopt socialist states.
2. Nations D, E, and F will abolish socialist states in nations which they are stronger than.
3. Nations D, E, and F are stronger than nations A, B, and C.
4. Therefore, nations D, E, and F abolish socialist states in nations A, B, and C.

This is a scenario where there's a correlation between socialist states and collapsed states (A, B, and C), but, as provided in the hypothetical reasoning, there is no causation.

(Keep in mind that this scenario is hypothetical. I'm not claiming that this scenario is correct in real life.)

If there is correlation between states collapsing and states being socialist, then it is perfectly valid to say, "If a state is socialist, then it will likely collapse." This is different from the alternative statement, "Since there is a correlation between socialist states and collapsed states, it is likely that socialism must cause the collapse of the states which implement it." This is simply a more reserved way of committing the same fallacy. If you wish to posit that "it is more likely that socialism causes the states to collapse than other factors", then you must demonstrate that. There is no proof that socialism causes states to collapse simply because there is a correlation.

MayCaesar

@DrCereal

I see your point, but I think that it has more to do with semantics than with the actual crux of the issue.

You see, causation does not imply complete logical chain. Strictly speaking, no logical chain can be complete (another way of saying it is that every complete logical chain is infinite in both directions), and at every point you can ask both, "Where does this come from?", and, "Where does this lead to?" Nobel laureate in Physics Richard Feynman provided a great insight into the nature and the consequences of the question of "why":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZjNJy9RJks

In practice, depending on how close to the bottom of the issue you want to get, you will find different causal connections as satisfactory. Many nations built socialism; all of them ended up as failed economies. Why? Is it because they were socialist? If yes, then what were the underlying causes? When those causes are specified, then what were the underlying causes behind those causes? We can go on and on, and we might acquire a logical chain of this kind:

"All socialist states have failed.
All socialist states have failed because socialism does not work in this environment.
Socialism does not work in this environment, because it misinterprets the human nature.
It misinterprets the human nature because humans are inherently selfish.
Humans are inherently selfish because of the way natural selection works.
Natural selection works as it does because of biology.
Biology works as it does because of chemistry.
Chemistry works as it does because of electricity.
Electricity works as it does because..." Well, this is where we would probably have to stop, given how limited our current knowledge about the Universe is.

But it is only one of a large multitude of such chains. You could also say:

"All socialist states have failed.
All socialist states have failed because they were mistreated by capitalist states.
They were mistreated by capitalist states because their system of values threatened the capitalist system of values.
Their system of values threatened the capitalist system of values because they did not respect private property rights.
They did not respect private property rights because they put the collective before the individual.
They put the collective before the individual because... [and so on]"

You can build many chains like this - but in all those chains you cannot escape the tip of the iceberg: "All socialist states have failed". Rephrasing: "All states that attempt socialism fail". Rephrasing again: "Socialism results in economical failure". It is exactly equal chronologically and logically to "Socialism causes economical failure". The underlying reasons can be different, and you can go as deep into them as you want - but the conclusion stands as it is. You can argue about against the reasons, but you cannot argue against the conclusion itself.

Keep in mind that we are not just talking about some correlation on a random sample; we are talking about 100% correlation on a very representative and large sample. Socialism has been tried in all kinds of environments: different climates, different histories, different cultures, different religions, different nations, different geopolitical locations, different foreign policies, different leaders, different interpretations - and it always ended the same way. A 100% correlation on a representative data sample can only exist in two cases: a very rare statistical outlier, or a causal connection.

---

As an illustration, I can ask further questions with regards to your proposed scenario:

"2. Nations D, E, and F will abolish socialist states in nations which they are stronger than."
- They can attempt to abolish them; why do they always succeed? Might it have something to do with those states being socialist and the consequences of that?
-  Why will they want to abolish socialist states in those nations? Might it have something to do with those states being socialist and the consequences of that?
"3. Nations D, E, and F are stronger than nations A, B, and C."
- Why are they stronger than those socialist states? Might it have something to do with those states being socialist and the consequences of that?

As you can see, we can always dig deeper and deeper. However, digging deeper and deeper, it is important to understand what this is all about. Do we want to answer an abstract theoretical question? Or maybe we just want to know if employing state socialism is a reasonable economical policy? Different questions lead to different approaches. Nonetheless, regardless of what the approach is, logical connections are rock solid and do not depend on interpretations.

DrCereal

@MayCaesar
This response to this topic will most likely be the final one because I no longer care to argue this. (From my perspective, you are simply providing rationalization for a logical fallacy.)

The point that "correlation does not imply causation" is trying to make is that there are other, external factors to be considered when a correlation is present. Take the following argument:
1. People A have characteristic C.
2. People B discriminate against people with characteristic C.
3. Therefore, People B discriminate People A.
3C1: People A has characteristic C and is discriminated.
3C2: There is a correlation with characteristic C and being discriminated.

Given this, would it then be appropriate to formulate the separate argument:
1. There is a correlation between having characteristic C and being discriminated.
2. Therefore, having characteristic C causes being discriminated.

?

When a conjunctive subject causes an effect, "A and B, then C," it is not appropriate to state that a part of the conjunction causes that effect, "A, then C," because it is not a part of the conjunction, "A," that causes the effect, "C," but is the conjunction as a whole, "A and B". In the discrimination example, if People B weren't present, then the result, being discriminated, would not have followed. To put it more plainly, having characteristic C does not cause being discriminated. This is why it is said that "correlation does not imply causation".

MayCaesar

@DrCereal

Yes, it would be appropriate. This is what discrimination based on a certain trait means. People being black causes them to be discriminated against by KKK members, for example. I cannot imagine what perspective one would need to have to argue otherwise.

Socialism was tried in North Korea, while South Korea tried capitalism. Both started at the same point. Ended up in a situation where the average South Korean is approximately 50 times as rich as the average North Korean. Such discrepancy (although not in such incredible proportions) has occurred every time socialism has been attempted in human history. 

Concluding that there is something wrong with socialism is simply the result of application of scientific method. This is how we learn about the world: we look at various effects, notice patterns and try to build a theory that best fits these patterns. Given what we have observed of socialism, the only appropriate theory would be that socialism cannot work well in a modern society. Like any other scientific theory, it is not a hard fact, it is just what best describes the observable phenomena at the moment - but it is also the only reasonable conclusion to make.

Every time you wake up, you find yourself in your bed and not at the ceiling, due to how gravity works. While we cannot say with 100% certainty that gravity will always work like that and that tomorrow you won't wake up at the ceiling - making any other conclusion than that you will wake up in your bed would be extremely illogical.

DrCereal

@MayCaesar
As I said, it's fine to inductively conclude from the evidence of past examples that if a state were socialist, then there's a high chance it would collapse or fail to prosper. I've conceded that because it's perfectly true. My problem is the immediate, and fallacious, attribution of that failure to socialism as cause, which, as I said, is a logical fallacy. "Socialism leads to state collapse" or "socialism leads to economic collapse" are claims that must be proved independently of the inductive claim. This is the only point I am trying to make.

("If a state were socialist, then there's a high chance it would collapse or fail to prosper" & "Socialism leads to state collapse" are different claims because the former is an inductive conclusion made from correlation while the latter is an attempt to establish a cause for that correlation.)

MayCaesar

@DrCereal

Your objection would be fair if we were talking about a high degree of correlation; say, 95%. But we are talking about the historical correlation of exactly 100%. When there is a full correlation on a large representative sample, then a pattern becomes a law. It is not a logical fallacy; it is rather pure application of scientific method. Much like we are sure that the gravity will not turn off tomorrow suddenly and consider gravity a law (even though, strictly speaking, it *may* shut off due to some property of the Universe we are not familiar with yet), because all the observations we have made lead us to conclude that gravity is an inherent property of the Universe.

You could say that in the abstract sense (completely independent from any practical considerations) this conclusion is incorrect, and you would be right - but talking about economical systems in the abstract sense in the first place is counterproductive, so I was assuming we were not doing it. Talking in the abstract sense, nothing about the real world can be stated, since absolutely everything we know about the Universe around us came from extrapolation of noticed patterns. Patterns of the kind: "If something happened under these circumstances hundreds times, and nothing else happened under these circumstances, then this something is a property of the Universe".

Socialism leads to state collapse based on the evidence we have. Our evidence is not complete, and will never be complete, so in the abstract sense this statement is illogical. In the practical sense, it is as logical as E=mc^2.

Ampersand

MayCaesar said:

Concluding that there is something wrong with socialism is simply the result of application of scientific method. 

You don't seriously think you have taken a scientific approach, do you?

Your dataset exists only in your imagination, you are using it to make a fundamentally semantic point and you're not performing the very basic thing that they teach children in primary school science classes of controlling yur variables.

Like always you are just giving your baseless opinion, but this time making it a little bit more exciting by pretending there is some evidence behind it.