Applying enlightened self interest to social policy

 So, I wrote an article about this tonight, but it didn't come out as good as I wanted it to, so I'm doing a rewrite. 

The core aspect of applying enlightened self interest to social policy is to ask people why they care so much about social issues. I really feel like these issues have gotten outsized attention in recent years, and I really think we need to downplaying them. As such, I want to explain my general stance on stuff.

I believe in liberty to do whatever one wants to do unless they harm others. I believe when people are left to their own devices, it is up to them what they do with their life, and if they're not happy, they should try to change it. I only believe government should step in to protect people from negative actions by others, and for me, unjustified authoritarian impulses are part of that.

To anyone who wants to push their own morality on people, I have to ask, why do you care? Why do right wingers care if men wanna have sex with other men, or men wanna become women, or women want to abort a fetus that doesn't even have the brain development to know it exists yet? No party is actually being hurt by these issues, so why do you care? When one boils down right wing arguments on these topics, we basically get stuff like "well we always did it that way", which is a bad argument for anything, or "god said so", which shouldn't apply to a sane secular society with separation of church and state, or "society will collapse if we change things" (unless you can demonstrate it, then this is invalid), or some moral panic about leftists wanting to force their radical crap on people (which is an argument for SJWs to stfu with their own moralizing), or some sort of moral panic involving children (which comes from ignorance, and should be debunked with facts, like I attempted to do in explaining the trans thing to people). Once these arguments are soundly debunked, we can basically then point out that these social issues harm no one, there is no legitimate reason to care about what others do, and advocate for a libertarian theory of leaving people alone. 

Which just leaves the left. Now, the left is different. The left is the side of "caring". I call the social justice types the "cult of caring", because they always gotta virtue signal how much they care about stuff that doesn't affect them and how it makes them a good person. People who don't care are bad people to them. Remember what I said about SJWs, it's not enough for them to care about these issues, they're so self righteous that you have to care too. They employ a lot of shaming and bullying behavior a lot to manipulate people into prioritizing their issues and as I like to say, you can't force people to care. I like to tell these people that screw their morality and self righteousness on the matter. And once you show these people that you don't care, they have no power over you.

Now, they HATE it when you do this, because for them, when they virtue signal, you have to do it back. They recognize members of their cult by doing this stuff with one another. It's like those call signs they used in WWII where one person says "flash" and you say "thunder." But stand firm. You don't have to care, and honestly, there's no shame in not caring. People only have so much bandwidth to dedicate to topics, and often times one topic comes at the opportunity cost of another. And I feel like a lot of leftists use this stuff primarily to burn out peoples' bandwidth on other issues so they only care about this. Which stifles all progress.

So what about the idea of being privileged, and being like MLK's white moderates if you don't care? I say tough crap. These guys don't care about my top issues, so why should I care about them. Now, ideally, most of my social positions lean far more left than right, but ultimately, I only can dedicate so much empathy to them and beyond that point I'm not playing their stupid games. So if they try to weaponize empathy like they often do, it's gonna backfire on them. Now, note, this is their fault, not yours. if they want to secure your vote, they have to meet you where you're at. There should be give and take. Coalition building ensures bringing diverse people together and making them happy enough to remain in the coalition. Why should we have to take one for the team on issues we care about to cater to them and their concerns? You shouldn't, that's the answer. So don't feel guilty, as guilt is the intended emotion they want to make you feel, and stand strong in your own power.

As such, enlightened self interest ultimately leads to a kind of sane center on social policy. It neutralizes the worst elements of the alt right and fundamentalist christianity, as it really boils down issues to why should you care? Why should you care if people do stuff that doesn't affect you? TLDR, you shouldn't. But likewise, this makes you a more passive rather than active ally to the left, and the left these days wants converts, not passive supporters who kinda sorta care, but who full throatedly endorse their agenda. So the lack of caring turns people away from the alt right, but also from the far left. And that's fine. Both sides are authoritarian and both wanna stick their nose where it doesn't belong. People shouldn't care either way. And the only reason you should particularly care is if one side or the other is trying to thrust their morality on people. If the right tries to take away rights, they're gonna have a bad time, because people don't like that, but if the left tries to get self righteous and push their crap down one's throat, they're gonna have a bad time too. Which is why, despite originally trying to stay away from this culture war crap, I've found myself having to get more and more involved, often times attacking the left. Because the left doesn't allow people like me to be neutral. They end up having to force their morals on me and I have to keep firmly showing them the door. 

But yeah, at the same time, I feel like this also allows a level of flexibility that just like with economic action, social action too is largely dictated by people acting in their enlightened self interest. it's good to leave others alone because then they'll ideally leave you alone. It's good to sometimes band together to restrict bad behavior that leads to the detriment of others. Extreme individualist libertarians might see it as their right to blast loud music on their property, but if those sound waves invade yours, it becomes a problem. So noise regulations are good. If a deadly disease is ripping through the population, maybe some restrictions on human activity may be necessary in the short term to minimize the spread of said disease and save lives. hence, covid regulations can be justified too. Just because im libertarian doesnt mean I'm an ideologue, and it's perfectly fine for people to regulate or limit the acts of others if those actions do negatively impact them. 

As such, through the theory of enlightened self interest, my ideas on social issues gain some level of consistency. I will admit there are a handful of issues where we can debate the negative harm of actions to others vs the negative harm from regulating an issue in and of itself, and perhaps people have different tradeoffs. Still, in a democracy, we should come to a point where issues that the majority of people believe should be regulated are, and the issues where most people don't think should be regulated, aren't. This isn't a perfect system, and we won't get the ideal results every time, but we should get some reasonable point of view as long as most people are driven by rational self interest and a policy of live and let live, as opposed to some authoritarian ideology that dictates to people what they should be doing with their time. 

Honestly, i think this theory really starts to contextualize why i think a certain way on a lot of issues, and you can see, for better or for worse why i prioritize what i prioritize. Maybe not everyone will agree, but as I like to say, tough crap. There's private morality and public morality, and what i described is public morality. Privately, you can believe whatever you want, and you can live your life however you want. You just dont get to tell others how to live unless you have some overriding reason to take action against others. I think this is a very good theory to look at issues through, to be perfectly honest.