Highlights From The Comments On Self-Determination

Published: April 12, 2022, 9:25 p.m.

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-self 1: Rosemary (writes Parallel Republic) says:

I think a preference for the status quo has to weigh in to some extent.

All else being equal, sure, I agree with the \u201cany group large enough that it isn\u2019t ludicrous on its face has a right to self-determination\u201d standard.

But all else is almost never equal. Someone wants to secede and someone else wants to conquer\u2014and all of that is enormously disruptive to many other someones.

So I think there\u2019s an immediately obvious utilitarian bias towards the status quo of, oh, the last decade or so. Governments are heavy, complicated things, and I think a group who wants to disrupt that needs to make an affirmative argument based on something other than \u201cself determination\u201d that this is a good idea and all the disruption is worth it for the sake of things being better in the long run.

Which unfortunately gets us nowhere because it brings us right back to debates about culture and history etc.