Falsifiability

The 2-4-6 game is there to teach falsifiability. It's an important skill, because otherwise you just get confirmation biases.

For the entirety of my life, never mind the Brexit negotiations, I have assumed "the EU is good" — at least, as far as 'good' can be attributed to any government. Nothing the EU have done during these negotiations has changed that, as all the things pointed to by Very Angry Leavers are things which I would also do in the EU's place (that is: it decided what its objectives were, told everyone, and focused its negotiations around them). However, this doesn't actually prove anything, as it has all the usual problems that come with any other 'confirmation'.

In order to test the morality of the EU, I have to predict what an Evil Moustache-Twirling Union would do, and see how the EU's behaviour differs from that. So:

EMTU would seek to punish and harm the Other, meaning that it would not focus on maximising its own strategic interests but rather on causing negative outcomes to the Other. They would disregard any advice from their own economists and business groups if they say the EMTU's response is not the best (or least-bad) option available, given those strategic interests.
EMTU would not attempt to negotiate with the Other, or if it was forced to negotiate it would have red-lines which the Other cannot ever accept. It would not provide the Other a range of options and ask the Other to choose which it would prefer. It would highball any and all estimates of payments due from the Other, and not consider counterclaims from the Other. It would not be open and blunt about its strategic interests and demands, just in case the Other could figure out a way to meet them. It would move the goalposts and threaten to go back on any deals it had already agreed to.
EMTU would insist that leaving the Other requires leaving all associations connected with EMTU, anything where the EMTU had clout. This does not mean 'trade deals' given the explanations I've read tend to agree such matters are entirely down to the third parties, but rather things like Euratom, EEA membership, fishing rights, etc.; I don't know if it would or would not include aircraft safety certificates, mutual recognition of pilot licences etc., as I don't know how complex those are to agree on, nor if those generally require things like "both parties agree to follow judgements of the other party's courts" — heck, I don't even know how to characterise that, given one of the problems with the real-life version of this is that although the EU/Remain position is that EU courts are neutral international courts for sovereign countries to resolve their disputes in, the UK/Leave position seems to be that the EU is the sovereign entity and those very same courts are domestic courts.
EMTU would continuously denigrate the Other, comparing it to dictatorships that half its members remember fighting to overthrow; they would then follow this up with bombastic militaristic references.

So far, the EMTU as I've described appears to be closer to the UK than the EU.

Original post: https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/falsifiability/

Original post timestamp: Mon, 01 Oct 2018 18:46:42 +0000

Tags: Brexit, EU, Falsifiability, The Art Of Rationality

Categories: Politics