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CronoDAS comments on Open Thread: May 2010 - Less Wrong
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I am thinking of making a top-level post criticizing libertarianism, in spite of the current norm against discussing politics. Would you prefer that I write the post, or not write it?
I'd love to read it, though I may well disagree with a lot of it. I'd prefer it if it were kept more abstract and philosophical, as opposed to discussing current political parties and laws and so forth: I think that would increase the light-to-heat ratio.
Upvoted your comment for asking in the first place.
If your post was a novel explanation of some aspect of rationality, and wasn't just about landing punches on libertarianism, I'd want to see it. If it was pretty much just about criticizing libertarianism, I wouldn't.
I say this as someone very unsympathetic to libertarianism (or at least what contemporary Americans usually mean by 'libertarianism') - I'm motivated by a feeling that LW ought to be about rationality and things that touch on it directly, and I set the bar high for mind-killy topics, though I know others disagree with me about that, and that's OK. So, though I personally would want to downvote a top-level post only about libertarianism, I likely wouldn't, unless it were obnoxiously bare-faced libertarian baiting.
I agree on most counts.
However, I'd also enjoy reading it if it were just a critique of libertarianism but done in an exceptionally rational way, such that if it is flawed, it will be very clear why. At minimum, I'd want it to explicitly state what terminal values or top-level goals it is assuming we want a political system to maximize, consider only the least convenient possible interpretation of libertarianism, avoid talking about libertarians too much (i.e. avoid speculating on their motives and their psychology; focus as much as possible on the policies themselves), separate it from discussion of alternatives (except insofar as is necessary to demonstrate that there is at least one system from which we can expect better outcomes than libertarianism), not appear one-sided, avoid considering it as a package deal whenever possible, etc.
That standard sounds pretty weird. If it is so clear that it is flawed, wouldn't you expect it to be clear to the author and thus not posted? Perhaps you mean clear what your core disagreement is?
I'm interested.
I will vote it down unless you say something that I have not seen before. I think that it was a good idea to not make LW a site for rehearsing political arguments, but if you have thought of something that hasn't been said before and if you can explain how you came up with it then it might be a good reasoning lesson.
I will only vote it up if there's something I haven't seen before, but will only vote it down if I think it's dreadful.
We may not be ready for it yet, but at some point we need to be able to pass the big test of addressing hard topics.
I will vote it up to cancel the above downvote, to encourage you to make the post in case the threat of downvoting scares you off.
Not enough information to answer. I will upvote your post if I find it novel and convincing by rationalist lights. Try sending draft versions to other contributors that you trust and incorporate their advice before going public. I can offer my help, if being outside of American politics doesn't disqualify me from that.
ergh.... after the recent flamewar I was involved in, I had resolved to not allow myself to get wrapped up in another one, but if there's going to be a top level post on this, I don't realistically see myself staying out of it.
I'm not saying don't write it though. If you do, I'd recommend you let a few people you trust read it over first before you put it up, to check for anything unnecessarily inflammatory. Also, what Blueberry said.