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SarahC comments on Some Heuristics for Evaluating the Soundness of the Academic Mainstream in Unfamiliar Fields - Less Wrong
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It's still imperfect, but can't people try a little harder?
When will we be rational enough to talk about politics (or subjects with political implications)? I am skeptical that any of the justifications for not talking about politics will ever change. Right now, we have a bunch of intelligent, rationalist people who have read at a least a smattering of Eliezer's writings, yet who have differing experiences and perspectives on certain subjects, with a lot of inferential distance in between. We have veteran community members, and we have new members. In a few years, we will have exactly the same thing, and people will still be saying that politics is the "mind-killer."
I have to wonder, if LW isn't ready to talk about politics now, will we ever be ready (on our current hardware)? I am skeptical that we all can just keep exercising our rationality on non-political subjects, and then one day a bell will go ding, and suddenly a critical mass of us will be rational enough to discuss politics.
You can't learn to discuss politics rationally merely by studying rationality in the abstract, or studying it when applied to non-political subjects. Rationality applied to politics is a particular skill that must be exercised. Biases will flare up even for intelligent, rationalist people who know better. The only way for LW to become good at discussing politics is to practice and get better.
(And even now, LW is not bad at discussing politics, and there have been many great political discussions here. While many of them have been a bit heated by the standards of LW, they are downright friendly compared to practically anywhere else.)
Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't have the same level of humility about discussing political subjects. Many of the people most capable of discussing politics rationally seem to have the most humility. How long can we afford to have rationalists sit out of politics?
Hang on. Instrumental rationality.
If you want to make political impact, don't have discussions about politics on blogs; go do something that makes the best use of your skills. Start an organization, work on a campaign, make political issues your profession or a major personal project.
If that doesn't sound appealing (to me, it doesn't, but people I admire often do throw themselves into political work) then talking politics is just shooting the shit. Even if you're very serious and rational about it, it's pretty much recreation.
I used to really like politics as recreation -- it made me feel good -- but it has its downsides. One, it can take up a lot of time that you could use to build skills, get work done, or have more intense fun (a night out on the town vs. a night in on the internet.) Two, it can make you dislike people that you'd otherwise like; it screws with personal relationships. Three, there's something that bothers me morally, a little, about using issues that are serious life-and-death problems for other people as my form of recreation. Four, in some cases, including mine, politics can hurt your personal development in a particular way: I would palliate my sense of not being a good person by reassuring myself that I had the right opinions. Now I'm trying to actually be a better person in practice, and also trying to worry less about imaginary sins; it's work in progress, of course, but I feel I don't need my "fix" of righteous anger as much.
This is a personal experience, of course, but I think that it's worth it for everyone to ask, "Why do I talk politics? Do I want to talk politics?"
"If you want to make political impact, don't have discussions about politics on blogs; go do something that makes the best use of your skills. Start an organization, work on a campaign, make political issues your profession or a major personal project."
You omit the most important step, which comes before starting an organization. That's figuring out what politics this organization should espouse and how it should espouse those politics.
If my views are almost diametrically opposed to Robin Hanson's, and I have no good reason to think I'm more rational than Robin or otherwise in a better epistemic position, I'm not rationally justified in setting up an organization to espouse my views because I should consider, in that event, that my views have at least a .5 chance of being wrong, probably much higher. The worst think people can do is set up political projects based on ill-considered principles to end up advocating the wrong policies. As long as rational, informed people disagree, one isn't entitled to a strongly held political position.
What you said might make sense if political debate were strictly about means and there was general agreement on ends. But it is not. And your views on the ends of policy are worth every bit as much as Dr. Hanson's, however much you worry that his thinking might be better than yours concerning means.