The official motto in the logo is "refining the art of human rationality", which implies that our rationality is still imperfect.

It's still imperfect, but can't people try a little harder?

I don't see why it's absurd or bad PR to say that we're more rational than most other communities, but still not rational enough to talk about politics.

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?