= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
srdiamond comments on Some Heuristics for Evaluating the Soundness of the Academic Mainstream in Unfamiliar Fields - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
Comments (272)
On the practical question, I think eliminating politics was an inspired decision that should continue to be followed, and I think the lead article was not political; I also think it's the best post in a good while. Nevertheless, I find the fact that we must avoid politics troubling. If we're succeeding in making ourselves rational, this---one would think--would lead to a political convergence. This is a nice empirical test of the value and possibility of becoming more rational by the methods we employ, a perspective we should consider an empirical question. It's a shame we can't conduct this test.
Politics includes much which is a matter of preference, not just accurate beliefs about the world. For example "I like it when I get more money when X is done" is the core of many political issues. Perhaps more importantly, different preferences with respect to aggregation of human experiences can lead to genuine disagreement about political policy even among altruists. For example, an altruist who had values similar to those that Robin Hanson blogs about will inevitably have a political disagreement with me no matter how rational we both are.
Political beliefs should converge. And if that happens, whatever differences remain won't be resolved by discussion, because there's nothing left to discuss.