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Konkvistador comments on How to un-kill your mind - maybe. - Less Wrong
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I don't know. Are you sure you know?
Since we are talking about human minds, let me point out that Homo Sapiens is a neat ape design but something he is not good at doing is implementing his values into workable systems that do what the label says. He also isn't good at preserving his values in the long run. I have no reason at all to be confident that uploading my current values into everyone will make the universe eventually more to my liking. Nor that my values are capable of being self-sustaining without the symbiosis with slightly different or compatible value systems.
If I believed that a universal implementation of my morality would not make the world a better place, that would be a strong reason for me to change my moral beliefs.
I'm trying to dispute your assertion that it is safe, reasonable, or rational to ignore politics. To the extent that "Politics is the mindkiller" is more than a community norm in this forum, it should not be taken as a prohibition on political thought or action. That presupposes a broad definition of "politics," but I think the broad understanding is eminently justified.
I've had this discussion before, I suggest you read these two debates.
Humans systematically overestimate the gains to be had from political activism and time spent on politics. Our brains where not made for a society of millions and thus our intuitions are not properly calibrated.
I gather that Europe may be different in this regard, but in the United States, a lot of political decisions are made at the local level. There's definitely an argument to be made that media attention overemphasizes the importance of federal politics and underemphasizes the importance of local politics -- many decisions are actually made at the level of thousands, not millions, but voter turnout for such things is lower rather than higher.
Fair enough. But your position is not necessarily implied by the OP.
Well knock yourself out. I don't feel that way however.
If I figure out that my morality (lets call it Orange), needs 70% of the universe to be Violet so 30% can be Orange, that seems felicitous to Violet people but dosen't really change my opinion that 30% Orange universe is pretty cool thing and far more than I should expect in a uncaring universe which has laws that weren't optimized for my values.
So what if in the 0% Orange universe is 100% up of Brown which dosen't need any other value systems? Why should that impress me? But aha brown may have some components of Orange mixed in! You may still derive value from it! Well sure, but what makes you so confident that this might prove to be enough to beat out 30% Orange?
A definitional dispute seems to be obscuring our philosophical dispute. Let's taboo morality for a moment, and talk about "social theories." The purpose of a social theory is to tell everyone in a society what principles to use to make decisions.
So there is a Orange-Violet social theory, which says that 30% of the people should use Orange principles. That can only work if 70% of the people use Violet principles, so Orange-Violet requires that condition be met. Further, Orange-Violet has a principle that everyone must think that the distribution of Orange and Violet is correct and right.
If you think that the world would be better if Orange-Violet were implemented, why wouldn't you want the Orange-Violet social theory be implemented?
Why?
My objection to Orange going to 100% was of a practical nature. I don't have a high enough confidence in my modelling of the world to impose something like that. Lets say we somehow know that Orange-Violet is basically the best possible implementation of Orange, or Orange+ upgraded for a smarter/better me.
In that case I would endorse Orange-Violet. But I fail to see what this has to do with politics. At least with activities I usually understand as political, such as devoting attention to political life or party programmes or judicial decisions or reading pundits or drafts of laws or voting or lobbying.
Political and social movements are more like the movement of plate tectonics than say having a conversation with someone. Either as an activist or voter one's impact is negligible.
As I said, that's a parched definition of political. Deciding what charity to donate to is political. Arguing that empirical verification should be implemented if possible is political. Not laughing at a racist joke is political. Commenting on the appropriate level of politeness in LessWrong is political.
All those things are susceptible to motivated cognition. Much more importantly, all those things function as support for particular social organization.
It is but I ignore the political aspect of it. In fact I find people who fixate on the political aspects of everyday actions to be a generally disagreeable personality type.
I have little interest in them. Now you may dispute the "won't change his mind" bit, but politics is not a truth seeking process, it is war by other means. Why let your enemy dictate your actions when it is at all avoidable? The LessWrong example you choose is a bad one, LessWrong has a perfectly defined purpose already, "refining the art of human rationality", ideally any debates on the proper level of politeness are not political acts but participation in truth seeking (the truth being sought is "best level of politeness for achieving LessWrong's formalized goals of "refining the art of human rationality").
Being apolitical is a political stance not complete inaction or not understanding the most relevant consequences of one's actions. If I say decide to bomb some politician's office for some reason I will be aware it will have political consequences, if I go and vote in a general election for some reason, I however won't delude myself into thinking that my vote really matters. I advocate being apolitical because I think that for the vast majority of people it is the better option. In most people's lives thinking about the political consequences of every day actions is a source of low quality entertainment and nothing more. Why not replace it with high quality activities?
I didn't pick that word out randomly. Why did your mind jump to a unusual interpretation of it?
I think the narrow definition misses out on all the ways our actions shape society. How do you decide when to say "That's not funny" if you ignore the political?
And if you never rock the boat, that's just supporting the status quo, which is a political decision as well.
When I genuinely don't find something funny.
Madness! How dare you be honest! Don't you know that morality is supposed to be something you don't want to do?
Q: What do you call it when you find a Jew up to his neck in sand?
A1: No enough sand.
A2: (change subject)
A3: That's not funny.
Choosing between those answers is political. There is no unbiased stance.
Noticing that doesn't require you to delude yourself that your vote in an election will have any important influence on the result.