Politics Discussion Thread September 2012

Multiheaded

The last thread didn't fare too badly, I think; let's make it a monthly tradition. (Me, I'm more interested in thinking about real-world policies or philosophies, actual and possible, rather than AI design or physics, and I suspect that many fine, non-mind-killed folks reading LW also are - but might be ashamed to admit it!)

Quoth OrphanWilde:

Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.

Let's try to stick to those rules - and maybe make some more if sorely needed.

Oh, and I think that the "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also belongs here.

Quoth OrphanWilde:

Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.

Let's try to stick to those rules - and maybe make some more if sorely needed.

Oh, and I think that the "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also belongs here.

Nah, this is an empirical claim. That is, not acknowledging that the personal is political will only leave 'the personal' trapped in the current discourse, accepted as the way of things.

I'm unable to get any inkling of what you mean. What do you mean by "personal" and "political" in this context? What's "current discourse"?

5[anonymous]14y

Wu wei dude. Social norms are never static and are shaped by strong forces outside the control any individual coalition making monkey brain part. By not acknowledging that the personal is the political I demonstrate it on a meta level. Of all the coalitions this subsidizes, the current is but one member. I am unsure if it is better or worse than what will replace it or its successor. I have much more confidence in which class of coalitions is better.

8[anonymous]14y

I am making an empirical claim. [...] I am pretty sure it is correct. Though I also plain prefer to live in a society where I have to deal with politics as little as possible. Naturally this unfortunately isn't a politically neutral stance. "Right wing freedom" is often freedom from politics, while "left wing freedom" is often freedom to politics. I believe that most benign change is not brought about by politics while much of the harmful one is. The human mind is systematically broken at thinking about politics, at least politics beyond the size of the stone age tribe, but it can solve such problems when they are framed in other ways.