You've pointed out two phenomena that are surely related:
People around here have small identities, are interested in finding the truth, and like to discuss on a fair basis.
People around here are not amenable to discussing politics.
I think the relationship is at least partially causal, with 1 causing 2. Speaking for myself anyway, political discussion is frustrating (and yet very enjoyable!), because I find it so hard to even articulate the query, let alone hug it.
If I were to get into a political discussion, I might end up polluting more than clarifying, despite what I would feel were my best efforts. I suspect others here might feel similarly about their own potential for political discussion.
That is the sort of answer I was aiming for when I was writing the post. I genuinely wanted to know why you don't have those discussions and this is an interesting reason.
Hello fellow LWs,
As I have read repeatedly on LW (http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/) you don't like discussing politics because it produces biased thinking/arguing which I agree is true for the general populace. What I find curious is that you don't seem to even try it here where people would be very likely to keep their identities small (www.paulgraham.com/identity.html). It should be the perfect (or close enough) environment to talk politics because you can have reasonable discussions here.
I do understand that you don't like to bring politics into discussions about rationality, but I don't understand why there shouldn't be dedicated political threads here. (Maybe you could flag them?)
all the best
Viper