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h-H comments on EY "Politics is the Mind Killer" sighting at Washington Examiner and Reason.com - Less Wrong
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Comments (61)
Nancy did identify a serious problem with your comment, but I'm not sure modulo that issue that your comment should be downvoted as much as it is. To some extent, the point that we have politics as a way of resolving issues without bloodshed is valid: modern politics in many ways is an improvement over the alternatives. But that doesn't by itself make politics a good thing or make politics less of a mind-killer. To some extent, much political interaction resembles ritualized combat that occurs in many mammalian species (and sometimes in groups)- fatality is minimized, but the level of actual rational discourse is clearly still pretty low.
To some extent, it may help to see politics as the mindkiller as a statement about how political discourse can be improved. In most of the West, politics doesn't result in people being killed often, but it still isn't a rational way of examining disagreements and resolving them in a way that appropriately balances conflicting goals. And it is very very easy for it to become outright tribalism that doesn't devolve into violence primarily because we have strong anti-violence taboos and respect taboos more than anything connected to the political process.
Thanks for the clear reply, and I agree with your points.
IMO the fact that Politics is a moderately functional substitute for direct bloodshed means that the 'rational' in any 'rational alternative' has little to do the masses becoming more rational, as opposed to careful grooming by an informed clique capable of long term planning.
That doesn't necessarily imply a shadowy cabal of super secret rationalists deftly maneuvering the public for it's own good. Rather, something as simple as spreading basic rationality skills is sufficient if we emphasize 'long term', as we should.
But that good work has to come with a working theory of capital r 'Rational Politics' or LW's knowledge base has a huge chunk missing under the 'Practical knowledge' heading, say an LWer of high karma by some twist or other became adviser to the Archduke of Wallachia, will the people be better off or not?
In other words, if despite the impressive body of knowledge created here the preferred way for dealing with politics is either: a. Outright tabooing the subject or b. Denouncing the masses as prone to being insane...
Then surely as a community can do better than that?
Admittedly I'm not that well versed in political studies myself, and I'm not calling for Eliezer or anyone else for that matter to focus on this, rather I believe the community is mature enough to have a theoretical discussion about politics -and yes, that includes discussion of parties, partisan positions etc- without devolving into mudslinging or shouting matches.
A curated area in LW with strict rules -default set to anonymous posting, no more than 5 posts per day etc- should solve most potential issues, the hullabaloo that happened during say, the feminist war is not impossible to contain.