EY "Politics is the Mind Killer" sighting at Washington Examiner and Reason.com

buybuydandavis

Original at Washington Examiner

http://washingtonexaminer.com/down-with-politics/article/2508882#.UGSscI0iYZm

...

Politics makes us worse because "politics is the mindkiller," as intelligence theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky puts it. "Evolutionary psychology produces strange echoes in time," he writes, "as adaptations continue to execute long after they cease to maximize fitness." We gorge ourselves sick on sugar and fat, and we indulge our tribal hard-wiring by picking a political "team" and denouncing the "enemy."

But our atavistic Red/Blue tribalism plays to the interests of "individual politicians in getting you to identify with them instead of judging them," Yudkowsky writes.

...

Examiner Columnist Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of "The Cult of the Presidency."

Repost at Reason.com

http://reason.com/archive/2012/09/25/why-politics-are-bad-for-us

Original at Washington Examiner

http://washingtonexaminer.com/down-with-politics/article/2508882#.UGSscI0iYZm

...

Politics makes us worse because "politics is the mindkiller," as intelligence theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky puts it. "Evolutionary psychology produces strange echoes in time," he writes, "as adaptations continue to execute long after they cease to maximize fitness." We gorge ourselves sick on sugar and fat, and we indulge our tribal hard-wiring by picking a political "team" and denouncing the "enemy."

But our atavistic Red/Blue tribalism plays to the interests of "individual politicians in getting you to identify with them instead of judging them," Yudkowsky writes.

...

Examiner Columnist Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of "The Cult of the Presidency."

Repost at Reason.com

http://reason.com/archive/2012/09/25/why-politics-are-bad-for-us

I am sometimes irritated when speakers use "we" to refer to heterosexuals, which happens fairly often. I just don't usually mention the fact.

We-incl need a clearer distinction between inclusive and exclusive "we" in English. Speaking for heterosexuals, to a mixed audience or a specific listener, doesn't bother me at all. Out of context, a sentence like "We can't really understand same-sex attraction" could be read as either "Heterosexuals, such as I, are empathically challenged. Mind the inferential gap." or "We can all agree that queers are weird.".