TimS comments on The Useful Idea of Truth - Less Wrong

77 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 October 2012 06:16PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (513)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: TimS 03 October 2012 02:18:26AM *  0 points [-]

I must confess that I don't seem any substantial disagreement between my articulation of EY's views and pleeppleep's articulation.

There are certain kinds of inter-personal conflicts that effect a person's mental processes such that the person does not update on the evidence the way rationality says they should. These inter-personal conflicts can profitably labelled with the word "politics." But these inter-personal conflicts include more than those I've labeled "partisan electioneering."

Whether "status-challenge" or "threat-to-personal-identity" is the more accurate description of the causal factors leading to this phenomena is not particularly important to understanding what EY meant when he said "Politics is the mindkiller."