Politics Discussion Thread January 2013

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.

As Multiheaded added, "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also may belong here.

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.

As Multiheaded added, "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also may belong here.

And look where we are, LessWrong, where "contrarian" is a compliment, as if reversed consensus were intelligence.

Can you link to an example of someone using it as a compliment? I don't think this is actually the case. It's simply much less of an insult here than it is in most "skeptic" communities.

Can you link to an example of someone using it as a compliment?

Yes:

He is an erudite, controversial and most of all contrarian social critic and writer.

Yes (a self-description rather than a compliment to someone else, but clearly intended to be read as a worthy attribute):

As a contrarian rationalist

Here is someone excusing themselves for not being contrarian:

Not everyone can be a contrarian rationalist.

5

Politics Discussion Thread January 2013

5

5

5

Politics Discussion Thread January 2013

5

5