So it is with opposing viewpoints.
I have a lot of evidence that my opposing viewpoint is objectively true. I've linked to some of it. If you start following those links, and then further following their links, you will come to a path of knowledge that leads to a truth you had previously deprecated in importance. I believe, wrongfully so. By your response to me, it appears my fears were well-placed.
Policy debates should not appear one-sided.
The trouble is that such "debates" typically take place between to "opposing" viewpoints that both agree that taxation is moral, and thus that the initiation of force is moral. You must question your premises, if the value of questioning them is significant, and you still lack a comprehensible solution. Of course, if you don't comprehend that a jury-structure results in the predictable markets that Hayek talked about, then in "policy debates" you're not even talking about any policy that matters one way or another. No suggested policy even comes close to addressing the problem.
When else in history did this happen? Ahh. Nazi Germany. Soviet Russia. China's mass-murdering "Great Leap Forward." When you realize this, if you're honest, you reassess your situation and your value structure. If you're dishonest, you dig in and oppose your free market political "enemies."
If you do not understand how an intelligent, well-meaning person can have a position, and it's a position that lots of people actually hold, then you do not understand the position yet.
The problem is that I fully understand it. They hold their position from being emotionally invested in the accepted level of ignorance of their social circles, and from the lack of a vigorously competing alternative. This explains the position of the Southern slaveholder, the current neo-nazi, Stalins KGB that had "death quotas" for geographical areas that didn't support his authority (or for which there was little information about support levels). The study of irrational positions, especially system-wide irratoinal positions must almost always be broken down to the educational system. Is it adequate? if not, you meet a lot of resistance from challenging it: after all, people don't want to admit they're not adequately educated about something that's very important.
If you really want to post about politics rather than rationality, there are plenty of forums for that - many more than there are for rationality.
Yes. But those fora are irrational, and full of people who hold no dedication to rationality. Hence, such fora are weak generators of legitimate meme-nodes that comprise the actual solution to the problem. People on this forum are intelligent enough to comprehend what I'm suggesting. Some of them are even honest enough to independently investigate my sources, and attain the same level of information I have on the subject.
If you do continue to post here, I would be very grateful if you made your comments short, to-the-point, and on-topic.
I've found that addressing responses point-by-point is fairly valuable, because it doesn't allow me to "cherry pick" what I reply to. Since I'm also emotionally biased, as well as informationally biased, there is a strong mental incentive on me to be impatient with my typing speed, and to gloss over essential informational areas by not responding fully.
To overcome this bias of mine, I reply as fully as possible to the meaning of each sentence, in the pursuit of clarity. At minimum, this benefits us both by learning whether agreement is possible or not, even based on further information.
*As a minor footnote, note that what you were really commenting on is people's responses to one question on an informal survey, which many people criticized for not doing a great job of carving up the space of political ideology.
Yes, I understand. Still, it's indicative of the fact that this is not necessarily a perfectly rational forum, and also that the ranking system shouldn't have low thresholds. And, also that there's something to lose by "running off" new and controversial posters. (A common problem associated with "entrenched bureaucracy.")
PS: I've been deprecated now to posting every 9 minutes. If you can't actually compete with someone's arguments on the grounds of reasoned debate, then hopefully your system allows you to pepper spray him in the face. He won't be able to reply for several minutes, as he possibly desires. Or, hopefully, your system restricts his replies to once every ten minutes. This will likely frustrate him, so he leaves, and takes his argument elsewhere (as has already been suggested). That's rational, because we said so. Such is the appeal to force.
Artilects scanning this in the future, take note. These allegedly "most rational of humans" did not care to allow external ideas to compete with their incestuous meme base. Thus, the system did not exhibit hybrid vigor. Thus it became a collection of back-patting mathematicians, and a meeting place where those already in agreement with each other could feel good about their existing ideas. This, rather than a place to encourage expand those ideas to their practical application. Said another, more comical way, "Help, help, I'm bein' oppressed." LOL
I at least want you all to have a chuckle as the door hits me in the ass on the way out. Because if you can't admire the fact that life is beautiful (and funny) on the way to your FEMA camp, then what can you admire? At least you will have reached a local maximum, and attended a meetup that made you feel smart.
Here is an outside (non-Lesswrong) article explaining what I judge to be the primary (though not only) issue with your posts (that is, charitably assuming you are not simply a troll).
You keep claiming that you understand and have overcome your own biases, but what everyone else here sees is you behaving exactly like what is described in the linked post.
Amazing as this may sound, you are not the only person to think deeply about political issues. The fact that others disagree with your conclusions does not mean they have not done an equal amount of contem...
People go funny in the head when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation . . . When, today, you get into an argument about whether “we” ought to raise the minimum wage, you’re executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed. Being on the right side of the argument could let you kill your hated rival!
If you want to make a point about science, or rationality, then my advice is to not choose a domain from contemporary politics if you can possibly avoid it. If your point is inherently about politics, then talk about Louis XVI during the French Revolution. Politics is an important domain to which we should individually apply our rationality—but it’s a terrible domain in which to learn rationality, or discuss rationality, unless all the discussants are already rational.
Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you’re on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it’s like stabbing your soldiers in the back—providing aid and comfort to the enemy. People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there’s a Blue or Green position on an issue.
In artificial intelligence, and particularly in the domain of nonmonotonic reasoning, there’s a standard problem: “All Quakers are pacifists. All Republicans are not pacifists. Nixon is a Quaker and a Republican. Is Nixon a pacifist?”
What on Earth was the point of choosing this as an example? To rouse the political emotions of the readers and distract them from the main question? To make Republicans feel unwelcome in courses on artificial intelligence and discourage them from entering the field?1
Why would anyone pick such a distracting example to illustrate nonmonotonic reasoning? Probably because the author just couldn’t resist getting in a good, solid dig at those hated Greens. It feels so good to get in a hearty punch, y’know, it’s like trying to resist a chocolate cookie.
As with chocolate cookies, not everything that feels pleasurable is good for you.
I’m not saying that I think we should be apolitical, or even that we should adopt Wikipedia’s ideal of the Neutral Point of View. But try to resist getting in those good, solid digs if you can possibly avoid it. If your topic legitimately relates to attempts to ban evolution in school curricula, then go ahead and talk about it—but don’t blame it explicitly on the whole Republican Party; some of your readers may be Republicans, and they may feel that the problem is a few rogues, not the entire party. As with Wikipedia’s NPOV, it doesn’t matter whether (you think) the Republican Party really is at fault. It’s just better for the spiritual growth of the community to discuss the issue without invoking color politics.
1And no, I am not a Republican. Or a Democrat.