fezziwig comments on Less Wrong’s political bias - Less Wrong

-6 Post author: Sophronius 25 October 2013 04:38PM

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Comment author: fezziwig 25 October 2013 09:31:24PM 4 points [-]

Well, maybe. If your investment goes back decades and the party only went crazy recently, then at worst you're a victim of mental inertia. If your investment is part of a plan to de-crazify the party, then at worst you're tilting at windmills.

It's hard to write anything else without abandoning the pretense that we're discussing a hypothetical, so I'll leave it there. A general point, though: I've long suspected that it's bad mental hygiene to think of any particular political party as "yours", even if you've been elected on its platform. It's a special case of keeping your identity small.

Comment author: James_Miller 25 October 2013 10:09:16PM 2 points [-]

But when you run for office as I have and have friends who have run in the same party it almost has to become "yours".

Comment author: BaconServ 25 October 2013 10:44:29PM 2 points [-]

This is telling and frightening. Do you earnestly believe the entirety of half a nation agrees with you?

Comment author: gattsuru 25 October 2013 11:16:58PM *  3 points [-]

While I disagree with the strong form of Aumann's agreement theorem, by the time we're talking a state senatorial position, you probably should be exchanging enough information with everyone responsible for your party's position as to at least reduce any gaps. There are possible stable orbits outside of complete agreement, but the mechanic involved for state senators favors strong agreement.

Also, folk often conflate the position of individual politicians with the positions of their party just as the reverse, so it kinda is meaningful in that setting, as well.

This is different from the actual populace of the entire nation agreeing with you, since:

  • Much of the population doesn't vote at all.
  • A non-trivial amount of those voting do so based on erroneous information or no information at all.
  • The political alignment of a party changes drastically from location to location.
  • The relevant political topics changes depending on position, due to federalism.