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

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

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

Comments (352)

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

Comment author: Jack 25 October 2013 10:18:18PM *  12 points [-]

(I did not mention any party by name)

Part of the negative reaction to your post, I think, is that this came off as disingenuous. Everyone knows the party you think is crazy is the Republican Party. I understand the point you were trying to making is more meta than that, but it's hard not to be wary of someone who wants to talk about politics when they lead in with the suggestion that a large fraction of Less Wrong is aligned with a crazy party.

There is a harm in talking about all these things at such an abstract level: it probably exaggerates the extent of actual disagreement. I don't really have many hard-and-fast political views right now but if I take a political identification quiz I'll usually end up listed as a libertarian (with slight movement to the left). But the content of my libertarianism is basically "society should do the things most economists think they should do". There are a few other assumptions built into it but it has little to do with anything Ayn Rand talked about (and I've never voted for the party you think is crazy).

So I wonder if people might be more receptive to a post like "Hey, guys. I see a lot of you identify as X. It seems like part of X is believing Y. Y seems like it is obviously bad to me, so I'm wondering if those of you who identify as X could explain if they identify that way despite Y, or if they really believe Y. If you believe in Y maybe you could explain why it is not as crazy as it sounds to me."