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Pavitra comments on Blues, Greens and abortion - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (150)
Part of the reason we manage to remain unbiased is because we avoid talking about things that make us stupid.
We're not doing a very good job at being rationalists if we can't overcome that. The slogan "Less Wrong: Refining the Art of Human Rationality Except Where it Gets Really Emotional" doesn't sound very impressive, does it?
The pithy response would be that if you think you can handle it, then go ahead and good luck with that. The real response is that you have to know your own limits if you want to do more than make a show of effort. Just because it's my goal to eventually be able to bench-press 300 pounds doesn't mean a good way to get there would be to put 300 pounds on the bar and get going.
Abortion doesn't weigh 300 pounds for everyone. That other people find abortion difficult doesn't mean it subjectively weights more than the bar plus 40 pounds. Witnessing someone bench abortion with relative ease can also be expected to be beneficial to onlookers. Especially when replies that get too blue/greeny are ignored and treated like spam.
Better to say that 300 pounds isn't heavy for everyone, but yes.
I really do mean abortion doesn't weight 300 pounds for everyone. I, for example, don't care much at all about abortion - it is almost entirely divorced from my identity - so I do not have to use much in the way of 'rationalist muscle' to avoid the gravity of emotional bias. On the other hand there are some topics about which I am passionate. Those subjects may weigh more for me than they would for some of the people for whom abortion represents a huge burden of temptation towards bias.
This was just a tangential thought that your analogy prompted. What constitutes 'politics' is itself subjective and can be fit into a bench press metaphor where the weight is intended to represents fighting bias.
That makes sense.
I support this particular post, believing it to improve rather than hinder unbiased thinking. To use your bench press analogy this is like benching a suitably challenging weight in order to confirm that you can maintain safe form under strain. It also includes active correction of previous flaw in form, which is exactly what 'lesswrong' is (analogously) about.
You're a high-karma regular, so (1) I can believe that you would benefit from engaging in a political discussion with other rationalists, and (2) I suspect that you may underestimate the difficulty of the task.
It is highly probable that there exist both several LWers who would benefit from participating in this thread, and several who would be better off without it. The question is whether it is better on net for the thread to exist or not.
After reflection, I think I agree with Snowyowl: it's all right in the discussion area, but not in main.
What? This is in main? What on earth is it doing here? Totally agree. :)