Politics is my life and career. One of the ways I am trying to circumvent irrational behavior in others with regard to politics is not to disclose one's political affiliation ever or be very ambiguous about it, and learn to speak the language and seemingly share the concerns and beliefs of my conversant. Then, ask subtly leading questions about the consistency and empirical validity of those beliefs.
Yes, it's not the most honest thing to do, but I believe this disarms the irrational, tribal psychology at work and enables a more fruitful discussion. "The slow blade penetrates the shield" and all that.
Today's post, Politics is the Mind-Killer was originally published on 18 February 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Outside the Laboratory, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.
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