Wedrifid, I was disappointed that Eliezer so succinctly identified the problem then mostly left it hanging.

Now, your comment fundamentally missed the point I was making, furthermore you seem to be acting out a common politician's caricature, I don't see you making an actual argument here & tbh I'm slightly surprised as you usually do much better than that.

Either way. in the interest of preserving the sanity waterline I'll stop here.

I am sometimes irritated when speakers use "we" to refer to heterosexuals, which happens fairly often. I just don't usually mention the fact.

I agree that sometimes writers use "we" in ways that don't include the reader.

For example, someone might say "we" of their nation, and thus include those readers which are fellow citizens, but not those readers who aren't. What sort of examples do you have in mind?

I'm not objecting to gender differences in who does the raiding, I'm objecting to assuming that the reader is male and then encouraging the reader to only identify with the raiders.

I actually think politics is what makes it possible to organize raids on other villages, and also what makes it possible to sometimes prevent raids from happening, but let's try some other phrasings for h-H's original quote.

"If we didn't have politics, we'd have no way of stopping raids on other villages, and we'd be enduring theft, kidnapping, and rape." (I've heard that there are cultures where women do the deciding and men do the fighting.)

"If men didn't have politics, we'd be subject to raids." (I'm having a surprisingly hard time phrasing a woman-centered version of the quote. I don't think this is because there's something unrealistic about it, I think it's because a mode that's as woman-centered as the original is male-centered is very rare.)

"Politics are the only way the human race found to avoid small-scale conflict."

I think that what Nancy thought problematic was not the assumption that men would raid and women would be plundered, but the assumption that "we" would raid rather than be plundered--i.e. that "we" are only men.

symbolical kidnapping of the bride

A particular Chinese custom springs to mind:

The bride stays in a 'fortified' location with all her female friends The groom is supposed to round up his male friends and get past the defenders to steal away the bride. Bribes of money (in ceremonial little red envelopes) are the most common way to get past the defenders, but sneaking is also okay, and some of the male friends are supposed to 'distract' some of the female friends.

Dictionary.com lays out several definitions:

1. the science or art of political government.
2. the practice or profession of conducting political affairs.
3. political affairs: The advocated reforms have become embroiled in politics.
4. political methods or maneuvers: We could not approve of his politics in winning passage of the bill.
5. political principles or opinions: We avoided discussion of religion and politics. His politics are his own affair.

As well as an idiomatic definition which is closer to the way the word is often used by LW members who also read Moldbug:

play politics, a. to engage in political intrigue, take advantage of a political situation or issue, resort to partisan politics, etc.; exploit a political system or political relationships.

b. to deal with people in an opportunistic, manipulative, or devious way, as for job advancement.

I believe that definition #5 is clearly what Eliezer is talking about when he says "politics is the mind-killer." h-H is talking about #1, #2, and possibly #3 and #4.

I'm not saying my suggested rephrasing is what most people mean by "politics." But I don't believe anybody is saying that the art or science of political government is the mind-killer.

Can you summarize your reasons for believing that small groups don't use decision procedures, as opposed to believing that small groups use informally specified decision procedures? My experience of decision-making in small groups is that while it can be consensual, it is more often an informal oligarchy... that is, there's a few people who really matter, but nobody ever comes right out and says that.

Or living without using decision procedures at all, which is quite feasible in small groups under ~150 people. There will always be disagreement about "rights" and the like, but small groups can more easily hash out such disagreements through informal ethics (i.e. managed de-escalation of conflict). Political conflict persay only seems to arise in larger groups.

Individuals (and in some cases, families) deciding for themselves what to do is a special case of a "unanimous decision procedure".

Or you might pretend to be good, and push on us in nefarious ways we wouldn't even notice so that we end up saying things like "Go Eliezer".

I've heard you are in the possession of fully general mind-hacks. Just like painting asteroids and poisoning tigers, right?

Go Eliezer! Save us from the Forces of Bad. (ha ha only serious).

Every semester I teach the Cato Institute's intern class about elementary forms of argument, logical fallacies, and the like. Something must have clicked for one of the interns, because she asked me what I thought of EY. She recommended some of his papers.

Well. He was totally unknown to me then, but I've since added Less Wrong to the sites that I recommend in the talk.

I've lurked extensively around here for quite a while, and what disagreements I have with the community consensus are so minor as not to need bothering about. (I'm a bit more of a fatalist about the matter of my own death, for example, in that I personally doubt that I will live a longer lifespan than a typical human has so far. But anyway.)

Keep up the good work, folks. Both my husband (SRStarin) and I always come away from Less Wrong with a lot of great stuff to think and talk about.

Not really related, but your comment reminded me of a hilarious story about David Chalmers (of zombie fame). He tried to correct a mistake in the Wikipedia description of his views of consciousness, registering an account with his name and saying in the discussion section:

Marshall McLuhan here. Philos is right about each of the points above. The philosophy section would be much improved if it reverted to the “philosopher’s” edit of a few days ago.

Alas, the other editor had not watched Annie Hall:

How is he right about the points above? The points are clearly detailed and you could easily explain your criticism. Please could you also explain how cutting the historical, empirical descriptions of conscious experience and supervenience would improve the article. Why do you have the ID “DavidChalmers” yet use the name Marshall McLuhan? The only famous philosopher called Marshall McLuhan died in 1980. Are you taking the piss or are you philos with a duplicate ID?

The user with ID DavidChalmers who claims to be the deceased and famous Canadian philosopher Marshal McLuhan should note that using the name of a living, prominent person as a USERID is against Wikipedia guidelines.

The log is here.

My point isn't that Robin is famous among libertarians, it's that he's associated with famous libertarians. When yet another GMU econ professor starts a blog, especially one Bryan Caplan routinely calls one of the sharpest thinkers he knows, libertarians are likely to at least check it out. Also note that Patri Friedman, another famous name in libertarian circles, was one of the original contributors to Overcoming Bias.

I found OB and thus EY through the mechanism I'm describing, so the availability heuristic might be at work here, but my experience at libertarian organizations suggests that I'm not alone* - I've dropped EY's name or mentioned something from the sequences in conversations with libertarians and they often know what I'm talking about.

* Though admittedly, it's been a couple years since I've been to an event put on by a libertarian organization.