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James_Miller comments on Less Wrong’s political bias - Less Wrong Discussion
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Which is which? But be warned as a former state senate candidate for one of the major U.S. parties and someone who thinks he knows a lot about economics and foreign policy I will have a very low opinion of you if you think my party is "crazy" unless you have a sufficiently impressive understanding of economics and foreign policy so that you can dismiss as crazy someone with my background. After all, if you are calling my party crazy, you are calling my beliefs crazy and you think that if we were to get into a debate about U.S. economic policy you could easily defeat me.
I don't trust the judgment of anyone who says they don't believe in evolution.
A politician's irrational beliefs about economics have a much larger effect on his ability to do his job than irrational beliefs about historical biology.
Politicians don't always say what they believe. Plus, conditional on the Christian God being real, you should reject evolution and almost all American politicians claim to believe in the Christian God.
Wait doesn't the Catholic Church accept evolution (with certain qualifications)?
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05655a.htm
etc.
I think the Catholic Church is PR savvy enough to realize that at this point wholesale denial of evolution is like wholesale denial of heavier than air flight (in both cases, the phenomenon is so well established that there are businesses that rely on it).
It looks like the Catholic Church was never strongly against evolution, and has since taken up the idea that evolution happened, though God was involved in the evolution of the human race.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution
Opposition to evolution is a distinctively Fundamentalist position-- it's not characteristic of Christians in general.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fundamentalism
Imagine all politicians of party A know a lot about economics. But because it polls better party A has an economic position that completely irrational.
Would you say it's fair to summarize party A as irrational in the aspect of economics?
Yes
That's only true to the extent that the party, as an organization, accurately reflects your beliefs and desires (unless your belief is "my party is right", in which case you've been mindkilled).
If the example of a political party is too contentious, consider a lynch mob or a committee. Group psychology is more than just the sum of over its members; in extreme cases, the group can act in ways that no particular member approves of.
If you have devoted a lot of resources to a "crazy" political party there is probably something wrong with you.
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.
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".
This is telling and frightening. Do you earnestly believe the entirety of half a nation agrees with you?
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:
Not if you consider it the "least crazy" alternative, and with only two parties in your country there doesn't seem to be much choice.