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hydkyll comments on First(?) Rationalist elected to state government - Less Wrong Discussion

63 Post author: Eneasz 07 November 2014 02:30AM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 07 November 2014 09:44:50PM *  23 points [-]

I participated in politics at one point, getting 198 votes at the Finnish Parliamentary elections and being a board member of the Finnish Pirate Party for a while. I suspect that I would've stood a reasonable chance of eventually getting elected into some office if I'd kept up at it - the Pirates don't look like they'll be elected, but there exists a not-too-horrible more-mainstream party whose members have led me to understand that they'd be glad to have me if I was up for it. But there are a number of reasons for why I chose not to pursue that career option further, including:

  • My basic nature is that of a scientist - if there's a problem in society, figure out what needs to be done to solve it, implement that change, and move on to the next problem. In politics, you figure out what needs to be done to solve a problem, and then spend the next several years talking to people and trying to convince them that this is the right answer, having to start the explanation basically from scratch each time you talk with a new person. I found this tedious.
  • A preference for at least some level of free speech - it's not particularly uncommon for a politician to make the headlines because they made an ill-considered joke in a Facebook conversation. I don't want to end up in a position where I need to run an extra check on everything that I write in public, to make sure that there's nothing about it that could be used to attack me or my party.
  • I dislike talking to strangers on the phone, and journalists asking for interviews tend to rather frequently call you on the phone. I'm also not good at thinking up quick coherent answers to unanticipated questions when under pressure, such as when doing a live debate or interview.
Comment author: hydkyll 08 November 2014 10:37:43PM 3 points [-]

but there exists a not-too-horrible more-mainstream party whose members have led me to understand that they'd be glad to have me if I was up for it

What did they see in you? If I may ask. You would disagree with your fellow party members on quite a lot of things, I'd imagine.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 09 November 2014 11:19:54AM *  3 points [-]

I didn't specifically ask them that question, but I believe that they've liked my social media activity and my writings: wrote a bunch of blog posts in Finnish when I was campaigning, also a book on the topic of copyright reform. I guess they considered my writings persuasive and well-reasoned. Also some of them used to be former Pirates who shifted parties when they saw that things weren't working out.

I don't know if we'd actually disagree on that much: e.g. the party is generally aligned with liberal values, which I tend to endorse, and has valuable stuff on its platform, like supporting a universal basic income. The specific people who've tried to attract me have also all been associated with a subgroup within the party that's explicitly focused on science- and reason-based decision-making. Of course there are also points of disagreement, but that's unavoidable when dealing with other people.

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