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economy comments on Open thread, Jan. 26 - Feb. 1, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Politics as entertainment
For many policy questions I normally foresee long term 'obvious' issues that will arise from them. However, I also believe in a Singularity of some sort in that same time frame. And when I re-frame the policy question as will this impact the Singularity or matter after the Singularity the answer is usually no to both.
Of course, there is always the chance of no Singularity but I don't give it much weight.
So my question is: Has anyone successfully moved beyond the policy questions (emotionally)? Follow up question: once you are beyond them do you look at them more as entertainment like which sports team is doing better? Or do you use them for signalling?
I think I can pretty confidently say "yes." Well, emotions are still there, but I think they are more like the kinds of emotions a doctor might feel as he considers a cancer spreading through a patient and the tools they have to deal with it, not the sort of excitement politics in particular provokes.
Well, you are free to do what you want at that point, but I think economists look at them as scientific questions, ones that are quite important, though often not as important as people seem to think.
I am working on a series of articles about economics, and I would like one mini-series to be "How To Think About Policy" or something to that effect....