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skeptical_lurker comments on Effective altruism and political power - Less Wrong Discussion
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Elon Musk & Sergey Brin are atheists. Most (but not all) sane people are [EDIT: I probably should have said: most highly rational and highly effective people are atheist/agnostic]. 50% of the US will not vote for an atheist. A large proportion of the population think that hedge fund managers are evil, either because (a) they get paid too much or (b) they think markets work by forcing people to buy/sell things.
I don't mean to just shoot down your idea, but... I just don't think its going to happen in a democratic system without raising the sanity waterline a lot.
Peter Thiel is Christian, I believe.
He is also gay which kills his chances for the presidency even more effectively than being an atheist. Not to mention that he is not a native-born American citizen which disqualifies him right off the bat.
My response was directed more at the "most sane people" part.
Ah. In this case I concur -- I think that "most sane people are atheists" is... not quite true.
More people would vote for a gay candidate than an atheist:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/155285/Atheists-Muslims-Bias-Presidential-Candidates.aspx
I could imagine that a gay candidate could run for the Democrats, but Theil is closer to the Republicans.
I'm not sure whether the numbers of that poll actually drive voting decisions. Are there estimates about how many percentage points Mitt Romney lost for being Mormon?
Hmm, interesting.
I find it hilarious that in terms of electability Muslims are smack in the middle between gays and atheists... X-D
According to Pew, 3.1% of the US population is atheist so if most sane people are atheists, then you are claiming at least 93.8% of the US is insane. By any reasonable definition of insane that is just wrong but I presume you meant something else. At any rate, that statement to me comes across as quite prejudiced.
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/
According to google's first results, between 13% to 7% of Americans are atheist or agnostic. Also, somewhere between 20% to 30% is simply unaffiliated - whatever that means. Atheism/agnosticism correlates with education/intelligence at the upper levels of the latter.
When you include transhumanism and the sim argument it becomes even more complex - technically I guess I'm a deist.
The original post was using "sane" to mean something closer to x-rational and highly effective, rather than sane in the conventional sense - I probably should have used quote marks to emphasise this. I'll edit my comment.
Atheists/agnostics are highly overrepresented at the far end of the bell curve - 93% of Nobel prize winning scientists are atheist/agnostic.