as people believe in fundamentally different political values and philosophies they cannot really make a lot of progress towards a consensus on the object level
At least in theory, it may be possible for people to find common objectives even when their values are fundamentally different. For instance, some conservatives support raising the minimum wage on the ground that it reduces the number of low-skill jobs and deters illegal immigration.
I would probably add a historical debate section as well.
History is already included as one of the main sections (though it currently includes only one article and one debate topic). You just need to click on “History” below the banner to get to it. Once there are enough posts on the topic of political philosophy, it can be also added as a separate section.
You are welcome to open a new debate about the Spanish Civil War (personally, I also find the topic interesting).
At least in theory, it may be possible for people to find common objectives even when their values are fundamentally different. For instance, some conservatives support raising the minimum wage on the ground that it reduces the number of low-skill jobs and deters illegal immigration.
If you really want a topic where people with very different values and world views agree, look at the attitude towards Greece defaulting. There you can find people arguing that a Greek default would be good because it will lead to X which is good according to my values, and others arguing that a Greek default would be good because it will lead to not X which is good according to my values.
Two months ago we began testing an experimental website for Rational Discussion of Politics. Our main goal was to create a platform that would allow high quality discussion of controversial topics without resorting to any forms of censorship. The website is now ready and new members are welcome to join the discussions.
Many thanks to all the LessWrong members who have been taking part in this project.
P.S. A note to new users. A key feature of the new website is the automated recommendation system which evaluates all comments and articles based on their potential interest for each user. The recommendation system has passed the initial calibration, but its ongoing performance is sensitive to the number of user ratings per comment/article. So rating posts that you read is highly encouraged.