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Lumifer comments on Identifying bias. A Bayesian analysis of suspicious agreement between beliefs and values. - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: Stefan_Schubert 31 January 2016 11:29AM

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Comment author: Viliam 02 February 2016 10:27:12AM 0 points [-]

Why is politics one dimensional? Many people say that this is the result of the two party system, forcing people into coalitions.

I believe it's the other way round. People were dividing others to "us" and "them" long before political parties were invented.

I'd say that "us" and "them" is hardcoded in people. We also have a bias to imagine that all our enemies are in some sense the same (so there is only one "them", instead of "them1", "them2", "them3"...) Most people are probably bad at imagining that more then two options are possible.

Also, there are often binary decisions to make: Someone proposes a new change of law in the parliament, do you vote "yes" or do you vote "no"?

If parties are coalitions, you might expect different coalitions in different countries. Correlations between factual beliefs might switch between countries. But I do not think this happens.

Sure it does. For example, in Slovakia, the only political party that supports legalization of marijuana and gay marriage is classified as right-wing (their political opponents love to say "extreme right-wing"), because they also happen to support free market. If I understand it correctly, in USA marijuana and gay marriage are generally considered left-wing issues.

Comment author: Lumifer 02 February 2016 07:02:02PM *  1 point [-]

We also have a bias to imagine that all our enemies are in some sense the same (so there is only one "them", instead of "them1", "them2", "them3"...) Most people are probably bad at imagining that more then two options are possible.

Is that a falsifiable statement and do you have support for it?

By introspection this is false for me, but then I'm not "most people". However by the same token I would be wary of sweeping generalisations about "most people".

If someone told me "all my (political) enemies are the same, no significant difference between them", I would probably consider that person pretty stupid.

Comment author: Vaniver 02 February 2016 07:09:51PM *  1 point [-]

The technical term is out-group homogeneity.

Comment author: Viliam 03 February 2016 11:46:49AM 0 points [-]

do you have support for it?

Starting with all those people whose definition of "right-wing" is so wide that it includes even Bernie Sanders...

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