Blues & Greens (metaphor)

Applied to Working With Monsters by Kaj_Sotala ago
Applied to That Thing That Happened by Multicore ago
Applied to Notes on Loyalty by David Gross ago

The termsterm come from the names of chariot racing teams, that differed in nothing but the team colors, but the rivalry of whose fans sometimes reached the level of gang wars.1 By definition, politics also deals with matters that people physically fight over in the real world -- or at least, matters that are to be enforced by the government's monopoly on violence.

In articles at Overcoming Bias"Blues and Less Wrong, the words "Blues" and "Greens" are oftenGreens" is a term used to metaphorically refer to two opposing political factions.
See also: Tribalism, Mind-killer, Arguments as soldiers, False dilemma, In-group bias

The terms come from the names of chariot racing teams, that differed in nothing but the team colors, but the rivalry of whose fans sometimes reached the level of gang wars.1 By definition, politics also deals with matters that people physically fight over in the real world -- or at least, matters that are to be enforced by the government's monopoly on violence.

Politics commonly involves an adversarial process, where factions usually identify with political positions, and use arguments as soldiers to defend their side. When tempered by appropriate standards of evidence, rules of order and other safeguards, such a process may be the only way of introducing a modicum of deliberative truth truth-seeking and other virtues of rationality into an inherently violent domain. However, the dichotomies presented by the opposing sides are often false dilemmas, which can be shown by presenting third options.

See also


  1. Wikipedia:Chariot racing#Byzantine era 
Applied to Mandatory Obsessions by Multicore ago
Created by Zack_M_Davis at
Applied to Gaming Democracy by jimrandomh ago
Applied to The Two-Party Swindle by jimrandomh ago

For a varieryvariety of reasons, Less Wrong tries to avoid political disputes: see Mind-killer.

Compare theFor a variery of reasons, Less Wrong tries to avoid political disputes: see virtues of rationality with the political virtues identified by Bernard CrickMind-killer.