Well, if I can't delete my account fuck you. I wish I had never come across this shit website of arrogant academic fucks with zero connection to the American public.

Please, please get me off this shit hole. Delete me.

(1) fidelity to "unbiased" facts and (2) "unbiased" logic (or maybe "common sense" is the better term)

These are not particularly contentious, given how they both can rephrased as "let's be really honest". However...

service to an "objectively" defined conception of the public interest

is somewhat more problematic. I assume we are speaking normatively, not descriptively, by the way, since real politics is nothing like that.

Off the top of my head, there are two big issues here. One is the notion of the "public interest" and how do you deal with aggregating the very diverse desires of the public into a single "public interest" and how do you resolve conflicts between incompatible desires.

The other one is what makes it "objective", even with the quotes. People have preferences (or values), some of them are pretty universal (e.g. the biologically hardwired ones), but some are not. Are you saying that some values should be uplifted into the "objective" realm, while others should be cast down into the "deviant" pit? Are there "right" values and "wrong" values?

Is a short summary of your ideology or set of morals available somewhere on the 'net?

First impressions from skim reading the blog:

Objective politics, defined as unbiased fact and reason in service to the public interest is described and defended. Biology-based objectivity, the last political frontier.

That points for me into the direction of objectivism with all it's problems. There are good reasons to be quite suspicious when someone claims that they don't have an ideology and there views are simply "objective".

What we need to do as a country is obvious.

To me saying something like that without bringing forward a specific proposal suggests to me politcal ignorance.

Book reivew: Democracy for Realists

The blog isn't spell-checked.

I've published a few articles on The Huffington Post promoting rationality-style concepts:

1) Long-term goal achievement and mere-exposure effect relating to career decision-making

2) Failing at other minds and false consensus effect

3) Anchoring bias and cached patterns in communication

4) Map and territory

Also just got a new blog on Psychology Today, and published some rationality-themed posts there:

1) Dual process theory

2) Agency

I'm also planning to go to CFAR's May workshop to improve my ability to do effective outreach. CFAR is generously providing me with a full scholarship covering the 3.9K price as they are interested in advancing the spread of rationality, and Intentional Insights also serves as a feeder for CFAR, with us directing people their way (our audiences get a 10% discount to CFAR workshops, and those who volunteer for InIn get more of a discount). Email me at gleb@intentionalinsights.org if you'd like to meet up while I'll be in SF - I'll be available on the 23rd, the day after the workshop ends.

Ok, this is something I have been thinking every time I see an Outreach Thread, and now I can't resist asking it:

When did LW become a proselytizing community?

And are we sure that it is a good idea to do a lot of outreach when the majority of discussion on the site is about why LW sucks?

My rationality outreach is limited to commenting and/or authoring content for several politics-related websites. Most of my commentary and content advocates "objective" or "rational" politics as I define that concept. I see my work as an experiment to test the acceptability of the concept. So far, the concept is a complete flop. Based on my personal experience so far, most people have little or no interest in or appetite for questioning their own beliefs. I suppose that surprises no one here.

At the IVN (Independent Voter Network) website, I comment and author articles under the pseudonym "Dissident Politics", e.g., this review of the May 2016 book "Democracy for Realists" by Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels: http://ivn.us/2016/04/21/democracy-it-isnt-what-you-think/ (notice the underwhelming response from the independents)

I put up posts at Daily Kos, a large liberal, pro-democrat politics website, under the pseudonym "pragmatic1", e.g., this rewiew of Daniel Khaneman's 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/01/15/1470227/-Thinking-Fast-and-Slow-Book-Review (notice the slightly better response from the liberals)

I am moderator under the pseudonym "Germaine" at the Disqus politics channel "Harlan's Place", which has all sorts of followers (socialists, libertarians, nut balls, etc), e.g., this inquiry about the social science of terrorism: https://disqus.com/home/channel/harlansplace/discussion/channel-harlansplace/self_criticism_and_conflict_resolution/ (notice the ferocious attacks on my brand of politics and my logic)

My own blog "Dissident Politics" is focused on the intersection of social and cognitive science with politics, and it contains my explanation and defense of how I see "rational" politics based on my understanding of social and cognitive science, e.g., this probably futile attempt to at least partially refute Johnathan Haidt's contention in his book "The Righteous Mind", that politics will forever remain overwhelmingly intuitive or system 1-based: http://dispol.blogspot.com/2016/01/reason-can-be-compatible-with-intuition.html (I'm not sure I convinced myself, especially now in view of what I am currently reading in the book "The Rationalizing Voter" by Milton Lodge and Charles S. Taber -- PS: no one reads my blog, I use it as an information source to link back to when there's too much content to put in a comment)

I sure could use some friendly feedback about whether I am barking up the wrong tree or am on to something plausible for politics.

Archeological evidence of spirituality goes back tens of thousands of years or maybe more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_origin_of_religions#Prehistoric_evidence_of_religion

My reading of cognitive science suggests to me that spirituality is hard wired, but how that wiring manifests itself varies from person to person. As this discussion points out, listening to music is spiritual for some people. But, for millions of Christian Americans spirituality manifests as a deeply held belief that the bible is to be taken literally and, e.g., the Earth is less than about 10,000 years old.

I used to believe that it was a waste of time to logically argue against religion because "fact-based" logic and "spiritual-based" arguments are completely different things. One observer sees secular vs. religion debates as comparing Oranges to France: http://ivn.us/2014/02/06/creation-vs-evolution-debate-two/

But now, I'm not so sure. Assuming that American society is better off with less religion in the formal Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc., sense, there is a tangible upside to simply engaging in the debate. One person pointed out to me that unless the debate is engaged people are simply not hearing the other side. Cognitive science says that repeated exposure to the same thing tends to make it more familiar and that tends to make it more believable. It may be the case that religious people who defend religion in debates will never change their mind, but that says nothing about the minds of the people listening to the debate. A debate heard years before coupled with current circumstances can lead to a change of heart for some people. It is a fact that some religious people become atheists and some atheists sometimes become religious. Minds sometimes do change.

Hi from San Diego, California. I'm an attorney with academic training in molecular biology (BS, MS, PhD). I have an intense interest in politics, specifically the cognitive biology/social science of politics. I'm currently reading The Rationalizing Voter by Lodge and Taber. I have read both of Tetlock's books, Haidt's Righteous Mind, Khaneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, Thaler's Nudge, Achen and Bartels Democracy for Realists and a few others. I also took a college-level MOOC on cognitive biology and attendant analytic techniques (fMRI, etc) and one on the biology of decision making in economics.

Based on what I have taught myself over the last 6-7 years, I came up with a new "objective" political ideology or set of morals that I thought could be used to at least modestly displace or supplement standard "subjective" ideologies including liberalism, conservatism, capitalism, socialism, Christianity, anarchy, racism, nationalism and so on. The point of this was an attempt to build an intellectual framework that could help to at least partially rationalize politics, which I see as mostly incoherent/irrational from my "objective" public-interest oriented point of view.

I have tried to explain myself to both lay audiences (I'm currently a moderator at Harlen's Place, a politics site on Disqus https://disqus.com/home/channel/harlansplace/ ), but have failed. I confess that I'm becoming discouraged at the possibility of applying cognitive and social science to even slightly rationalize politics. What both Haidt and Lodge/Tabor have to say, makes me think that what I am trying is futile. I have tried contact about 50-60 academics, including Tetlock, Haidt, Bartels and Taber, but none have responded with any substance (one got very annoyed and chewed me out for wasting his time; http://www.overcomingbias.com/ ) - most don't respond at all. I get that -- everyone is busy and crackpots with new ideas are a dime a thousand.

Anyway, I stumbled across this site this morning while looking for some online content about the affect heuristic. I thought I would introduce myself and try to fit in, if I'm up to the standards here. My interest is in trying to open a dialog with one or more people who know this science better than myself so that I can get some feedback one whether what I am trying to do is a waste of time. As a novice, I suspect that I misunderstand the science and overestimate the limits of human rationality in politics in a society that lives under the US constitution (free speech).

My blog is here: http://dispol.blogspot.com/