I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶w̶e̶'̶v̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶s̶w̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶.̶

ETA: Really nice work from satt to prove I was jumping to conclusions here.

I took the survey.

Guys, you are seriously need to start using metric system or at least include the necessary number in the meters. Going to Google twice in order to calculate the relevant numbers was... frustrating.

(By the way, I have never donated to any charity before, but I sworn in a grand manner that it will be in the list of the first five things I will do with my PayPal account when I get one)

Done. I did all of the extra credit except the Myers-Briggs. The IQ test was the most interesting but three or four questions towards the ends were frustratingly difficult and refused to yield their secrets to me; even now I can feel lingering annoyance at the fact that I eventually gave up on them instead of wrestling with them for longer. Oh well.

Longtime lurker that finally signed up in July. All questions except for the last ones with the tests. (did the IQ test though)

I would be interested in the conclusions you (all) draw from the two-party swindle. Do you think it gets better with multiple party politics? And what would be the best political system? Direct democracy? A council based republic? I agree that the two-party system is greatly flawed, but what is best (multiple parties is better, but clearly not best, right?)

You have an inequality symbol missing at the end of the quote (between i and j). That made it slightly difficult for me to parse it on my first read-through ("Why does it say 'for all i, j' when the only index in the expression is 'i'?").

I genuinely wanted to know why you don't have those discussions

Fair enough. Next time, perhaps you should just say so. Your post seemed to advocate them, not just ask about them. This is, I think, the major reason for the downvoting. (Another big one is the lack of reference to the political threads that actually do appear occasionally.)

As I've said elsewhere, it's worth taking the second-order effects into account.
That is, suppose I accept for the sake of comity that LW's exceptional discussion-having abilities would be well-used discussing partisan national politics. (In actual fact I'm unconvinced of this, given what I've seen of it.)
I should still ask myself what kinds of people will join LW if we start regularly discussing such issues who would not otherwise join, and what effect they will have on our exceptional discussion-having abilities.
My prediction, given that we're an open-registration forum on the Internet, is that it will net degrade those abilities.

You've pointed out two phenomena that are surely related:

1. People around here have small identities, are interested in finding the truth, and like to discuss on a fair basis.

2. People around here are not amenable to discussing politics.

I think the relationship is at least partially causal, with 1 causing 2. Speaking for myself anyway, political discussion is frustrating (and yet very enjoyable!), because I find it so hard to even articulate the query, let alone hug it.

If I were to get into a political discussion, I might end up polluting more than clarifying, despite what I would feel were my best efforts. I suspect others here might feel similarly about their own potential for political discussion.

I never said that we are immune

True.

Here's what you did say:

[LW] should be the perfect (or close enough) environment to talk politics because you can have reasonable discussions here.

I think this is overly optimistic. (Thus I do not feel as though you've called me, or anyone else here, stupid. Rather, I think you've overestimated our reasonableness on a political topic.)