Germaine

I have tried for short summaries, but it hasn't worked. Very short summary: A "rational" ideology can be based on three morals (or core ideological principles): (1) fidelity to "unbiased" facts and (2) "unbiased" logic (or maybe "common sense" is the better term), both of which are focused on (3) service to an "objectively" defined conception of the public interest.

Maybe the best online attempts to explain this are these two items:

1. an article I wrote for IVN: http://ivn.us/2015/08/21/opinion-america-needs-move-past-flawed-two-party-ideology/

2. my blog post that tries to explain what an "objective" public interest definition can be and why it is important to be broad, i.e., so as to not impose fact- and logic-distorting ideological limits

I have been arguing and debating politics online for over 7 years now and I am quite used to how people speak to each other. There is nothing at all politically ignorant in my comment. When I say something is obvious, it has to be taken in the context of the entire post. It's easy to cherry pick and criticize by the well-known and popular practice of out-of-context distortion of a snippet on content in a bigger context. I have seen that tactic dozens of times and I reject it. It's cheap shot and nothing more. You can do better. Bring it on.

My blog and all of my other online content speaks... (read 381 more words →)

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... (read more)

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... (read more)

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... (read more)