Is this really true? It seems that humans have the capacity to endlessly debate many issues, without changing their minds. Including philosophy, religion, scientific debates, conspiracy theories, and even math, on occasion. Almost any subject can create deeply nested comment threads of people going back and forth debating. Hell I might even be starting one of those right now, with this comment.
I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about politics. Lesswrong has gotten away with horribly controversial things before, like e.g. torture vs dust specks, or AI Risk, etc. There have even been political subjects on occasion.
I’d just say it’s off topic. I don’t come to Lesswrong to read about politics. I get that from almost everywhere else. Lesswrong doesn’t really have anything to add.
But maybe if there is a political issue that either isn’t too controversial, or isn’t too mainstream, I wouldn’t mind it being discussed here. E.g. there are sometimes discussions about genetically engineered babies, and that even fits well with other lesswrong subjects.
Is this really true? It seems that humans have the capacity to endlessly debate many issues, without changing their minds. Including philosophy, religion, scientific debates, conspiracy theories, and even math, on occasion. Almost any subject can create deeply nested comment threads of people going back and forth debating. Hell I might even be starting one of those right now, with this comment.
I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about politics. Lesswrong has gotten away with horribly controversial things before, like e.g. torture vs dust specks, or AI Risk, etc. There have even been political subjects on occasion.
I’d just say it’s off topic. I don’t come to Lesswrong to read about politics. I get that from almost everywhere else. Lesswrong doesn’t really have anything to add.
But maybe if there is a political issue that either isn’t too controversial, or isn’t too mainstream, I wouldn’t mind it being discussed here. E.g. there are sometimes discussions about genetically engineered babies, and that even fits well with other lesswrong subjects.