Well, my intuition was that there’s probably a Schelling point where people make needling, inessential asides in the context of something else, but that Stokes’ comment makes the subtext a text and so goes out of the Schelling point. But these issues are complex and I don’t have any strong argument to back my intuitions here against your reasons, and if I keep on following this train of thought I’ll have gone about ten levels meta deep on nerd drama, and that’s just embarrassing, so dedownvoted.
In context this has the unfortunate implication that Konkvistador’s ideas and manner of speech aren’t acceptable.
While he identifies himself as apolitical in some lost thread I don’t care dig up it is pretty clear that he at least entertains right wing ideas and is very unmoved by political correctness. Unlike me he never seems to be rude about it though. Intelligent right wing people are a tiny minority here and are even more banished one in the academia we often rely on. Note that we even have LW posters who have in academia personally experienced discrimination and harassment because of their right wing politics.
Considering this shouldn’t we try to not to make a spectacle out of them in this fashion? By picking on a joke line, and discussing it so we are “excluding them from intended audience”.
Funny how no one seems to think ideological diversity is a good idea if one wants to catch bad thinking. At least no one ever lets it show in their actions.
In context [the no politics position] has the unfortunate implication that Konkvistador’s ideas and manner of speech aren’t acceptable.
First, I’m not the one who wrote “Politics is the Mindkiller.” If we take the lesson seriously enough to establish a norm that we don’t discuss politics or political theory at all—Konkvistador’s jab at feminism is a violation of the norm. That’s one of the main points of the essay you linked.
Second, the no politics norm is not what I would prefer—in this discussion, I was a proponent of moving towards more open discussion of political theory. I was this close to making a thread, but it became clear that there was no consensus to change the community norm (at best, the community was split—which wasn’t enough to justify any change).
Intelligent right wing people are a tiny minority here
To the extent you assert Konkvistador’s right-wing views are persecuted here, the assertion is false. Consider just about any political conversation by Konkvistador. He’s able to start them with little pushback, and my perception is that he gets more upvotes than his interlocutors. This community is very interested in views like his. It’s not fair to hold me accountable for jerk moves by left-wing academics in the larger world, just like it’s not fair for me to pin the squickiest PUA stuff or Objectivist stuff on you.
Fourth, Konkvistador is a very clear writer and he’s generally very polite. But apolitical is a laughable label. He’s deeply suspicious of the idea “consent of the governed” and opposed to what he thinks feminism is. And he’s not afraid to say it—and he says it fairly well. But that’s not apolitical, no matter how often he asserts otherwise.
Fourth, Konkvistador is a very clear writer and he’s generally very polite. But apolitical is a laughable label. He’s deeply suspicious of the idea “consent of the governed” and opposed to what he thinks feminism is. And he’s not afraid to say it—and he says it fairly well. But that’s not apolitical, no matter how often he asserts otherwise.
This debate might clarify what I mean when I identify myself as apolitical, as CS correctly notes I do. In short it amounts to not participating in the political process or commenting current political struggles, it also for me means not identifying with a political identity. Descriptively I don’t mind it that much if someone describes me “right winger” or some such, but I won’t refer to myself by such labels except in jest. Especially in my internal narrative.
In other words I don’t see myself as a “right winger” while accepting that I do currently hold some right wing ideas. The reason I make this perhaps seemingly trivial difference is because I don’t consider those ideas at the heart of who I am, but mostly hypotheses about how the world works. If I wake up tomorrow and realize they are bull I hope I will have enough virtue to be happy about realizing my mistake.
Also please note that I have a highly eclectic bunch of right wing ideas, mixed in with left wing ones, for example I like the idea of a basic income guarantee (though people like Charles Murray support it as well), I think universal healthcare in my country works pretty well and my stance on marriage (homosexual and otherwise) dosen’t neatly fit there either. I would have a hard time finding a political tribe or label I could identify with even if I wanted to.
I’m familiar with that conversation, since you mostly had it with me. :)
The fact that there is no political faction that supports your cluster of political ideas does not mean that you don’t have political opinions or that you don’t push them in this community. Your lack of mainstream partisan identification speaks well of your rationality. But the norm in the community is no political opinions rather than no partisan opinions. To be clear, I disagree with that norm and think that your contributions are a net benefit to the community. But as far as I can tell, the stated norm of the community conflicts with talking about the topics you discuss.
In short, your (deservedly) high status in this community is protecting you from pushback that a newcomer would receive if he posted substantially similar content to what you post.
In this particular case, I think there has been a bit of misunderstanding among your critics. Your reference to Heterosexual White Males was interpreted (by me and others) as a reference to feminism, when you intended to reference conspiracy theories like “CIA caused crack epidemic” or “CIA made AIDS”.
I would not agree that the existing community norm precludes all discussions of policy proposals, even those not affiliated with any partisan group.
I would agree that it precludes discussions of proposals affiliated with any partisan group, even if raised by individuals who don’t identify as members of that group.
That is, if I picked some example to talk about that was, strictly speaking, political, but that no significant political group had made into a partisan point of contention, I would not expect to be censured for it; if I were censured for it I would treat that as evidence that it was partisan in some way I hadn’t previously noticed.
On reflection, I think you explain the data better than I, but I maintain that the equilibrium you describe is not stable.
Specifically, it is not a neutral principal—one side on a substantive disagreement can be suppressed by creation of a social norm that the side is too close to a live partisan political debate while the other side far enough from the live debate not to be suppressed.
Or, rather, I agree that some ideas violate the local norm more strongly than others (and, in particular, more than a given opposed idea) and that consequently the local norm isn’t ideologically neutral. There exist partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly supports, and partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly rejects.
Whether that makes the norm unstable in any practical sense, I’m not quite sure, though it seems intuitively plausible. (I agree that the norm is unstable in a technical sense, but I can’t see why anyone ought to care.)
I recognize that there are people here who would at least claim to disagree with you, on grounds I don’t entirely understand but which at least sometimes have to do with the idea that this community is “exceptionally rational” and that this renders us relatively immune to normal primate social dynamics. I’m not one of them. (I’m also not entirely convinced that anyone actually believes this.)
First, I’m not the one who wrote “Politics is the Mindkiller.”
This reminds me of a discussion I had on naming the article. I was reluctant to give it a title and prefered “On Conspiracy Theories”, because giving a post a memorable title seems to cause the meaning of the article to over time the meaning of the article will converge with its title.
I suspect this is because we like linking articles, and while people may read a link the first time, they don’t tend to read it the second or third time it is linked. Eventually a phrase that is supposed to be a shorthand for a nuanced argument starts to mean exactly how it is used.
I cited precisely “Politics is the Mindkiller” as an example of this. In the original article Eliezer basically argues that gratuitous politics, political thinking that isn’t outweighed by its value to the art of rationality is to be avoided. This soon came to meant it is forbidden to discuss politics in Main and Discussion articles (though politics does live in the comment sections).
Since the personal is the political, we pretty quickly started applying this kind of thinking to PUA and Gender relations in general as well, though we may not cite is as often.
Is “marketplace of ideas” actually a Schelling point? It seems more like the temporary absence of a a Schelling point (at least, once stripped of idealism).
But I’m not totally comfortable with its inclusion on my list. For example, both Europe and America operate on the same basic free speech principle (Allow speech unless it is too “dangerous”/”uncivil”), yet the two regimes are substantially different in practice. This discontinuity is a substantial challenge to the accurate of the label “Schelling point” when applied to freedom of speech.
Well, my intuition was that there’s probably a Schelling point where people make needling, inessential asides in the context of something else, but that Stokes’ comment makes the subtext a text and so goes out of the Schelling point. But these issues are complex and I don’t have any strong argument to back my intuitions here against your reasons, and if I keep on following this train of thought I’ll have gone about ten levels meta deep on nerd drama, and that’s just embarrassing, so dedownvoted.
I think history makes a solid case that there are three Schelling points:
Don’t talk about certain subjects
Marketplace of ideas
Purge the unbelievers
“Keep it to a low roar” is not really a stable dynamic.
In context this has the unfortunate implication that Konkvistador’s ideas and manner of speech aren’t acceptable.
While he identifies himself as apolitical in some lost thread I don’t care dig up it is pretty clear that he at least entertains right wing ideas and is very unmoved by political correctness. Unlike me he never seems to be rude about it though. Intelligent right wing people are a tiny minority here and are even more banished one in the academia we often rely on. Note that we even have LW posters who have in academia personally experienced discrimination and harassment because of their right wing politics.
Considering this shouldn’t we try to not to make a spectacle out of them in this fashion? By picking on a joke line, and discussing it so we are “excluding them from intended audience”.
Funny how no one seems to think ideological diversity is a good idea if one wants to catch bad thinking. At least no one ever lets it show in their actions.
First, I’m not the one who wrote “Politics is the Mindkiller.” If we take the lesson seriously enough to establish a norm that we don’t discuss politics or political theory at all—Konkvistador’s jab at feminism is a violation of the norm. That’s one of the main points of the essay you linked.
Second, the no politics norm is not what I would prefer—in this discussion, I was a proponent of moving towards more open discussion of political theory. I was this close to making a thread, but it became clear that there was no consensus to change the community norm (at best, the community was split—which wasn’t enough to justify any change).
To the extent you assert Konkvistador’s right-wing views are persecuted here, the assertion is false. Consider just about any political conversation by Konkvistador. He’s able to start them with little pushback, and my perception is that he gets more upvotes than his interlocutors. This community is very interested in views like his. It’s not fair to hold me accountable for jerk moves by left-wing academics in the larger world, just like it’s not fair for me to pin the squickiest PUA stuff or Objectivist stuff on you.
Fourth, Konkvistador is a very clear writer and he’s generally very polite. But apolitical is a laughable label. He’s deeply suspicious of the idea “consent of the governed” and opposed to what he thinks feminism is. And he’s not afraid to say it—and he says it fairly well. But that’s not apolitical, no matter how often he asserts otherwise.
This debate might clarify what I mean when I identify myself as apolitical, as CS correctly notes I do. In short it amounts to not participating in the political process or commenting current political struggles, it also for me means not identifying with a political identity. Descriptively I don’t mind it that much if someone describes me “right winger” or some such, but I won’t refer to myself by such labels except in jest. Especially in my internal narrative.
In other words I don’t see myself as a “right winger” while accepting that I do currently hold some right wing ideas. The reason I make this perhaps seemingly trivial difference is because I don’t consider those ideas at the heart of who I am, but mostly hypotheses about how the world works. If I wake up tomorrow and realize they are bull I hope I will have enough virtue to be happy about realizing my mistake.
Also please note that I have a highly eclectic bunch of right wing ideas, mixed in with left wing ones, for example I like the idea of a basic income guarantee (though people like Charles Murray support it as well), I think universal healthcare in my country works pretty well and my stance on marriage (homosexual and otherwise) dosen’t neatly fit there either. I would have a hard time finding a political tribe or label I could identify with even if I wanted to.
Konkvistador,
I’m familiar with that conversation, since you mostly had it with me. :)
The fact that there is no political faction that supports your cluster of political ideas does not mean that you don’t have political opinions or that you don’t push them in this community. Your lack of mainstream partisan identification speaks well of your rationality. But the norm in the community is no political opinions rather than no partisan opinions. To be clear, I disagree with that norm and think that your contributions are a net benefit to the community. But as far as I can tell, the stated norm of the community conflicts with talking about the topics you discuss.
In short, your (deservedly) high status in this community is protecting you from pushback that a newcomer would receive if he posted substantially similar content to what you post.
In this particular case, I think there has been a bit of misunderstanding among your critics. Your reference to Heterosexual White Males was interpreted (by me and others) as a reference to feminism, when you intended to reference conspiracy theories like “CIA caused crack epidemic” or “CIA made AIDS”.
I would not agree that the existing community norm precludes all discussions of policy proposals, even those not affiliated with any partisan group.
I would agree that it precludes discussions of proposals affiliated with any partisan group, even if raised by individuals who don’t identify as members of that group.
That is, if I picked some example to talk about that was, strictly speaking, political, but that no significant political group had made into a partisan point of contention, I would not expect to be censured for it; if I were censured for it I would treat that as evidence that it was partisan in some way I hadn’t previously noticed.
On reflection, I think you explain the data better than I, but I maintain that the equilibrium you describe is not stable.
Specifically, it is not a neutral principal—one side on a substantive disagreement can be suppressed by creation of a social norm that the side is too close to a live partisan political debate while the other side far enough from the live debate not to be suppressed.
(nods) Oh, absolutely.
Or, rather, I agree that some ideas violate the local norm more strongly than others (and, in particular, more than a given opposed idea) and that consequently the local norm isn’t ideologically neutral. There exist partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly supports, and partisan positions that LW collectively implicitly rejects.
Whether that makes the norm unstable in any practical sense, I’m not quite sure, though it seems intuitively plausible. (I agree that the norm is unstable in a technical sense, but I can’t see why anyone ought to care.)
I recognize that there are people here who would at least claim to disagree with you, on grounds I don’t entirely understand but which at least sometimes have to do with the idea that this community is “exceptionally rational” and that this renders us relatively immune to normal primate social dynamics. I’m not one of them. (I’m also not entirely convinced that anyone actually believes this.)
That . . . makes me feel a lot better, actually. I suppose that fragile is a better adjective than unstable for what I was trying to say.
Oh I know you are. Its just the casual reader might not be and I felt a bit uncomfortable being quiet as other people debate me.
This reminds me of a discussion I had on naming the article. I was reluctant to give it a title and prefered “On Conspiracy Theories”, because giving a post a memorable title seems to cause the meaning of the article to over time the meaning of the article will converge with its title.
I suspect this is because we like linking articles, and while people may read a link the first time, they don’t tend to read it the second or third time it is linked. Eventually a phrase that is supposed to be a shorthand for a nuanced argument starts to mean exactly how it is used.
I cited precisely “Politics is the Mindkiller” as an example of this. In the original article Eliezer basically argues that gratuitous politics, political thinking that isn’t outweighed by its value to the art of rationality is to be avoided. This soon came to meant it is forbidden to discuss politics in Main and Discussion articles (though politics does live in the comment sections).
Since the personal is the political, we pretty quickly started applying this kind of thinking to PUA and Gender relations in general as well, though we may not cite is as often.
Is “marketplace of ideas” actually a Schelling point? It seems more like the temporary absence of a a Schelling point (at least, once stripped of idealism).
I got the idea from Yvain here.
But I’m not totally comfortable with its inclusion on my list. For example, both Europe and America operate on the same basic free speech principle (Allow speech unless it is too “dangerous”/”uncivil”), yet the two regimes are substantially different in practice. This discontinuity is a substantial challenge to the accurate of the label “Schelling point” when applied to freedom of speech.