Politics is the business of governing. As this necessarily involves telling others what to do (or what not to do), it’s no surprise that it gets contentious. There’s also a lot of status at stake, making matters worse.
You can abstract away the details and have a rational discussion about what kinds of policies are better. You can make a good deal of progress by keeping things somewhat vague on the minutiae, but I don’t expect even rationalists to be able to agree on the exact implementation details without a good amount of politicking.
As someone who has actually worked in government, I can tell you that politics is not the business of governing. Politics often gets in the way of actual governance. Think of the phrase “office politics” and all that it entails—petty squabbling over power structures and influence, i.e. tribalism. I assure you that at the largest scale “office politics” very much exist. We just drop the “office” qualifier.
Government implements policy. Enacting policy is the goal of governance. Politics is a catch-all category for the social competition to establish policies which is intrinsic to human nature and exists in various forms in all cultures. As rationalists we have a better mechanism for deciding policy than glorified piss competitions that pass for politics today. But although we reject tribalistic politics we should not shy away from matters of policy.
Politics is the business of governing. As this necessarily involves telling others what to do (or what not to do), it’s no surprise that it gets contentious. There’s also a lot of status at stake, making matters worse.
You can abstract away the details and have a rational discussion about what kinds of policies are better. You can make a good deal of progress by keeping things somewhat vague on the minutiae, but I don’t expect even rationalists to be able to agree on the exact implementation details without a good amount of politicking.
As someone who has actually worked in government, I can tell you that politics is not the business of governing. Politics often gets in the way of actual governance. Think of the phrase “office politics” and all that it entails—petty squabbling over power structures and influence, i.e. tribalism. I assure you that at the largest scale “office politics” very much exist. We just drop the “office” qualifier.
Government implements policy. Enacting policy is the goal of governance. Politics is a catch-all category for the social competition to establish policies which is intrinsic to human nature and exists in various forms in all cultures. As rationalists we have a better mechanism for deciding policy than glorified piss competitions that pass for politics today. But although we reject tribalistic politics we should not shy away from matters of policy.