I don’t think we, as a community, are strong enough at rationality to deal with it. I’d like to be wrong, but I’m not in much of hurry to find out.
And even if we are good enough, and have a big rational discussion on a hot-button and usually divisive topic, and come out mostly agreeing that the Herp position is right an the Derp position is wrong—that will just make the site more attractive to less-rational Herpists, and give Derpists a pretext to dismiss LessWrong because “they’re obviously motivated by Herpism”.
And even if we are good enough, and have a big rational discussion on a hot-button and usually divisive topic, and come out mostly agreeing that the Herp position is right an the Derp position is wrong—that will just make the site more attractive to less-rational Herpists, and give Derpists a pretext to dismiss LessWrong because “they’re obviously motivated by Herpism”.
This argument seems like it might show too much. If someone said this about an issue that isn’t political (say the existence of God) we would reject it. What gives politics such a unique status? Certainly religious opinions create about as much tribalism.
Religious questions are much easier than political questions, and can be answered with much more certainty. Political questions are also detrimental to sane discussion because they often rest upon (disguised) moral questions, which encourage tribalism and are harder still to resolve, if they can be resolved at all.
Religious opinions are divisive, we took our side, and don’t seem to be considered very highly by those who took the other.
I don’t mind closing the community to believers, in first approximation their ideas are worthless. But I wouldn’t extend that to liberals, libertarians, conservatives, environmentalists, anarchists, etc.
I can’t think of any other topic beyond religion and politics where it’s commonly expected that everyone has a position—some people can have strong and conflicting opinions on say parenting styles or whether Esperanto is a real language or interpretations of quantum mechanics or operating systems or whether Batman could beat Superman, but they don’t go around saying “Oh yeah he disagrees with me because he’s a yellowist” or something like that.
I don’t think we, as a community, are strong enough at rationality to deal with it. I’d like to be wrong, but I’m not in much of hurry to find out.
And even if we are good enough, and have a big rational discussion on a hot-button and usually divisive topic, and come out mostly agreeing that the Herp position is right an the Derp position is wrong—that will just make the site more attractive to less-rational Herpists, and give Derpists a pretext to dismiss LessWrong because “they’re obviously motivated by Herpism”.
This argument seems like it might show too much. If someone said this about an issue that isn’t political (say the existence of God) we would reject it. What gives politics such a unique status? Certainly religious opinions create about as much tribalism.
Religious questions are much easier than political questions, and can be answered with much more certainty. Political questions are also detrimental to sane discussion because they often rest upon (disguised) moral questions, which encourage tribalism and are harder still to resolve, if they can be resolved at all.
Religious opinions are divisive, we took our side, and don’t seem to be considered very highly by those who took the other.
I don’t mind closing the community to believers, in first approximation their ideas are worthless. But I wouldn’t extend that to liberals, libertarians, conservatives, environmentalists, anarchists, etc.
I can’t think of any other topic beyond religion and politics where it’s commonly expected that everyone has a position—some people can have strong and conflicting opinions on say parenting styles or whether Esperanto is a real language or interpretations of quantum mechanics or operating systems or whether Batman could beat Superman, but they don’t go around saying “Oh yeah he disagrees with me because he’s a yellowist” or something like that.