I like the idea of starting a Politics Open Thread if it means I won’t see any more political comments elsewhere on LW.
It won’t. Instead, what will happen is that people will start attaching the mental labels of “Blue” and “Green” to other commenters, based on encounters in such a thread, and these labels will apply everywhere, and consequently distort the discussions and the voting on all topics.
I agree with thomblake that the original intent of the “Politics is the Mind-Killer” doctrine wasn’t to ban politics (and even that post itself wasn’t intended as official Overcoming Bias policy, just advice from Eliezer!), but I am also 100% with Raemon in endorsing the anti-politics norm that has subsequently developed.
But note that the norm itself, like most human norms, is not an absolute or rigid one, just a scale of increasing costs or penalties with increasing severity of “violations”. It’s always been okay to mention politics in a way that shows you “know what you’re doing” (proof: I have); high-status people are allowed more leeway than the lower-status (except for the very highest-status individuals, on whom norms are often strictly enforced for symbolic reasons); etc.
Theoretically, if we really needed to discuss politics (e.g. if there were pending legislation before the U.S. Congress to regulate FAI research; if Obama had criticized Republicans by invoking LW concepts in his State of the Union speech; if Putin had promised to make cryonics mandatory for everyone in Russia; you get the idea), we could.
It won’t. Instead, what will happen is that people will start attaching the mental labels of “Blue” and “Green” to other commenters, based on encounters in such a thread, and these labels will apply everywhere, and consequently distort the discussions and the voting on all topics.
This. I can’ tell you how grateful I am that I have no idea about the politics of most posters I’m familiar with.
Perhaps any forum for political discussions here should allow (force?) people to choose a secret identity (i.e., separate nickname) for use only there.
Nice! Encouraging alternate identities, combined with thomblake’s idea of refraining from voting, could go a long way toward having a sane politics discussion thread.
It won’t. Instead, what will happen is that people will start attaching the mental labels of “Blue” and “Green” to other commenters, based on encounters in such a thread
I can already do this to many commenters based on their comments in the existing threads.
The problem is that the norm of the politics-ban is quite broad. Basically everything that the “Personal is Political” crowd would label political is swept in.
Not only is discussion of the latest maneuverings of Newt vs. Mitt prohibited, but discussion of democracy vs. authoritarianism, feminism, the purpose of juries, etc. are considered off limits by a vocal portion of LessWrong. I have no desire to debate whether Obama’s State of the Union was good policy or good politics, but the broadness of the negative reaction excludes a lot of conceptspace, to the point that there are real world problems it’s very difficult to discuss here.
In short, there’s a reason why I was talking about a Political Theory Open Thread, not a Politics Open Thread.
It won’t. Instead, what will happen is that people will start attaching the mental labels of “Blue” and “Green” to other commenters, based on encounters in such a thread, and these labels will apply everywhere, and consequently distort the discussions and the voting on all topics.
I agree with thomblake that the original intent of the “Politics is the Mind-Killer” doctrine wasn’t to ban politics (and even that post itself wasn’t intended as official Overcoming Bias policy, just advice from Eliezer!), but I am also 100% with Raemon in endorsing the anti-politics norm that has subsequently developed.
But note that the norm itself, like most human norms, is not an absolute or rigid one, just a scale of increasing costs or penalties with increasing severity of “violations”. It’s always been okay to mention politics in a way that shows you “know what you’re doing” (proof: I have); high-status people are allowed more leeway than the lower-status (except for the very highest-status individuals, on whom norms are often strictly enforced for symbolic reasons); etc.
Theoretically, if we really needed to discuss politics (e.g. if there were pending legislation before the U.S. Congress to regulate FAI research; if Obama had criticized Republicans by invoking LW concepts in his State of the Union speech; if Putin had promised to make cryonics mandatory for everyone in Russia; you get the idea), we could.
This. I can’ tell you how grateful I am that I have no idea about the politics of most posters I’m familiar with.
Perhaps any forum for political discussions here should allow (force?) people to choose a secret identity (i.e., separate nickname) for use only there.
Nice! Encouraging alternate identities, combined with thomblake’s idea of refraining from voting, could go a long way toward having a sane politics discussion thread.
I can already do this to many commenters based on their comments in the existing threads.
The problem is that the norm of the politics-ban is quite broad. Basically everything that the “Personal is Political” crowd would label political is swept in.
Not only is discussion of the latest maneuverings of Newt vs. Mitt prohibited, but discussion of democracy vs. authoritarianism, feminism, the purpose of juries, etc. are considered off limits by a vocal portion of LessWrong. I have no desire to debate whether Obama’s State of the Union was good policy or good politics, but the broadness of the negative reaction excludes a lot of conceptspace, to the point that there are real world problems it’s very difficult to discuss here.
In short, there’s a reason why I was talking about a Political Theory Open Thread, not a Politics Open Thread.