I agree with ciphergoth that we would probably have an easier time discussing political issues than some other communities, and I agree with HalFinney that it’s probably not a very good use of our time anyway. Let’s say that everyone on LessWrong agrees on a solution to some political problem. So what? We already have lots of good ideas no one will listen to. It doesn’t take a long-time reader of Overcoming Bias to realize marijuana criminalization isn’t working so well, but so far the efforts of groups with far more resources than ourselves have been mostly in vain.
If someone came up with a new idea for pulling ropes sideways, that might be useful. For example, Robin’s idea of futarchy is interesting, although so large-scale that it would be very hard to implement. If someone came up with a suggestion that brilliant, but for a smaller problem, it might do some good. But I always interpreted our posting policies to permit that sort of thing anyway.
But I think the best thing we could possibly do would be to raise the sanity waterline—a rising tide lifts all boats. That means coming up with compact, attractive summaries of our key findings and spreading them as far as possible. More on this later, possibly.
Politics discussion by rationalists is likely to have the most impact when it’s about issues that are important, but that aren’t widely recognized as such and therefore have relatively few people pulling on the rope. I don’t see any point in discussing the Iraq war, say.
Politics action by rationalists is likely to have the most impact on such topics. But since there are already some such topics we know about (global existential risk, for example, or teaching rationality in schools). What do we gain by discovering several more of these and then discussing them?
I agree that it is not a good use of our time to discuss political issue on Less Wrong. In fact, I think it would be harmful, because it would drown out other discussion and attract people who are not prepared to discuss it rationally.
However, we should discuss politics in other forums, using what we have learned here. We should be able to avoid seeing arguments as soldiers. I would like to spread rationality techniques among those who regularly participate in politics. (Though I am not sure how. Leading by example has been to subtle in my experience, and direct instruction leads to emotional defensiveness. It might be interesting to have debates moderated by a Less Wrong member, where it could be seen as their proper role to point out biases.)
I agree with ciphergoth that we would probably have an easier time discussing political issues than some other communities, and I agree with HalFinney that it’s probably not a very good use of our time anyway. Let’s say that everyone on LessWrong agrees on a solution to some political problem. So what? We already have lots of good ideas no one will listen to. It doesn’t take a long-time reader of Overcoming Bias to realize marijuana criminalization isn’t working so well, but so far the efforts of groups with far more resources than ourselves have been mostly in vain.
If someone came up with a new idea for pulling ropes sideways, that might be useful. For example, Robin’s idea of futarchy is interesting, although so large-scale that it would be very hard to implement. If someone came up with a suggestion that brilliant, but for a smaller problem, it might do some good. But I always interpreted our posting policies to permit that sort of thing anyway.
But I think the best thing we could possibly do would be to raise the sanity waterline—a rising tide lifts all boats. That means coming up with compact, attractive summaries of our key findings and spreading them as far as possible. More on this later, possibly.
Politics discussion by rationalists is likely to have the most impact when it’s about issues that are important, but that aren’t widely recognized as such and therefore have relatively few people pulling on the rope. I don’t see any point in discussing the Iraq war, say.
Politics action by rationalists is likely to have the most impact on such topics. But since there are already some such topics we know about (global existential risk, for example, or teaching rationality in schools). What do we gain by discovering several more of these and then discussing them?
I agree that it is not a good use of our time to discuss political issue on Less Wrong. In fact, I think it would be harmful, because it would drown out other discussion and attract people who are not prepared to discuss it rationally.
However, we should discuss politics in other forums, using what we have learned here. We should be able to avoid seeing arguments as soldiers. I would like to spread rationality techniques among those who regularly participate in politics. (Though I am not sure how. Leading by example has been to subtle in my experience, and direct instruction leads to emotional defensiveness. It might be interesting to have debates moderated by a Less Wrong member, where it could be seen as their proper role to point out biases.)
I immediately thought of the Confessors...