The way I see “Politics is the Mind Killer” get used, it feels like the natural extension is “Trying to do anything that involves high stakes or involves interacting with the outside world or even just coordinating a lot of our own Is The Mind Killer”.
From this angle, a commitment to prevent things from getting “too political” to “avoid everyone becoming angry idiots” is also a commitment to not having an impact.
I really like how jessica re-frames things in this comment. The whole comment is interesting, here’s a snippet:
Basically, if the issue is adversarial/deceptive action (conscious or subconscious) rather than simple mistakes, then “politics is the mind-killer” is the wrong framing. Rather, “politics is a domain where people often try to kill each other’s minds” is closer.
With would further transform my new no longer catchy phrase to “Trying to do anything that involves high stakes or involves interacting with the outside world or even just coordinating a lot of our own will result in people trying to kill each other’s minds.”
Which has very different repercussions from the original saying.
The original post was mostly about not UNNECESSARILY introducing politics or using it as examples, when your main topic wasn’t about politics in the first place. They are bad topics to study rationality on.
They are good topics to USE rationality on, both to dissolve questions and to understand your communication goals.
They are … varied and nuanced in applicability … topics to discuss on LessWrong. Generally, there are better forums to use when politics is the main point and rationality is a tool for those goals. And generally, there are better topics to choose when rationality is the point and politics is just one application. But some aspects hit the intersection just right, and LW is a fine place.
The way I see “Politics is the Mind Killer” get used, it feels like the natural extension is “Trying to do anything that involves high stakes or involves interacting with the outside world or even just coordinating a lot of our own Is The Mind Killer”.
From this angle, a commitment to prevent things from getting “too political” to “avoid everyone becoming angry idiots” is also a commitment to not having an impact.
I really like how jessica re-frames things in this comment. The whole comment is interesting, here’s a snippet:
With would further transform my new no longer catchy phrase to “Trying to do anything that involves high stakes or involves interacting with the outside world or even just coordinating a lot of our own will result in people trying to kill each other’s minds.”
Which has very different repercussions from the original saying.
The original post was mostly about not UNNECESSARILY introducing politics or using it as examples, when your main topic wasn’t about politics in the first place. They are bad topics to study rationality on.
They are good topics to USE rationality on, both to dissolve questions and to understand your communication goals.
They are … varied and nuanced in applicability … topics to discuss on LessWrong. Generally, there are better forums to use when politics is the main point and rationality is a tool for those goals. And generally, there are better topics to choose when rationality is the point and politics is just one application. But some aspects hit the intersection just right, and LW is a fine place.