It just hit me that I may have misinterpreted “Politics is the mindkiller”. What I got from it is that “politics are often a mindkiller, but they don’t have to be”. Maybe that’s wrong. Maybe there’s something sort of inherent about politics that make them too difficult to think rationally about.
I’m skeptical that that’s true though. But it just hit me how anti-politics LW is, and this community seems pretty smart, so I’m sure there are things about that that I don’t understand. So forgive me if this is a stupid question… but why the avoidance of politics?
You mix two topics.
I didn’t mean to. I was using the political topic as an example of greed. I didn’t mean for it to be a focus of the post.
I didn’t mean to. I was using the political topic as an example of greed. I didn’t mean for it to be a focus of the post.
The article Politics is the Mindkiller says that if you can choose between a political topic as example and a less political topic, don’t pick the political topic.
It doesn’t say: “Never discuss a political topic.” If you actually want to talk about a political topic then, talk about it.
The important thing is to avoid talking about political topics when they are not the main thing you want to talk about.
Choosing a political topic makes it much harder to reason clearly and much easier to fall into the “my opponents are evil/stupid/irrational”-trap.
In this case it looks like you have fallen into that trap. You seem to have invested no effort into steelmanning. Even if it would be possible to avoid falling in that trap, your post looks like you have fallen into it and is therefore likely to be downvoted.
It just hit me that I may have misinterpreted “Politics is the mindkiller”. What I got from it is that “politics are often a mindkiller, but they don’t have to be”. Maybe that’s wrong. Maybe there’s something sort of inherent about politics that make them too difficult to think rationally about.
I’m skeptical that that’s true though. But it just hit me how anti-politics LW is, and this community seems pretty smart, so I’m sure there are things about that that I don’t understand. So forgive me if this is a stupid question… but why the avoidance of politics?
I didn’t mean to. I was using the political topic as an example of greed. I didn’t mean for it to be a focus of the post.
The article Politics is the Mindkiller says that if you can choose between a political topic as example and a less political topic, don’t pick the political topic.
It doesn’t say: “Never discuss a political topic.” If you actually want to talk about a political topic then, talk about it. The important thing is to avoid talking about political topics when they are not the main thing you want to talk about.
Choosing a political topic makes it much harder to reason clearly and much easier to fall into the “my opponents are evil/stupid/irrational”-trap. In this case it looks like you have fallen into that trap. You seem to have invested no effort into steelmanning. Even if it would be possible to avoid falling in that trap, your post looks like you have fallen into it and is therefore likely to be downvoted.