I think this post is an interesting idea, but I feel like it’s built on some shaky assumptions.
As an instructive example, suppose (and let me DISCLAIM THAT I AM NOT ENDORSING THIS VIEW) that you are a racist, believe that people of certain races are objectively bad for a country because they have lower IQ and are more likely to commit crimes and furthermore you want fewer (or none) of them in your country, and you want to use political means to achieve this. Then Obama is elected. Now you have two options:
1) forthrightly and honestly state that you are a racist, form a pro-racism political group, perhaps even call it the “Racist Party”, and campaign to impeach Omaba for being black.
2) make some shit up about Obama being a member of ISIS and claim he wasn’t born in the USA.
Before we go on, NOTE AGAIN THAT I AM NOT ENDORSING THIS VIEW I AM ONLY USING IT AS AN EXAMPLE.
So, it seems fairly clear that option (1) is not really the rational choice. You would be doxxed, hounded down on social media, almost certainly lose your job. Others who agreed with you wouldn’t support you, because they would fear that the doxxing and firing and public shaming would be directed against them. So you choose (2), you get involved in the “birther” movement or whatever.
Now Gleb comes along and says “Hey Guys! Exciting news from the world of theoretical rationality!”
pollution of the truth will devastate all of us in a tragedy of the commons.
Wise decision-making by the citizenry is beneficial to all but a few interest groups devoted to deceiving the public.
Or to take a different example, suppose you think that it would kind of suck for your country to lose all its industry in order to fight global warming, whilst other countries continue to pollute, and suppose you also really don’t want to lose your job at a factory and have your life ruined right now for the benefit of anonymous foreigners 20-70 years in the future. You have two choices:
1) Forthrightly and honestly state that you don’t really care enough about some marginal third-world foreigner getting killed in a slightly-more-severe-than-average drought to lose your job and livelihood for them right now. Make a political party called the “Procrastinate the Environment Party”, and argue that Global Warming is totally legit, but we can probably get away with procrastinating it. Also limiting CO2 emissions kind of like a game of chicken with other countries, so from a game theory point of view it makes sense to keep polluting and see whether they crack first.
2) make up some shit about Global Warming being a liberal hoax
Or another example, suppose you belief that Global Warming is a hoax but questioning the word of certified expert scientists(tm) is not allowed in your social circle, so you come up with an elaborate meta-political explanation for why one can support the people calling Global Warming a hoax without believing it.
Yup, agreed that it may well be not wise for those who have racist beliefs to be open about them. The same applies to the global warming stuff.
This is why I say this is a project informed by EA values—it comes from the perspective that voting is like donating thousands of dollars to charity and that voters care about the public good. It’s not meant to target those who don’t care about the public good—just those mistaken about what is the best way to achieve the public good. For instance, plenty of voters are mistaken about the state of reality, and some of those folks would genuinely want the most good. The project is not meant to reach all, in other words—just that select slice.
In particular, you’re not interested in reaching the voters who don’t want say Muslim migrants raping and occasionally murdering girls in their neighborhoods. Good to know.
Well, there is a more serious flaw than that particular issue: if you reach out to a very small slice of humans in our world and persuade them that they should be more rational in politics, politics will not get more rational. You have to appeal to everyone or almost everyone.
So, for example, people who read Breitbart have to be on board, as well as people who read the guardian and the daily kos.
Yup, agreed that it may well be not wise for those who have racist beliefs to be open about them … This is why I say this is a project informed by EA values … not meant to target those who don’t care about the public good
explicitly non-partisan effort
that wise decision-making by the citizenry is beneficial to all but a few interest groups devoted to deceiving the public… much more amenable to solution than partisan issues that only affect one side of the political spectrum.
I feel like these requirements are kind of contradictory. What if a lot of people are selfish, racist (in a broad sense) and want to procrastinate global warming? Are we saying that “rational” political debate benefits them, or that it doesn’t? If it doesn’t benefit them then why should they be on board?
Are we saying that you have to be a globalist effective altruist who puts the needs of distant strangers above those of their own families to benefit from rational politics? Very few people have values like that! IIRC even Peter Singer struggled with that!
who don’t care about the public good
Do you have to care about the public good of the whole world, or is it OK if you only care about the public good of your tribe/country/race?
I’m talking about prioritizing the good of the country as a whole, not necessarily distant strangers—although in my personal value stance, that would be nice. Like I said, it’s an EA project :-)
A political group composed only of people who prioritize the good of the country over their own subtribe or self will lack the support needed to flourish.
It’s not that people disagree or don’t know about the object level facts. It’s that people are actively fighting to gain relative advantage over others. And that is a cultural problem, not a political one.
As an instructive example, suppose (and let me DISCLAIM THAT I AM NOT ENDORSING THIS VIEW) that you are a racist, believe that people of certain races are objectively bad for a country because they have lower IQ and are more likely to commit crimes …
I realize that you have disclaimed any endorsement of this view, but some people might accidentally get the wrong idea of what “lower IQ” and “more likely to commit crimes” actually mean in these contexts, in the real world. Men have a “higher propensity to commit crimes” compared to women, and we don’t call them “objectively bad” for this. (Well, maybe some radfems do, actually. Not really sure about that!) People with a mere BA-level education have “lower IQ” compared to people with multiple PhD’s, and similarly, we don’t think that BA-holders are bad. In other words, to even treat this as if it were a colorable argument reveals a basic failure of rationality. I wouldn’t care about this usually, but this whole post is about making politics more rational, and pointing out these things seems like a good place to start.
Men have a “higher propensity to commit crimes” compared to women, and we don’t call them “objectively bad” for this. (Well, maybe some radfems do, actually. Not really sure about that!)
I looked for “Women are better than men” on Google, and I found a debate at debate.org debate which cited less crime as a reason that women are better then men.
Women are better. SO many reasons why: 14. It is less likely for a woman to be a serial killer, pedophile or rapist.
Guess what? women are actually superior to men! Here’s the score … women generally seem to have higher social and emotional intelligence than men, are less violent and aggressive, are almost never serial killers
Um, either the folks at debate.org and Psychology Today are secretly radfems, or I need to seriously update here. OK, I’m definitely re-assessing how common this line of argument (“Group X should be regarded as better than/superior to group Y, because of a slight difference in the average level of some psychological trait, such as propensity to commit crimes”) is in the real world. Thanks!
Men have a “higher propensity to commit crimes” compared to women, and we don’t call them “objectively bad” for this.
On the other hand we do have a “violence against women” act, and a whole section of the justice department dedicated to crimes committed by men against women.
So the point I am making is that we humans have set up a political system where “The Racist Party” and the “Procrastinate the Environment Party” are super-duper not allowed. If the incentives against espousing the view that you actually hold are much more severe than the incentives against trying to mess with epistemology so that you can take the action you wanted without having to reveal your “forbidden” view, then it makes sense to mess with epistemology.
And the reason that we can’t have a world where people lose their jobs and get doxxed and publicly shamed for breaking epistemological rules is that basically everyone does it. Dark side epistemology is a convergent instrumental goal in politics, so it’s really hard to build a coalition against it. And if you did have a system for enforcing epistemological standards, the first thing everyone would think is “Wow that’s great, how can I subvert this system to further my object-level preferences?”
I think this post is an interesting idea, but I feel like it’s built on some shaky assumptions.
As an instructive example, suppose (and let me DISCLAIM THAT I AM NOT ENDORSING THIS VIEW) that you are a racist, believe that people of certain races are objectively bad for a country because they have lower IQ and are more likely to commit crimes and furthermore you want fewer (or none) of them in your country, and you want to use political means to achieve this. Then Obama is elected. Now you have two options:
1) forthrightly and honestly state that you are a racist, form a pro-racism political group, perhaps even call it the “Racist Party”, and campaign to impeach Omaba for being black.
2) make some shit up about Obama being a member of ISIS and claim he wasn’t born in the USA.
Before we go on, NOTE AGAIN THAT I AM NOT ENDORSING THIS VIEW I AM ONLY USING IT AS AN EXAMPLE.
So, it seems fairly clear that option (1) is not really the rational choice. You would be doxxed, hounded down on social media, almost certainly lose your job. Others who agreed with you wouldn’t support you, because they would fear that the doxxing and firing and public shaming would be directed against them. So you choose (2), you get involved in the “birther” movement or whatever.
Now Gleb comes along and says “Hey Guys! Exciting news from the world of theoretical rationality!”
Or to take a different example, suppose you think that it would kind of suck for your country to lose all its industry in order to fight global warming, whilst other countries continue to pollute, and suppose you also really don’t want to lose your job at a factory and have your life ruined right now for the benefit of anonymous foreigners 20-70 years in the future. You have two choices:
1) Forthrightly and honestly state that you don’t really care enough about some marginal third-world foreigner getting killed in a slightly-more-severe-than-average drought to lose your job and livelihood for them right now. Make a political party called the “Procrastinate the Environment Party”, and argue that Global Warming is totally legit, but we can probably get away with procrastinating it. Also limiting CO2 emissions kind of like a game of chicken with other countries, so from a game theory point of view it makes sense to keep polluting and see whether they crack first.
2) make up some shit about Global Warming being a liberal hoax
Or another example, suppose you belief that Global Warming is a hoax but questioning the word of certified expert scientists(tm) is not allowed in your social circle, so you come up with an elaborate meta-political explanation for why one can support the people calling Global Warming a hoax without believing it.
lol, very meta
Yup, agreed that it may well be not wise for those who have racist beliefs to be open about them. The same applies to the global warming stuff.
This is why I say this is a project informed by EA values—it comes from the perspective that voting is like donating thousands of dollars to charity and that voters care about the public good. It’s not meant to target those who don’t care about the public good—just those mistaken about what is the best way to achieve the public good. For instance, plenty of voters are mistaken about the state of reality, and some of those folks would genuinely want the most good. The project is not meant to reach all, in other words—just that select slice.
In particular, you’re not interested in reaching the voters who don’t want say Muslim migrants raping and occasionally murdering girls in their neighborhoods. Good to know.
Well, there is a more serious flaw than that particular issue: if you reach out to a very small slice of humans in our world and persuade them that they should be more rational in politics, politics will not get more rational. You have to appeal to everyone or almost everyone.
So, for example, people who read Breitbart have to be on board, as well as people who read the guardian and the daily kos.
I feel like these requirements are kind of contradictory. What if a lot of people are selfish, racist (in a broad sense) and want to procrastinate global warming? Are we saying that “rational” political debate benefits them, or that it doesn’t? If it doesn’t benefit them then why should they be on board?
Are we saying that you have to be a globalist effective altruist who puts the needs of distant strangers above those of their own families to benefit from rational politics? Very few people have values like that! IIRC even Peter Singer struggled with that!
Do you have to care about the public good of the whole world, or is it OK if you only care about the public good of your tribe/country/race?
I’m talking about prioritizing the good of the country as a whole, not necessarily distant strangers—although in my personal value stance, that would be nice. Like I said, it’s an EA project :-)
A political group composed only of people who prioritize the good of the country over their own subtribe or self will lack the support needed to flourish.
It’s not that people disagree or don’t know about the object level facts. It’s that people are actively fighting to gain relative advantage over others. And that is a cultural problem, not a political one.
I realize that you have disclaimed any endorsement of this view, but some people might accidentally get the wrong idea of what “lower IQ” and “more likely to commit crimes” actually mean in these contexts, in the real world. Men have a “higher propensity to commit crimes” compared to women, and we don’t call them “objectively bad” for this. (Well, maybe some radfems do, actually. Not really sure about that!) People with a mere BA-level education have “lower IQ” compared to people with multiple PhD’s, and similarly, we don’t think that BA-holders are bad.
In other words, to even treat this as if it were a colorable argument reveals a basic failure of rationality. I wouldn’t care about this usually, but this whole post is about making politics more rational, and pointing out these things seems like a good place to start.
I looked for “Women are better than men” on Google, and I found a debate at debate.org debate which cited less crime as a reason that women are better then men.
EDIT: Also Psychology Today
Um, either the folks at debate.org and Psychology Today are secretly radfems, or I need to seriously update here. OK, I’m definitely re-assessing how common this line of argument (“Group X should be regarded as better than/superior to group Y, because of a slight difference in the average level of some psychological trait, such as propensity to commit crimes”) is in the real world. Thanks!
You earn Lesswrong gold for updating!
We definitely need Lesswrong gold.
On the other hand we do have a “violence against women” act, and a whole section of the justice department dedicated to crimes committed by men against women.
I’m not quite sure I follow. What’s the failure of rationality here?
So the point I am making is that we humans have set up a political system where “The Racist Party” and the “Procrastinate the Environment Party” are super-duper not allowed. If the incentives against espousing the view that you actually hold are much more severe than the incentives against trying to mess with epistemology so that you can take the action you wanted without having to reveal your “forbidden” view, then it makes sense to mess with epistemology.
And the reason that we can’t have a world where people lose their jobs and get doxxed and publicly shamed for breaking epistemological rules is that basically everyone does it. Dark side epistemology is a convergent instrumental goal in politics, so it’s really hard to build a coalition against it. And if you did have a system for enforcing epistemological standards, the first thing everyone would think is “Wow that’s great, how can I subvert this system to further my object-level preferences?”