public discourse of politics is too focused on meta and not enough focused on object level
the downsides are primarily in insufficient exploration of possibility space
Definitions
“politics” is topics related to government, especially candidates for elected positions, and policy proposals
opposite of meta is object level—specific policies, or specific impacts of specific actions, etc
“meta” is focused on intangibles that are an abstraction away from some object-level feature, X, e.g. someones beliefs about X, or incentives around X, or media coverage vibes about X
Currently public discourse of politics is too much meta and not enough object level
Key ideas
self-censorship based on others’ predicted models of self-censorship stifles thought
worrying about meta-issues around a policy proposal can stifle the ability to analyze the object-level implications
public discourse seems to be a lot of confabulating supporting ideas for the pre-concluded position
downsides of too much meta are like distraction in terms of attention and cognition
author has changed political beliefs based on repeated object-level examples why their beliefs were wrong
Review Summary
overall i agree with the author’s ideas and vibe
the piece feels like its expressing frustration / exasperation
i think it’s incomplete, or a half-step, instead of what i’d consider a full article
I give examples of things that would make it feel full-step to me
Review
Overall I think I agree with the observations and concepts presented, as well as the frustration/exasperation sense at the way it seems we’re collectively doing it wrong.
However I think this piece feels incomplete to me in a number of ways, and I’ll try to point it out by giving examples of things that would make it feel complete to me.
One thing that would make it feel complete to me is a better organized set of definitions/taxonomy around the key ideas. I think ‘politics’ can be split into object level things around politicians vs policies. I think even the ‘object level’ can be split into things like actions (vote for person X or not) vs modeling (what is predicted impact on Y). When I try to do this kind of detail-generation, I think I find that my desire for object-level is actually a desire for specific kinds of object level focus (and not object-level in the generic).
Another way of making things more precise is to try to make some kind of measure or metric out of the meta<->object dimension. Questions like ‘how would it be measured’ or even ‘what are the units of measurement’ would be great for building intuitions and models around this. Relatedly—describing what ‘critical meta-ness’ or the correct balance point would also be useful here. Assuming we had a way to decrease-meta/increase-object, how would we know when to stop? I think these are the sorts of things that would make a more complete meta-object theory.
A gears-level model of what’s going on would also make this feel complete to me. Here’s me trying to come up with one on the spot:
Discourse around politics is a pretty charged and emotionally difficult thing for most people, in ways that can subvert our normally-functioning mechanisms of updating our beliefs. When we encounter object-level evidence that contradicts our beliefs, we feel a negative emotion/experience (in a quick/flash). One palliative to this feeling is to “go meta”—hop up the ladder of abstraction to a place where the belief is not in danger. We habituate ourselves to it by seeing others do similarly and imitation is enough to propagate this without anyone doing it intentionally. This model implicitly makes predictions about how to make spaces/contexts where more object level discussions happen (less negative experience, more emotional safety) as well as what kinds of internal changes would facilitate more object level discussions (train people to notice these fast emotional reactions and their corresponding mental moves).
Another thing that would make this article feel ‘complete’ to me would be to compare the ‘politics’ domain to other domains familiar to folks here on lesswrong (candidates are: effective altruism, AI alignment, rationality, etc). Is the other domain too meta in the way politics is? Is it too object level? It seems like the downsides (insufficient exploration, self-censorship, distraction) could apply to a much bigger domain of thought.
Summary
public discourse of politics is too focused on meta and not enough focused on object level
the downsides are primarily in insufficient exploration of possibility space
Definitions
“politics” is topics related to government, especially candidates for elected positions, and policy proposals
opposite of meta is object level—specific policies, or specific impacts of specific actions, etc
“meta” is focused on intangibles that are an abstraction away from some object-level feature, X, e.g. someones beliefs about X, or incentives around X, or media coverage vibes about X
Currently public discourse of politics is too much meta and not enough object level
Key ideas
self-censorship based on others’ predicted models of self-censorship stifles thought
worrying about meta-issues around a policy proposal can stifle the ability to analyze the object-level implications
public discourse seems to be a lot of confabulating supporting ideas for the pre-concluded position
downsides of too much meta are like distraction in terms of attention and cognition
author has changed political beliefs based on repeated object-level examples why their beliefs were wrong
Review Summary
overall i agree with the author’s ideas and vibe
the piece feels like its expressing frustration / exasperation
i think it’s incomplete, or a half-step, instead of what i’d consider a full article
I give examples of things that would make it feel full-step to me
Review
Overall I think I agree with the observations and concepts presented, as well as the frustration/exasperation sense at the way it seems we’re collectively doing it wrong.
However I think this piece feels incomplete to me in a number of ways, and I’ll try to point it out by giving examples of things that would make it feel complete to me.
One thing that would make it feel complete to me is a better organized set of definitions/taxonomy around the key ideas. I think ‘politics’ can be split into object level things around politicians vs policies. I think even the ‘object level’ can be split into things like actions (vote for person X or not) vs modeling (what is predicted impact on Y). When I try to do this kind of detail-generation, I think I find that my desire for object-level is actually a desire for specific kinds of object level focus (and not object-level in the generic).
Another way of making things more precise is to try to make some kind of measure or metric out of the meta<->object dimension. Questions like ‘how would it be measured’ or even ‘what are the units of measurement’ would be great for building intuitions and models around this. Relatedly—describing what ‘critical meta-ness’ or the correct balance point would also be useful here. Assuming we had a way to decrease-meta/increase-object, how would we know when to stop? I think these are the sorts of things that would make a more complete meta-object theory.
A gears-level model of what’s going on would also make this feel complete to me. Here’s me trying to come up with one on the spot:
Discourse around politics is a pretty charged and emotionally difficult thing for most people, in ways that can subvert our normally-functioning mechanisms of updating our beliefs. When we encounter object-level evidence that contradicts our beliefs, we feel a negative emotion/experience (in a quick/flash). One palliative to this feeling is to “go meta”—hop up the ladder of abstraction to a place where the belief is not in danger. We habituate ourselves to it by seeing others do similarly and imitation is enough to propagate this without anyone doing it intentionally. This model implicitly makes predictions about how to make spaces/contexts where more object level discussions happen (less negative experience, more emotional safety) as well as what kinds of internal changes would facilitate more object level discussions (train people to notice these fast emotional reactions and their corresponding mental moves).
Another thing that would make this article feel ‘complete’ to me would be to compare the ‘politics’ domain to other domains familiar to folks here on lesswrong (candidates are: effective altruism, AI alignment, rationality, etc). Is the other domain too meta in the way politics is? Is it too object level? It seems like the downsides (insufficient exploration, self-censorship, distraction) could apply to a much bigger domain of thought.