In this context, “not signaling allegiance to a standard political faction”. Or more generally, “not looking at the world through the prism of a standard political ideology”.
I might agree with you, except that factions (hence, folks needing to declare allegiance to some faction) have instrumental value in political processes, and it’s hard to see what might replace them. So even though ideologies can be bad (since they often lead to absolute-sounding, black-and-white thinking) the best antidote to them is compromise and careful deliberation—as opposed to withdrawing politics entirely and ceding any debate to the faction with the briefest sound-bites and the most adherents.
If you think you know how to get yourself elected to public office, and/or get sane policies implemented, all while retaining enough sanity yourself to be able to tell which policies are sane, don’t let me stop you. (Also don’t let me stop you from using any other superpowers you may have, such as leaping tall buildings in a single bound.)
My worry is about people whose time isn’t best spent on politics getting their minds killed by it. Think of Eliezer turning into Noam Chomsky as the nightmare scenario. Unlikely to happen, and thank goodness.
ideologies can be bad (since they often lead to absolute-sounding, black-and-white thinking)
No, the problem is much more general than that. After all, sometimes the truth is black-and-white. What ideologies do is make you stupid. They prevent you from properly exploring the hypothesis space of explanations for phenomena or solutions to problems. They prevent you from being able to tell the difference between black-and-white situations and those that are more subtle. And they prevent you from correcting your mistakes.
I think people seeking public office are saner than you give them credit for. Politicians tend to espouse crazy thinking because that’s how the incentives are set up, both within political parties—where signalling loyalty to the party is often paramount, so lower-ranked folks refrain from any criticism of policies and personalities: not the way a rationally-inspired organization is managed—and in the broader political arena, especially during campaigns but this is when “politics” is most visible and salient. The mantra of a successful campaign can be phrased as: “stay on message; no compromise, no debating.”
Thus, almost no one’s time is best spent on politics today, but this could be changed fairly easily. We are lucky, in that deliberative politics can be promoted incrementally both within organizations and in the broader political sphere. Especially if some parties or factions were to adopt open, deliberative methods and perhaps promote them as “more pragmatic, less ideological” and “more rationalist”; but also “more transparent and accountable”, which appeals to the more idealistic folks and perhaps challenges them to influence policy by finding tolerable compromises.
I think people seeking public office are saner than you give them credit for.
Again, even if that were true, it’s not the point. The purpose of the slogan “politics is the mind-killer” is not to discourage rationalists with political talent from becoming professional politicians; it is to prevent the dynamics of tribal-loyalty-signaling from poisoning truth-seeking discussion among those interested in the latter.
Again, even if that were true, it’s not the point. The purpose of the slogan “politics is the mind-killer” is not to discourage rationalists with political talent from becoming professional politicians; it is to prevent the dynamics of tribal-loyalty-signaling from poisoning truth-seeking discussion among those interested in the latter.
You seem to be assuming that the only way to usefully affect politics in the real world is becoming a professional politician, which is not at all obvious.
In general, political ideology has little to do with truth-seeking one way or another; rather, it is quite comparable to a personal moral code. (Indeed, we can talk about ‘political Christianity’, ‘political Islam’, ‘political environmentalism’ as being directly influenced by moral codes.) Surely we can agree that lots of folks here follow a deontological moral code, without this noticeably affecting their truth-seeking ability.
Moreover, as a matter of fact, a lot of “truth-seeking” in the real world happens through adversarial processes which are quite comparable to political dynamics (and may in fact have similar rationales, such as ensuring “fairness” in the process and outcome). For the sake of consistency, we should be forced to promote a similar slogan “Law is the mind-killer!” and refrain from any discussion about the Knox/Sollicito case, lest tribal-loyalty signaling towards either the prosecutor’s or the defendant’s “side” poison any truth-seeking effort. If anything, law is even more problematic than politics, since biased/filtered evidence is so ubiquitous in legal processes.
I might agree with you, except that factions (hence, folks needing to declare allegiance to some faction) have instrumental value in political processes, and it’s hard to see what might replace them. So even though ideologies can be bad (since they often lead to absolute-sounding, black-and-white thinking) the best antidote to them is compromise and careful deliberation—as opposed to withdrawing politics entirely and ceding any debate to the faction with the briefest sound-bites and the most adherents.
If you think you know how to get yourself elected to public office, and/or get sane policies implemented, all while retaining enough sanity yourself to be able to tell which policies are sane, don’t let me stop you. (Also don’t let me stop you from using any other superpowers you may have, such as leaping tall buildings in a single bound.)
My worry is about people whose time isn’t best spent on politics getting their minds killed by it. Think of Eliezer turning into Noam Chomsky as the nightmare scenario. Unlikely to happen, and thank goodness.
No, the problem is much more general than that. After all, sometimes the truth is black-and-white. What ideologies do is make you stupid. They prevent you from properly exploring the hypothesis space of explanations for phenomena or solutions to problems. They prevent you from being able to tell the difference between black-and-white situations and those that are more subtle. And they prevent you from correcting your mistakes.
I think people seeking public office are saner than you give them credit for. Politicians tend to espouse crazy thinking because that’s how the incentives are set up, both within political parties—where signalling loyalty to the party is often paramount, so lower-ranked folks refrain from any criticism of policies and personalities: not the way a rationally-inspired organization is managed—and in the broader political arena, especially during campaigns but this is when “politics” is most visible and salient. The mantra of a successful campaign can be phrased as: “stay on message; no compromise, no debating.”
Thus, almost no one’s time is best spent on politics today, but this could be changed fairly easily. We are lucky, in that deliberative politics can be promoted incrementally both within organizations and in the broader political sphere. Especially if some parties or factions were to adopt open, deliberative methods and perhaps promote them as “more pragmatic, less ideological” and “more rationalist”; but also “more transparent and accountable”, which appeals to the more idealistic folks and perhaps challenges them to influence policy by finding tolerable compromises.
Again, even if that were true, it’s not the point. The purpose of the slogan “politics is the mind-killer” is not to discourage rationalists with political talent from becoming professional politicians; it is to prevent the dynamics of tribal-loyalty-signaling from poisoning truth-seeking discussion among those interested in the latter.
You seem to be assuming that the only way to usefully affect politics in the real world is becoming a professional politician, which is not at all obvious.
In general, political ideology has little to do with truth-seeking one way or another; rather, it is quite comparable to a personal moral code. (Indeed, we can talk about ‘political Christianity’, ‘political Islam’, ‘political environmentalism’ as being directly influenced by moral codes.) Surely we can agree that lots of folks here follow a deontological moral code, without this noticeably affecting their truth-seeking ability.
Moreover, as a matter of fact, a lot of “truth-seeking” in the real world happens through adversarial processes which are quite comparable to political dynamics (and may in fact have similar rationales, such as ensuring “fairness” in the process and outcome). For the sake of consistency, we should be forced to promote a similar slogan “Law is the mind-killer!” and refrain from any discussion about the Knox/Sollicito case, lest tribal-loyalty signaling towards either the prosecutor’s or the defendant’s “side” poison any truth-seeking effort. If anything, law is even more problematic than politics, since biased/filtered evidence is so ubiquitous in legal processes.