I agree that more rationality in politics would be a good thing, but I think this post is making too big of a deal out of it. Eliezer said essentially the same thing, “rationalists ought to be more active in politics”, much more succintly here.
Are you a rationalist who feels like you could go into politics? Well then, go into politics if you think that’s where your comparative advantage lies. See if you can get your local friends to support you. Getting the support of fellow rationalists is good, but the main thing is getting emotional support from someone—you’ll need a lot of it. If you can get other rationalists to also become candidates, great. If not, you’ll just have to work with smart people who aren’t explicitly rationalist.
If you feel like you could manage politics (emotionally as well as intellectually), then go into politics. That’s all there is to it. You don’t need to discuss an elaborate Bayesian Conspiracy for that. Rationalists who are into politics and are in a position to assist each other will find each other regardless.
(I’ve dabbled in politics, but become demotivated because a large part of it involves repeating the same message over and over and over, which I’m not good at. I’d rather just write up one killer argument for issue X and then move on to Y since X has been settled, barring any devastating critiques to my argument for X. Doesn’t work. Also, I’m bad at thinking up answers to interview questions on the spot, and developed a bit of an ugh field for doing interviews.)
I agree that more rationality in politics would be a good thing, but I think this post is making too big of a deal out of it. Eliezer said essentially the same thing, “rationalists ought to be more active in politics”, much more succintly here.
Are you a rationalist who feels like you could go into politics? Well then, go into politics if you think that’s where your comparative advantage lies. See if you can get your local friends to support you. Getting the support of fellow rationalists is good, but the main thing is getting emotional support from someone—you’ll need a lot of it. If you can get other rationalists to also become candidates, great. If not, you’ll just have to work with smart people who aren’t explicitly rationalist.
If you feel like you could manage politics (emotionally as well as intellectually), then go into politics. That’s all there is to it. You don’t need to discuss an elaborate Bayesian Conspiracy for that. Rationalists who are into politics and are in a position to assist each other will find each other regardless.
(I’ve dabbled in politics, but become demotivated because a large part of it involves repeating the same message over and over and over, which I’m not good at. I’d rather just write up one killer argument for issue X and then move on to Y since X has been settled, barring any devastating critiques to my argument for X. Doesn’t work. Also, I’m bad at thinking up answers to interview questions on the spot, and developed a bit of an ugh field for doing interviews.)