I’m currently interpreting this to mean “talking about this through and economic lens, and maybe abstracted political lens, but don’t bring up any current politicians or parties or whatnot.”
The main way I personally think about how-to-achieve-political-goals while avoiding mindkill is to always structure the question as “what could a small well-funded team do?”.
Usually, political discussions of policy say something like “if we passed a law saying X, then Y would happen”. The problem with that formulation is the word “we”—it immediately and automatically makes this a group-identity thing. If only “we” all behaved like <ingroup>, “we” would pass law X, and everything would be better!
Thinking about what a small well-funded team can do forces several better habits:
it forces thinking about the underlying gears of the whole system, in order to achieve maximum leverage
it forces thinking about realistic, minimal (i.e. “keyhole”) interventions
it mostly eliminates excuses to say “yay/boo <group>”; particular political groups just become gears in the model
The main way I personally think about how-to-achieve-political-goals while avoiding mindkill is to always structure the question as “what could a small well-funded team do?”.
Usually, political discussions of policy say something like “if we passed a law saying X, then Y would happen”. The problem with that formulation is the word “we”—it immediately and automatically makes this a group-identity thing. If only “we” all behaved like <ingroup>, “we” would pass law X, and everything would be better!
Thinking about what a small well-funded team can do forces several better habits:
it forces thinking about the underlying gears of the whole system, in order to achieve maximum leverage
it forces thinking about realistic, minimal (i.e. “keyhole”) interventions
it mostly eliminates excuses to say “yay/boo <group>”; particular political groups just become gears in the model