Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone implemented your moral theory?
I don’t know. Are you sure you know?
Since we are talking about human minds, let me point out that Homo Sapiens is a neat ape design but something he is not good at doing is implementing his values into workable systems that do what the label says. He also isn’t good at preserving his values in the long run. I have no reason at all to be confident that uploading my current values into everyone will make the universe eventually more to my liking. Nor that my values are capable of being self-sustaining without the symbiosis with slightly different or compatible value systems.
If I believed that a universal implementation of my morality would not make the world a better place, that would be a strong reason for me to change my moral beliefs.
I’m trying to dispute your assertion that it is safe, reasonable, or rational to ignore politics. To the extent that “Politics is the mindkiller” is more than a community norm in this forum, it should not be taken as a prohibition on political thought or action. That presupposes a broad definition of “politics,” but I think the broad understanding is eminently justified.
I’ve had this discussion before, I suggest you read thesetwo debates.
Humans systematically overestimate the gains to be had from political activism and time spent on politics. Our brains where not made for a society of millions and thus our intuitions are not properly calibrated.
I gather that Europe may be different in this regard, but in the United States, a lot of political decisions are made at the local level. There’s definitely an argument to be made that media attention overemphasizes the importance of federal politics and underemphasizes the importance of local politics—many decisions are actually made at the level of thousands, not millions, but voter turnout for such things is lower rather than higher.
If I believed that a universal implementation of my morality would not make the world a better place, that would be a strong reason for me to change my moral beliefs.
Well knock yourself out. I don’t feel that way however.
If I figure out that my morality (lets call it Orange), needs 70% of the universe to be Violet so 30% can be Orange, that seems felicitous to Violet people but dosen’t really change my opinion that 30% Orange universe is pretty cool thing and far more than I should expect in a uncaring universe which has laws that weren’t optimized for my values.
So what if in the 0% Orange universe is 100% up of Brown which dosen’t need any other value systems? Why should that impress me? But aha brown may have some components of Orange mixed in! You may still derive value from it! Well sure, but what makes you so confident that this might prove to be enough to beat out 30% Orange?
A definitional dispute seems to be obscuring our philosophical dispute. Let’s taboo morality for a moment, and talk about “social theories.” The purpose of a social theory is to tell everyone in a society what principles to use to make decisions.
So there is a Orange-Violet social theory, which says that 30% of the people should use Orange principles. That can only work if 70% of the people use Violet principles, so Orange-Violet requires that condition be met. Further, Orange-Violet has a principle that everyone must think that the distribution of Orange and Violet is correct and right.
If you think that the world would be better if Orange-Violet were implemented, why wouldn’t you want the Orange-Violet social theory be implemented?
Further, Orange-Violet has a principle that everyone must think that the distribution of Orange and Violet is correct and right.
Why?
If you think that the world would be better if Orange-Violet were implemented, why wouldn’t you want the Orange-Violet social theory be implemented?
My objection to Orange going to 100% was of a practical nature. I don’t have a high enough confidence in my modelling of the world to impose something like that. Lets say we somehow know that Orange-Violet is basically the best possible implementation of Orange, or Orange+ upgraded for a smarter/better me.
In that case I would endorse Orange-Violet. But I fail to see what this has to do with politics. At least with activities I usually understand as political, such as devoting attention to political life or party programmes or judicial decisions or reading pundits or drafts of laws or voting or lobbying.
Political and social movements are more like the movement of plate tectonics than say having a conversation with someone. Either as an activist or voter one’s impact is negligible.
At least with activities I usually understand as political, such as devoting attention to political life or party programmes or judicial decisions or reading pundits or drafts of laws or voting or lobbying.
As I said, that’s a parched definition of political. Deciding what charity to donate to is political. Arguing that empirical verification should be implemented if possible is political. Not laughing at a racist joke is political. Commenting on the appropriate level of politeness in LessWrong is political.
All those things are susceptible to motivated cognition. Much more importantly, all those things function as support for particular social organization.
Deciding what charity to donate to is political. Arguing that empirical verification should be implemented if possible is political. Not laughing at a racist joke is political. Commenting on the appropriate level of politeness in LessWrong is political.
It is but I ignore the political aspect of it. In fact I find people who fixate on the political aspects of everyday actions to be a generally disagreeable personality type.
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
—Winston Churchill
I have little interest in them. Now you may dispute the “won’t change his mind” bit, but politics is not a truth seeking process, it is war by other means. Why let your enemy dictate your actions when it is at all avoidable? The LessWrong example you choose is a bad one, LessWrong has a perfectly defined purpose already, “refining the art of human rationality”, ideally any debates on the proper level of politeness are not political acts but participation in truth seeking (the truth being sought is “best level of politeness for achieving LessWrong’s formalized goals of “refining the art of human rationality”).
Being apolitical is a political stance not complete inaction or not understanding the most relevant consequences of one’s actions. If I say decide to bomb some politician’s office for some reason I will be aware it will have political consequences, if I go and vote in a general election for some reason, I however won’t delude myself into thinking that my vote really matters. I advocate being apolitical because I think that for the vast majority of people it is the better option. In most people’s lives thinking about the political consequences of every day actions is a source of low quality entertainment and nothing more. Why not replace it with high quality activities?
I didn’t pick that word out randomly. Why did your mind jump to a unusual interpretation of it?
I think the narrow definition misses out on all the ways our actions shape society. How do you decide when to say “That’s not funny” if you ignore the political?
And if you never rock the boat, that’s just supporting the status quo, which is a political decision as well.
I just don’t find that particular joke funny. Unless I’m surrounded by a regiment of the PLA who will beat me if I don’t fit in, I don’t see a reason why I should bother lying about that. Do you find it funny but think you shouldn’t?
Also you are ignoring the great benefit of apolitical action. By being generally apolitical, you won’t be the first one picked for promotions in any system be it democracy or communism, but neither will people feel a strong urge to spend energy trying to hurt you because you belong to a different tribe. Or, for personal benefit, spread word of your nonconformity to decent norms like considering democracy the best form of government possible or believing in the Holy Trinity or the international conspiracy of Jewish bankers and Bolsheviks. I won’t be dragged in front of a court for speaking my mind about the king or the party or whatever limitations on freedom of speech my society has. Neither will I be fired, nor will my friends ostracise me. If you think most people are crazy about something, well, why poke people in conversation by screwing with their “are you part of my tribe” pings, when it does neither of you any good?
Quite often if you refrain from political statements people assume you agree with their politics which means you can get more positive interactions with them than otherwise, mind projection fallacy FTW. In most situations being apolitical seems to be a net gain.
Also, if everything is politics then nothing is politics.
Well, we agree that A2 is the apolitical answer and A3 is the political answer (and A1 is the jerkwad answer).
I also agree that being apolitical is often a useful instrumental value. As you say, there’s a strong tendency for people to overestimate the importance of their pet issues, and setting a high priority on non-commitment can counter-act that. But non-commitment is only an instrumental value, not a terminal value.
Further, I think you overestimate the cost of speaking up. I was once waiting in line at the airport and a young Asian man was having a lot of trouble with the automated check-in machines. The person next to me said something like, “It’s strange that he’s having so much trouble,” obviously invoking the idea that all Asians are good at technology.
I think this kind of essentialist thinking is morally wrong. I could have said nothing. Your recommendation would have been that I say nothing. But I stated a rebuke. (Basically, “There’s already enough trouble in the world. Why go out of your way to make more for someone else?”)
I’m saying that was a political decision, and so would have been the decision not to say something.
But non-commitment is only an instrumental value, not a terminal value.
I think I can generally agree with that.
I’m saying that was a political decision, and so would have been the decision not to say something
Recall when I said:
if everything is politics then nothing is politics.
Can we try and taboo politics? If I understand you right you are basically equating politics with morality. In other words every act has an effect, sometimes tiny sometimes large, on your expected utility (which obviously factors in any morality or set of values you hold).
You’re the one arguing for non-involvement. If every act has moral consequences, how can one justify deciding not to “get involved” without knowing the particular context?
Your original comment did not give the impression that context was important. More precisely, you seemed to assert that the average LessWronger was unlikely to ever be in a position in which the non-involvement principle would lead them astray.
I think this is what opposing racism can look like. Or standing to allow a child and parent to have connecting seats on the subway, which both subsidizes something I think is worthy of subsidy and helps set the social norm for future situations.
It seems like the non-involvement principle says I shouldn’t have done either of those things.
Ah, very good then. Clearly, we have insufficiently formalized what it means to be apolitical. I always assumed that it meant following the relevant social norms of whatever society one finds oneself in, avoiding political argument, and taking a carefully crafted “neutral-stance” on political issues.
I certainly agree that if the non-involvement principle recommends against exercising laudable virtues, then the principle is a bad one. However, I do not think anyone has in mind a principle which would forbid giving up one’s subway seat.
However, the non-involvement principle does seem to recommend against that particular method of opposing racism. If you consider this a flaw, that seems to be a perfectly coherent reason to reject the principle.
I think you are right that the racism example is better than the subway hypothetical.
Konkvistador’s use of the word political to only reference being active in the process of selecting public officials is quite conventional. For reasons based on feminist thought, I think this understanding artificially restricts the sorts of problems and approaches that can be addressed. In other words, I think the conventional definition is wrong, in that it doesn’t actually reference everything that it seems to be trying to reference. Thus, I prefer to say that “The personal is political.”
But the other issue I had with his original comment was that the OP was talking about having an open mind about ideology, not simply politics. To the extent that the OP was reconsidering his ideological commitments, I was to suggest that committing to some type of apolitical stance (either under my understanding or Konkvistador’s) was not necessarily optimal.
However, the non-involvement principle does seem to recommend against that particular method of opposing racism. If you consider this a flaw, that seems to be a perfectly coherent reason to reject the principle.
Yes. Life doesn’t come labelled “racism issue.” If you don’t think about what you’ll do in ambiguous situations ahead of time (which being apolitical suggests you shouldn’t), you won’t act. Getting things done isn’t often polite, as this comment notes.
Clearly, we have insufficiently formalized what it means to be apolitical.
A few comments up I linked to the wikipedia definition to formalize my usage:
The state or quality of being apolitical can be the apathy and/or the antipathy towards all political affiliations.
I think I’m basically pretty much at antipathy. I have a negative and I think pretty justified attitude towards those trying to enthuse me for political affiliations as people trying to hijack my goals for their own purposes.
I always assumed that it meant following the relevant social norms of whatever society one finds oneself in, avoiding political argument, and taking a carefully crafted “neutral-stance” on political issues.
That is how I intended to use the word. Considering oneself neutral in the great tribal struggles of one’s time, aids one in having a better map of reality. It also helps to avoid hijacking by predatory memes.
I certainly agree that if the non-involvement principle recommends against exercising laudable virtues, then the principle is a bad one.
I don’t know why anyone would choose to describe this as the primary use of the word “apolitical”.
I don’t know why anyone would choose to describe this as apolitical.
I must confess, neither do I. I hope that I did not inadvertently imply that I endorse the antecedent of the conditional:
if the non-involvement principle recommends against exercising laudable virtues, then the principle is a bad one
Edit: I did not mean to imply that I believed that you were implying that I did. I just wished to clarify, in order to negate the small-probability that such a miscommunication had occurred.
If every act has moral consequences, how can one justify deciding not to “get involved” without knowing the particular context?
I have given a context (Politics) and we know much about this class of contexts. Taking an outside view getting emotionally involved in these generally produces one of the worst kinds of bias. “Political” actions generally amount to nothing but naked power struggles that rarely acheive “what it says on the label”.
An apolitical mind is a better mind was my original statement. If you consider everything to be “politics” then this statement would read “a goalless or inactive mind is a better mind”, to be truly goalless may indeed be impossible while having a working brain and to be fully inactive is to be irrational. Clearly one then dosen’t have a something that could be called a “better mind” in any sense (unless you are negative utilitarian—Do no ill!).
If my use of “politics”, dosen’t match your own specific usage feel free to replace it with bjarndorf or some such word of your choosing. A-bjandorfian minds are better minds. There.
If politics takes an interest in you it is already far too late.
Respectfully, you have a very narrow definition of politics. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone implemented your moral theory?
I don’t know. Are you sure you know?
Since we are talking about human minds, let me point out that Homo Sapiens is a neat ape design but something he is not good at doing is implementing his values into workable systems that do what the label says. He also isn’t good at preserving his values in the long run. I have no reason at all to be confident that uploading my current values into everyone will make the universe eventually more to my liking. Nor that my values are capable of being self-sustaining without the symbiosis with slightly different or compatible value systems.
If I believed that a universal implementation of my morality would not make the world a better place, that would be a strong reason for me to change my moral beliefs.
I’m trying to dispute your assertion that it is safe, reasonable, or rational to ignore politics. To the extent that “Politics is the mindkiller” is more than a community norm in this forum, it should not be taken as a prohibition on political thought or action. That presupposes a broad definition of “politics,” but I think the broad understanding is eminently justified.
I’ve had this discussion before, I suggest you read these two debates.
Humans systematically overestimate the gains to be had from political activism and time spent on politics. Our brains where not made for a society of millions and thus our intuitions are not properly calibrated.
I gather that Europe may be different in this regard, but in the United States, a lot of political decisions are made at the local level. There’s definitely an argument to be made that media attention overemphasizes the importance of federal politics and underemphasizes the importance of local politics—many decisions are actually made at the level of thousands, not millions, but voter turnout for such things is lower rather than higher.
Fair enough. But your position is not necessarily implied by the OP.
Well knock yourself out. I don’t feel that way however.
If I figure out that my morality (lets call it Orange), needs 70% of the universe to be Violet so 30% can be Orange, that seems felicitous to Violet people but dosen’t really change my opinion that 30% Orange universe is pretty cool thing and far more than I should expect in a uncaring universe which has laws that weren’t optimized for my values.
So what if in the 0% Orange universe is 100% up of Brown which dosen’t need any other value systems? Why should that impress me? But aha brown may have some components of Orange mixed in! You may still derive value from it! Well sure, but what makes you so confident that this might prove to be enough to beat out 30% Orange?
A definitional dispute seems to be obscuring our philosophical dispute. Let’s taboo morality for a moment, and talk about “social theories.” The purpose of a social theory is to tell everyone in a society what principles to use to make decisions.
So there is a Orange-Violet social theory, which says that 30% of the people should use Orange principles. That can only work if 70% of the people use Violet principles, so Orange-Violet requires that condition be met. Further, Orange-Violet has a principle that everyone must think that the distribution of Orange and Violet is correct and right.
If you think that the world would be better if Orange-Violet were implemented, why wouldn’t you want the Orange-Violet social theory be implemented?
Why?
My objection to Orange going to 100% was of a practical nature. I don’t have a high enough confidence in my modelling of the world to impose something like that. Lets say we somehow know that Orange-Violet is basically the best possible implementation of Orange, or Orange+ upgraded for a smarter/better me.
In that case I would endorse Orange-Violet. But I fail to see what this has to do with politics. At least with activities I usually understand as political, such as devoting attention to political life or party programmes or judicial decisions or reading pundits or drafts of laws or voting or lobbying.
Political and social movements are more like the movement of plate tectonics than say having a conversation with someone. Either as an activist or voter one’s impact is negligible.
As I said, that’s a parched definition of political. Deciding what charity to donate to is political. Arguing that empirical verification should be implemented if possible is political. Not laughing at a racist joke is political. Commenting on the appropriate level of politeness in LessWrong is political.
All those things are susceptible to motivated cognition. Much more importantly, all those things function as support for particular social organization.
It is but I ignore the political aspect of it. In fact I find people who fixate on the political aspects of everyday actions to be a generally disagreeable personality type.
I have little interest in them. Now you may dispute the “won’t change his mind” bit, but politics is not a truth seeking process, it is war by other means. Why let your enemy dictate your actions when it is at all avoidable? The LessWrong example you choose is a bad one, LessWrong has a perfectly defined purpose already, “refining the art of human rationality”, ideally any debates on the proper level of politeness are not political acts but participation in truth seeking (the truth being sought is “best level of politeness for achieving LessWrong’s formalized goals of “refining the art of human rationality”).
Being apolitical is a political stance not complete inaction or not understanding the most relevant consequences of one’s actions. If I say decide to bomb some politician’s office for some reason I will be aware it will have political consequences, if I go and vote in a general election for some reason, I however won’t delude myself into thinking that my vote really matters. I advocate being apolitical because I think that for the vast majority of people it is the better option. In most people’s lives thinking about the political consequences of every day actions is a source of low quality entertainment and nothing more. Why not replace it with high quality activities?
I didn’t pick that word out randomly. Why did your mind jump to a unusual interpretation of it?
I think the narrow definition misses out on all the ways our actions shape society. How do you decide when to say “That’s not funny” if you ignore the political?
And if you never rock the boat, that’s just supporting the status quo, which is a political decision as well.
When I genuinely don’t find something funny.
Madness! How dare you be honest! Don’t you know that morality is supposed to be something you don’t want to do?
Q: What do you call it when you find a Jew up to his neck in sand?
A1: No enough sand.
A2: (change subject)
A3: That’s not funny.
Choosing between those answers is political. There is no unbiased stance.
Noticing that doesn’t require you to delude yourself that your vote in an election will have any important influence on the result.
I just don’t find that particular joke funny. Unless I’m surrounded by a regiment of the PLA who will beat me if I don’t fit in, I don’t see a reason why I should bother lying about that. Do you find it funny but think you shouldn’t?
Also you are ignoring the great benefit of apolitical action. By being generally apolitical, you won’t be the first one picked for promotions in any system be it democracy or communism, but neither will people feel a strong urge to spend energy trying to hurt you because you belong to a different tribe. Or, for personal benefit, spread word of your nonconformity to decent norms like considering democracy the best form of government possible or believing in the Holy Trinity or the international conspiracy of Jewish bankers and Bolsheviks. I won’t be dragged in front of a court for speaking my mind about the king or the party or whatever limitations on freedom of speech my society has. Neither will I be fired, nor will my friends ostracise me. If you think most people are crazy about something, well, why poke people in conversation by screwing with their “are you part of my tribe” pings, when it does neither of you any good?
Quite often if you refrain from political statements people assume you agree with their politics which means you can get more positive interactions with them than otherwise, mind projection fallacy FTW. In most situations being apolitical seems to be a net gain.
Also, if everything is politics then nothing is politics.
Well, we agree that A2 is the apolitical answer and A3 is the political answer (and A1 is the jerkwad answer).
I also agree that being apolitical is often a useful instrumental value. As you say, there’s a strong tendency for people to overestimate the importance of their pet issues, and setting a high priority on non-commitment can counter-act that. But non-commitment is only an instrumental value, not a terminal value.
Further, I think you overestimate the cost of speaking up. I was once waiting in line at the airport and a young Asian man was having a lot of trouble with the automated check-in machines. The person next to me said something like, “It’s strange that he’s having so much trouble,” obviously invoking the idea that all Asians are good at technology.
I think this kind of essentialist thinking is morally wrong. I could have said nothing. Your recommendation would have been that I say nothing. But I stated a rebuke. (Basically, “There’s already enough trouble in the world. Why go out of your way to make more for someone else?”)
I’m saying that was a political decision, and so would have been the decision not to say something.
I think I can generally agree with that.
Recall when I said:
Can we try and taboo politics? If I understand you right you are basically equating politics with morality. In other words every act has an effect, sometimes tiny sometimes large, on your expected utility (which obviously factors in any morality or set of values you hold).
But it is an important insight that everything (every social interaction, at least) really is political.
I don’t see how. It seems much more insightful to say political acts always have moral consequences.
I’d rather say “All social acts have moral consequences.”
All acts have moral consequences.
You’re the one arguing for non-involvement. If every act has moral consequences, how can one justify deciding not to “get involved” without knowing the particular context?
Your original comment did not give the impression that context was important. More precisely, you seemed to assert that the average LessWronger was unlikely to ever be in a position in which the non-involvement principle would lead them astray.
Could you give an example of such a case? This:
seems fairly solid.
I think this is what opposing racism can look like. Or standing to allow a child and parent to have connecting seats on the subway, which both subsidizes something I think is worthy of subsidy and helps set the social norm for future situations.
It seems like the non-involvement principle says I shouldn’t have done either of those things.
Ah, very good then. Clearly, we have insufficiently formalized what it means to be apolitical. I always assumed that it meant following the relevant social norms of whatever society one finds oneself in, avoiding political argument, and taking a carefully crafted “neutral-stance” on political issues.
I certainly agree that if the non-involvement principle recommends against exercising laudable virtues, then the principle is a bad one. However, I do not think anyone has in mind a principle which would forbid giving up one’s subway seat.
However, the non-involvement principle does seem to recommend against that particular method of opposing racism. If you consider this a flaw, that seems to be a perfectly coherent reason to reject the principle.
I think you are right that the racism example is better than the subway hypothetical.
Konkvistador’s use of the word political to only reference being active in the process of selecting public officials is quite conventional. For reasons based on feminist thought, I think this understanding artificially restricts the sorts of problems and approaches that can be addressed. In other words, I think the conventional definition is wrong, in that it doesn’t actually reference everything that it seems to be trying to reference. Thus, I prefer to say that “The personal is political.”
But the other issue I had with his original comment was that the OP was talking about having an open mind about ideology, not simply politics. To the extent that the OP was reconsidering his ideological commitments, I was to suggest that committing to some type of apolitical stance (either under my understanding or Konkvistador’s) was not necessarily optimal.
Yes. Life doesn’t come labelled “racism issue.” If you don’t think about what you’ll do in ambiguous situations ahead of time (which being apolitical suggests you shouldn’t), you won’t act. Getting things done isn’t often polite, as this comment notes.
A few comments up I linked to the wikipedia definition to formalize my usage:
I think I’m basically pretty much at antipathy. I have a negative and I think pretty justified attitude towards those trying to enthuse me for political affiliations as people trying to hijack my goals for their own purposes.
That is how I intended to use the word. Considering oneself neutral in the great tribal struggles of one’s time, aids one in having a better map of reality. It also helps to avoid hijacking by predatory memes.
I don’t know why anyone would choose to describe this as the primary use of the word “apolitical”.
Edit: I didn’t mean to imply you did.
I must confess, neither do I. I hope that I did not inadvertently imply that I endorse the antecedent of the conditional:
Edit: I did not mean to imply that I believed that you were implying that I did. I just wished to clarify, in order to negate the small-probability that such a miscommunication had occurred.
Non-invovlement with what exactly?
I have given a context (Politics) and we know much about this class of contexts. Taking an outside view getting emotionally involved in these generally produces one of the worst kinds of bias. “Political” actions generally amount to nothing but naked power struggles that rarely acheive “what it says on the label”.
An apolitical mind is a better mind was my original statement. If you consider everything to be “politics” then this statement would read “a goalless or inactive mind is a better mind”, to be truly goalless may indeed be impossible while having a working brain and to be fully inactive is to be irrational. Clearly one then dosen’t have a something that could be called a “better mind” in any sense (unless you are negative utilitarian—Do no ill!).
If my use of “politics”, dosen’t match your own specific usage feel free to replace it with bjarndorf or some such word of your choosing. A-bjandorfian minds are better minds. There.
All acts have moral consequences.
How can you prevent politics from taking an interest in you, if not by engaging in politics?