I think it is a rather unsympathetic strawman characterization of what they rationalist political debate would be. Even if one could make money off of purely thinking—and I don’t want to debate the efficient market hypothesis here—I would hope that the purpose of the debate would be over rational government policies that address the underlying concerns of all sides. For example, what underlying fears and insecurities lead to support for trumps anti-immigration, anti-Muslim position? What legitimate basis exists, charitably, for these fears? What potential policy could both address these underlying concerns, and be supported by both parties and independents? More to the point, what additional data would be useful to have, in the form of polls that are not currently being conducted or some such?
Nate Silver’s 538 blog is an example of such a rationalist resource, but he only covers politics during election season and there isn’t much community building going on.
I think it is a rather unsympathetic strawman characterization of what they rationalist political debate would be. Even if one could make money off of purely thinking—and I don’t want to debate the efficient market hypothesis here—I would hope that the purpose of the debate would be over rational government policies that address the underlying concerns of all sides. For example, what underlying fears and insecurities lead to support for trumps anti-immigration, anti-Muslim position? What legitimate basis exists, charitably, for these fears? What potential policy could both address these underlying concerns, and be supported by both parties and independents? More to the point, what additional data would be useful to have, in the form of polls that are not currently being conducted or some such?
Nate Silver’s 538 blog is an example of such a rationalist resource, but he only covers politics during election season and there isn’t much community building going on.