If we didn’t have politics, we’d raid each others’ villages and steal the women and sheep instead. Politics is a way to avoid direct bloodshed, and as such is an improvement.
What I’m saying is, Eliezer identifies the problem, but where’s the alternative?
Historically raids where mostly a male thing and women where part of the expected plunder. Such things where rather common, this is why In many countries symbolical kidnapping of the bride is part of wedding celebrations.
I think that what Nancy thought problematic was not the assumption that men would raid and women would be plundered, but the assumption that “we” would raid rather than be plundered—i.e. that “we” are only men.
I used to see that sort of “real people are men” statement as a sort of humorous gusto in slightly poor taste, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s how it’s intended. I’ve since realized that it also has an effect on availability bias.
The bride stays in a ‘fortified’ location with all her female friends The groom is supposed to round up his male friends and get past the defenders to steal away the bride. Bribes of money (in ceremonial little red envelopes) are the most common way to get past the defenders, but sneaking is also okay, and some of the male friends are supposed to ‘distract’ some of the female friends.
I’m not objecting to gender differences in who does the raiding, I’m objecting to assuming that the reader is male and then encouraging the reader to only identify with the raiders.
I actually think politics is what makes it possible to organize raids on other villages, and also what makes it possible to sometimes prevent raids from happening, but let’s try some other phrasings for h-H’s original quote.
“If we didn’t have politics, we’d have no way of stopping raids on other villages, and we’d be enduring theft, kidnapping, and rape.” (I’ve heard that there are cultures where women do the deciding and men do the fighting.)
“If men didn’t have politics, we’d be subject to raids.” (I’m having a surprisingly hard time phrasing a woman-centered version of the quote. I don’t think this is because there’s something unrealistic about it, I think it’s because a mode that’s as woman-centered as the original is male-centered is very rare.)
“Politics are the only way the human race found to avoid small-scale conflict.”
Are you sure that’s your true rejection? I think writers use “we” to denote groups that don’t literally include all of the readers all the time, but from what I’ve seen on LW readers seem to be particularly bothered by that when that group is “males”.
I agree that sometimes writers use “we” in ways that don’t include the reader.
For example, someone might say “we” of their nation, and thus include those readers which are fellow citizens, but not those readers who aren’t. What sort of examples do you have in mind?
Yeah, “we” meaning ‘Americans’ is the first example I would have thought of. But I suspect there are lots of cases where “we” (interpreting the context literally) refers to a group excluding a non-trivial fraction of the readership which I wouldn’t even consciously notice unless I was looking for them.
We-incl need a clearer distinction between inclusive and exclusive “we” in English. Speaking for heterosexuals, to a mixed audience or a specific listener, doesn’t bother me at all. Out of context, a sentence like “We can’t really understand same-sex attraction” could be read as either “Heterosexuals, such as I, are empathically challenged. Mind the inferential gap.” or “We can all agree that queers are weird.”.
I try to interpret ambiguity charitably, so usually when it irritates me the issue isn’t ambiguity, but actual exclusiveness.
A sentence like “We seek out mates among attractive members of the opposite sex,” for example, isn’t ambiguous at all; it simply excludes some queers from its subject.
And, just to be clear: the speakers of such sentences are free to do so, and should be.
I bring it up only because army1987 seemed to be drawing potentially false inferences from silence: the reality is I am sometimes bothered by it.
If we didn’t have politics, we’d raid each others’ villages and steal the women and sheep instead. Politics is a way to avoid direct bloodshed, and as such is an improvement.
Back when I was studying political science at university, warfare, terrorism, etc… were explicitly considered forms of politics (“politics by other means”). At risk of sounding simplistic, the alternative to non-unanimous decision procedures (the realm of political society) is unanimous decision procedures (the realm of civil society).
At risk of sounding simplistic, the alternative to non-unanimous decision procedures (the realm of political society) is unanimous decision procedures (the realm of civil society).
Or living without using decision procedures at all, which is quite feasible in small groups under ~150 people. There will always be disagreement about “rights” and the like, but small groups can more easily hash out such disagreements through informal ethics (i.e. managed de-escalation of conflict). Political conflict persay only seems to arise in larger groups.
Can you summarize your reasons for believing that small groups don’t use decision procedures, as opposed to believing that small groups use informally specified decision procedures? My experience of decision-making in small groups is that while it can be consensual, it is more often an informal oligarchy… that is, there’s a few people who really matter, but nobody ever comes right out and says that.
My experience of decision-making in small groups is that while it can be consensual, it is more often an informal oligarchy...
Yes, but h-H and Jayson_Virissimo were talking about near-political conflicts. Even in a small group, value conflicts tend to erode this kind of loyalty to informal authorities.
Well, I agree as far as that goes, but if you also mean to suggest that a group run by informal oligarchy can’t (or isn’t likely to) persist in that structure in the face of value conflicts due to that erosion of loyalty, I disagree. IME small groups typically have all manner of internal conflicts, which admittedly serve to weaken the group’s internal cohesion, but typically not enough so to cause the group to disintegrate altogether. (Indeed, the same is true of large groups with more formal structures.)
Does this really matter? Ultimately, yes, a small group may simply trust an oligarchy to take right decisions for them, and do what the oligarchy says. But even then, I’m not sure that this qualifies as a “decision procedure” (of either the formal or informal kind) in any politically interesting sense.
If I’m a member of a small group who thinks we should do X, and you’re a member of the same group who thinks we should do Y, and the group does Y because you have more power in that group than I do (whether that power is due to greater trust or some other factor; trust is far from being the only mechanism through which informal power gets exerted in small groups), then it matters to me.
And if individuals exerting power over groups (whether through trust or other mechanisms) to cause the groups to implement the individual’s preferences isn’t politics, then I don’t know what politics is, and I’m not sure why politics is more important than whatever-that-is.
Or living without using decision procedures at all, which is quite feasible in small groups under ~150 people. There will always be disagreement about “rights” and the like, but small groups can more easily hash out such disagreements through informal ethics (i.e. managed de-escalation of conflict). Political conflict persay only seems to arise in larger groups.
Individuals (and in some cases, families) deciding for themselves what to do is a special case of a “unanimous decision procedure”.
If we didn’t have strongly felt affiliations with powerful groups that gain their power from our affiliation, but are too big to actually consider our preferences when using their power, we would...
Do you think that most people would choose to define “politics” as “strongly felt affiliations with powerful groups that gain their power from our affiliation, but are too big to actually consider our preferences when using their power” ?
The purpose of tabooing words ought be to disentangle confusing connotations that the original word had. You seem to have chosen to add connotations. You may argue that politics leads to such “strongly felt affiliations” to such “powerful groups”, but damn, that’s a different thing from just defining politics to be such.
the practice or profession of conducting political affairs.
political affairs: The advocated reforms have become embroiled in politics.
political methods or maneuvers: We could not approve of his politics in winning passage of the bill.
political principles or opinions: We avoided discussion of religion and politics. His politics are his own affair.
As well as an idiomatic definition which is closer to the way the word is often used by LW members who also read Moldbug:
play politics,
a. to engage in political intrigue, take advantage of a political situation or issue, resort to partisan politics, etc.; exploit a political system or political relationships.
b. to deal with people in an opportunistic, manipulative, or devious way, as for job advancement.
I believe that definition #5 is clearly what Eliezer is talking about when he says “politics is the mind-killer.” h-H is talking about #1, #2, and possibly #3 and #4.
I’m not saying my suggested rephrasing is what most people mean by “politics.” But I don’t believe anybody is saying that the art or science of political government is the mind-killer.
FWIW, I’ve always understood the referent for “politics” in “politics is the mind-killer” to be, not political principles or opinions (which in fact get discussed here all the time, typically civilly and sometimes usefully), but tribal affiliation with powerful governmental/nationalist camps. I often refer to it as “partisan politics” for that reason, and around here I sometimes refer to it as “Blue/Green politics.” (Both formulations of which neglect the nationalist aspect, but not for any principled reason, just for convenience. If the Blue/Green teaching-story had included a neighboring nation known as the “Purples,” I might refer to it as “Blue/Green/Purple” politics.)
We would presumably find partisan religious discussion equally problematic if we didn’t already filter for alignment with a particular camp. We do find sex/gender discussion problematic, I think for similar reasons, and would find it much more so Less Wrong didn’t filter for a particular gender. We similarly find race/ethnicity discussion problematic, though for the most part it doesn’t come up… there’s one member who periodically talks about how some races are superior to others, and that causes a certain amount of turbulence before it dies down. Etc.
In general, if we believe there are powerful groups or entities fighting for control over large-scale decisions that affect our lives, we tend to pick a side and invest emotionally in supporting whatever positions are conventionally associated with that side, and signalling considerations start to predominate. This makes analysis difficult.
Partisan politics is too narrow—some “political concepts” become enmeshed in one’s personal identity even if they are irrelevant to whether the community organizer or the business executive should be President of the United States.
Consider how and why the “creepiness” and “feminism” discussions broke down so badly, so quickly, and so acrimoniously.
In short, Paul Graham is right when he says (essentially) “Personal identity is the mindkiller”
I agree. I should have said “definition #5 is clearly the closest to what Eliezer is talking about.” As my suggested tabooing phrase indicates, I think “affiliations that don’t pay rent” are the problem.
Nancy did identify a serious problem with your comment, but I’m not sure modulo that issue that your comment should be downvoted as much as it is. To some extent, the point that we have politics as a way of resolving issues without bloodshed is valid: modern politics in many ways is an improvement over the alternatives. But that doesn’t by itself make politics a good thing or make politics less of a mind-killer. To some extent, much political interaction resembles ritualized combat that occurs in many mammalian species (and sometimes in groups)- fatality is minimized, but the level of actual rational discourse is clearly still pretty low.
To some extent, it may help to see politics as the mindkiller as a statement about how political discourse can be improved. In most of the West, politics doesn’t result in people being killed often, but it still isn’t a rational way of examining disagreements and resolving them in a way that appropriately balances conflicting goals. And it is very very easy for it to become outright tribalism that doesn’t devolve into violence primarily because we have strong anti-violence taboos and respect taboos more than anything connected to the political process.
but I’m not sure modulo that issue that your comment should be downvoted as much as it is
It should be. The comment fundamentally missed the point and made an irrelevant challenge to the alternative forms of competition as though it was some kind of insightful counterpoint rather than a naive trivialization.
Wedrifid, I was disappointed that Eliezer so succinctly identified the problem then mostly left it hanging.
Now, your comment fundamentally missed the point I was making, furthermore you seem to be acting out a common politician’s caricature, I don’t see you making an actual argument here & tbh I’m slightly surprised as you usually do much better than that.
Either way. in the interest of preserving the sanity waterline I’ll stop here.
Wedrifid, I was disappointed that Eliezer so succinctly identified the problem then mostly left it hanging.
“Politics” is not the problem Eliezer identified and nor is “the thing that is the alternative to raiding and pillaging”. (Never mind that the ‘politics’ that corrupts thinking applies just as much—or more—to the tribes who go around raiding and pillaging. It’s about the internal politics within the tribe and the external conflicts come in to it as just more things the individuals can argue about in order to achieve personal gain, preferably at the expense of rivals.)
Thanks for the clear reply, and I agree with your points.
IMO the fact that Politics is a moderately functional substitute for direct bloodshed means that the ‘rational’ in any ‘rational alternative’ has little to do the masses becoming more rational, as opposed to careful grooming by an informed clique capable of long term planning.
That doesn’t necessarily imply a shadowy cabal of super secret rationalists deftly maneuvering the public for it’s own good. Rather, something as simple as spreading basic rationality skills is sufficient if we emphasize ‘long term’, as we should.
But that good work has to come with a working theory of capital r ‘Rational Politics’ or LW’s knowledge base has a huge chunk missing under the ‘Practical knowledge’ heading, say an LWer of high karma by some twist or other became adviser to the Archduke of Wallachia, will the people be better off or not?
In other words, if despite the impressive body of knowledge created here the preferred way for dealing with politics is either:
a. Outright tabooing the subject
or
b. Denouncing the masses as prone to being insane...
Then surely as a community can do better than that?
Admittedly I’m not that well versed in political studies myself, and I’m not calling for Eliezer or anyone else for that matter to focus on this, rather I believe the community is mature enough to have a theoretical discussion about politics -and yes, that includes discussion of parties, partisan positions etc- without devolving into mudslinging or shouting matches.
A curated area in LW with strict rules -default set to anonymous posting, no more than 5 posts per day etc- should solve most potential issues, the hullabaloo that happened during say, the feminist war is not impossible to contain.
To some extent, the point that we have politics as a way of resolving issues without bloodshed is valid: modern politics in many ways is an improvement over the alternatives. But that doesn’t by itself make politics a good thing or make politics less of a mind-killer.
The point is, it’s not at all clear whether we can do any better. The “politics as a way of managing conflict” POV elucidates several features that do set apart politics from ordinary deliberation, which is the domain LW-style rationality is most directly applicable to. (Such as concerns about fairness in political processes, a focus on adversarial argumentation even in factual matters, a need for compromise and creative open-mindedness in order to mitigate value conflicts etc.) For the record, I think that this—“can political discourse be improved along rationalist lines?”—is very much an open question; however, LW is most likely not the best forum for addressing it, given that such a focus would conflict with its well-defined goal of refining the art of rationality.
If we didn’t have politics, we’d raid each others’ villages and steal the women and sheep instead. Politics is a way to avoid direct bloodshed, and as such is an improvement.
What I’m saying is, Eliezer identifies the problem, but where’s the alternative?
This pretty much implies that women aren’t included in “we”—hardly the only thing wrong with the statement, but an additional irritant.
Historically raids where mostly a male thing and women where part of the expected plunder. Such things where rather common, this is why In many countries symbolical kidnapping of the bride is part of wedding celebrations.
I think that what Nancy thought problematic was not the assumption that men would raid and women would be plundered, but the assumption that “we” would raid rather than be plundered—i.e. that “we” are only men.
Exactly.
I used to see that sort of “real people are men” statement as a sort of humorous gusto in slightly poor taste, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s how it’s intended. I’ve since realized that it also has an effect on availability bias.
The choice of the word “steal” instead of “kidnap” was the tipoff on the status of women.
A particular Chinese custom springs to mind:
The bride stays in a ‘fortified’ location with all her female friends The groom is supposed to round up his male friends and get past the defenders to steal away the bride. Bribes of money (in ceremonial little red envelopes) are the most common way to get past the defenders, but sneaking is also okay, and some of the male friends are supposed to ‘distract’ some of the female friends.
I’m not objecting to gender differences in who does the raiding, I’m objecting to assuming that the reader is male and then encouraging the reader to only identify with the raiders.
I actually think politics is what makes it possible to organize raids on other villages, and also what makes it possible to sometimes prevent raids from happening, but let’s try some other phrasings for h-H’s original quote.
“If we didn’t have politics, we’d have no way of stopping raids on other villages, and we’d be enduring theft, kidnapping, and rape.” (I’ve heard that there are cultures where women do the deciding and men do the fighting.)
“If men didn’t have politics, we’d be subject to raids.” (I’m having a surprisingly hard time phrasing a woman-centered version of the quote. I don’t think this is because there’s something unrealistic about it, I think it’s because a mode that’s as woman-centered as the original is male-centered is very rare.)
“Politics are the only way the human race found to avoid small-scale conflict.”
I was encouraging the reader not to identify with either raiders or victims.
Then I’m missing something. How were you doing that?
Are you sure that’s your true rejection? I think writers use “we” to denote groups that don’t literally include all of the readers all the time, but from what I’ve seen on LW readers seem to be particularly bothered by that when that group is “males”.
I agree that sometimes writers use “we” in ways that don’t include the reader.
For example, someone might say “we” of their nation, and thus include those readers which are fellow citizens, but not those readers who aren’t. What sort of examples do you have in mind?
Yeah, “we” meaning ‘Americans’ is the first example I would have thought of. But I suspect there are lots of cases where “we” (interpreting the context literally) refers to a group excluding a non-trivial fraction of the readership which I wouldn’t even consciously notice unless I was looking for them.
I am sometimes irritated when speakers use “we” to refer to heterosexuals, which happens fairly often. I just don’t usually mention the fact.
We-incl need a clearer distinction between inclusive and exclusive “we” in English. Speaking for heterosexuals, to a mixed audience or a specific listener, doesn’t bother me at all. Out of context, a sentence like “We can’t really understand same-sex attraction” could be read as either “Heterosexuals, such as I, are empathically challenged. Mind the inferential gap.” or “We can all agree that queers are weird.”.
I try to interpret ambiguity charitably, so usually when it irritates me the issue isn’t ambiguity, but actual exclusiveness.
A sentence like “We seek out mates among attractive members of the opposite sex,” for example, isn’t ambiguous at all; it simply excludes some queers from its subject.
And, just to be clear: the speakers of such sentences are free to do so, and should be.
I bring it up only because army1987 seemed to be drawing potentially false inferences from silence: the reality is I am sometimes bothered by it.
Interesting. I saw that it was doing the “treating women as plunder” thing, but it didn’t occur to me that no women would be doing the stealing.
Back when I was studying political science at university, warfare, terrorism, etc… were explicitly considered forms of politics (“politics by other means”). At risk of sounding simplistic, the alternative to non-unanimous decision procedures (the realm of political society) is unanimous decision procedures (the realm of civil society).
Or living without using decision procedures at all, which is quite feasible in small groups under ~150 people. There will always be disagreement about “rights” and the like, but small groups can more easily hash out such disagreements through informal ethics (i.e. managed de-escalation of conflict). Political conflict persay only seems to arise in larger groups.
Can you summarize your reasons for believing that small groups don’t use decision procedures, as opposed to believing that small groups use informally specified decision procedures? My experience of decision-making in small groups is that while it can be consensual, it is more often an informal oligarchy… that is, there’s a few people who really matter, but nobody ever comes right out and says that.
Yes, but h-H and Jayson_Virissimo were talking about near-political conflicts. Even in a small group, value conflicts tend to erode this kind of loyalty to informal authorities.
Well, I agree as far as that goes, but if you also mean to suggest that a group run by informal oligarchy can’t (or isn’t likely to) persist in that structure in the face of value conflicts due to that erosion of loyalty, I disagree. IME small groups typically have all manner of internal conflicts, which admittedly serve to weaken the group’s internal cohesion, but typically not enough so to cause the group to disintegrate altogether. (Indeed, the same is true of large groups with more formal structures.)
Does this really matter? Ultimately, yes, a small group may simply trust an oligarchy to take right decisions for them, and do what the oligarchy says. But even then, I’m not sure that this qualifies as a “decision procedure” (of either the formal or informal kind) in any politically interesting sense.
If I’m a member of a small group who thinks we should do X, and you’re a member of the same group who thinks we should do Y, and the group does Y because you have more power in that group than I do (whether that power is due to greater trust or some other factor; trust is far from being the only mechanism through which informal power gets exerted in small groups), then it matters to me.
And if individuals exerting power over groups (whether through trust or other mechanisms) to cause the groups to implement the individual’s preferences isn’t politics, then I don’t know what politics is, and I’m not sure why politics is more important than whatever-that-is.
Individuals (and in some cases, families) deciding for themselves what to do is a special case of a “unanimous decision procedure”.
Taboo “politics.”
If we didn’t have strongly felt affiliations with powerful groups that gain their power from our affiliation, but are too big to actually consider our preferences when using their power, we would...
Do you think that most people would choose to define “politics” as “strongly felt affiliations with powerful groups that gain their power from our affiliation, but are too big to actually consider our preferences when using their power” ?
The purpose of tabooing words ought be to disentangle confusing connotations that the original word had. You seem to have chosen to add connotations. You may argue that politics leads to such “strongly felt affiliations” to such “powerful groups”, but damn, that’s a different thing from just defining politics to be such.
Dictionary.com lays out several definitions:
the science or art of political government.
the practice or profession of conducting political affairs.
political affairs: The advocated reforms have become embroiled in politics.
political methods or maneuvers: We could not approve of his politics in winning passage of the bill.
political principles or opinions: We avoided discussion of religion and politics. His politics are his own affair.
As well as an idiomatic definition which is closer to the way the word is often used by LW members who also read Moldbug:
I believe that definition #5 is clearly what Eliezer is talking about when he says “politics is the mind-killer.” h-H is talking about #1, #2, and possibly #3 and #4.
I’m not saying my suggested rephrasing is what most people mean by “politics.” But I don’t believe anybody is saying that the art or science of political government is the mind-killer.
FWIW, I’ve always understood the referent for “politics” in “politics is the mind-killer” to be, not political principles or opinions (which in fact get discussed here all the time, typically civilly and sometimes usefully), but tribal affiliation with powerful governmental/nationalist camps. I often refer to it as “partisan politics” for that reason, and around here I sometimes refer to it as “Blue/Green politics.” (Both formulations of which neglect the nationalist aspect, but not for any principled reason, just for convenience. If the Blue/Green teaching-story had included a neighboring nation known as the “Purples,” I might refer to it as “Blue/Green/Purple” politics.)
We would presumably find partisan religious discussion equally problematic if we didn’t already filter for alignment with a particular camp.
We do find sex/gender discussion problematic, I think for similar reasons, and would find it much more so Less Wrong didn’t filter for a particular gender.
We similarly find race/ethnicity discussion problematic, though for the most part it doesn’t come up… there’s one member who periodically talks about how some races are superior to others, and that causes a certain amount of turbulence before it dies down.
Etc.
In general, if we believe there are powerful groups or entities fighting for control over large-scale decisions that affect our lives, we tend to pick a side and invest emotionally in supporting whatever positions are conventionally associated with that side, and signalling considerations start to predominate. This makes analysis difficult.
Partisan politics is too narrow—some “political concepts” become enmeshed in one’s personal identity even if they are irrelevant to whether the community organizer or the business executive should be President of the United States.
Consider how and why the “creepiness” and “feminism” discussions broke down so badly, so quickly, and so acrimoniously.
In short, Paul Graham is right when he says (essentially) “Personal identity is the mindkiller”
Yeah, I agree that we find sex/gender discussions problematic for similar reasons.
I agree. I should have said “definition #5 is clearly the closest to what Eliezer is talking about.” As my suggested tabooing phrase indicates, I think “affiliations that don’t pay rent” are the problem.
Nancy did identify a serious problem with your comment, but I’m not sure modulo that issue that your comment should be downvoted as much as it is. To some extent, the point that we have politics as a way of resolving issues without bloodshed is valid: modern politics in many ways is an improvement over the alternatives. But that doesn’t by itself make politics a good thing or make politics less of a mind-killer. To some extent, much political interaction resembles ritualized combat that occurs in many mammalian species (and sometimes in groups)- fatality is minimized, but the level of actual rational discourse is clearly still pretty low.
To some extent, it may help to see politics as the mindkiller as a statement about how political discourse can be improved. In most of the West, politics doesn’t result in people being killed often, but it still isn’t a rational way of examining disagreements and resolving them in a way that appropriately balances conflicting goals. And it is very very easy for it to become outright tribalism that doesn’t devolve into violence primarily because we have strong anti-violence taboos and respect taboos more than anything connected to the political process.
It should be. The comment fundamentally missed the point and made an irrelevant challenge to the alternative forms of competition as though it was some kind of insightful counterpoint rather than a naive trivialization.
Wedrifid, I was disappointed that Eliezer so succinctly identified the problem then mostly left it hanging.
Now, your comment fundamentally missed the point I was making, furthermore you seem to be acting out a common politician’s caricature, I don’t see you making an actual argument here & tbh I’m slightly surprised as you usually do much better than that.
Either way. in the interest of preserving the sanity waterline I’ll stop here.
“Politics” is not the problem Eliezer identified and nor is “the thing that is the alternative to raiding and pillaging”. (Never mind that the ‘politics’ that corrupts thinking applies just as much—or more—to the tribes who go around raiding and pillaging. It’s about the internal politics within the tribe and the external conflicts come in to it as just more things the individuals can argue about in order to achieve personal gain, preferably at the expense of rivals.)
Thanks for the clear reply, and I agree with your points.
IMO the fact that Politics is a moderately functional substitute for direct bloodshed means that the ‘rational’ in any ‘rational alternative’ has little to do the masses becoming more rational, as opposed to careful grooming by an informed clique capable of long term planning.
That doesn’t necessarily imply a shadowy cabal of super secret rationalists deftly maneuvering the public for it’s own good. Rather, something as simple as spreading basic rationality skills is sufficient if we emphasize ‘long term’, as we should.
But that good work has to come with a working theory of capital r ‘Rational Politics’ or LW’s knowledge base has a huge chunk missing under the ‘Practical knowledge’ heading, say an LWer of high karma by some twist or other became adviser to the Archduke of Wallachia, will the people be better off or not?
In other words, if despite the impressive body of knowledge created here the preferred way for dealing with politics is either: a. Outright tabooing the subject or b. Denouncing the masses as prone to being insane...
Then surely as a community can do better than that?
Admittedly I’m not that well versed in political studies myself, and I’m not calling for Eliezer or anyone else for that matter to focus on this, rather I believe the community is mature enough to have a theoretical discussion about politics -and yes, that includes discussion of parties, partisan positions etc- without devolving into mudslinging or shouting matches.
A curated area in LW with strict rules -default set to anonymous posting, no more than 5 posts per day etc- should solve most potential issues, the hullabaloo that happened during say, the feminist war is not impossible to contain.
The point is, it’s not at all clear whether we can do any better. The “politics as a way of managing conflict” POV elucidates several features that do set apart politics from ordinary deliberation, which is the domain LW-style rationality is most directly applicable to. (Such as concerns about fairness in political processes, a focus on adversarial argumentation even in factual matters, a need for compromise and creative open-mindedness in order to mitigate value conflicts etc.) For the record, I think that this—“can political discourse be improved along rationalist lines?”—is very much an open question; however, LW is most likely not the best forum for addressing it, given that such a focus would conflict with its well-defined goal of refining the art of rationality.