Even if you ignore the tribalism problem, politics is still a giant black hole for cognition. 90% of people gain nothing more than entertainment from thinking or talking about it. It’s a mind killer in terms of opportunity costs.
HPMOR threads are often better sourced than discussion on politics. People also change their minds on /r/HPMOR more often than in anything political.
If anything, on the surface it looks like people take their Harry Potter fanfiction more seriously than politics.
yes the fact that there is a single text which everyone can refer to is part of what makes discussions about hpmor more interesting and less vindictive.
But since there isn’t a single readable description of the state of the world, politics doesn’t have that advantage.
People (though not, generally, here) also treat which Harry Potter characters should hook up with which as a question of apocalyptic significance. Something being “pure entertainment” does not preclude identifying strongly with it or acting like it’s extremely important, whether or not it is.
Even if you ignore the tribalism problem, politics is still a giant black hole for cognition. 90% of people gain nothing more than entertainment from thinking or talking about it. It’s a mind killer in terms of opportunity costs.
I think you underrate the difference between politicians who feel like they are accountable to a public that watches their actions and politicians who don’t.
Even if you ignore the tribalism problem, politics is still a giant black hole for cognition. 90% of people gain nothing more than entertainment from thinking or talking about it. It’s a mind killer in terms of opportunity costs.
I never said politics wasn’t the mind-killer.
Does something being purely entertainment make it a mind-killer? If so, I’m not sure that something being a mind-killer is necessarily bad.
it would be fine if people treated political discussions like hpmor threads but they act like the conversation is extremely important.
HPMOR threads are often better sourced than discussion on politics. People also change their minds on /r/HPMOR more often than in anything political.
If anything, on the surface it looks like people take their Harry Potter fanfiction more seriously than politics.
yes the fact that there is a single text which everyone can refer to is part of what makes discussions about hpmor more interesting and less vindictive.
But since there isn’t a single readable description of the state of the world, politics doesn’t have that advantage.
People (though not, generally, here) also treat which Harry Potter characters should hook up with which as a question of apocalyptic significance. Something being “pure entertainment” does not preclude identifying strongly with it or acting like it’s extremely important, whether or not it is.
Though the reverse is also true.
I think you underrate the difference between politicians who feel like they are accountable to a public that watches their actions and politicians who don’t.