“Other than that, it’s just a general message of pessimism. If people’s political opinions come partly from unchangeable anatomy, it makes the program of overcoming bias in politics a lot harder, and the possibility of coming up with arguments good enough to change someone else’s opinion even more remote.”
Only if you, like 99.999% of people, are approaching political change in the wrong way. Those few of us who are trying to change politics assuming political views are basically constant, however, have already taken this into account. A major point of seasteading is that it does not require overcoming political bias because it focuses on enabling groups of people to form societies around their uncommon political opinions, not on changing those opinions.
If people’s political opinions are fixed and in conflict, then sorting into more politically homogeneous societies is a win.
Also, there are methods for reducing bias in politics which work without changing opinion, like increased competition.
If people’s political opinions are fixed and in conflict, then sorting into more politically homogeneous societies is a win.
Not necessarily. A few scattered crazy people who don’t know about each other are far less dangerous than a few crazy people all working together in support for their common crazy goal.
When you have conflicting, politically homogenous societies living alongside each other, sometimes, you end up with wars. (On the other hand, civil wars are sometimes the worst wars of all...)
Not necessarily. A few scattered crazy people who don’t know about each other are far less dangerous than a few crazy people all working together in support for their common crazy goal.
They are already going to know about each other; the internet is taking care of that part. Have you seen the blogosphere lately?
The one upside is that, generally speaking, after filtering everything through their One Big Idea, small crazy groups are usually too detached from reality to accomplish any real damage.
“Other than that, it’s just a general message of pessimism. If people’s political opinions come partly from unchangeable anatomy, it makes the program of overcoming bias in politics a lot harder, and the possibility of coming up with arguments good enough to change someone else’s opinion even more remote.”
Only if you, like 99.999% of people, are approaching political change in the wrong way. Those few of us who are trying to change politics assuming political views are basically constant, however, have already taken this into account. A major point of seasteading is that it does not require overcoming political bias because it focuses on enabling groups of people to form societies around their uncommon political opinions, not on changing those opinions.
If people’s political opinions are fixed and in conflict, then sorting into more politically homogeneous societies is a win.
Also, there are methods for reducing bias in politics which work without changing opinion, like increased competition.
Not necessarily. A few scattered crazy people who don’t know about each other are far less dangerous than a few crazy people all working together in support for their common crazy goal.
When you have conflicting, politically homogenous societies living alongside each other, sometimes, you end up with wars. (On the other hand, civil wars are sometimes the worst wars of all...)
They are already going to know about each other; the internet is taking care of that part. Have you seen the blogosphere lately?
The one upside is that, generally speaking, after filtering everything through their One Big Idea, small crazy groups are usually too detached from reality to accomplish any real damage.
Good point. Indeed, the Internet is a great boon to crazies of all kinds, including our little group here. ;)