The political issues which might be discussed are not questions of organization or political structure (in general)--they are questions which belong to some other domain and which happen to have political implications. The fact that they are political changes the nature of discussion about the problem, not the nature of the problem.
I think one effect on the nature of discussion is to stop people from breaking off small problems which they can solve or assertions whose truth they can honestly assess. Instead conversations almost always expand until they are unmanageable. For example, starting out with the question “Should I vote for A or B” is exceptionally unlikely to yield useful discussion. Of course, I don’t know about the interminable discussions which have occurred here in the past or why they might not have been productive. I would guess that the problems discussed were much too large for significant progress to be plausible. This is not because we lack a foothold—it is because we tend to (and there are forces encouraging us to) tackle questions much too large.
I believe it is possible to bite off reasonably sized (ie tiny) questions which we can make genuine progress on. If the problem will be around for a long time, such progress might be very valuable. Maybe a small problem takes the form of a simplified hypothetical whose resolution cannot be black-boxed and used in future discussions (because of course that hypothetical will never occur) but which is likely to help us develop general arguments and standards which might be brought to bear on more complex hypotheticals. Maybe it takes the form of some very simple, concrete, assertion about the world whose answer is politically charged but which can be resolved decisively with a little research and care. Even if such assertions have limited implications, at least its starting to get you somewhere.
I am not in agreement with the original topic. I believe this tactic (of responding to wrongness directly regarding controversial issues) is likely to cause us to also bite off much too large a problem.
However, I do believe that the criterion for declaring something on-topic is a good one, and could increase the value of Less Wrong as a resource if it was used to discuss small issues which we could reasonably make progress on. If such small topics are motivated by general failures of the public discourse, it seems possible that we would eventually accumulate enough rigorous understanding to correct those failures “conclusively.” (at least, as conclusively as any discussion on Less Wrong establishes anything)
Of course, I don’t know about the interminable discussions which have occurred here in the past or why they might not have been productive.
For most part the policy was preemptive. We’ve known politics is the mind killer from before LW was created and didn’t want to go there. What forays into politically charged areas have occurred here haven’t done too much to dissuade me of that notion even though the conversations have been ‘less wrong’ than they perhaps may have been elsewhere.
The political issues which might be discussed are not questions of organization or political structure (in general)--they are questions which belong to some other domain and which happen to have political implications. The fact that they are political changes the nature of discussion about the problem, not the nature of the problem.
I think one effect on the nature of discussion is to stop people from breaking off small problems which they can solve or assertions whose truth they can honestly assess. Instead conversations almost always expand until they are unmanageable. For example, starting out with the question “Should I vote for A or B” is exceptionally unlikely to yield useful discussion. Of course, I don’t know about the interminable discussions which have occurred here in the past or why they might not have been productive. I would guess that the problems discussed were much too large for significant progress to be plausible. This is not because we lack a foothold—it is because we tend to (and there are forces encouraging us to) tackle questions much too large.
I believe it is possible to bite off reasonably sized (ie tiny) questions which we can make genuine progress on. If the problem will be around for a long time, such progress might be very valuable. Maybe a small problem takes the form of a simplified hypothetical whose resolution cannot be black-boxed and used in future discussions (because of course that hypothetical will never occur) but which is likely to help us develop general arguments and standards which might be brought to bear on more complex hypotheticals. Maybe it takes the form of some very simple, concrete, assertion about the world whose answer is politically charged but which can be resolved decisively with a little research and care. Even if such assertions have limited implications, at least its starting to get you somewhere.
I am not in agreement with the original topic. I believe this tactic (of responding to wrongness directly regarding controversial issues) is likely to cause us to also bite off much too large a problem.
However, I do believe that the criterion for declaring something on-topic is a good one, and could increase the value of Less Wrong as a resource if it was used to discuss small issues which we could reasonably make progress on. If such small topics are motivated by general failures of the public discourse, it seems possible that we would eventually accumulate enough rigorous understanding to correct those failures “conclusively.” (at least, as conclusively as any discussion on Less Wrong establishes anything)
For most part the policy was preemptive. We’ve known politics is the mind killer from before LW was created and didn’t want to go there. What forays into politically charged areas have occurred here haven’t done too much to dissuade me of that notion even though the conversations have been ‘less wrong’ than they perhaps may have been elsewhere.