/townhall/ - Townhall

>>11376
>I guess in order for a political matter to be debatable (in a productive way), there must be generally agreed upon values and people's political assertions should not be something like religious faith.
I would say that is true for any and all topics one might debate. No topics can be debated in a useful way if one or more of the participants are unwilling to critically analyze and poke holes in their own positions. This is applies to politics, it applies to religion, and it applies just as well to the question of whether a linked list is a more efficient data structure than a vector in particular conditions.

Politics is certainly a topic that is more vulnerable to this failure mode than most, but not by that large a degree. There are plenty of people who can productively discuss their political opinions in this way.

>What's the best strategy when you can't debate politics?
I find that most people who are unable to discuss politics in a meaningful way, are not able to meaningfully discuss more mundane topics either. So though it sounds unkind, usually my strategy in such a situation is... to talk to someone else instead.

>>11377
>I would say that is true for any and all topics one might debate.

True.

>just as well to the question of whether a linked list is a more efficient data structure than a vector in particular conditions.

Kinda.  That sounds like a computer-science question and assuming you can agree on an operalization of "efficient," and define other properties of the test sufficiently, it will have an answer.

Granted, people can still be stubborn, but in my view, if you can turn a political theory into a scientific hypothesis, you have room to move forward.

>I find that most people who are unable to discuss politics in a meaningful way, are not able to meaningfully discuss more mundane topics either.

I guess that's not consistent with what I see -- politics seems a sticking point, but perhaps we are around different groups of people.

>>11378
>Kinda.  That sounds like a computer-science question and assuming you can agree an on operalization of "efficient," and define other properties of the test sufficiently, it will have an answer.
>Granted, people can still be stubborn, but in my view, if you can turn a political theory into a scientific hypothesis, you have room to move forward.

I find that people who can do that with a computer science question with a factual answer without getting attached to their initial viewpoints, can generally also honestly introspect on their political beliefs and debate them dispassionately; and vice versa. Stubbornness in debating factual issues and closed-mindedness in debating political issues tend to go hand in hand.

>I guess that's not consistent with what I see -- politics seems a sticking point, but perhaps are around different groups of people.
I suspect this is a sampling bias on what people debate. I think many people that are not interested in dispassionately debating factual issues will simply not participate in such debates; but they generally WILL join political discussions if prompted. That would mean that political debates have a larger proportion of people who cannot take a step back from their viewpoint than other debates do, even though people's ability to argue about it productively is not much lower than it is for other topics.

>>11376
Ultimately, I think politics are about as debatable as religion.
But then, I also consider religion to be somewhat debatable.
I'm not so concerned with denigration of such things, after all.

In any case; The way to go about it is to persue the logic of the principles proposed.
Though it has to be said, many lack such things. Which I think is why we have as great struggles as we tend to.

I'd argue the opposite. We can't debate anything because there isn't anything to debate. Parties don't have platforms anymore; they have "agendas". We have these neat and tidy pre-packaged opinions on everything so that nobody actually has to be burdened by their own thoughts. The whole beast is pure marketing. Nobody actually believes anything they say, they just want everybody else to know which side of the fence they're on.

Now everybody thinks we're on the verge of a fucking civil war and I can't even tell if the two sides disagree on anything of any consequence to anybody. I don't even know their stances outside of fringe political issues and the same page and a half of substanceless lies they've both been telling for 50 years to get their donors to turn their pockets inside out. That is not for a lack of effort on my part. I have sat down and read the official platforms coming out of committees. Besides the highly marketable razzle dazzle and meaningless filth they have absolutely nothing to say on the business of running the country. I guess occasionally you find something that was clearly put there by a lobbyist. At this point the corruption is the only thing keeping the house of cards from toppling. Because besides the people thinking with their wallets nobody is thinking anything.



Yeah yeah I know besides that one thing and the other thing. That's literally what I mean by meaningless filth. Those things aren't about running anything, they're about building hype and keeping the machine politic churning. It's the cargo cult version of having an opinion: somebody saw somebody else do it once long ago and now they're replicating the whole thing by rote. We may as well just replace what gets called "debate" with an AI and save everybody a lot of trouble.

>>11379
>I find that people who can do that with a computer science question with a factual answer...can generally also honestly introspect on their political beliefs.

I suppose in truth, I find people who care for science to be rare, so I will take your word for it.  I like to think I can discuss...many things without becoming angry, but part of that is a strategy to avoid topics where I only tolerate one point of view.  Like on this board, I never make threads about things I *really* care about, eg. do people have a right to carry out scientific inquiry or generate computer code?

>political debates have a larger proportion of people who cannot take a step back from their viewpoint than other debates do

I watch Facebook posts a lot, and I suppose, people who do politics on Facebook might be looking more for belonging (or drama) than rational debate.

>>11380
>Though it has to be said, many lack such things. Which I think is why we have as great struggles as we tend to.
Having spent a period of my life trying to "logic" religion, and generally finding no positive outlet for such a pursuit, I wonder whether politics is the same.

Politics is an outgrowth of ethics, which itself comes out of philosophy. All three are very debatable. I think that we just have to be honest and realistic that people have different philosophies about basic things such as 'goodness' and 'truth' to the point that they can't peacefully coexist.

Which is different than debates in general. Nobody disagreeing over what happened before the big bang or which ice cream flavor is best had any reason to fear the other side. Of course.

But ethics is different. If I think that I've the right to life, and somebody else thinks that I'm a piece of meat standing in the way of their achievement of utopia, then why wouldn't they care nothing for my opinions? It wouldn't be logical for them to do so.

>>11416
I gather your analysis leads you to think sometimes politics is not debatable in practice.

I've been trying out that idea that as a scientist I am above politics, at least when I don't recognize any scientific claims in politics.  (Arguably when science enters politics, what's really wanted is pseudo-science, not real science.  Recognizing that will free a scientist from unproductive discourse.)

>>11430
Imagine you want to play a game of tennis, and two strangers offer that they'd like to play with you, separately.

The first comes to you as you're waiting, racket in hand, totally naked. He then holds out a cement brick and refers to it as his 'tennis ball'. He asks if you want to serve first. He then states that he will use his psychic powers to hit the 'ball' back at you if you go first.

The second similarly comes out to you as you wait. Everything seems normal other than how he's accompanied by a spectator not previously announced. You shake hands, and the spector holds out a submachine gun. You're now informed that whomever loses the game is to be immediately executed for their failure.

This is what debating politics amount to.

First, we have entirely different views of what factual reality exists in the world to the point where we might as well be literal space aliens to each other.

Second, the punishment for failing to properly achieve a political cause is literally either direct physical harm or death (not always, but often enough and especially on the biggest issues such as abortion and gun rights).

>>11431
I've seen politics where people have what I would consider strange ideas, and if people are quite happy with their ideas, even if they are not my ideas, I can accept them.

For the second case, I feel people have a right to self-defense that goes beyond politics.  If the political folks try to shoot you, you should tell them you don't care for that.

>>11376
words are illusions of power
that are exploited in the world that is also an illusion
we don't live in the world, we live in hell.
that is truth of politics.