/ratanon/ - Rationalists Anonymous

>>6930

They have a good point, though. Both are true.

It's great to have friends you can argue with about most anything, but policy does affect the real lives of real people in real ways.

I actually like the point that creature is making, it shows how "politics" discussions among an elite that is ultimately immune to policy are rather empty. You can have a best friend that disagrees on everything if it's mostly signaling and/or intellectual, distant almost hobby-like armchair stuff…

Much much harder in the real world. You say "Homosexuality should be ilegal" and a faggot somewhere correctly thinks "I would kill this person for my safety if I could get away with it" and it's on those terms that you have to now become friends and "agree to disagree".

Even real friendship between vegans and normal people is difficult to impossible in some cases, and this is completely understandable to me. If anything the vegans that calmly chat with literal murderers on their own homes strike me as hypocrites.

>>6930

I don't think most political beliefs can be settled by factual argument, since they are more like emotional tendencies than positions to begin with (HAIDT COULD HAVE STOPPED THIS IT'S HAPPENING), so it makes believe the ideal society would in fact be Patchwork/Archipelago.

You can have friends who disagree on political issues, but it has to be top level things. You both have to agree on the fundamentals in order to not want to kill each other. If one person believes that equality as a value is the most important thing and another disdains it in favor of some quality, then they are going to find each other to be evil, whereas if they both agree that equality is awesome, then they disagree without hatred on top level things like what policies might confer the most equality, or whatever other silly base value.

>>6932

>I don't think most political beliefs can be settled by factual argument

This makes me rationalist adjacent, rather than rationalist, I guess.

This is classic "conservation of tribalism" stuff. When national identity is eroded it's not replaced by no identity, it's replaced by a bunch of other warring identities that get in the way of getting shit done.

>>6934

Counterpoint: pre-progressive societies were no more cohesive, and had even more violent civil wars and internal troubles.

What if the worst thing about progressivism and universalism, that neither side wants to believe, is that it actually doesn't really do anything.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/17/not-just-a-mere-political-issue/

http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_questions_about/ is also relevant (see the line in Not Just a Mere Political Issue about "you might be trying to socially boycott abortion doctors in order to make abortions impossible by discouraging people from taking up abortion doct[or]ing as a career", which I think is the crux of the issue for some people)

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>>6931

Policy does affect the real lives of real people but your opinions about policy don't.

>>6935

then it's exactly the same fashion statement political movement that existed before and will ever come to exist

>>6931

If everyone adopts that stance we get civil war. We don't tolerate thieves because we can gang up on them 100:1; stopping them from doing social harm costs much less than not doing so. If half of society suddenly decided that property is a lie then jailing them all is no longer a viable solution.

We can have a society where conservatives only hire conservatives and liberals only hire liberals, with "hire" also substituting for all other types of association. And maybe with constant sabotage between the two camps. Or we can agree to disagree. Regardless of how important the topics being disputed are, the latter ends better.

The creature OP is citing only holds the position it does because it thinks it's on the winning side. If it suddenly couldn't find a job and got ostracized everywhere because everyone thinks its position on gay marriage is abhorrent and an affront to god that can't be tolerated etc, it would start singing a very different song and not even notice the dissonance.

The thing with vegans is similar to the old criticism against christians:

>They don't really believe in god if they're not trying to convert everyone around them all the time. After all, if you really believed everyone is doomed to eternal torture unless converted, would you refrain from proselytizing just because it makes you a bit unpopular?

The thing is, when you do that, maybe you convert someone locally but you also decrease the tolerance for your cause globally and everyone hates you personally. It's short-term thinking. If you wake up in a society of murderers the correct course of action is not to start shouting "MURDERERS! MURDERERS!", at best you'll save one person that way and then you'll get locked up. Gradual change.

>>6940

>If everyone adopts that stance we get civil war.

Not an argument.

>Gradual change.

Even then, you can't be real friends. Just pretend undercover friends, unless you are really open minded but not everybody is (Or should be) like that.

>>6941

>Not an argument.

How is "option A leads to civil war and everything being worse, option B leads to unresolved disagreements and everything overall better" not an argument? OP pic is arguing that it is duty to fight everyone who opposes homosexuality, I say if he does that it will lead to a worse world than if he practices tolerance. If he cares for homos he should do what helps homos more, not what makes him look more righteous.

>>6930

My thought on the subject is that those JPEG artifacts are disgusting.

I'm not sure I would want to be their friend.

>>6943

It should have been a png.