Politics and RationalityMike Rappaport
This is one of the best posts I have read, so I will excerpt it at length:
People go funny in the head whentalking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are soobvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment,politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, andallies, and reputation… When, today, you get into an argument aboutwhether “we” ought to raise the minimum wage, you’re executingadaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong sideof the argument could get you killed. Being on the right side of the argument could let you kill your hated rival!
If you want to make a point about science, or rationality, then my advice is to not choose a domain from contemporarypolitics if you can possibly avoid it. If your point is inherentlyabout politics, then talk about Louis XVI during the FrenchRevolution. Politics is an important domain to which we shouldindividually apply our rationality – but it’s a terrible domain inwhich to learn rationality, or discuss rationality, unless all the discussants are already rational.
Politicsis an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Onceyou know which side you’re on, you must support all arguments of thatside, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side;otherwise it’s like stabbing your soldiers in the back – providing aidand comfort to the enemy. People who would be level-headed aboutevenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional lifeas scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies whenthere’s a Blue or Green position on an issue.
In Artificial Intelligence, and particularly in the domain ofnonmonotonic reasoning, there’s a standard problem: “All Quakers arepacifists. All Republicans are not pacifists. Nixon is a Quaker and aRepublican. Is Nixon a pacifist?”
What on Earth was the point of choosing this as an example? Torouse the political emotions of the readers and distract them from themain question? To make Republicans feel unwelcome in courses onArtificial Intelligence and discourage them from entering the field? (And no, before anyone asks, I am not a Republican. Or a Democrat.)
Why would anyone pick such a distracting example toillustrate nonmonotonic reasoning? Probably because the author justcouldn’t resist getting in a good, solid dig at those hated Greens. It feels so good to get in a hearty punch, y’know, it’s like trying to resist a chocolate cookie.
As with chocolate cookies, not everything that feels pleasurable isgood for you. And it certainly isn’t good for our hapless readers whohave to read through all the angry comments your blog post inspired.