Politics makes us worse because "politics is the mindkiller," as intelligence theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky puts it. "Evolutionary psychology produces strange echoes in time," he writes, "as adaptations continue to execute long after they cease to maximize fitness." We gorge ourselves sick on sugar and fat, and we indulge our tribal hard-wiring by picking a political "team" and denouncing the "enemy."
But our atavistic Red/Blue tribalism plays to the interests of "individual politicians in getting you to identify with them instead of judging them," Yudkowsky writes.
...
Examiner Columnist Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of "The Cult of the Presidency."
I'm the editor of Cato Unbound, and I've been a fan of Eliezer Yudkowsky's for several years. I'm fairly sure that I introduced Gene to his work as well.
There is no real story behind the article. There almost never is, with me. It's just my job to identify interesting and talented writers, and to pay them to write for us. He was overwhelmingly qualified. I asked, and he accepted.
Original at Washington Examiner
http://washingtonexaminer.com/down-with-politics/article/2508882#.UGSscI0iYZm
Repost at Reason.com
http://reason.com/archive/2012/09/25/why-politics-are-bad-for-us