Politics Is The Mind-Killer

Swimmer963 (Miranda Dixon-Luinenburg) (+831) copied in missing quote
jvz (+73) added a readlist for this (yay ebooks)
Vladimir_Nesov (+955/-350) Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/Jolinsa|Jolinsa]] ([[User talk:Jolinsa|talk]]) to last revision by [[User:Thomblake|Thomblake]]
Jolinsa (+350/-955)
thomblake (+21) add The Two-Party Swindle as related, since it claims so.
bogus (+6/-5)
bogus (+134) disambig
taryneast (+36/-36) Moved Rationality & English language up - because it is referenced as a pre-req by Politics and Awful Art
Vladimir_Nesov (+9/-847) {{Quote}} formatting
Paul Crowley /* Blog posts: */ skip 301, link straight to lesswrong.com entry

People go funny in the head when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation... When, today, you get into an argument about whether "we" ought to raise the minimum wage, you're executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed... Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back - providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

—Eliezer Yudkowsky, Politics is the Mind-Killer

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  • Readlist - view this sequence as an eBook using Readability.

This page is about Eliezer Yudkowsky's sequence. For ongoing discussion of these issues at LW Wiki, see Mind-kllerkiller and Color politics.

This page is about Eliezer Yudkowsky's sequence. For ongoing discussion of these issues at LW Wiki, see Mind-kller and Color politics.

"People go funny in the head when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation... When, today, you get into an argument about whether "we" ought to raise the minimum wage, you're executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed... Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back - providing aid and comfort to the enemy." -- Eliezer Yudkowsky, Politics is the Mind-Killer

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