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Why People Are Irrational about Politics

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Re: Why People Are Irrational about Politics

#21

Post by calibraxis »

xnull2guest wrote: post #9
calibraxis wrote: post #5

Weird, this gives false choices. (Or I've missed the discussion of propaganda.) Massively-funded propaganda specifically promotes things like "Beliefs as self-image constructors" and "Beliefs as tools of social bonding".

Now propaganda makes it onto mass social media campaigns. Techniques include propagandizing "nudging" 'social influencers' who are hubs of social bonding and information. The US is known to use celebrities in their Twitter campaigns targeting the Middle East. Can you speak more about what literature you are aware of?

Bernays' 1928 book "Propaganda" is an entertaining intro. He's considered the father of modern public relations. It reads like satire, except he was serious. (http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html)

Many like the BBC documentary "The Century Of The Self", on the origins of modern PR. (Easy to find online.) Nowadays of course, the field is way more advanced.

Noam Chomsky's done well-known work in this area. His books are dry, but he gives enjoyable talks, zillions of which are on youtube. For example: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RPKH6BVcoM)

Re: Why People Are Irrational about Politics

#22

Post by michaelkeenan »

Natsu wrote: post #14
michaelkeenan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think of the points he brings up in section 3, where he addresses this?

That's a very interesting section. There's a citation on "There are three reasons why I disagree with this explanation. The first is that value questions are objective, and moral anti-realism is completely unjustified" which cites http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/objectiv.htm A page which does not, at present, exist - The requested URL /~huemer/objectiv.htm was not found on this server. Apache Server at spot.colorado…

I think the correct URL should be http://www.owl232.net/objectiv.htm

Re: Why People Are Irrational about Politics

#23

Post by anigbrowl »

larsiusprime wrote: post #17
[deleted] wrote: post #7

[deleted]

"This is where I stopped reading" is supposed to be some kind of intellectual badge of honor? "I found what appears to be a point I disagree with, and rather than reading on to see if my disagreement was addressed, I started looking for the comment button."

That's true, but on the other hand it's appropriate to take the author to task for trying to sneak in a claim in the form of a premise, and thus have it accepted without any supporting evidence.

Re: Why People Are Irrational about Politics

#24

Post by michaelkeenan »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #12
aylons wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? There is whole section (3) on why simply having different preferences does not explain irrationality in politics.

Voter preferences affect votes - not political platforms. Political platforms espoused by candidates are reflective of the candidates preferences - not the voters.

I think that isn't correct, because if it were ever correct, the first candidate willing to choose their platform based on what most appeals to voters would win. I think that has already occurred, and politics is dominated by politicians who adjust their positions to whatever will appeal to voters.

Re: Why People Are Irrational about Politics

#25

Post by aylons »

VLM wrote: post #19

Is irrationality in politics a bad thing? The article seems to assume so, I'm not so convinced. If you follow the "opiate of the masses" theory then the bigger the spectacle the better people are fooled into thinking their votes matter etc resulting in theoretically less social unrest, and the more yelling and sloganeering about politics, the less demonstrating and violence. Another way to look at it is something tha…

You can't have a political discussion about subroutines memory leak because this is not about politics. But surely people get irrational about technical topics, from programming languages to the last gadget. I see these discussions all the time, even on HN.

People get passionate and irrational about a lot of themes, but politics seems to potentialize this and this article tries to discuss this topic. And the article makes a point of making a distinction about being irrational and having some preference or belief.

Re: Why People Are Irrational about Politics

#26

Post by [deleted] »

VLM wrote: post #19

Is irrationality in politics a bad thing? The article seems to assume so, I'm not so convinced. If you follow the "opiate of the masses" theory then the bigger the spectacle the better people are fooled into thinking their votes matter etc resulting in theoretically less social unrest, and the more yelling and sloganeering about politics, the less demonstrating and violence. Another way to look at it is something tha…

[deleted]

Re: Why People Are Irrational about Politics

#29

Post by icebraining »

michaelkeenan wrote: post #22
Natsu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very interesting section. There's a citation on "There are three reasons why I disagree with this explanation. The first is that value questions are objective, and moral anti-realism is completely unjustified" which cites http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/objectiv.htm A page which does not, at present, exist - The requested URL /~huemer/objectiv.htm was not found on this server. Apache Server at spot.colorado…

I think the correct URL should be http://www.owl232.net/objectiv.htm

It also has a note that refers to his book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_Intuitionism_%28book%29
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