0. Yes, unfortunately, sloth is the wrong answer, I'm really sorry. The correct answer is "dinosaur."
1. Yes and no. Yes, there needed to be a public, undeniable Schelling point for Biden-skeptics in the party to coalesce around. No, because it probably would've happened later in some other venue, but possibly late enough to make switching look even worse.
2. Because winning intra-party competitions is more important than winning inter-party ones.
3. Yes.
4. No.
5. Institutional inertia, and the decision to do so was probably made before impossible-to-hide incapacity was made obvious (to him).
6. Almost certainly tautologically. You're asking if someone had won a competition to get the most votes, would they be doing better later on at getting more votes (largely from the same people?) I don't know if it would be "easy victory" but it would certainly be easier.
Much simpler than all that. Pick the best option for at least beginning or continuing to work on all the inequity baked into our current governing systems, continue to develop or implement economically driven systems to eventually stop climate change and repair environmental injustice, and don't be a dick about any of that. Simpler: choose the smartest option for the long term. Also, remember that governing/organizing systems [democracy] are not the same as economic systems [capitalism]. Trump gave people permission to hate in the open as he does. There is no compromise possible with racism and hate.
> One of my strongest beliefs is that way too many people allows politics to play way too large a role in their emotional lives.
A couple of things to note here.
There has been a concerted effort since the late '80s to shift the political narrative from one of rational discourse to one of emotional discourse, cf the Republican strategy to focus on "culture war" issues rather than economic policies.
For other folks, politics absolutely plays an emotional role when politics directly affect their lives, like say, a woman's right to bodily autonomy, healthcare, LGBTQ+ rights, racism in the justice system, etc.
To overlook these and throw up one's hands and say, "Gee, I wonder why people are getting so upset about politics?" is not a good look and naive at best.
For all of those topics rational debate rather than emotional manipulation would be a huge improvement. Yet here we are. I appreciate you admitting that you must be emotional about those issues, however.
I think you misunderstood my comment. I was commenting on the author's "discovery" that politics has hit an emotional nerve in many people.
You're also probably misspeaking. The presence of emotions does not invalidate logic. Emotional fallacies, i.e., appeals to emotion, are another thing, and I think this is what you're attempting to highlight. I don't think I presented emotional fallacies, but if I did, I welcome your pointing them out.
I understood your comment to be saying what you say you meant to say. However, just because an issue has emotional valence does not mean it must be discussed as “emotional discourse” as opposed to “rational discourse” as you say. Just because something affects you emotionally does not mean that one should be emotional about it while discussing politics. Having emotions and being emotional are two different things.
I will say that the commentator you're responding to is an excellent example of exactly the kind of political discourse that I think makes people unhappy.
It might help to define terms. What do you mean by "being emotional" I think effective discourse has some level of emotional appeal, after all, we're humans not computers. Are you referring to emotional fallacies, e.g., "we should close the border because millions of criminals want to get in and destroy our way of life"? Or something else?
I do want to clarify that I didn't suggest that emotionally impactful issues have to be discussed through 'emotional discourse.' (Mind clarifying that term? It's not clear what you mean). My intention was to highlight that politics often evoke emotional responses because they directly affect people's lives—for example, topics like healthcare, education, and civil rights. I pointed out that mass media, influencers, and politicians have conditioned audiences to react emotionally to certain issues, and that's why most folks react in an emotional way.
At the very best, it's naive to not be aware of that and to place the blame on people as opposed to the systems that are perpetuating this current state of affairs.
Being emotional about a subject generally means being driven emotionally, or having one's emotions be in control, rather than being able to step outside one's self to try and see other people's point of view. For example, when my daughters get worked up and start fighting over toys they cannot discuss how to share them, because they are being emotional and not thinking straight; often a little "peace time" to calm down and sort through their feelings helps them come back to it and discuss things rationally.
Likewise, people who have not reasoned themselves into a position cannot be reasoned out of it, so discussing positions is pointless. Having come to a position based on emotion instead of reason leads to people parsing "I disagree" as "Your emotions are wrong" which, while sometimes true, people don't generally like to hear so much as "you are not in possession of all the facts". If someone feels something should be done you can't dissuade them by saying you feel differently, much less via cost benefit analysis. All there is to do is ignore each other or fight.
I agree that the scope of politics, touching every aspect of our lives, does in fact increase the tension and acrimony in the system. The more coercion we introduce into our personal lives, the more the outcomes of elections matter, and thus the more we are going to invest in getting the outcomes we think best. That said, a remarkable number of people have no apparent knowledge or interest in the outcomes, past or present of elections. I recall citing a paper some years ago where they found that of urban people they surveyed, roughly 50% claimed they voted in the previous local election, and of those 50% could name the party of the candidate that won. That in districts that had been Democrat for the better part of a century. For the amount of emotion evoked, people seem to have nearly zero knowledge or interest in how the results of their votes affect their lives.
While I agree it is in part the system, it does also come down to the people who do not know they should be rational, or lack the self control to master their emotions. We all live in the same system; that some of us manage to discuss things calmly and rationally, giving empathy and consideration to the other side, means that we can expect others to do likewise. Especially if they can't be bothered to actually pay attention.
i agree that national elections are overblown, but just out of curiosity, how would you define politics?
(my 12 y/o answer to "what's your favorite animal" was "human", which both my parents thought was an indicator of not laziness but perhaps even worse -- pretension)
I picked "spider" when a female friend asked me what my favorite animal was.
SPIDER!
Anyway what she said that your favorite animal is a proxy for what you value in a mate. I'm not married. (not sure if those are related)
---
People are farting in the rational clean room and it's very upsetting.
I think that rational communication can only happen when people have overlapping perspectives - not the same point of view necessarily, but some overlap. For instance, in the abortion 'debate', pro choice advocates say that abortion is all about controlling women; pro life say it's about morality and not killing babies. There is NO overlap in those viewpoints.
When there is no overlap, you can still sometimes do a perspective-taking exercise - why does that person have that perspective? Can I tell a story from that perspective? But for hurtful things it's hard to get someone to do a perspective-taking exercise. Why would I take the perspective of someone who only wants to control women's bodies? Why would I take the perspective of someone who wants to kill babies?
We have emotional 'scar tissue' for most of these 'irrational' topics - we're used to it.
Trump has taken an existing framing story and turned it up to 11 - I call it 'The Daddy Trump' story.
I don't need to understand the economy, Daddy Trump will take care of it.
I don't need to understand the border, Daddy Trump will take care of it.
... democracy ...
... the constitution ...
I don't need to understand anything, Daddy Trump will take care of it.
Conservatives have always had a degree of this framing story, Trump has just been extremely shameless in how he uses it.
This makes rational communication very very difficult: Why would I try to take the perspective of someone who loves Daddy Trump? Why would I try to take the perspective of someone who hates the only man who can fix things?
---
I think that emotional intelligence will be increasingly important as time goes on, particularly in understanding perspective and framing stories. Some people are really good at this, whether by intention or instinct, but few people are good at analyzing this, because it quickly leads to sticky and hurtful thoughts.
No one had a plan to deal with all the emotions of everyone in the world when we built the internet, but humans are actually pretty good at making plans.
---
You can only fact check facts. You can't effectively fact check a perspective or framing story. Doubling down on debunking can only get you so far.
I don't particularly love this article, but it seems to be directionally useful. I would frame the problem as being unknowingly stuck in a particular story, and the solution as exercising perspective-taking. I also wish it talked about why this is hard instead of just vaguely gesturing that it's a good idea.
For question (2), I'm on team Kevin Drum (https://jabberwocking.com/kamala-harris-should-choose-a-pal-for-vice-president/): to the rest of us, the VP pick is at best a name and a vibe, often not even that. To Harris, the VP pick is someone she has a 25-50% chance of being stuck working with every single day for the next 4-8 years. Complaining about her choice, when she interviewed and researched the candidates and we did not, is a bit like complaining that your kid broke up with a rich person to marry a poor one. You can argue with them all day about whether the rich person was the more rational choice, but you're not the one who's going to have to live in the marriage.
Who's complaining? I am sure she had a good reason (I really am) just still wondering what that is. The most plausible theories I can think of are a personality conflict, Shapiro's position on Israel, a vetting problem, or that Harris just thought Walz is a better leader.
Many people on the internet are complaining and I am arguing with them by proxy on your post, sorry. I was just trying to make the point that there are many reasons like "I just didn't really vibe with this person in the interview" that would be more than sufficient but would be hard to sell to outsiders.
Couldn't agree more with your analysis of politics' toxoplasmicity; was really glad to read it, appreciated the typical Dynomight clarity and well-phrasedness, and shall be recommending/citing this post awfully often, I suspect. 'fanks.
(Also:
Dynomight: "...way too many people allows [sic] politics to play way too large a role in their emotional lives..."
Basil Fawlty *foaming at the mouth, brandishing fist in incandescent rage*: "It's BLOODY WILSON" [https://youtu.be/hPqMdWtWDlU - 'pologies for the low-quality link] )
> "...way too many people allows [sic] politics to play way too large a role in their emotional lives..."
Thanks, fixed!
> Basil Fawlty *foaming at the mouth, brandishing fist in incandescent rage*: "It's BLOODY WILSON" [https://youtu.be/hPqMdWtWDlU - 'pologies for the low-quality link] )
That is a very interesting collection of incoherent sounds. Extremely impressed that some people might be able to understand that! Is this what dogs experience when they see people yelling at each other?
Haha yet again, well-put! Perhaps, to understand, had to grow up listening to BBC Radio 4 on a transistor radio..?
Purely for the sake of the record, a transcription: "Do you know what that fire extinguisher did? It exploded in my face! What's the point of a fire extinguisher?! It sits there for months and months and when you actually have a fire - when you actually need the bloody thing - it blows your head off: what's happening to this country?! It's BLOODY WILSON*....."
(*Baron Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister in the early 1970s; much-maligned by the upper-middle classes..)
The sloth story is pleasantly poignant, and the description of it as "engagement-destroying" made me laugh. I guess I have very particular tastes.
I tend to agree that we get too wrapped up in politics. In addition to the points you mention, it's quite difficult to figure out the actual impact of political figures. Most of the stuff you hear and read about it is total BS, partly because of partisanship and partly because it's too complex. I'm not even talking about bush league stuff like giving the president credit for the economy. Consider: GW Bush seemed generally pretty bad to me, and in particular he started a pointless war in Iraq that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. But he also got PEPFAR funded, which has apparently saved about 25 million lives. Ugh. Trump is terrible in every way imaginable, but Operation Warp Speed for the Covid vaccines worked amazingly well (unclear how much credit should go to the administration on this, as opposed to MRNA research and so on).
And then there's the twists and turns of history, and we don't have counterfactuals.
If I think about it too hard, it's incredibly frustrating and unsettling. So I try not to think about it very hard, and certainly don't try to talk about it with anyone apart from a few more philosophically-minded friends. Compartmentalization is your friend!
I learned last week that my niece’s primary school class mascot is a sloth, which I found hilarious. (Also, this is in Germany, where sloth is literally lazy-animal, Faultier.)
I'll be honest, I was really hoping for this post to turn into cool sloth facts after that insight into what kids remember (and something for me to remember about interacting with my own kids) and I was bitterly disappointed.
Some time ago, I was talking about sloths with Dynomight Biologist, who reported that sloths give birth by letting the baby fall and then get caught by the umbilical cord, after which the mother grabs the cord and pulls the baby back up. I thought this was remarkable because (1) what? and (2) sloths typically only go down to the ground to get to other trees and to poop, during which time they are often eaten by ocelots and jaguars. So they can GIVE BIRTH in trees, but they can't defecate?
Anyway, I looked into it, and sadly it's only been observed once, by a single sloth in Costa Rica. If I was a sloth, I am 100% convinced I wouldn't be an idiot like the other sloths and I would poop in trees.
To your questions:
0. Yes, unfortunately, sloth is the wrong answer, I'm really sorry. The correct answer is "dinosaur."
1. Yes and no. Yes, there needed to be a public, undeniable Schelling point for Biden-skeptics in the party to coalesce around. No, because it probably would've happened later in some other venue, but possibly late enough to make switching look even worse.
2. Because winning intra-party competitions is more important than winning inter-party ones.
3. Yes.
4. No.
5. Institutional inertia, and the decision to do so was probably made before impossible-to-hide incapacity was made obvious (to him).
6. Almost certainly tautologically. You're asking if someone had won a competition to get the most votes, would they be doing better later on at getting more votes (largely from the same people?) I don't know if it would be "easy victory" but it would certainly be easier.
Much simpler than all that. Pick the best option for at least beginning or continuing to work on all the inequity baked into our current governing systems, continue to develop or implement economically driven systems to eventually stop climate change and repair environmental injustice, and don't be a dick about any of that. Simpler: choose the smartest option for the long term. Also, remember that governing/organizing systems [democracy] are not the same as economic systems [capitalism]. Trump gave people permission to hate in the open as he does. There is no compromise possible with racism and hate.
> One of my strongest beliefs is that way too many people allows politics to play way too large a role in their emotional lives.
A couple of things to note here.
There has been a concerted effort since the late '80s to shift the political narrative from one of rational discourse to one of emotional discourse, cf the Republican strategy to focus on "culture war" issues rather than economic policies.
For other folks, politics absolutely plays an emotional role when politics directly affect their lives, like say, a woman's right to bodily autonomy, healthcare, LGBTQ+ rights, racism in the justice system, etc.
To overlook these and throw up one's hands and say, "Gee, I wonder why people are getting so upset about politics?" is not a good look and naive at best.
For all of those topics rational debate rather than emotional manipulation would be a huge improvement. Yet here we are. I appreciate you admitting that you must be emotional about those issues, however.
I think you misunderstood my comment. I was commenting on the author's "discovery" that politics has hit an emotional nerve in many people.
You're also probably misspeaking. The presence of emotions does not invalidate logic. Emotional fallacies, i.e., appeals to emotion, are another thing, and I think this is what you're attempting to highlight. I don't think I presented emotional fallacies, but if I did, I welcome your pointing them out.
I understood your comment to be saying what you say you meant to say. However, just because an issue has emotional valence does not mean it must be discussed as “emotional discourse” as opposed to “rational discourse” as you say. Just because something affects you emotionally does not mean that one should be emotional about it while discussing politics. Having emotions and being emotional are two different things.
I will say that the commentator you're responding to is an excellent example of exactly the kind of political discourse that I think makes people unhappy.
I'll bite, why is that?
[Edit: Nevermind, I see that I was unnecessarily antagonistic in that last paragraph. My apologies. I'm tired, boss... ]
It might help to define terms. What do you mean by "being emotional" I think effective discourse has some level of emotional appeal, after all, we're humans not computers. Are you referring to emotional fallacies, e.g., "we should close the border because millions of criminals want to get in and destroy our way of life"? Or something else?
I do want to clarify that I didn't suggest that emotionally impactful issues have to be discussed through 'emotional discourse.' (Mind clarifying that term? It's not clear what you mean). My intention was to highlight that politics often evoke emotional responses because they directly affect people's lives—for example, topics like healthcare, education, and civil rights. I pointed out that mass media, influencers, and politicians have conditioned audiences to react emotionally to certain issues, and that's why most folks react in an emotional way.
At the very best, it's naive to not be aware of that and to place the blame on people as opposed to the systems that are perpetuating this current state of affairs.
Being emotional about a subject generally means being driven emotionally, or having one's emotions be in control, rather than being able to step outside one's self to try and see other people's point of view. For example, when my daughters get worked up and start fighting over toys they cannot discuss how to share them, because they are being emotional and not thinking straight; often a little "peace time" to calm down and sort through their feelings helps them come back to it and discuss things rationally.
Likewise, people who have not reasoned themselves into a position cannot be reasoned out of it, so discussing positions is pointless. Having come to a position based on emotion instead of reason leads to people parsing "I disagree" as "Your emotions are wrong" which, while sometimes true, people don't generally like to hear so much as "you are not in possession of all the facts". If someone feels something should be done you can't dissuade them by saying you feel differently, much less via cost benefit analysis. All there is to do is ignore each other or fight.
I agree that the scope of politics, touching every aspect of our lives, does in fact increase the tension and acrimony in the system. The more coercion we introduce into our personal lives, the more the outcomes of elections matter, and thus the more we are going to invest in getting the outcomes we think best. That said, a remarkable number of people have no apparent knowledge or interest in the outcomes, past or present of elections. I recall citing a paper some years ago where they found that of urban people they surveyed, roughly 50% claimed they voted in the previous local election, and of those 50% could name the party of the candidate that won. That in districts that had been Democrat for the better part of a century. For the amount of emotion evoked, people seem to have nearly zero knowledge or interest in how the results of their votes affect their lives.
While I agree it is in part the system, it does also come down to the people who do not know they should be rational, or lack the self control to master their emotions. We all live in the same system; that some of us manage to discuss things calmly and rationally, giving empathy and consideration to the other side, means that we can expect others to do likewise. Especially if they can't be bothered to actually pay attention.
i agree that national elections are overblown, but just out of curiosity, how would you define politics?
(my 12 y/o answer to "what's your favorite animal" was "human", which both my parents thought was an indicator of not laziness but perhaps even worse -- pretension)
-- or worse still ... value signalling or conformism
thanks for the sanity check in part 1. less stoked about the reality check in part 2, though.
I picked "spider" when a female friend asked me what my favorite animal was.
SPIDER!
Anyway what she said that your favorite animal is a proxy for what you value in a mate. I'm not married. (not sure if those are related)
---
People are farting in the rational clean room and it's very upsetting.
I think that rational communication can only happen when people have overlapping perspectives - not the same point of view necessarily, but some overlap. For instance, in the abortion 'debate', pro choice advocates say that abortion is all about controlling women; pro life say it's about morality and not killing babies. There is NO overlap in those viewpoints.
When there is no overlap, you can still sometimes do a perspective-taking exercise - why does that person have that perspective? Can I tell a story from that perspective? But for hurtful things it's hard to get someone to do a perspective-taking exercise. Why would I take the perspective of someone who only wants to control women's bodies? Why would I take the perspective of someone who wants to kill babies?
We have emotional 'scar tissue' for most of these 'irrational' topics - we're used to it.
Trump has taken an existing framing story and turned it up to 11 - I call it 'The Daddy Trump' story.
I don't need to understand the economy, Daddy Trump will take care of it.
I don't need to understand the border, Daddy Trump will take care of it.
... democracy ...
... the constitution ...
I don't need to understand anything, Daddy Trump will take care of it.
Conservatives have always had a degree of this framing story, Trump has just been extremely shameless in how he uses it.
This makes rational communication very very difficult: Why would I try to take the perspective of someone who loves Daddy Trump? Why would I try to take the perspective of someone who hates the only man who can fix things?
---
I think that emotional intelligence will be increasingly important as time goes on, particularly in understanding perspective and framing stories. Some people are really good at this, whether by intention or instinct, but few people are good at analyzing this, because it quickly leads to sticky and hurtful thoughts.
No one had a plan to deal with all the emotions of everyone in the world when we built the internet, but humans are actually pretty good at making plans.
---
You can only fact check facts. You can't effectively fact check a perspective or framing story. Doubling down on debunking can only get you so far.
---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pPNV_B-Hpc particularly minute 38 and on
---
I don't particularly love this article, but it seems to be directionally useful. I would frame the problem as being unknowingly stuck in a particular story, and the solution as exercising perspective-taking. I also wish it talked about why this is hard instead of just vaguely gesturing that it's a good idea.
https://psyche.co/ideas/your-life-is-not-a-story-why-narrative-thinking-holds-you-back
For question (2), I'm on team Kevin Drum (https://jabberwocking.com/kamala-harris-should-choose-a-pal-for-vice-president/): to the rest of us, the VP pick is at best a name and a vibe, often not even that. To Harris, the VP pick is someone she has a 25-50% chance of being stuck working with every single day for the next 4-8 years. Complaining about her choice, when she interviewed and researched the candidates and we did not, is a bit like complaining that your kid broke up with a rich person to marry a poor one. You can argue with them all day about whether the rich person was the more rational choice, but you're not the one who's going to have to live in the marriage.
Who's complaining? I am sure she had a good reason (I really am) just still wondering what that is. The most plausible theories I can think of are a personality conflict, Shapiro's position on Israel, a vetting problem, or that Harris just thought Walz is a better leader.
Many people on the internet are complaining and I am arguing with them by proxy on your post, sorry. I was just trying to make the point that there are many reasons like "I just didn't really vibe with this person in the interview" that would be more than sufficient but would be hard to sell to outsiders.
Engagement destroying story about sloth? No, it was definitely very interesting.
Couldn't agree more with your analysis of politics' toxoplasmicity; was really glad to read it, appreciated the typical Dynomight clarity and well-phrasedness, and shall be recommending/citing this post awfully often, I suspect. 'fanks.
(Also:
Dynomight: "...way too many people allows [sic] politics to play way too large a role in their emotional lives..."
Basil Fawlty *foaming at the mouth, brandishing fist in incandescent rage*: "It's BLOODY WILSON" [https://youtu.be/hPqMdWtWDlU - 'pologies for the low-quality link] )
> "...way too many people allows [sic] politics to play way too large a role in their emotional lives..."
Thanks, fixed!
> Basil Fawlty *foaming at the mouth, brandishing fist in incandescent rage*: "It's BLOODY WILSON" [https://youtu.be/hPqMdWtWDlU - 'pologies for the low-quality link] )
That is a very interesting collection of incoherent sounds. Extremely impressed that some people might be able to understand that! Is this what dogs experience when they see people yelling at each other?
Haha yet again, well-put! Perhaps, to understand, had to grow up listening to BBC Radio 4 on a transistor radio..?
Purely for the sake of the record, a transcription: "Do you know what that fire extinguisher did? It exploded in my face! What's the point of a fire extinguisher?! It sits there for months and months and when you actually have a fire - when you actually need the bloody thing - it blows your head off: what's happening to this country?! It's BLOODY WILSON*....."
(*Baron Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister in the early 1970s; much-maligned by the upper-middle classes..)
Wow, with the transcript in hand it's all perfectly clear! Hard to believe it's the same video...
The sloth story is pleasantly poignant, and the description of it as "engagement-destroying" made me laugh. I guess I have very particular tastes.
I tend to agree that we get too wrapped up in politics. In addition to the points you mention, it's quite difficult to figure out the actual impact of political figures. Most of the stuff you hear and read about it is total BS, partly because of partisanship and partly because it's too complex. I'm not even talking about bush league stuff like giving the president credit for the economy. Consider: GW Bush seemed generally pretty bad to me, and in particular he started a pointless war in Iraq that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. But he also got PEPFAR funded, which has apparently saved about 25 million lives. Ugh. Trump is terrible in every way imaginable, but Operation Warp Speed for the Covid vaccines worked amazingly well (unclear how much credit should go to the administration on this, as opposed to MRNA research and so on).
And then there's the twists and turns of history, and we don't have counterfactuals.
If I think about it too hard, it's incredibly frustrating and unsettling. So I try not to think about it very hard, and certainly don't try to talk about it with anyone apart from a few more philosophically-minded friends. Compartmentalization is your friend!
I learned last week that my niece’s primary school class mascot is a sloth, which I found hilarious. (Also, this is in Germany, where sloth is literally lazy-animal, Faultier.)
I'll be honest, I was really hoping for this post to turn into cool sloth facts after that insight into what kids remember (and something for me to remember about interacting with my own kids) and I was bitterly disappointed.
You want more sloth content, do you?
Some time ago, I was talking about sloths with Dynomight Biologist, who reported that sloths give birth by letting the baby fall and then get caught by the umbilical cord, after which the mother grabs the cord and pulls the baby back up. I thought this was remarkable because (1) what? and (2) sloths typically only go down to the ground to get to other trees and to poop, during which time they are often eaten by ocelots and jaguars. So they can GIVE BIRTH in trees, but they can't defecate?
Anyway, I looked into it, and sadly it's only been observed once, by a single sloth in Costa Rica. If I was a sloth, I am 100% convinced I wouldn't be an idiot like the other sloths and I would poop in trees.
Incidentally, would recommend sharing exactly none of this with your kids.
Too late