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This phenomenon is root of all evil in modern day America. People identify with political parties as though they are sports teams. Team R or Team D. If you're

This phenomenon is root of all evil in modern day America. People identify with political parties as though they are sports teams. Team R or Team D. If you're one of such people (and there seem to be relatively few of them on HN), please consider where this will lead the country.

smitty1e 6y ago
"All" seems a bit inclusive. From a team building and gamification perspective, granfalloons (while perhaps as objectively specious as TFA) points out, can help to focus group activities. Whether the direction of that focus be good or evil is another discussion. But if there is a natural disaster, and some granfalloon relief agency shows up to help you out, will you be quick to denounce it?
- Igelau 6y ago
  > granfalloon relief agency That's an oxymoron. By definition, the group "relief agency" has a specific purpose that the group "Hoosiers" does not.
  - smitty1e 6y ago
    So: Hoosier Relief Agency.
crispinb 6y ago
One of the few things we can be certain of with complex systems is that effects are not consequences of single causes. The US's political tribalism is clearly a negative for the nation, but is a consequence of history, not the signal flaw in a machine. It is a particularly vicious aspect of the system, I'd agree, as it tends to feed back and make the whole system increasingly dysfunctional. The US looks very much like a nation in precipitous decline. Its hapless response to the current crisis may be the coup de grace.
kerkeslager 6y ago
More generally, all of identity politics is based around this.
- jnbiche 6y ago
  I agree.
GCSAQCMIYI 6y ago
Why do you believe that is not a rational way to act in this environment?
- kerkeslager 6y ago
  Paul Graham explains it well: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
  - GCSAQCMIYI 6y ago
    He suggests keeping your identity small. There is only so much you can do on that front. Some potential government policies are beneficial for people with certain characteristics, including immutable ones or ones that are difficult to change, and harmful for other people. Why would it not be rational for people to align politically along the lines of those characteristics to push for policies that benefit them on that basis, especially if they believe people who don't have those characteristics are aligning to push against them?
    - crispinb 6y ago
      There's nothing inherently 'rational' about self-interest (which is entirely orthogonal to the justification or lack thereof for the latter). It has literally never occurred to me to consider whether party policies are good for me personally when assessing who to vote for. This is not irrational behaviour on my part (I'm well aware of my values and the relationship, as far as I'm able to calculate it, between those values and proposed policies). The conflation of self-interest and rationality is just ideology (often forcefully conveyed by evangelists for the most salient superstition of our age, ie. economics).
      - GCSAQCMIYI 6y ago
        I certainly agree that everyone's values are ultimately arbitrary, but that's pretty far outside of this discussion. Most people are self-interested, and the person I originally replied to was talking about normal people. "This phenomenon is root of all evil in modern day America. People identify with political parties as though they are sports teams."
lukifer 6y ago
PG's "Keep Your Identity Small" should be required reading in high school / college: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html Unfortunately, humans are to some extent intrinsically tribal (when Haidt calls us "90% ape, 10% beehive", I think he's being exceptionally generous). This is so pervasive in our nature, it tends to be unconscious: if I consider an existential crisis for the opposing political party to win, I'll likely filter my thinking to that end, minimizing faults and maximizing virtues in my party, and doing the opposite with my opponents. As they do the same, it creates a race to the bottom, and all norms and decorum and fairness go out the window, in pursuit of victory and raw power. Jason Brennan makes a compelling case [0] that democracy makes this problem worse. A lot can be chalked up to our electoral process being an utter failure of implementing democracy, from campaign finance corruption to First-Past-The-Post (to say nothing of more advanced ideas like holacracy, liquid democracy, public choice econ, etc); nonetheless, there's a case that the tribal dynamics inherent to politics creates perverse incentives for truth-seeking and sense-making. I'm starting to think that democracy is only the second-worst system (except for all the others), and we'd get better results with a completely random lottery [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Democracy [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
renewiltord 6y ago
No, it is a beautiful and powerful thing. Everyone claims to not obey it but the force of tribalism is strong. There is no enlightened man above it. All are subject to it. The best use it well. The average deny it. The worst are used well by it. In its simplest form it lifts you up on a dreary Thursday as you get off the train, walk to the stadium gates, and yell a chant that is picked up by others who know nothing of you but that you know the chant and that you wear the colours. Such power in that unity. In its most powerful form it motivates people to form great civil change. You are a civil rights activist, not merely a person who believes in the inherent rights of all people. You are a gay rights activist, or a climate change activist, or a revolutionary. Learning to harness that mindhack of unity was so fulfilling to me. Yell the right words and you have sixty thousand at your back yelling them with you. You feel gigantic, not like a single man, but like a giant ocean swell. And it is such a trick. I do not share that much with the coal miner and the bus driver and the man who bought a flat in Highbury. But we share this. And over this we can talk. And through the talking we come to share more.
- jnbiche 6y ago
  < Everyone claims to not obey it but the force of tribalism is strong. There is no enlightened man above it. Oh, I think that as a American who disdains both major political parties, I can claim that honor. > The best use it well. Sure, modern politicians are great at that. > The worst are used well by it. Yep. Sounds about right. By the way, it's going to destroy your country, too. Surprised that's not obvious. Civil wars suck, I've worked in the aftermath of two. Likely will not go that far in the UK, likely just a breakup and some civil unrest, but there is that risk with any breakup. In the US, I'd say there's a much higher chance. > You feel gigantic, not like a single man, but like a giant ocean swell. It's always amazing to me how different individuals can be. The idea of gaining power and feeling great because I'm shouting with thousands of other people gives me the willies. Sure, protests are necessary, but it's not a feeling we should relish. It means our government is failing. And more often, when large groups of people gather to express emotion, it's for far more malevolent ends.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
fallingfrog 6y ago
Don’t forget that the primary reason to divide people up into groups based on superficial characteristics is to prevent them from forming groups based on their real shared economic interests.
bmn__ 6y ago
> please consider where this will lead the country. Procopius of Caesarea wrote in History of the Wars in 545 CE: In every city the population has been divided for a long time past into the Blue and the Green factions [...] And they fight against their opponents knowing not for what end they imperil themselves [...] So there grows up in them against their fellow men a hostility which has no cause, and at no time does it cease or disappear, for it gives place neither to the ties of marriage nor of relationship nor of friendship, and the case is the same even though those who differ with respect to these colours be brothers or any other kin. Spoiler: Blue and Green were indeed sports teams.

smitty1e 6y ago

"All" seems a bit inclusive. From a team building and gamification perspective, granfalloons (while perhaps as objectively specious as TFA) points out, can help to focus group activities. Whether the direction of that focus be good or evil is another discussion. But if there is a natural disaster, and some granfalloon relief agency shows up to help you out, will you be quick to denounce it?

Igelau 6y ago
> granfalloon relief agency That's an oxymoron. By definition, the group "relief agency" has a specific purpose that the group "Hoosiers" does not.
- smitty1e 6y ago
  So: Hoosier Relief Agency.

crispinb 6y ago

One of the few things we can be certain of with complex systems is that effects are not consequences of single causes. The US's political tribalism is clearly a negative for the nation, but is a consequence of history, not the signal flaw in a machine. It is a particularly vicious aspect of the system, I'd agree, as it tends to feed back and make the whole system increasingly dysfunctional. The US looks very much like a nation in precipitous decline. Its hapless response to the current crisis may be the coup de grace.

kerkeslager 6y ago

More generally, all of identity politics is based around this.

jnbiche 6y ago
I agree.

GCSAQCMIYI 6y ago

Why do you believe that is not a rational way to act in this environment?

kerkeslager 6y ago
Paul Graham explains it well: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
- GCSAQCMIYI 6y ago
  He suggests keeping your identity small. There is only so much you can do on that front. Some potential government policies are beneficial for people with certain characteristics, including immutable ones or ones that are difficult to change, and harmful for other people. Why would it not be rational for people to align politically along the lines of those characteristics to push for policies that benefit them on that basis, especially if they believe people who don't have those characteristics are aligning to push against them?
  - crispinb 6y ago
    There's nothing inherently 'rational' about self-interest (which is entirely orthogonal to the justification or lack thereof for the latter). It has literally never occurred to me to consider whether party policies are good for me personally when assessing who to vote for. This is not irrational behaviour on my part (I'm well aware of my values and the relationship, as far as I'm able to calculate it, between those values and proposed policies). The conflation of self-interest and rationality is just ideology (often forcefully conveyed by evangelists for the most salient superstition of our age, ie. economics).
    - GCSAQCMIYI 6y ago
      I certainly agree that everyone's values are ultimately arbitrary, but that's pretty far outside of this discussion. Most people are self-interested, and the person I originally replied to was talking about normal people. "This phenomenon is root of all evil in modern day America. People identify with political parties as though they are sports teams."

lukifer 6y ago

PG's "Keep Your Identity Small" should be required reading in high school / college: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html Unfortunately, humans are to some extent intrinsically tribal (when Haidt calls us "90% ape, 10% beehive", I think he's being exceptionally generous). This is so pervasive in our nature, it tends to be unconscious: if I consider an existential crisis for the opposing political party to win, I'll likely filter my thinking to that end, minimizing faults and maximizing virtues in my party, and doing the opposite with my opponents. As they do the same, it creates a race to the bottom, and all norms and decorum and fairness go out the window, in pursuit of victory and raw power. Jason Brennan makes a compelling case [0] that democracy makes this problem worse. A lot can be chalked up to our electoral process being an utter failure of implementing democracy, from campaign finance corruption to First-Past-The-Post (to say nothing of more advanced ideas like holacracy, liquid democracy, public choice econ, etc); nonetheless, there's a case that the tribal dynamics inherent to politics creates perverse incentives for truth-seeking and sense-making. I'm starting to think that democracy is only the second-worst system (except for all the others), and we'd get better results with a completely random lottery [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Democracy [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

renewiltord 6y ago

No, it is a beautiful and powerful thing. Everyone claims to not obey it but the force of tribalism is strong. There is no enlightened man above it. All are subject to it. The best use it well. The average deny it. The worst are used well by it. In its simplest form it lifts you up on a dreary Thursday as you get off the train, walk to the stadium gates, and yell a chant that is picked up by others who know nothing of you but that you know the chant and that you wear the colours. Such power in that unity. In its most powerful form it motivates people to form great civil change. You are a civil rights activist, not merely a person who believes in the inherent rights of all people. You are a gay rights activist, or a climate change activist, or a revolutionary. Learning to harness that mindhack of unity was so fulfilling to me. Yell the right words and you have sixty thousand at your back yelling them with you. You feel gigantic, not like a single man, but like a giant ocean swell. And it is such a trick. I do not share that much with the coal miner and the bus driver and the man who bought a flat in Highbury. But we share this. And over this we can talk. And through the talking we come to share more.

jnbiche 6y ago
< Everyone claims to not obey it but the force of tribalism is strong. There is no enlightened man above it. Oh, I think that as a American who disdains both major political parties, I can claim that honor. > The best use it well. Sure, modern politicians are great at that. > The worst are used well by it. Yep. Sounds about right. By the way, it's going to destroy your country, too. Surprised that's not obvious. Civil wars suck, I've worked in the aftermath of two. Likely will not go that far in the UK, likely just a breakup and some civil unrest, but there is that risk with any breakup. In the US, I'd say there's a much higher chance. > You feel gigantic, not like a single man, but like a giant ocean swell. It's always amazing to me how different individuals can be. The idea of gaining power and feeling great because I'm shouting with thousands of other people gives me the willies. Sure, protests are necessary, but it's not a feeling we should relish. It means our government is failing. And more often, when large groups of people gather to express emotion, it's for far more malevolent ends.
- renewiltord 6y ago

fallingfrog 6y ago

Don’t forget that the primary reason to divide people up into groups based on superficial characteristics is to prevent them from forming groups based on their real shared economic interests.

bmn__ 6y ago

> please consider where this will lead the country. Procopius of Caesarea wrote in History of the Wars in 545 CE: In every city the population has been divided for a long time past into the Blue and the Green factions [...] And they fight against their opponents knowing not for what end they imperil themselves [...] So there grows up in them against their fellow men a hostility which has no cause, and at no time does it cease or disappear, for it gives place neither to the ties of marriage nor of relationship nor of friendship, and the case is the same even though those who differ with respect to these colours be brothers or any other kin. Spoiler: Blue and Green were indeed sports teams.