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> ... the most destructive force in any human endeavor: politics. I imagine you were being tongue-in-cheek, but just to unreasonably latch onto that statement

> ... the most destructive force in any human endeavor: politics. I imagine you were being tongue-in-cheek, but just to unreasonably latch onto that statement a bit: politics is certainly infuriating, and it's easy to treat it as some unalloyed Bad Thing that we wish would just go away, but politics is essentially communication, and so it can be a good thing, too. The bigger the group, the more communication you need to keep everything (somewhat) together. For instance, on a larger "human endeavor" scale, I am grateful that WW3 has not happened yet — thank you politics (: As with many things, it's a tool that can be used poorly or used well. But the tool itself is not inherently bad or destructive, I don't think. Or maybe it is both inherently good *and* bad, and you can't entirely separate the two.

concordDance 4y ago
Given the word "politics" has many different meanings you need to state your definition here if you want people to understand your post
- the_af 4y ago
  I think the context is pretty clear in both comments. "Politics" in this context means a form of communication, consensus and decision making in a group.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    The first comment was clearly talking about the internal, institutional politics of things like professional societies, academic fields, etc, while if we look at the other branch of this particular subthread we have a pretty long post about things like the media and international politics. Perhaps it is impossible to nip talk of the latter type of politics in the bud, though.
    - interroboink 4y ago
      I'm not especially convinced that the two are entirely separate. It feels to me that they sprout from the same source, more or less. I suppose it depends on where you want to draw a line around a very fuzzy word ("politics"). My intent in bringing up the issue originally was that when you have larger groups of people interacting, you get larger-scale patterns of communication. People form groups and sub-groups; people give support to groups based on trust of that group or one of its representatives, rather than getting to know everyone individually; higher-level conglomerations of ideals form because tracking every issue in detail is too much, etc. There's a lot of gunk that comes along with that. But it is not all bad, or destructive. It can even be _con_structive. I think that generally applies to institutional politics as well as national/world politics.
_jal 4y ago
Politics happens via communication, but what differentiates politics is that it is mostly about resource allocation. People don't (usually) get pissed off about idle chitchat. They do when their project is spiked.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  OK, but it's a particular kind of resource allocation. Economics is about resource allocation using money and markets. Politics is about resource allocation using... influence? Connections? Coercion? If we had an open, transparent market where sponsors could bid on research, it might work better. (Hey, HN: Anybody want to set up such a market, funding it by taking a small cut of the bid?)
  - honkler 4y ago
    economics is the justification/rationalism that politics puts forth for resource allocation.
somenameforme 4y ago
Imagine we somehow were able to purge all political and media influence, past and present, from the minds of each person today. And then had them rank the issues they find most relevant in the world. Where do you think the things people today spend all their time politicking on would rank? Similarly imagine they wrote out their 'oughts' of what the world ought look like in their eyes. How much overlap do you think there would be with the political platforms of today? Of course we can only speculate, but to me it seems self evident that there would be effectively 0 overlap. The issue is that politics invariably turns into a viral team sport where people pick some side, adopt that side's views wholesale, convince themselves they're the most important thing ever, and then set out to convert everybody else to their team, beat the other teams in any way possible, and of course always fanatically cheer on their own team regardless of whether or not its deserved. And then when things get hot enough, you get violence. Politics is precisely what started WW1. An otherwise irrelevant Archduke was assassinated and then that politically snowballed into everybody killing everybody everywhere, because politics. Then we chose to engage in extreme political myopia imposing absolutely harsh punishments on the losers of the war which, shockingly enough, didn't really lead to them rejoining the "world order" but instead declaring war on it again, and nearly winning. And the only reason we haven't yet had WW3 is nuclear weapons. War doesn't really work when you can guarantee that your country (and you, for that matter) will most likely not exist at the end, "win" or lose. But now political frenzies are overriding even that most basic aspect of self preservation and inching us closer to WW3 than we've ever been. So no, I do not think he was being tongue in cheek.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- interroboink 4y ago
  > Where do you think the things people today spend all their time politicking on would rank? I realize "politicking" is often used in a derogatory sense, and perhaps that's how you mean it here, but there is a whole lot of plain-old-politics that takes place on a regular basis which has good overlap with those issues you hinted at. Things like: planning and building infrastructure, making sure people do not go hungry or thirsty and that they have places to live, having common laws, etc. A list kind of like "what have the Romans ever done for us?"[1]. Certainly, politics/politicking can also have an amplifying effect on the bad stuff too, as you mention. I suppose my main issue with what you say is the bit starting: "politics invariably turns into a viral team sport ..." I don't see it as invariable. The pendulum has been swinging that direction recently, and I don't like it either, but I don't see it as a one-way road to doom. Though I respect if you do feel that way, of course! ---- Aside: Your comment led me to read a bit about history, and I found on Wikipedia[2]: "According to a 2021 study, Franz Ferdinand's absence was key to the breakdown of diplomacy and escalation into war, as Ferdinand had been the most powerful and effective proponent for peace in Vienna." Like you, I had the "an otherwise irrelevant Archduke" idea in my head, but I guess now I'm not so sure. So, thanks for the indirect new info (: [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand#Consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Fran...

concordDance 4y ago

Given the word "politics" has many different meanings you need to state your definition here if you want people to understand your post

the_af 4y ago
I think the context is pretty clear in both comments. "Politics" in this context means a form of communication, consensus and decision making in a group.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  The first comment was clearly talking about the internal, institutional politics of things like professional societies, academic fields, etc, while if we look at the other branch of this particular subthread we have a pretty long post about things like the media and international politics. Perhaps it is impossible to nip talk of the latter type of politics in the bud, though.
  - interroboink 4y ago
    I'm not especially convinced that the two are entirely separate. It feels to me that they sprout from the same source, more or less. I suppose it depends on where you want to draw a line around a very fuzzy word ("politics"). My intent in bringing up the issue originally was that when you have larger groups of people interacting, you get larger-scale patterns of communication. People form groups and sub-groups; people give support to groups based on trust of that group or one of its representatives, rather than getting to know everyone individually; higher-level conglomerations of ideals form because tracking every issue in detail is too much, etc. There's a lot of gunk that comes along with that. But it is not all bad, or destructive. It can even be _con_structive. I think that generally applies to institutional politics as well as national/world politics.

_jal 4y ago

Politics happens via communication, but what differentiates politics is that it is mostly about resource allocation. People don't (usually) get pissed off about idle chitchat. They do when their project is spiked.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
OK, but it's a particular kind of resource allocation. Economics is about resource allocation using money and markets. Politics is about resource allocation using... influence? Connections? Coercion? If we had an open, transparent market where sponsors could bid on research, it might work better. (Hey, HN: Anybody want to set up such a market, funding it by taking a small cut of the bid?)
- honkler 4y ago
  economics is the justification/rationalism that politics puts forth for resource allocation.

somenameforme 4y ago

Imagine we somehow were able to purge all political and media influence, past and present, from the minds of each person today. And then had them rank the issues they find most relevant in the world. Where do you think the things people today spend all their time politicking on would rank? Similarly imagine they wrote out their 'oughts' of what the world ought look like in their eyes. How much overlap do you think there would be with the political platforms of today? Of course we can only speculate, but to me it seems self evident that there would be effectively 0 overlap. The issue is that politics invariably turns into a viral team sport where people pick some side, adopt that side's views wholesale, convince themselves they're the most important thing ever, and then set out to convert everybody else to their team, beat the other teams in any way possible, and of course always fanatically cheer on their own team regardless of whether or not its deserved. And then when things get hot enough, you get violence. Politics is precisely what started WW1. An otherwise irrelevant Archduke was assassinated and then that politically snowballed into everybody killing everybody everywhere, because politics. Then we chose to engage in extreme political myopia imposing absolutely harsh punishments on the losers of the war which, shockingly enough, didn't really lead to them rejoining the "world order" but instead declaring war on it again, and nearly winning. And the only reason we haven't yet had WW3 is nuclear weapons. War doesn't really work when you can guarantee that your country (and you, for that matter) will most likely not exist at the end, "win" or lose. But now political frenzies are overriding even that most basic aspect of self preservation and inching us closer to WW3 than we've ever been. So no, I do not think he was being tongue in cheek.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
interroboink 4y ago
> Where do you think the things people today spend all their time politicking on would rank? I realize "politicking" is often used in a derogatory sense, and perhaps that's how you mean it here, but there is a whole lot of plain-old-politics that takes place on a regular basis which has good overlap with those issues you hinted at. Things like: planning and building infrastructure, making sure people do not go hungry or thirsty and that they have places to live, having common laws, etc. A list kind of like "what have the Romans ever done for us?"[1]. Certainly, politics/politicking can also have an amplifying effect on the bad stuff too, as you mention. I suppose my main issue with what you say is the bit starting: "politics invariably turns into a viral team sport ..." I don't see it as invariable. The pendulum has been swinging that direction recently, and I don't like it either, but I don't see it as a one-way road to doom. Though I respect if you do feel that way, of course! ---- Aside: Your comment led me to read a bit about history, and I found on Wikipedia[2]: "According to a 2021 study, Franz Ferdinand's absence was key to the breakdown of diplomacy and escalation into war, as Ferdinand had been the most powerful and effective proponent for peace in Vienna." Like you, I had the "an otherwise irrelevant Archduke" idea in my head, but I guess now I'm not so sure. So, thanks for the indirect new info (: [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand#Consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Fran...