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].
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.
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.
0: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
Poe's Law strikes again.
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.
The US looks very much like a nation in precipitous decline. Its hapless response to the current crisis may be the coup de grace.
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?
That's an oxymoron. By definition, the group "relief agency" has a specific purpose that the group "Hoosiers" does not.
Part of what you're saying is right: it's rational to cooperate to achieve goals.
However, you're wrong in 2 ways:
1. Group identification is not a necessary component of cooperation. I can vote to support gay rights without being gay. I can vote to support gun freedom without owning a gun. You're using the vague word "align" to mean both identifying as part of a group and cooperating, but these are not the same thing.
2. Your post is only looking at cooperating toward goals that arise from shared identification as part of a group. This is a myopic view: there are lots of people who despite identifying as part of the same groups, have different, incompatible goals. This is exactly why not identifying as part of a group is rational: if you identify as part of a group, then you will have the human impulse to take actions that achieve the goals of the group, even if those goals are incompatible with your own goals.
For example: I find myself cooperating with a certain political party more often than not--I've fairly consistently voted for them, and even worked for some of their political campaigns. But I don't identify as part of that party. This means that when someone criticizes that political party, I'm not offended: they're not criticizing me, because I don't identify as part of that party. I don't take it personally. And it also means that when I disagree with that political party, I don't fall prey to the Granfalloon technique. If I disagree with them (and I do) I don't feel any pressure to conform my views to the political party. I can rationally support my own goals, not theirs.
I didn't say or suggest it was.
>if you identify as part of a group, then you will have the human impulse to take actions that achieve the goals of the group, even if those goals are incompatible with your own goals.
Sure, but the goals that you have in common with your group are more likely to be achieved if members of your group strongly identify as members of that group.
Of course, it's certainly possible for groups that aren't really in the interest of the members of the group to form.
That might be true, but so what? Keep your identity small. That doesn't say you shouldn't cooperate with people who don't keep their identities small. You can cooperate with people who strongly identify as members of a group without identifying as a member of that group yourself.
> Of course, it's certainly possible for groups that aren't really in the interest of the members of the group to form.
It's a property of groups that if they believe the group is beneficial, they'll make compromises to maintain the existence of the group. Each compromise takes them farther from their ideals, until they're no longer really serving their original goals. As a result, I would argue that all groups tend toward not really being in the interest of the members, unless careful measures are taken to prevent that.
You're suggesting acting parasitically toward the group, in that you are gaining the benefits of others sacrificing their own goals for group goals, while not sacrificing your own goals for group goals. That sort of behavior is quite destructive to the group, and groups have (of course imperfect) mechanisms to punish people that behave that way. If you can get away with behaving that way, so be it, but the group has a strong incentive to stop you from doing so.
>It's a property of groups that if they believe the group is beneficial, they'll make compromises to maintain the existence of the group. Each compromise takes them farther from their ideals, until they're no longer really serving their original goals. As a result, I would argue that all groups tend toward not really being in the interest of the members, unless careful measures are taken to prevent that.
In the long term, sure I could buy that. But the short term benefits could easily make it worth it overall to form the group. By the time the group degenerates as you describe, the members could be vastly ahead of where they would have been otherwise.
No, I'm not. I'm saying that not identifying as a member of the group allows you to make a conscious decision on whether to continue to cooperate with a group when the goals of the group no longer are compatible with your goals. Maybe that means ending or redefining your relationship with the group, maybe it means trying to change the group.
This is a particularly rich accusation coming from someone who thinks it's normal to behave out of rational self-interest. ;)
> In the long term, sure I could buy that. But the short term benefits could easily make it worth it overall to form the group. By the time the group degenerates as you describe, the members could be vastly ahead of where they would have been otherwise.
That's true, which is why you'd want to cooperate with groups and then exit them when they cease to be beneficial.
To be clear, a lot of your negativity on my position seems to be from your assuming that my goals are necessarily selfish. If you believe everyone acts only in rational self-interest, then all cooperation lasts only as long as you have the same goals anyway, so your position is self-contradictory. That is, unfortunately, how a lot of the capitalist economy works, but that's not how relationships and cooperation really work in a lot of cases. The reality is that when I cooperate with people, even if they have different goals than me, I often learn things from them that change my goals, or form a new goal of maintaining a relationship with that person. Goals can be prosocial.
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).
(I don't btw agree that values are entirely arbitrary, but that's a discussion for another day).
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.