Comments on: Reject Your Personality’s Politics

By: Indy

Indy — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 06:14:49 +0000

Quite a simplistic view of personality. Let me guess, you’re a liberal. I used to be liberal, but now I’m conservative. So I must be schizo! I just got fed up with the moving moral target of the progressives. Next thing you know they’ll be advocating sex with kids. Oh yes, I read lots of books, am messy, love to act and paint, and believe in God.

By: billswift

billswift — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:41:56 +0000

All of you arguing about beliefs vs actual “good” society really need to read Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions, and his Vision of the Anointed.

By: TGGP

TGGP — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 19:04:59 +0000

pdf, regarding abortion and policy vs. effect, check out this from Walter Block. If technology reached the level imagined there, I think a lot of people on opposite sides would come together.

By: pdf23ds

pdf23ds — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:03:16 +0000

That reminds me of a bias pointed out by Paul Graham. Parents seem to be more conservative about their children than they were with their own lives as a child. This seems to be because, as a child, you get some solid benefits by climbing that big tree, but as a parent, you get none of those benefits and have to deal with all of the problems it causes (like broken limbs).

Something similar might be going on with old age conservatism.

By: Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 13:13:06 +0000

Chris, the changing of opinion with age might be explained by increasing info with age, so it is not clear whether to reject that change. If opinions aged due to info, then you would want to change your opinion to the opinion you expect to have when you are old.

By: ChrisA

ChrisA — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 11:55:40 +0000

There is more than a grain of truth in the study, I mean if you went to a poetry reading, would you not expect to find more liberals there than at the country music festival? (Now I am a libertarian and wouldn’t be caught dead at either…) It reminds me of that old saw about the conservatives being repulsive but right and the left being romantic but wrong.

In terms of the task of trying not to let your personality influence your policy beliefs, I will take a pragmatic approach because, in almost all cases, policy beliefs can be treated as entertainment as the involvement of most people in changing policy is limited to voting, which has minimal impact. Only if you are the position of being able to change policy do you need to worry about this bias. Perhaps politicians should use the wisdom of crowds to make policy, taking the median position from opinion surveys, unless you have clear information that the general public are not party to.

Another bias that comes to mind that you have to deal with as a policy maker is the (commonly suggested) one of becoming more conservative as you get older – I assume you would compensate in the same way.

By: Joseph Hertzlinger

Joseph Hertzlinger — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 02:50:10 +0000

I’m dubious about studies (e.g., the “whiny kid” study) based on a sample size of 95 in an atypical community. The conclusion might be plausible (speaking as a reactionary crackpot, I was tempted to change my blog’s name to “The Whiny Ex-Kid”) but the study isn’t.

By: Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 00:29:45 +0000

pdf, my advice to move to the political opinions you would have if you had an average personality applies only to those who think their political opinions are about a common concept. If you think it is about your preferences, then my advice doesn’t apply to you.

By: pdf23ds

pdf23ds — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 00:04:19 +0000

Robin, I think that even when people of different ideologies *think* they’re talking about a common concept of good society, they usually have different ones in mind. So they end up having low-level discussions (about policies or politicians, for instance) that are distorted by high-level differences in values driven by their personality.

And to some degree, this is complicated by the fact that people *aren’t* very pragmatic about many areas of policy. They desire certain policies in themselves, and not just for the effects. Abortion is an obvious example, and police power and sentencing rules a less obvious one. So, two people might agree on what would make a good society on the *most* abstract levels, (say, that it would provide everyone opportunities to fulfill their own happiness,) but be unwilling to change their positions on some lower-level pragmatic issue even if it were shown that the lower-level issue did not lead to the higher-level results.

So I think the distinction you’re trying to make isn’t really that clear.

By: Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:14:59 +0000

pdf, yes of course people can have different preferences over the sort of society they would prefer. And if they admit they just have different preferences, there is nothing to disagree about. But usually when people speak about what is “good for society,” they talk as if what they intend to refer to is a more common concept, about which they disagree.