> Politics always exists in a context and one can't make rational decisions in politics without that context.
You can act outside of political historical context and I would go so far as to recommend it wholly. This kind of "context" (which is human ascribed) has no bearing on acting rationally. Pay attention to consequence borne by data, not past intent.
> I think our society suffers greatly because people don't know history.
I'm not sure how that applies to something that has circumstantial relevance, like past political conditions.
Later edit: A very big, substantial, part of it, anyway. It is my belief that ignoring that aspect has brought lots of misunderstandings when it comes to history, both on how it is taught and on how it is perceived.
Aside from news and politics itself, I can hardly think of anything more political than history. People with different nationalities and sometimes party affiliations usually have wildly different perception of historic facts. Whether the Holocaust happened or not is an obvious and well-publicized one (I believe it did, for the record), but there's an uncountable amount of subtler and/or less famous differences in how humans perceive history.
> There's way too much emotion in politics these days. I would like to see a return of rational discourse.
Politics affect people's daily lives. Suggesting that people should just ignore the inherent emotional component of these decisions and the impact that they have on our lives is both incredibly unrealistic and quite a privileged position to occupy.
>>> The issues most people deal with in their everyday lives aren't important enough to motivate political action.
Save for the fact that their life is completely shaped by politics.
I like your analysis a lot, but I don't like your conclusion. Because ultimately, humans make politics, so one can influence them. In french there's a saying : if you don't care about politics, then politics will take care of you...
> Aren't politics and related dynamics drastically different today
The long and short of it is that no, politics are not drastically different. It's a thing of basically every generation to think the world is significantly different than what the last generation will understand. Suffice to say this is usually not true in the broad strokes, which is really what matters.
If I can already have this moderating insight, imagine what someone twice (or maybe even three times) my age would be able to see. They'll have an overview of history that you (and I) in your naivety simply do not have.
> That is the main problem I see with modern politics.
I'd have to disagree. The main problem I see with politics these days is that it fundamentally disagrees with the way that the world works best, and it puts this incorrect view into action. That's quite contrary to what it should do, and it's a source of frustration. Ideally, politics should change its stance on core issues to be more inline with what it should be, and legislate accordingly.
> We don't blame current political decisions (including stuff like what Isis did) purely on circumstances.
People who study politics absolutely use circumstances to explain political outcomes. Historians discuss the economic impacts of WW1 when talking about the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany. People discuss the complex political history of the middle east and its long history of resisting superpowers combined with the power vacuum when the US left the region when discussing the rise of ISIS. Power vacuums and food/water scarcity are often the root cause of political instability.
Crazy individuals do crazy things, but those crazy individuals gaining power is always a result of the political system in place at the time.
> 92. You have vanishingly little political influence and every thought you spend on politics will probably come to nothing. Consider building things instead, or at least going for a walk.
For those of us fortunate enough to live in more or less functioning democracies, this is very bad advice. Consider what our lives would be like if everyone thought this way. Instead of trying to ignore politics, maybe if you spend a lot of time thinking about it you should consider getting involved at a local level instead. Then you can be part of the solution instead of burying your head in the sand.
> If you argue everything is political, then nothing is political.
Yeah, that’s not how it works. Just because you choose to not think about political decisions that shaped your plumber selections, McDonalds trip, or the city ordinance that bans or allows your breed of dog you are walking doesn’t mean they cease to exist. The world doesn’t disappear just because you close your eyes.
What you are really saying is those politics don’t matter to you, so in your mind they don’t exist. Well, they do exist to others. The labor laws and minimum wage laws enacted by a politician or vote are important to those burger flippers. The dismantling of union protections matter to that plumber and effect how much he is able to charge. Your lack of interest, or your lack of knowledge, of how politics shaped those situations does not separate those politics from the situations or make the politics not there. Nor does me speaking about those things bring about the politics, as I am merely highlighting something that was always there. I am not making it political, it always was. I am bringing it to your awareness.
Let’s look at a more extreme example to hopefully illustrate the point. Say you live in the American south during the 60s. You just want to go get a burger and fries. How could that be political? It’s just a succulent meal after all. Well you are not choosing to eat at a “whites only” restaurant. While you might not care, might not think anything about it, and might have not had a political thought in your head, that doesn’t magically separate the action from the underlying politics that shaped the way it happened and the fact that that action is political and is important to some other people. But if someone says you should be supporting Jim Crow laws by only shopping at whites only establishments, to you they are the ones making it political when in reality, it is already intrinsically political and they are merely highlighting the political aspect that always existed.
> We should really divorce politics from this discussion.
that's a common technical people pitfall. politics permeates society, and ignoring it is only to your own detriment exposing you form exploitation of those whom play the political game, of which you most assuredly participate in, whether you want an active role in it or not.
> We should be extremely wary of highly educated technocrats who attempt to impose a "scientific" viewpoint on political events, always fail, and yet remain utterly convinced by their oversimplified models.
Could you detail that one? Is it arguing for more emotional driven decisions over data based ones?
>> So basically if it doesn't influence your daily life and you have zero control over it, why should you care?
> I cannot really argue against this pessimistic picture of democracy.
I on the other hand don't see a different way. It seems to me that if you really want to change something for the better, you need to steer clear of any kind of politics. It's like a swamp or quicksand; if you enter it, you'll get stuck there.
> Your definition of politics is very weird to me. Since preventing wrong things that happen on a big scale fits perfectly into my definition of political activities (think about the American civil rights movement).
My working definition of politics here is anything that involves politicians and especially political parties, because anything they touch immediately gets corrupted and turned into a way for said officials to safeguard their careers. You may say I'm cynical, but that's what I see all around, living in a democracy. I admit there may be a better word than "politics" for what I'm talking about, but I can't find it now.
> I think one element to recognise is that politics is the fundamental way we make collective decisions. It is extremely important, both in a rational sense and (with humans being social animals) emotional sense.
"the moment God crapped out the 3rd caveman a conspiracy was hatched" -- all decisions are eventually politics.
> I agree with your sentiment, but I think you're under-emphasing the power granted our reasoning ability from knowledge (theoretical concepts) and writing (seekable communication).
The 2 party corrupt form of politics that is the mainstay in US does not require reasoning ability beyond the ability of a 30'000 Homo Sapien?
It might my definition of politics but I doubt very much that what our ancestors were practicing 30k years ago wasn't politic in any sense that we could understand.
Communally sharing knowledge about watering holes and what the next door tribe was doing was probably more along the lines of what was discussed.
Societal informational interchange isn't politic. Politic is, for me, a group of people coming together (I.e. The ruling class) and deciding what the group as a whole (i.e. Everyone else) should be doing.
> It is, as most political differences are rooted in mutually exclusive ideas.
The reason I disagree is because I get to be exposed to these mutually exclusive interpretations in several different countries. My lack of indoctrination and context gives me an additional perspective based on the present, which primarily reveals an inefficiency that gives me an advantage.
For example, the first mutually exclusive topic that came to mind was ..... some extremely polarizing human rights topic you feel passionately about? I bank on you spending all of your energy on that while I try to get a say in the 900 other things lawmakers - or the agencies they delegated authority to - actually do.
You can act outside of political historical context and I would go so far as to recommend it wholly. This kind of "context" (which is human ascribed) has no bearing on acting rationally. Pay attention to consequence borne by data, not past intent.
> I think our society suffers greatly because people don't know history.
I'm not sure how that applies to something that has circumstantial relevance, like past political conditions.
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