It’s About Material Impact

Many times I've been asked by online American friends why I held such strong opinions about American politics. After all, I'm a Swiss living in London, so I don't think there was much identity involved. I don't consider myself American, and I certainly don't consider myself "democrat" or "republican". Those concepts are not a part of my identity.

However, I have very much cared about US politics because of its impact on the world around me. The last 8 years of Bush decadence have, as far as I can tell, made the world a worse place to live in, made it more dangerous both to people and ideas, and I see that as having a direct impact on the range of things that I can do.

In contrast, religion does indeed have little impact on what happens in much of Europe, and though I have had many arguments with religious friends (I'm an atheist), they were all constructive and enjoyable to both parties - not emotional flash-fires. This contradicts pg's "identity theory", in that my "religious beliefs" (or lack thereof) are certainly a part of my identity - they have a direct impact on how I choose to look at life and behave within it - but because other people's religion has little impact on me, there is no need to get heated about it.

I think Matt's hit this spot on. It's impact, not identity, that makes the discussions so heated.

Now, with that in mind, why do people feel the need to have heated arguments about, say, OS's...? Well, there, I think there is also an element of impact. Most OS flame wars that I've seen were between Windows and something else. There's a good element of impact there, because most non-Windows people have perceived Microsoft as a threat, hell-bent on exterminating all competition, so imho that could have driven much of the flame wars between OS's. What about languages? Again, there is an element of impact there. I've rarely seen a heated flame war between Java and .NET, because they don't threaten each other. But between Rails and, say, PHP - well, it's a different kettle of fish, because many Rails programmers have had to maintain spaghetti PHP applications in the past and so these have a personal impact on them.

This is a very interesting discussion, for sure. I'm curious what other perspectives people have on this.

For all three examples trying to show that religion is even more impactful than politics, the mechanism for religious power is politics. I think more orthogonal examples would be better.

But I don't think there are good examples to be found. Political power is the means by which any widely held thought becomes impactful. Religion isn't special in this.

So we have two examples where identity and impact coincide. Can anyone think of an example of one without the other?

"I think the reason [..] is that other people’s opinions, unlike most topics, have a material impact on our lives."

Not because they have an impact, but because they had an impact. It's an adaptation. Quoting from overcomingbias:

"People go funny in the head when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation... When, today, you get into an argument about whether "we" ought to raise the minimum wage, you're executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed. Being on the right side of the argument could let you kill your hated rival!"

I have very strong opinions about the invasion of iraq, public education, taxes, church&state, 2nd amendment etc.. , but I've never got into an argument with anyone about those them because I felt that they had a material impact on my life. It was all about identity for me.

Material impact is certainly a factor. I have seen people who oppose the kyoto treaty because they were employed at a coal-fired power plant, but these are exceptions.

If you believe the thesis that social issues such as flag burning and gay marriage lead poor voters to vote against their material interests then you have another case where identity trumps impact, at least in voting decisions.