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Comment by ngpio | Hacker News Reader

I'd be more interested in a heat map of Political Compass[1] results or something similar. It's not a great model, but it's slightly less terrible than a bunch of pre-globalization labels.

And ultimately, I've stopped caring about how people define themselves politically. No matter how deep into activist milieus I got[2], my politics were always consequentialist. And to actually be a consequentialist you have to shut the hell up, strategize, build and iterate. Introspective and social identities are no exception to that.

[1] http://politicalcompass.org/analysis2

[2] Note the strict past tense.

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"shut the hell up, strategize, build and iterate"

I've got a few rules like, "personal autonomy trumps most bullshit", "strict separation of church and state (means .gov and .mil and .edu)" "lots of checks and balances (judicial, legislative, executive, media, direct democracy)", um, and so on

I do not believe in innate human rights, I only believe in asserting ideals but I am completely aware that your ideals and my ideals may differ.

Most days I sympathize with the anarchist ethos, I align myself with organisations like the FSF and EFF and ACLU (and the global and European equivalents: FSFe and so forth)

What does that make me I wonder? Do you mean consequentialism in the philosophical sense - as in, to be contrasted with deontology?

> What does that make me I wonder?

It only matters if you're still asking that rabbit hole of a question.

> Do you mean consequentialism in the philosophical sense - as in, to be contrasted with deontology?

I suppose that's accurate enough for this context. The LW threads where consequentialism has been discussed[1] are probably the only way to get a good idea of what I mean by it.

I'd probably be better served by using the word less in favor of a phrase like "longterm rationality".

There is no good, simple to understand word or phrase that gets across the idea of "ethical strategy is more important than anything, and that doesn't mean what you think it means, because my strategy involves willfully, permanently altering my identity whenever necessary (and practical)". The common language of ethics is stuck in the early 20th century (at best) and its pre-computational aspirations.

[1] http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Consequentialism

I've found LessWrong tough going in the past but I'll try again as you've given me motivation.

Awesome. It's a fantastic community, full of incredibly smart people, novel perspectives and ways to actively improve the functionality of your mind.

Coincidentally, the user I originally replied to up above, Eliezer, is the founding member of LessWrong and author of most of the early posts.

A strict consequentialist wouldn't waste time with politics; he knows the input/output ratio is a billion to one.

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