How To Construct a Political Ideology

Thus the rule of thumb: never post a series until you've finished writing it.

And now it's finished! I've tried to make them shorter than the ones I've already posted and with no political leaning. Here they are:

A Tutorial on Creating a Political Ideology

The Domain of Politics

Choose That Which is Most Important to You

Consider the Most Important Facts

Strive Towards the (Second) Best Society

Change the World in the Most Efficient Manner

A Digression on Alliances

Discuss the Most Important Points

How To Construct a Political Ideology - Summary

And here is my own ideology while following this tutorial:

My Own Political Ideology

I would beg to differ, as to this post not having any content. It affirms that politics is difficult to talk about; that there's a psychological reason for that; that politics has a large impact on our lives; that a rational perspective on politics requires that one can answer certain questions; that the answer to these questions can be called a political ideology and that such ideologies should be constructed in a certain way. You may not like this way of introducing a subject - by giving a brief picture of what it's all about - but that's another story.

I will finish posting this series. I have already written an almost complete version of them, so what's missing is mainly coming up with a few facts/perspectives for some of the posts. Hopefully I'm finished by, thursday.

True, changed it. Thanks!

This is true but for it to follow that I should talk about politics,I need large leverage on that value.

No, that doesn't follow at all. To conclude that one should talk about politics, all that's needed is that you have equal or greater leverage than you do in other arenas. You're advocating the superhero fallacy: that unless you can personally save the planet from impending doom, nothing's worth doing. In the real world, there are no superheroes; and it is a perfectly valid choice to be one of many thousands or millions of people working toward a valuable goal.

Politics may or may not be worth one's while to pursue. The model I'm building will be used to determine if there are any such actions or not, so my full answer to your question will be just that model and after it is built, my ideology which will be constructed by it.

I also have a short answer, but before giving it, I should say that I may be using a too broad definition of politics for you. That is, I would regard getting together to reduce a certain existential risk as a political pursuit. Of course, if one did so alone, there is no political problem to speak of. But one probably needs the support of others to do so. So, if this model would suggest me to engage only in making money and giving to charity, then that would be my political strategy. I believe that it's unlikely that will be the only thing to do, however.

One reason is because politics is somewhat ubiquitous and potentially cheap to engage in for most. Discussing politics - how well they like/dislike the current political leader, if policy X is good or bad, how wrong someone is to support the opposing team - is normal for at least 70% of the adult population, I'd guess. So for most people, they will have ample chance to discuss politics and if they can get one sentence across for every conversation that might be a part of their political strategy as well. Another low-cost strategy is just to announce one's political views and otherwise be a friendly character, unless someone asks for one's opinion.

Another reason is that for some, politics is rewarding in itself. A few will naturally seek to become specialists in politics, just as a hobby.

I agree with you on the issue of politics being very different today than what it was on the savannah, or wherever these instincts evolved. Politics requires a lot more people, more coordination than in the past, it would seem. But, even though it is different, that doesn't mean there is no goal that a lot of people can accomplish by acting in concert. That is, just because we're primed to believe that it is much easier to do than it really is and to believe that any old strategy will work, one shouldn't believe it cannot be done. One shouldn't start believing in it either, of course.

I feel a moral obligation to be an informed voter. I am aware that I do not have leverage, and that there are more altruistic uses of my time, but my idealism can't get over the fact that if a large number or people were both political and at least a little bit rational, it would make a difference. We do not have anywhere near that number, but I want to contribute to the potential solution, even if it doesn't work. I don't think that being an informed voter is a terminal value, but I think that that kind of idealism is a terminal value for me.

I know this isn't that relevant to your post, but I kind of think the evo-psych explanation for why people care about politics is really stupid.

Do you mean that this particular evo-psych explanation is really stupid? That I can understand, since it does include burdensome details and questionable, overly simple specific claims. But in general people's political instincts being explainable by evo-psych seems to be among the most obvious and least controversial applications.

Here's a better explanation:

• In America, if you do not vote, you're considered a bad person.

People in countries that are not the USA have similar political instincts to those in the USA. This includes countries like Australia where people are motivated to vote by legal obligation instead of shame and countries that aren't democracies at all so voting doesn't come into it. This explanation is not better. It is a specific explanation for a phenomenon that is more general. Even apart from this it strikes me as an implausible just so story.

Or here's another one: when something is on the news a lot, people will care about it even if it doesn't affect them at all and isn't really inherently interesting (the royal wedding, the Casey Anthony trial, celebrity gossip).

This strongly suggests to me that the bias towards spending time on politics has an evolutionary psychology cause. Interest in gossip about high status figures, shaming and criticising targets, calling for punishment, advocating policies for the distribution of resources and privileges and advocating people or groups as deserving of allegiance. It's all part of the monkey social hierarchy game.

The explanation isn't for why people care about politics per se, but that we care so deeply for politics that we respond to adversity much, much harsher in political environments than in others. Or, our reactions are disproportionate to the actual risks involved in it. People become angry when discussing if something should be privatized or if taxes should be raised. If one believes that there is some general policies that most benefit from, it's really bad to become angry at those whom you really should be allies with.

That's different from what I'm used to here in Sweden. For most people here it's accepted to not vote - if you put a blank vote in the ballot box. Even though most vote (more than 80%) it's not considered bad to not have a political opinion, you can just say you don't understand enough. In the bad all old days it seems that there was something of a taboo to ask others what they voted for, which made it easy to skip discussing politics.