[Cthulhu_]

It's a good and succinct insight, and also often explains the "racist uncle" stereotype - there are a lot of people who don't get out much, whose world is limited to e.g. home, work, maybe friends, and TV and/or a subset of the internet. Some of those will develop close-minded viewpoints, often spoonfed through TV or the internet (for example, recently there's been a lot of comments on the internet saying "you get arrested in the UK more than in Russia for having an opinion"). If they talk to people that are more worldly - not even "leftists" per se - you'll quickly discover the friction between those two. Because the more worldly person will have a broader general knowledge and can weigh the uncle's standpoint against their own reality.

But if racist uncle talks to his other racist uncle friends who have similar insular lifestyles, the ideas will quickly spread. Until they become big enough to e.g. affect voting behaviour.

[suddenlybananas]

Yes everyone with my political beliefs has a well-structured world model, everyone without my political beliefs is a model-free slop machine that just goes by vibes.

[kaibee]

> Yes everyone with my political beliefs has a well-structured world model

As nice as that would be, its only marginally less true.

> everyone without my political beliefs is a model-free slop machine that just goes by vibes.

Nah, some of them are evil on purpose.

but like, in all seriousness. Politics is downstream of a world-model right? And the two predominant world models are giving very different predictions, right? So what are the odds that both models are somehow equally valid, equally wrong (even if its on different cases that somehow happen to add to the same 'moral value')? And we also know that one of the models predicts that climate change isn't real? at some point, a world-model is so bad that it is indistinguishable being a model-free slop machine.

[dragonwriter]

> but like, in all seriousness. Politics is downstream of a world-model right?

Politics is (if systematically grounded, which for many individuals it probably isn't-and this isn't a statement about one faction or another, it is true across factions) necessarily downstream of a moral/ethical value framework. If that is a consequentialist framework, it necessarily also requires a world model. If it is a deontological framework, a world model may or may not be necessary.

> And the two predominant world models are giving very different predictions, right?

I...don't agree with the premise of the question that there are "two dominant world models". Even people in the same broad political faction tend to have a wide variety of different world models and moral frameworks; political factions are defined more by shared political conclusions than shared fundamental premises, whether of model or morals; and even within a system like the US where there are two broad electoral coalitions, there more than two identifiable political factions, so even if factions were cohesive around world models, partisan duopoly wouldn't imply a limitation to two dominant world models.

[kaibee]

> Politics is (if systematically grounded, which for many individuals it probably isn't-and this isn't a statement about one faction or another, it is true across factions)

Yeah, I agree with this.

> necessarily downstream of a moral/ethical value framework. If that is a consequentialist framework, it necessarily also requires a world model. If it is a deontological framework, a world model may or may not be necessary.

I kinda think that deontological frameworks are basically vibes? And if you start to smuggle in enough context about the precise situation where the framework is being applied, it starts to look a lot like just doing consequentialism.

> I...don't agree with the premise of the question that there are "two dominant world models". Even people in the same broad political faction tend to have a wide variety of different world models and moral frameworks; political factions are defined more by shared political conclusions than shared fundamental premises, whether of model or morals; and even within a system like the US where there are two broad electoral coalitions, there more than two identifiable political factions, so even if factions were cohesive around world models, partisan duopoly wouldn't imply a limitation to two dominant world models.

A 'world-model' is a matter of degree and, at a minimum, pluralities of people in any faction don't really have something that meets the bar. And sure, at the limit you could say that reality is entirely subjective because every individual has a unique to them 'world-model'. But I think that goes a bit too far. And I think there's a pretty strong correlation between the accuracy of a given individual's world model and the party they vote for.

[simianwords]

It could also be that politics are downstream from emotions and world models are downstream from politics.

But I think both are true to an extent.

[suddenlybananas]

Politics are largely a function of self-interest rather than world model per se.

[N_Lens]

Different people have different conceptions of “self”, sometimes vastly different.

[saubeidl]

I think that in itself is already an ideological statement. Not everyone sees politics through that lens.

[suddenlybananas]

Of course it's an ideological statement, there is no way to define a concept without having beliefs about that concept.

[saubeidl]

Exactly. There is no such thing as non-ideological statements from humans. In the context of this thread, ideology is the name for "world models".