

It’s About Material Impact - mattmaroon
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=650

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swombat
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.

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herdrick
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.

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

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mattmaroon
I'd say sports, where arguments get moderately heated, somewhere between
baking and religion. Mac OS vs. Windows too maybe.

I don't know that it's possible to have impact without identity.

------
Herring
" _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!"

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kurtosis
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.

