Eliezer Yudkowsky has been on a roll with a series of posts at Overcoming Bias about belief. His latest, Belief as Attire, deals with what he terms "improper belief".

A proper belief can be wrong or irrational, e.g., someone who genuinely anticipates that prayer will cure her sick baby, but the other forms are arguably "not belief at all".

Yet another form of improper belief is belief as group-identification - as a way of belonging. Robin Hanson uses the excellent metaphor of wearing unusual clothing, a group uniform like a priest's vestments or a Jewish skullcap, and so I will call this "belief as attire". . .

Belief-as-attire may help explain how people can be passionate about improper beliefs. Mere belief in belief, or religious professing, would have some trouble creating genuine, deep, powerful emotional effects. Or so I suspect; I confess I'm not an expert here. But my impression is this: People who've stopped anticipating-as-if their religion is true, will go to great lengths to convince themselves they are passionate, and this desperation can be mistaken for passion. But it's not the same fire they had as a child.

On the other hand, it is very easy for a human being to genuinely, passionately, gut-level belong to a group, to cheer for their favorite sports team. (This is the foundation on which rests the swindle of "Republicans vs. Democrats" and analogous false dilemmas in other countries, but that's a topic for another post.) Identifying with a tribe is a very strong emotional force. People will die for it. And once you get people to identify with a tribe, the beliefs which are attire of that tribe will be spoken with the full passion of belonging to that tribe.

I look forward to that proposed future post. It seems to me that much, perhaps most, political speech and posturing is merely the wearing of the colors, flashing gang sign, rather than any sort of sensible discourse. I'm often dismayed when those that seem to be rational and capable seem to lose 40 points of IQ when they talk politics. An otherwise admirable thinker can be reduced to drooling incoherence by BDS. But when such behavior is understood as the wearing of beliefs, something like obdurate rooting for the home team, it can be endured more easily. It's like being a Cubs fan or something. We all know that it isn't rational, but it isn't about rationality, it's about membership.

Idiocy in service of membership isn't OK, but it does seem to be a deep seated human characteristic, and so not quickly or easily curable. It isn't all harmless boosterism for sports franchises, or harmful boosterism for political swindles. It frequently results in spilling blood and treasure.

You cannot say the phrases "heroic self-sacrifice" and "suicide bomber" in the same sentence, even for the sake of accurately describing how the Enemy sees the world. The very concept of the courage and altruism of a suicide bomber is Enemy attire - you can tell, because the Enemy talks about it. The cowardice and sociopathy of a suicide bomber is American attire. There are no quote marks you can use to talk about how the Enemy sees the world; it would be like dressing up as a Nazi for Halloween.

This isn't quite accurate. If the "suicide bombers" restricted their targets to military personnel instead of giving preference to civilians of all ages, it would be possible to "talk about how the Enemy sees the world". Not easy, but possible.

My hope is that ever improving information and communication technologies will make it more difficult to wear such beliefs. There does seem to be some progress in that increasing numbers of people find the shenanigans of politicians to be ludicrous at best, and more often revolting. It's becoming a fashion crime to support any political party except in isolated ghettos where thought does not occur. Still, those ghettos are large and my hopes may not be realized. Others predict that improper-belief-wearing will increase and that society will become increasingly fragmented by uncrossable spite lines. There is evidence that this is happening too.

I think it's important that we point and laugh at all of the goofy outfits these folks wear rather than being tempted to cut some slack for one or another that seems marginally less goofy.

"More easily said than done", you might be thinking. "And what about your biases". "You're some sort of squishy red-neck crypto-libertarian, a Wendell Berry with technophilia instead of a penchant for God bothering."

True, I have them too. You can seek to overcome biases, but they don't disappear. All the more reason to decline to choose up sides and do battle. Avoid wearing gang colors and it's easier. Or mix them up. When they see me wearing a Cal Golden Bears gimme-cap as often as the NASCAR model they just chalk it up to fashion indifference rather than a sign of allegiance. I never turn down a free cap since none of them live very long the way I abuse them. A John Deere cap with an old Brainstorms T-shirt always leaves them scratching their heads. It's kind of phun but it's harder to get laid when you aren't easily identifiable. Let's see Yudkowsky pontificate about that dilemma.