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The entire analysis, from both you and Scott, is simply one level too tactical. Scott runs through all the psychological reasons why people will always push themselves into conflict with other people, regardless of the issues or the facts. And then says that mistake theory wins because many of the tactical positions taken by the two sides of an eternal conflict are essentially random.
Individual and group status competition is the constant. That is conflict theory, and it is objectively correct as the only reality humanity has ever known. Mistake theory requires something not yet observed.
The individual issues of politics are ridiculous, and the sides often change over time. Basing your view of human interaction on the irrationality of the issues obscures the reality that political conflict is inevitable anywhere there are three or more people.
We may be mistaken about the reasons, we may increase or decrease our level of conflict (social, political, violent etc.). We may change teams or stress different identities. But the conflict will always remain, because roughly half the power of any given society is balanced against the other half, and politics is the result.
All this business of trying to analyze individual political issues as "conflict" or "mistake" is very much missing the forest for the trees. The forest is at war, and always will be. The issues don't matter, they are only temporary battlegrounds for the political will of the population. There are plenty of mistakes in conflict.
Think of any long term relationship. There is always conflict, and it is rarely about whatever incident inspires a fight. There is conflict because it is two different people who have to live together. So it is in the home, so it is in the nation, so it is in the world. Our human nature forces us into conflict with each other, and we channel that into our lives and our politics. Because of our cognitive biases, we make a lot of mistakes, no matter how smart we are, or think we are.
If you want to solve a problem, you have to find ways of extricating your issue from the conflict. This can be done, in the manner Scott describes. But the conflict will go on, using different issues. Many issues that were important long ago are gone from our political conflict, but that has never stopped the politics. Once an issue is "solved" it is no longer useful. Humans are never short of things to disagree about.
Good observation and a wild one. Humans clearly get a high from moralizing and climbing social hierarchies (ie: “own the libs”) versus actually achieving more material or physically grounded success.
His example of taxes is a good one. Especially on the west coast, most people think logically that taxes are too high, they make the cost of living extremely difficult in California, etc. But when it comes time to actually endorse or vote for a new tax hike, the moral framing is like catnip and people cannot resist. More money for schools! Homeless need housing! Screw the 1%!
From an evolutionary perspective, it must be such that “status in tribe” > “status of physical possessions”, since this trait seems engrained in nearly everyone, to varying degrees.
Climbing the social ladder is truly the most Lindy conflict game that exists
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