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Red Brains vs. Blue Brains?
eLoco writes "From the NYTimes (reg. req.): The Political Brain -- "Why do Republicans and Democrats differ so emphatically? Perhaps it's all in the head." Researchers from UCLA have seem to have found that liberals have, on average, a more active amygdala than conservatives. According to the article, studies of stroke victims "have persuasively shown that the amygdala plays a key role in the creation of emotions like fear or empathy." So is this scientific "proof" that liberals tend to be more compassionate but also more cowardly? [DISCLAIMER: this is not a troll; I am a liberal]. Regardless, this seems to have implications for more than just politics. Favorite quote: "Perhaps we form political affiliations by semiconsciously detecting commonalities with other people, commonalities that ultimately reflect a shared pattern of brain function.""
Liberals come from cities, Conservatives come from rural areas.
I think it is the lifestyle of where you live that governs the formation of the brain.
Look at this county map. Here is a equally hi correlation to rurality=convervativeness.
Maybe conservatives are inbred, not born? (Laugh, it's a joke, not a troll.)
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
What about libertarians? I call bullshit on this simplistic non-scientific pap. Slashdot might do better posting articles on the scientific basis for spiritualism.
One thing I've never understood about neuro-sciences (and it is truthfully because of my ignorance) is how exactly do we determine causality in the brain?
:-p
How do we know that emotional people don't have a more active amygdala because they don't control their emotions as much? How do we know that people who have a less active amygdala aren't simply controlling their emotions better?
are chemical imbalances a sympton of depression, or a cause?
it seems like a lot of brain stuff is chicken and egg like that, but this is probably a very stupid post
Many gays do in fact have kids. The bodily functions are all there and correct, and many don't discover that they're gay until adulthood when they're married. They often say they felt "different" for their entire lives, and didn't know why.
A friend of mine didn't realize he was gay until he'd already slept with several men, and he lost his virginity originally to a girl.
This isn't as straightforward as you might want to believe.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Well, many people -- some of them scientists, some sci-fi authors and yet others something inbetween -- have actually claimed that if we ever managed to build an AI, there could be a great danger of it becoming schizoprenic due to all those forces having influence on it. Just as a 'uman would if it wasn't so ignorant of most of the stuff surrounding him (indeed, ignorance is bliss).
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Basically, my entire adult life, up into my 40s, I was conservative. I came from a quite conservative west texas ranching family. However, even though I have always been a very avid reader, I had not really been directly exposed to deliberately and overtly leftist writings until I got on the Internet in the mid 90s. And I really got into the Internet and computers once I was exposed to them (even picked up a second degree, a BS in Comp Sci).
So for the last 8 years or so, I gradually became more and more exposed to direct contact with leftist thought--but only through the Net. I basically rejected leftism, however, but really out of habit. By 2001 or so, I still had not really taken the time to really delve into the deep background and rationale of leftism.
However, my acceptance of radical life extensionism (cryonics, etc), and my acceptance of atheism made me ready to accept a radical change in worldview, I suspect.
Also, the events of 9-11 and its aftermath, and the Iraq war and the media propaganda drive associated with it made me much more aware of just what was going on, with respect to media manipulation. I had come across the ideas of Noam Chomsky in about 1989, but had rejected them--although I had been exposed to them only second hand, through an establishment filter.
These prior events set me up for a move to leftism. THat, and my research into a possible move to another country. I quit my W-2 job last year and went contract. And when contract work died down, I had time to do even more research.
By late last year, I was a confirmed leftist. And I will never look back.
THere is an old saying that a husband will not leave a wife unless he has someone else already waiting for him to make him a comfortable home. In other words, even if his current wife has some real problems, he will not take action unless he can walk right into a better situation.
THe Net offers a leftist community, one that was not possible in meatspace USA, outside of certain locations. With a community of leftists ready to accept strayers from the establishment pack, I think more and more will go Left. Join us!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Storke victims prefer Bush... the irony is that he would strip them of their healthcare and social security benefits if he could. A lot of young people don't know what it was like before the (rather weak) social safety net was put in place during the depression. My father who began child rearing when he was a bit older, and is in late 70s now imparted the benefit of that knowledge unto me. He says that when he was a kid it was common to see Senior Citizens in the streets and homeless. Back then if you grew too old to work, you had to rely on your children. If you didn't have children, or your children didn't want you, you'd end up homeless.
Today though Social Security goes a long way to preventing that sort of thing from happening. Now the large portion of homeless here in California are the mentally ill. During Ronald Reagan's time as Governor of California he closed down all of the Asylums and just dumped the crazies out into the streets. We've been living with that here in California ever since. It's just typical right-wing nut behaviour though. "Screw everybody who isn't me."
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
Well, while Mike Moore is an asshat, his main thesis of BfC was pretty convincing: that the US is ruled by fear. The support for the war and suchlike (the terrorists are going to kill us if we don't attack!) along with all the "alerts" strongly supports this. Your decision to buy a gun to defend your ideals (one driven out of fear - if you didn't have the natural fear that someone could threaten your way of life, you wouldn't need one) suggests that further. Fear and sensible caution go hand in hand - on is just the intillectual counterpart of the other.
Now, here's the point: Republicans have commandeered fear. They use fear to lead the people. By this study, it explains the support they gained from the left - the right already supported them, through their cowboy-style, their social/religious conservatism, and the tax cuts. By cultivating fear, they can lead people who normally would vote on the left (for compassion) out of the fear they feel that something bad could happen (fuschia alert).
I keep reading posts on many forums where they say things like "I would vote against Bush, but I'm just not sure that Kerry would really protect America". To me, that sounds less like sensible, enlightened caution and more like visceral fear of being blown up.
..this "opposition" Democrats vs Republicans is quite funny.
:o)
I'm french, and you U.S.A. citizens wouldn't believe how different a far left representative (say Lutte Ouvrière, very far left of the communist party) and a far right representative (say Front National, just a little bit left from Adolf H.) are.
Much like the distance between New-York and Washington (Democrats vs Republicans) compared to the distance between Earth and the Sun (LO vs FN).
From this side of the Atlantic Ocean, political life in the U.S.A. seems very strange indeed
Could decades of political thought in one direction or the other result in chemical changes in the brain?
We do lots of other things that cause chemical changes in our body, lifestyles that cause certain substances to be more or less abundant in our bodies. Are our brains off limits to such things?
This may be a stupid theory, I don't know; but it seems to me that it would be VERY difficult to establish any causality either way.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
I wish I had mod points to mod you up (don't know why you got modded down). Interesting research by Andrew Newberg (University of Pennsylvania) used imaging techniques to study the differences between the brains of laypeople and religious clergy-type people (Franciscan nuns and Buddhist monks). He found that certain brain regions were stronger in those who meditate often than in the laypeople. He also studies their brains when meditating (or, in the case of the nuns, chanting), and he found an increase in the brain areas during that time period. Coupled with the idea of neural plasticity, it could be that the actual practice does increase those areas (like your exercise analogy).
Newberg has a book out entitled "Why God Won't Go Away." I haven't read it, but I did have the pleasure of seeing him give a seminar at my school last year. There's also a documentary that's being screened called "What the Bleep Do We Know." It's kind of a "Sophie's World" docu/fiction hybrid, but it has interviews with mystics and neuroscientists and philosophers detailing modern ideas about the mind. Again, I haven't seen it (hasn't shown in South Carolina...go figure) but it sounds really interesting.
I would say that temperment determines political affilitation more than anything.
In the old Kiersey temperment sorter, there are four traits that determine temperment, (Extrovert/Introvert, Sense/Intuition, Thinker/Feeler, Percieving/Judging). Our political parties divide mostly along the Thinker/Feeler line. conservatives are the "thinkers", liberals are the "feelers".
Don't believe me? The best evidence of this is the types of insults one side hurls at the other. Traditionally, conservatives have called liberals foolish, softies, bleeding-hearts, etc. while liberals have called conservatives mean, insensitive, cruel, etc.
Also look at the ways each side tries to win over people. Conservatives tend to use logical arguments. (Note: An argument can be logical and still be utter nonsense. I am making no statement as to the validity of their arguments.) Liberals tend to use emotional appeals.
Skinner is my favorite psychologist. I recommend reading "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" and "Walden Two".
But he wasn't talking about biology as being the determining factor on behaviour.
He was all about conditioning. If you raise a child in a specific manner, the adult will behave in a specific manner. Unless their environment changes (environment meaning just about anything, not just the weather).
He said that behaviour is physiological responses to external stimuli.
And contrary to what people may read on the 'web, his daughter did not commit suicide.
"but when peaceful means fail and tyranny rears its ugly head, then blood must be spilled."
That sort of depends on who decides on the true meaning of the word 'tyranny', and to what extent you're willing to try 'peaceful means'.
Personally I've always believed that there is no point where you can justify the murder of another human being on such wishy-washy subjective justifications, which is one of the reasons why governments tend not to place overall control in the hands of one individual.
"Because I believe there may come a time where I need to defend my ideals with violence."
And this is different to white supremicists, how? Because you're in the majority?
"In no religious or political tradition is the forceful opposition of tyranny considered a sin or a crime."
Yeah, governments don't like to bite the sociological hand that feeds considering that most have come from armed uprising in the first place, but you're wrong in terms of the Roman Catholic church mandating excommunication in the case of resistence to papal bulls. Nice rhetoric, though.
"The liberals who founded America did so by violently opposing British tyranny"
*cough* Native Americans *cough*
I also have a problem with this depiction of 'British Tyranny' which does appear to be the revisionist line of history, particularly as it would have never become what it did without the help of our ancestral enemies, the French.
"empathy towards who?"
Empathy is not conditional and represents the ability to empathise or put yourself in the place of other people.
"I, like Christ Jesus, will agitate for a change in this situation until my dying day."
You should read the bible without the bits by Paul. Paul was the agitator (and a Roman citizen), whereas Jesus was more interested in people themselves. Incidentally, it's why Jesus' brother, James, was written out of the new testament. He was more a follower of the path of poverty while Paul was working on his Roman franchise. The parables were basically stories intended to make the world a better place by taking on the stories, so don't agitate, just help.
"I hope it does not come to that, but if it will, I will not run from it."
That's a fairly grandiose statement that doesn't have any basis in fact. For a start, you have a militant bearing which indicates that you have a viewpoint of the world 'as it should be', an idealism I share, but I'd never try to achieve it through the spilling of blood, because at the point where you start killing, you've lost any shred of humanity that gives you the ability to empathise.
Incidentally, it's a damn site more brave to stand up for ideals unarmed. Most people forget this.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
I live in Iowa, my grandfather and uncle are farmers, and they're both liberals in every sense of the word, but they vote Republican.
Why? Farm subsidies. The Republicans are VERY big on keeping farmers and their farms in business(to get their votes, of course), and keeping the ridiculous pork-barrel subsidies going for as long as possible. Farmers are a HUGE constituency for the Republicans. Many, MANY farmers rely on those subsidies.
I think that most people [except the ones on /. of course ;-] don't decide on their political affiliation using their reason, analyzing the agenda of each political party with thier pros and cons, they make a moral or emotial judgement anyway. In other words it is more moral issues like abortion, stem cell research that poeple will pay attention too rather than budget planning or tax cuts.
I would be considered a "Liberal" on most people's scale.
But I'm pro-gun. And I favour a strong military (but I oppose "Star Wars" because I don't think it is necessary now nor do I believe that it would work even if it was necessary). I also believe in more State's rights and a reduced federal government.
"Conservatives tend to believe that people behave in the way they do as a result of something about them in particular - their nature."
I also believe that. But I also believe that the way they were raised affects their choices. Someone who craves power can go into politics or religion or financials or just be an abusive husband.
"Some people are just good and some people are just bad."
Good and bad are personal evaluations. Saddam is "bad" but the US government thought Saddam was "good" when he was fighting Iran.
Personally, I thought one tin-pot dictator was fighting a authoratarian theocracy and I didn't see any "good" in either side.
"Liberals, on the other hand, see everyone as more or less products of our environment - the way we are nurtured."
But our environments do shape the choices we have. It takes someone with a LOT of self-focus to overcome the obstacles of his environment.
So, someone with a lot of character (an internal trait) can overcome his environment, but most people do not have that and become products of their environment.
"To illustrate my point, consider gun control."
I'm completely in favour of the 2nd Amendment.
-but-
I'm also in favour of a waiting period. I don't want someone buying a gun because he just found out his wife is cheating on him. I'm also in favour of registering guns which includes ballistics. A bullet pulled from a murder victim should be traced back to the gun that fired it and the person who purchased it.
I believe that 99%+ of the people who own guns are responsible gun owners and no threat to themselves or society.
But I also believe that a responsible gun owner would register his weapons, properly secure them and immediately report any that were stolen. This is his responsibility to society. When you exercise certain rights, you take on certain responsibilities.
So, is that "Conservative" or "Liberal"?
"Poverty is another example of the difference."
Easily answered by my previous statement about character and environment. Those with weak to average character will end up as products of their environment. Those with strong character will overcome those obstacles.
Now, take Enron and such. Crime does not depend upon poverty.
"How does this tie into free will? Conservatives make no effort or attempt to explain why bad people are bad. They just are."
Which is why I am not a Conservative.
"Liberals, on the other hand, attempt to explain bad behavior. They say it's a result of our upbringing or our environment. By attempting to explain it, they don't leave a lot of room for free will to say that the people made the choice to be bad."
I believe that people do make their own choice.
Here's an example: Exercise.
Everyone (Conservatives and Liberals) knows that you should exercise. Yet not many people do. Is that because they are "bad" people who have chosen not to exercise? Or is it because the parents didn't love them enough?
I believe that it is because most people do not have the character to force themselves to do what they know is good for them and would rather take the easy way.
As in the exercise example, so as in Life.
Exactly.
/. --- although it IS on topic just this once...
It's not about creating a permanent underclass or some other conservative propaganda. It's about how some people a few centuries back fucked up really badly and were extremely unjust, and we're still trying to fix the mess from back then.
Many of us _are_ descendents of those people. It doesn't make it our personal responsbility, because, a child should not be held accountable for his/her parents' crimes, but, it does make it a responsibility of our society. Of course, I don't think the government should be big enough to run its own welfare program, but I think there ought to be a few non-profit organizations doing these and getting free access to private and government resources beacuse of it.
"Helping yourself" my ass. Saddam Hussein and Usama bin Laden both help themselves to what they want. Not to suddenly start trolling, but, is helping yourself and turning a blind eye to everybody else really the best thing you can do for society? If you are truly *helping yourself*, you realize that you are a member of society, and it affects you. Ignoring problems is only going to perpetuate your daily headaches. When there are inner city teenagers (I'm not implying that these are only black people, mind you; there are plenty of white, Indian, Native American, Hispanic, and micro-Asian people who need help!) working at McDonald's who don't give you correct change because they don't have basic math skills, *That Affects You*.
I don't like the liberalist propaganda I hear about how the government needs to be very big and intrusive in order to take care of its citizens. I can take care of myself; I don't really need to be watched, except for the occasional helpful police officer (but in some parts of the country, helpful and peace-promoting ones can be hard to find; but I digress) to make sure I don't get too pissed off and do anything stupid and nobody else does anything really desperate or violent with me as a target. But, on the other hand, I can't take the stuck-up attitude pervading the conservative propaganda. If the stuck-up republicans (which is actually *not* the majority of republicans, but they do seem to be the ones that open their mouths the most) shelled out the money to make most college education free, society would get a lot better very quickly. Some people with money do create scholarships and foundations to aid education (for example, this is the only context where I actually take a liking to Bill Gates! Not sure what his affiliation may or may not be, though), but, more ought to, rather than complain how much they're getting taxed.
Hoping I don't get modded down for getting too political on
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
That's why I never buy into those future-world scenarios where people are banned from breeding and you're genetically screened (or planned) from before birth. People would never accept it, and "just kill (or even just sterilize) those who dissent" is far easier.
I have a vague idea bouncing around in my skull about a Standard Dystopian Future, where so much of the human genome is patented that prospective parents must purchase a licence to combine their owned genes from a government agency formed to distribute the fees to all the patent holders. This, of course, would rely on an extension of patent terms, but since copyright terms are extended on a regular basis, I'm sure some enterprising IP lawyer is preparing the arguments to support legislation extending the terms of other types of IP protection.
"People would never accept it" is a dangerous assumption, especially in hierarchical societies where authorities of various sorts can wield undue influence through the exercise of power. China during the Cultural Revolution might be a good example, where the situation only changed when control of the state system switched from one set of oligarchs to another group who decided to stop the disasters. In a hierarchical society, such as most on Earth, few people would dare consider taking actions that oppose the will of the leaders, who are now often seen as those chosen by the will of the majority--itself a dangerous concept.
Any scriptwriters out there want to help develop a concept?
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
The only real difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that the insugency doesn't have any state backing them with weapons.
Er, no. Iran is bankrolling a hefty chunk of the insurgency, including Sadr. The Iranian dictatorship is terrified that if the fledgling Iraqi democracy succeeds it'll give their people all sorts of bright ideas, or at least speed up the near-inevitable demise if the dictatorship. (Iran is where the Soviet Union was in the late 1980's.)
Syria's chipping in for the same reasons but to a much lesser extent (purely due to their limited resources).
No, we're not going to invade Iran, mostly because the Iranian dissidents (unlike the Iraqi dissidents) don't want us to. But we ought to be doing a helluva lot more to help those dissidents.
See the Iraq the Model blog.
Say what you will about Florid, but that is exactly what we have. There is a program called "Florida Bright Future Scholarships" where a high school GPA of 3.5 or higher and a Florida high school diploma gets you 100% of a state school's tuition, and 3.0 gets you 75%. Florida state schools include the University of Florida, which is a very good school, and even if you only get the 75%, tuition is still quite reasonable in state. Look here and here for info.
And EVERYONE was disadvantaged when they came here. Georgia used to be an English penal (prison) colony, with WHITE prisoners, and, like Australia, turned out just fine.
Just thought I would add my 2 cents plus some personal experience. I am always wary of explanations that ignore societal factors. Yes, blacks on average are notably poorer than whites and a small part of that may have to do with so called 'black culture' (black culture is not a monolith, there are multiple parts to it but the media potrays only the bad/dysfunctional sub cultures) but if one is trying to claim that the disparity is not due to a large part on discrimination and exclusion then you are sorely mistaken.
I am a black african who grew up middle class at home and I now work in hi-tech (software engineer) in the Boston area. I have faced discrimination in the past but as one climbs the social/financial ladder its effects become less pervasive (but still as painful). However, every once in a while its pervasiveness becomes apparent. My girlfriend and I were recently looking for an apartment and since I was the one who had a lot of free time we had a number of interesting experiences
1. Spoke to a realtor and when we showed up the first thing out of his mouth was that we should look for low income housing (huh?)
2. Had a realtor I spoke to (people sometimes mistake my accent for British or something) and made an appointment to see quite a few apartments. Spoke to him multiple times (called him from work and he stated he had quite a few places to show us). When I showed up he suddenly got this look when he saw me. First words out of his mouth were "So, do you work?" (this after I had spoken to him by calling him from work and stating that I would be leaving work early to meet him. He them claimed that he really had nothing to show us and hurriedly left (this one I shall be reporting to the BHA)
Had realtors just yank my chain, treat me rudely etc. I got to the point where I would joke with my girlfriend (who is white) that maybe she should do all the looking and booking and then I would show up at the end.
We eventually gave up and decided to do Craigs List and only do for rent by owner, since by doing this we were dealing with young enlightened people, we had much better luck .
On the whole my experiences with realtors is very disheartening. Now, I have only had to deal with this (and the occasional N word yelled, treated suspiciously by policeand people etc) for only a few years and also not during my formative years. If I had to deal with this all my life I can tell you I would be a very different person.
As far as affirmative action goes, I whole heartedly support it. I know that I have benefited from it (I know jobs that I would have never gotten even to the initial interview unless the companies involved were not afraid of not looking as if they were following certain mandates. Also for the longest time when job hunting I would make sure that my first few interviews were over the phone (but then again, a study done last year in the Boston and Philadelphia area found that job applicants with black sounding names were called back 50% less than job applicants with white sounding names (this after controlling for education).
As far as the black intelligence argument that is used as an explanation all I can say is give me a break!. I remember that in the Bell Curve it was stated that the average I.Q of Africans was something like 75 or 80 (borderline retarded). The fact tha such a book could be greeted with anything but scorn says everything you need to know about race relations in the U.S