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Brain Differences In Liberals and Conservatives
i_like_spam writes "Scientists from NYU and UCLA report in Nature Neuroscience that the brains of Democrats and Republicans process information differently. This new study finds that the differences are apparent even when the brain processes common information, not just political topics. From the study, liberals were more likely to be accurate and showed more brain activity in the region associated with analyzing conflicts. A researcher not affiliated with the study stated, liberals 'could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.' Moreover, 'the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry... as a flip-flopper.'"
Like... Whoa!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
A young person who isn't a liberal has no heart. An old person who is has no brain.
So could it be that the mental flexibility of youth makes them more susceptible to liberalism (in the modern usage of the word) than the more experienced minds of the older generations?
Thanks a bunch kdawson.
(I've shown considerable restraint in pointing this out in the last 10 similarly crap stories, but enough is enough.)
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I'm a liberal and I've always had great difficulty convincing Republicans that I'm right and they are wrong. Thankfully this study tells me that it is because I am smart and they are stupid. Since I am white and male, I look forward to further studies proving women and other races are also inferior to me to explain why they are similarly disobedient. Soon, I hope we shall return to the happy days of the 19th Century where science explained why some people the rulers and others are the ruled. Perhaps we could have a rule where Republican votes count for 3/5ths of Democrat votes, like we did with Negros before the Republicans stirred things up. Or perhaps they could be barred from voting completely, like we used to do for women.
I also hope that when the country has universal health care it will be be possible to abort fetuses with these cognitive disabilities, just like we do for babies with other developmental defects.
No, just kidding. This looks like awful science, just like the 19th Century studies that confirmed the experimenter's prejudices that black people and women were inferior.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
If there were, then there should be also in Linux and Windows users, as well as in Slashdotters and the rest of the universes.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Water-borne gene-therapy to cure you of your genetically inherited political leanings.
Is my tin-foil hat secured tightly enough?
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
What about people like me that are a little of each and some of neither?
Does their study show why Conservatives want to blame all their problems on Mexicans or why Liberals are a bunch of pansies that want to back out of a war we need to win and can win? Or maybe they can say why neither conservatives or liberals are really open to a real discussion about much of anything - they all would rather spout off about their idealology rather than actually working together to study issues and come up with real solutions.
To me the study just seems to indicate that Conservatives are dyslexic. As if we didn't already know that Bush had some sort of speech disorder. Doh.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
On the contrary, when you look at that New Testament in depth, most of the ideas put forth were not terribly new, but were actually pointers to older ideas.
One highly subjective, criminally over-simplified take on the whole liberal/conservative question is: it boils down to one of modeling society. If you want "one big family" then you lean to the left, and want more socialized policies. If you question whether people scale well and want more individual responsibility and less safety net, then you might prefer conservative policies.
I'm looking forward to further research that correlates liberal/conservative preference with population density. It seems that the more urbanized people are, the greater the comfort level with shifting responsibility/authority to the government.
Good news, bad news: who can say?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
How so? Same chromosomes.
Unless you're taking the Nurture side in the Nature/Nurture debate.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
On most games the M-key would open up a map, and the W-key would more your character forward, so... what video game are they playing again?
1) Liberals are more likely to smoke pot
2) Pot smokers are more likely to sit around the house
3) People who sit around the house are more likely to play video games
4) People who play video games are more likely to have better hand-eye coordination
5) ???
6) Profit!
Where the character played by Lukas Haas is originally a rabid republican, until the doctors find that he has a tumor in his head. Once the tumor is removed, he's instantly converted (back) into a left-wing liberal - just like his entire family.
Quotes:
(father) - How did I end up with a kid on the other end of the political spectrum? How did I fail? Steffi, get me a copy of my will... and an eraser.
[... after a long while, right after tumor removed]
(father) - Honey! Bring down a copy of my will... and an eraser!
imdb link here
The only reason you have a black and white Liberal - Conservative divide in the US is the mathematics of how your electoral system works. Other countries with sane electoral systems actually have shades of grey.
Deleted
This isn't as bad as the UC Berkley study which basically tried to 'scientifically prove' that Conservatives were mentally impaired... using taxpayer dollars.
I also wonder just what they mean by "Conservative". Ron Paul is the candidate that has made the most sense to me so far, and most consider him FAR right... course most of those people don't know the different between conservative and libertarian, but still.
FanFictionRecs.net
The Liberals come across as a bunch of wusses these days. Doesn't seem like a very good survival trait if you won't stand up for the well being of your people and their way of life. Especially when your people are already, by far, the strongest. Call it the eagle laying in the sand waiting for a rattlsnake to come along and bite it to death and being unwilling to defend itself for fear of hurting the snake's feelings or seeming to be a bully.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
But in all seriousness those are just stereotypes and doesn't help create open discussion about problems this country may face now or in the future. I am conservative but I believe that we need to be doing somethings differently. Just because someone is conservative doesn't mean they fully support the President and just because someone is Liberal doesn't mean they are "a bunch of pansies that want to back out of a war we need to win". Just because someone defines themselves as a liberal or a conservative or somewhere in between doesn't mean that they fit in that category perfectly.
Having said that. I don't think there are any religious ideas of signifcant value. Buddhism I'd class more as philosophy.
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2. This war should not be about "winning the war" or being a "pansie", it should be about stopping the suffering of the Iraqi people.
Don't forget this quote:
"An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded."
So yeah, you can flame them as much as you want, they're not going to change that easily.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I don't think it means what you think it means.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
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How much do you want to bet that if Conservatives had scored higher for accuracy, the story would be about how Liberals process information faster.
I've got a theory: All the 'editors' are actually just Taco in disguise. When he wants to post a certain type of story, he chooses a certain name. When he wants to post a worthless story that everyone will yell about, he posts as kdawson.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I agree (even if we are going completely off-topic). Starting the war was a bad idea, but leaving now would probably be even worse. And I say this as one of those "scaredy-cat" Spaniards who voted out the then ruling party because they got us into that clusterfuck. And no, it's not about winning, it's about getting Iraq stable enough for they to finish fixing the problem.
You assume one way is better than another. How un-liberal of you.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
How come kdawson posts a story like this to slashdot when another study of equivalent academic value (none) shows that $racialgroup1 is more intelligent than $racialgroup2? Because kdawson is a bigot.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
So, this study wouldn't be valid in say... Canada?
You know, there are republicans who may be liberal and democrats who may be conservative. Being one doesn't necessarily mean being the other, like, being chaotic-neutral in D&D.
Also, how does this study work when there's more than just two parties? How are Socialist people different from the Worker Party? How's this make the Green Party Candidate? And what about in countries where there isn't any kind of democracy?
Somehow, I just can't buy this "study".. Is this some kind of Sept 11th joke, like April Fools pranks to celebrate that?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The linked site is scarce on details - the paper itself is more interesting. First, David Amodio (lead researcher) is not obviously flaming. I'm no expert in neuroscience -- but the data looks good, and he has a track record on usage of scans for similar tasks (most of it race-bias related, but that's another subject).
Here's an interesting part of the experimental design:
I think that there are two ways in which the experiment may be flawed. One is that 43 persons are not enough to extrapolate to the whole US population; and more importantly, no details are given on how they were chosen. If they were chosen among colleagues in an academic setting, where most people (your mileage may vary) are left-wing, you may have problems finding people which self-describe as conservative. These few would be most resistant to changing their viewpoints, I would guess -- since otherwise they may have flipped from exposure to liberal arguments.
Another way in which I think the study may be flawed is by asking people to self-define their position in the political spectrum -- a one-dimensional political spectrum. What guarantees do you have that participants really are "conservative" or "liberal" (whatever that means to you), and have actually thought about the political issues involved in each "choice" (as if there weren't many, many greys)?. A 2-dimensional political positioning would provide more insight. A short questionnaire where participants actually had to think, instead of "choosing their favorite color" would have been even better.
This is assuming that the researcher knows what he's doing, and the
conflict-related ACC activity was indexed by two ERP components. ERPs are scalp-recorded voltage changes reflecting the concerted firing of neurons in response to a psychological event. is actually a good measure of resistance to change or willingness to accomodate it. No details are provided on the exact activity, other than stating that parcicipants were offered the choice of two actions, "Go" and "No-Go".You can find the full article at the author's lab website.
Liberals aren't the folks who got so wound up in paranoia and fear that they cheered on the POTUS to invade a country that had fark all to do with any attacks on the US. Liberals aren't the ones constantly bleating about terrorists and alert levels and all the other nonsense.
But yeah, it's liberals that are the wussy scaredy cats....
Right.
Emphasis mine.
Then what happens if you are like me and a socialist? Do I cease to exist!? :O If I don't recall incorrectly, there is a socialistic senator in the senate right now. Think about. Also, I'm Scandinavian, what'd you expect? :}
Clicked pie.
"What about people like me that are a little of each and some of neither?"
Simple, you don't exist, now get out of here and stop invalidating the data!
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
You may want to do some reading before using the term. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism.
Why bother.
Fine submissions like these cause me to wonder if perhaps the recent upswing in anti-kdawson sentiment isn't entirely unjustified...
The headline and summary was so priceless that I just had to read TFA. I assumed that TFS had as usual grossly mischaracterized TFA. This was, however, not the case (yay L.A. Times!). The thing that jumped out at me was that this study was conducted on a bunch of college students (i.e. undergrads looking for extra credit in intro psych classes) at UCLA and NYU. If you consider the percentage of liberal students at UCLA, I wonder if there might not be just a tad of selection bias inherent here...not to mention the libertarian objection that the political spectrum is poorly characterized in a linear fashion.
Although I couldn't find the original paper, this other article (no registration with google referrer) was more informative, quoting someone who actually was connected with the study, and another psych professor who points out that this study (of 43 students) might not be the pinnacle of statistical rigor.
On the other hand, I guess we can feel fully justified in drawing conclusions about conservatives students NYU and UCLA ;). I know that my own alma mater can count Ann Coulter, for one, amongst the 15 or so of its alumni who were strongly republican as undergrads...Ironically, this study will probably promote its own conclusion, though, when Prof. Amodio becomes the core of a republican talking point on the apparent liberal bias of America's university faculties.
Finish fixing what problem, exactly?
$2.95
In new research, scientists offered conservative rats and liberal rats a choice between Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, and a piece of cheese. The outcome surprised no one.
You know, its funny, but liberals are only open minded to their own ideas, just as much as conservatives are, and there's not a damn bit of difference between the two on that score.
It's just that liberals are more likely to be religious fruitcakes when it comes to their own "religion" of PC whereas conservatives are more likely to be cheating on theirs. Whose more screwed up in the head, the enviro-liberal who really does recycle the potato skins into blankets for baby, or a conservative that says fags suck and then, ya find out that he's a fag that does.
This is my sig.
http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2007/09/liberal_and_conservative_anter.php
(write-line *coolsig*)
There's a study I'd really like to see: how, if at all, does the brain function differently in the significantly religious and schizophrenic? I've lived in close proximity with both and do not see any difference. In both, there's a point at which no amount of reason or evidence can penetrate the delusions. This is not a matter of intelligence otherwise, but at some point their ability to reason simply stops, and is replaced by "magic knowledge". My observations, however, are not a proper study. Brain imaging during a process of exposition that leads to a conclusion contrary to the subjects' beliefs might expose similarities (and differences) in regional usage.
> brains of Democrats and Republicans process information differently
Do they process information at all?
What about the fact that the liberals in America (Democrats) tend to be composed at a higher percentage of racial and social minorities than the conservatives? Wouldn't having a diverse pool of thought on various issues cause liberals to consider alternatives, whereas conservatives tending to have less division as a group make it easier to stick to a viewpoint?
Free porn, no Bullshit - thebestlinklist.com
Well, dude; I didn't really get the impression that the neocon hawks that started this whole mess had a lot of courage. It's not their necks after all.
Greed? Deception? Lies? Croniism? All of the above? I'd say yes. But sure as hell not courage.
I think the evidence now pretty much indicate what a bunch of lying war-criminal-weasels the current US administration actually is
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
... if you even have any. No matter how sound the research, if you immediately follow it with conjecture about how it relates to George Bush's decision-making process (or lack thereof) it leads me to believe you have an agenda (and you're just masking it by throwing in the Kerry thing). Leave out the conjecture altogether.
Another way to blow your scientific credibility: use today's weather as an example of how the global climate [is | is not] changing. I can see it coming from the corner grocer (as in, on a cold day we hear "Weahs da global wawmin'?"), but I can;t believe how much of it I hear from actual scientists (although, many are not climatologists).
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Please don't start with the socialist thing. Americans do not know what "socialism" is and they've co-opted the word to use as an insult. Much like "Liberal" and "Conservative" are no longer definitions of political ideology but epithets. In this black and white world of false political dichotomy there is no room for moderates and there is no understanding of any political ideology outside of those espoused by the two faces of the single American political party (Republicans & Democrats).
In much the same way that religious voters will tolerate massive corruption and sexual perversion from politicians who claim deep religious convictions (of the White Anglo Saxon Protestant variety only please) . American's will tolerate outright evilness on the part of the avowed anti-communist & anti-socialist capitalist businessmen and lobbyists.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
The conservative brain is already dead, it's just too inflexible to notice this change.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
The deal is not so much that conservatives like corporate leaders, it is that conservatives believe that if they work hard, and get a bit lucky, they can form their own business as well, and achieve a degree of independence. On the other hand, a socialist system offers no independence at all.
Really, conservatives place such a high premium on independence and freedom and that they are willing to accept a lot of other shitty things to get it. As much as conservatives talk about God and Jesus, really, they are all fixated on Dante's Devil, proclaiming, "It is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven"...
This is my sig.
As I said earlier, you can debate whether or not the war is worth the cost, or if it should have been fought at all
I may be conservative, but I'm neither arrogant nor close-minded enough to believe that somebody is stupid, callous, or a coward just because they don't agree with me.
I would like to see the results from a comparative study of the people here in Denmark (which is a capitalistic democracy, despite the public healthcare system, free scholls and stuff like that) - compared to the politicians here the liberals and democrats are both right-wing conservatives.
-- A good compromise leaves everyone mad. --Calvin and Hobbes
Both NYU and UCLA are rather liberal leaning schools of indoctrination. The results are no news here. But really, the main parent post topic is a polarizing troll from the start. Yawn.
You aint the only country that does that. In Australia we call the conservative party the Australian Liberal Party.... when they are rarely anywhere near liberal.
If American politics are like nowhere else on the planet, and Democrats and Republicans are jarringly similar to most Europeans, what does this say about Americans?
Here's a link to that article via Google for Libertarians who don't want to register. Greens can click the "Print" link for the ads free version.
The problem of the security vacuum that was created when Hussein was brought down. After we brought down the old order, we failed to step up and maintain order, so now we have the unenviable task of trying to establish order where none exists.
Our leaders were blinded by their own optimism, now many of our finest are paying the ultimate price for that failure.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
In comparison to global political ideology Ron Paul is "Far Right". In comparison to the rest of the candidates (from both parties) for the 2008 United States presidential election he middle of the pack. He is also libertarian and this is what separates him from the Authoritarian candidates (This is all of the Republican candidates and all but two of the Democratic candidates). Conservative vs Liberal Ideologies and Libertarian vs Authoritarian are orthogonal ideologies.
So it makes perfect sense to call Ron Paul a far right conservative libertarian because these are exactly his political ideologies.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I may be conservative, but I'm neither arrogant nor close-minded enough to believe that somebody is stupid, callous, or a coward just because they don't agree with me.
:) ) I found this behavior fairly appalling.
I have no doubt that you as a person are not. However as a non American I must ask what did you think of the treatment of the French. Who disagreed with US policy and have the American media and public ridicule them as a country of cowards and idiots. Even tho I dont like the French(Ive had to work with them
This story was obviously submitted so that you would see something like an "501 of 896" posting count. It is 100% pure flamebait or perhaps on a higher level a poorly written satire.
I am not in the middle of this Liberal/Conservative "war," and I can tell you honestly that liberals can be very stupid, and conservatives can be very astute.
'the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry... as a flip-flopper'
... :)
Bush's single-mindedness isn't the results of thinking in 'republican' mode but because he thinks what he is told to think. As for republicans and democrats having different brain processes this is quasi-science at it's worst. Perhaps the subjects acquired such traits after joining and reading the manifestos of the respective parties. Perhaps lots of closet liberals choose to join the republican party as they have internalised the media's aversion to all things non-republican. Perhaps the long hair liberals all smoke dope, that usually frees up inhibition.
ps: Did you know that on the campuses of the US the worst thing an undergraduate could call another is REPUBLICAN
davecb5620@gmail.com
Also, are we talking about ideals, financial, or strictly both to qualify conservative or liberal? My ideals are conservative, but I'm financially liberal; were these things weighted? I'd say my socio-economical class doesn't much lean either way (white male, middle-middle class, 23), so is the question just which side I relate to more?
FWIW, I don't think binary labels are a good tool for representing an analog chunk of an analog spectrum without assigning weights to aspects that are of a social nature. Does anyone else feel that this entire study ended up with a group of people standing around grinning at their excessive cleverness at the end of the day, while no actual scientific work was accomplished?
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
There's a difference, you know, between conservatives, and the deeply Wilsonian liberal neocons.
Being a constitutionalist, I might get pigeonholed as a conservative, but it actually makes me a classical liberal: I want people to be free to live and work and trade however they see fit.
Regardless of what this study "proves" or "finds," it does not mean that Socialism (a product of the New Left) is anything but totalitarianism with a great big stoned flower-child grin.
This study is likely evidence of the brainwashing which has occurred at the GOP. In order to solidify their power, the neocons have waged a very intense war against the minds of their base.
If the results here are based on self-identification as either liberal or conservative, that in itself would be a large potential flaw with this study.
Most people here assume just accepting new ideas at face value (which is all the study suggested) is a good thing. The article did not in any way indicate that it tested what the evaluative processes that liberals vs conservatives go through before they integrate new ideas into their view of the world. That's a critical thing to know. Frankly, I want people in charge and those voting to have some initial skepticism and to analyze new ideas before they accept them. Just because you hear it or have an initial thought doesn't make it true or valid.
On another note, the article indicated that they chose "very liberal" or "very conservative". It's entirely plausible that the extremes are there for biological reasons and those who dont "identify" with their political orientation choose that orientation for different reasons (former biological, latter rational thought)
Obviously experiments like these tend to hugely oversimplify the workings of the mind, but it might be interesting to try this experiment around the world -- because it might show that in many cases political opponents think the same way.
For example, in Iran you could run the test on Muslim fundamentalists and democratic reformers; in Russia on democratic reformers and die-hard Communists. I suspect when you put it next to these results from the US you would find that those who most deeply hate each other were also tending to think the same way.
And then of course there are other examples which break established norms. In the late 70s you could also have tried it for example on Mrs Thatcher and left wing union leaders: in that case, you had a "right-wing", "illiberal" leader who was bringing about radical change, and "left wing liberals" who were defending the status quo. I guess you could try it now on Sarkozy in France and his left-wing opponents. In this case, who "could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas"? It's more complex than just left-wing or right-wing. And if tests like these help us see that, then, for all their over-simplification, they might have some value.
Hating the French and Mexicans is high fashion among the Dixie Republicans and Midwesterners, I doubt they even know why. However they lack the ability to successfully identify the objects of their derision. On a recent trip to Atlanta, GA I was confronted by a few women bemoaning the fact that my family were a bunch of wetbacks here on the dole, and couldn't even be bothered to learn the language. This was wrong on a number of different levels: I am an American Citizen, as is my Daughter. My Girlfriend is Cambodian. We are all legal residents of Austria. My girlfriend had a tourist visa (as we were on holiday). We were speaking German between ourselves and I was trying my best to translate. Despite having lived in Atlanta for a number of years in the past, I was absolutely amazed to be subjected to this sort of hate.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
What the hell, since when do we have Republican and Democrats categories??? :-D
Oh, and I have no idea what the 2 logos mean? Some care to enlighten me?
I really wonder how these studies come up in time just to match the popular (read heavily publicized) opinion. I don't know much about US political history, but I am sure that in the 60's the democrats were like current republicans and vice versa. Left-wing and right-wing are just terms for conservatism and non conservatism. Which in term depends on what the present culture that is in question of conservation. A culture will be bought on by non-conservatists (liberals) who stick to it and become conservative about it. Now , how it affects the cognition phenomenon is totally beyond me. Look at the procedure followed, and you will find that the researchers were trying to prove something by force, just 2 graphs and coinciding them. I will let you quote other funny graphs and correlations of this kind.
http://monkeynesianeconomics.blogspot.com/
I think the first few words in the article says it all: "Scientists from NYU and UCLA...". I'm sure their findings are completely apolitical (not). I wonder who flipped the bill for that study?
I'm Canadian. I remember Degaule's "Vive le Quebec Libre" speech in Quebec City. I'm very familiar with their behaviour during WWII, and their behaviour since then. I remember their obstructionism in NATO during the cold war. As far as I'm concerned, the French don't get half the ridicule that they deserve.
Sorry, but polling COLLEGE STUDENTS does NOT reflect the general populous. Is this stat a little rigged? Very rigged? Think for a minute here--aren't college students naturally more open to doing things? I have seen an awful lot of college students go from "mad liberal" to moderate in a matter of a few years as I am in a "spectatorial" position where we hire guys fresh out of school and watch how they change throughout their careers.
--parasonic
I guess it goes without saying that democratic politics seems to be something less than the shining beacon of leadership it's meant to be, at the moment. The "left" and the "right" seem to rarely argue from their traditional perspectives anymore (left: more tax, more public services, more rights for gay people and women; right: less tax, more freedom for corporations, "family values") and instead just stick to the party drift. Right: pro-war; left: anti-war.
In the UK, we even have the leader of the right wing Conservative party (David Cameron) saying he will match Labour's spending commitments. There is now nothing to choose between them in terms of policy. The only difference is whichever set of politicians you think is the least idiotic and selfish.
In the US, I guess it's whether you're more sickened by the corruption and incompetence of the Republicans or the cowardice and lack of direction of the Democrats.
Peter
A quick browse through the comments on this story, and an application of the conclusions of the study in the article would imply that most slashdotters are extremely conservative. The vast majority of posters didn't read or understand the article.
Article Summary:
People who identify as liberal are better at pressing a key when the letter "m" is shown, and not pressing it when the letter "w" is shown, than people who identify as conservative. Liberals were "2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy." The study also tracked the activation of the anterior cingulate cortex - currently thought to help decide between habitual behaviors (like pressing the key) and unique situations requiring different actions (not pressing the key).
Discrediting the study based on the comments of the "researcher not affiliated with the study." Sure, blast the LA Times for getting the unwarranted comments of another unaffiliated researcher - but don't mistake external comments for the biases of the researchers. In fact, from the article, one of the actual researchers said: "The tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing depending on the situation,"
In addition, people blast the study on a few other unrelated tangents:
The study was based on a 10 point self-reported scale of liberal vs conservative, and this is all the groups the study makes claims about - people who report themselves to be differing degrees of liberal or conservative. It doesn't matter what you wish the study's criteria were.
Liberal politics in Europe are certainly further left than in the US. This has nothing to do with the study or its results, kthx for the info though!
What's to understand?
Socialism is both self-evidently false and a uniform failure where ever and to what ever it's been applied. This troubles socialists not at all and this research suggests that the reason for preferring a political system that's never worked over one that has a chance of working is part of the structure of the brain.
You're not a liberal/socialist/communist/who-gives-a-shit because you're insightful or compassionate, you're a liberal because your brain is wired in such a way as to find some value in what conservatives see as abject failure.
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Well, as a liberal in this hypothetical situation, I would have said that the study deserves an in-depth review of the look at the pretty birds, I wonder what's for dinner tonight, is there anything good on television, I don't like spinach, I'm bored.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Truly bad science, indeed. How large of a sample could they possibly have used? What methods for a control group? What kinds of brain scans? MRI? CT? Who funded this study? It is interesting that lumped in with being a Democrat is flexibility in just about everything - social ideas, political ideas, and even (amazing) religious ideas. But, extreme flexibility can also be viewed as an inability to take a stand on something in which you truly believe, since you don't truly believe in anything. You can open your mind so far that your brains fall out, you know? No - I'm sure that no reputable Journal will do anything but scoff at that so-called study.
Pop culture politics now takes on the guise of legitimate science!
I'm sure Rush Limbaugh and Micheal Moore fans are thrilled and whooping up a storm over this.
Next time around elections will be held in a reality TV format, much like Survivor.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Someone needs to repeatedly remind the French-hating Americans that it was the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" who won the American war of independence at the battle of Yorktown.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
be surprised that they used the letter W? Isn't that a letter associated with GWB? Could it be possible that this affected the results?
I guess it goes without saying that democratic politics seems to be something less than the shining beacon of leadership it's meant to be, at the moment.
Got that right.. The last Democrat who was worth a damn was Harry Truman.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Then what happens if you are like me and a socialist? Do I cease to exist!?
We were hoping that after Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, you people would have the decency to fade away.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm not prepared to dismiss an entire country like that, particularly when they've just elected Sarkozy. That's easily the best move the French have made in my lifetime, at least.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Right, because of what I do I am used to ask questions along the lines of "but how do we know that it was actually one of the neutrons we detected or not a cosmic ray, error in my program, the detector, the circuits, thermal noise, random coincidence, small sample size, etc etc ..." Once that is dealt with ,typically giving a certainty of "this might be plausible", you start considering which of the five million or so possible nuclear reactions could have produced a neutron. Finally you write something along the lines of "This experiment seems to suggest that isotope-x has a higher level of activity ... but the uncertainties are quite big...blah blah blah".
Then the press gets hold of the story, makes a headline saying "Nuclear power more dangerous than thought!" and then you get to have great fun trying to explain to "ordinary people" that you are not at the payroll of the nuclear power industry and that the media actually doesn't have a clue about physics. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I don't think this story is worth the time it took me to write this comment, but I'm bored and have nothing better to do.
I'm a native English speaker, in that I'm an English native and can speak. I say "maths", as does everyone else around here.
Carry on!
Just to support that statement. People who are or who have been on the front line are usually very reluctant to start a war. They know it's the worst and last possible option.
America, Home of the Brave.
In Australia we pronounce you moron. We've called it maths for decades. AFAIK, math is an American thing.
"In much the same way that religious voters will tolerate massive corruption and sexual perversion from politicians who claim deep religious convictions..."
Most religious voters are far and away not religious by their own holy text's standards, it's standard hypocrisy and magical thinking at work.
The abstract of the article can be found here: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn1979.html If someone is willing to pay :)
Hmm... lets see..
Observation 1- Based on my experience computer/console gamers tend to have much better hand eye coordination
Observation 2- People who have a liberal mindset tend to play video games more
Note: the above observations are based on my personal experiences, your experiences may conflict
Result 1- Liberals will, in general, do better at this sort of test
Result 2- Liberal tester sees that liberals have better hand eye coordination and instantly says 'we liberals are better!', doesn't consider any of the factors as to why one group did better on this test
Result 3- Liberal tester does as a liberal usually does and reads into the test a political statement that has nothing to do with the test, in the process spouting several liberal ideas, most if not all of which have failed everywhere they are attempted
To a liberal the above is following their version of the scientific process, which has little to do with finding the truth, and more to do with spreading their ideas, that have all been tried many times before in other parts of the world, and have all always failed.
--- When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out any facts that don't agree, is it true?
It doesn't take great courage to start a war.
Depends on the war in question. Neville Chamberlain clearly didn't have the necessary courage to stop Hitler in time to save tens of millions of lives. I would also say that the colonists showed a great deal of courage in starting the American revolution, for a second example.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And proved it nicely.
Liberal, socialist and communist are all very different things.
And no, TFA says you're a liberal because you're open to considering new ideas, and a conservative because you don't or can't.
Liberals or Conservatives, once they get in to office both become jack ass's.
The finest shade.
And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.
If you happen to visit France, and anyone gets in your face for speaking English, answer them in German. They hate that.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Funny that; as an Englishman, pretty much everyone I've ever met says "Maths". The concept of calling it "Math" only appeared when dealing with American media. You might find it's more accurate to say that only native American (you know what I mean) speakers say "Math".
I like Atlanta. My in-laws live there, so we visit a couple times a year. There's the Vortex. It's the home of DragonCon (Adam Hughes). Max Lager's.
It has two problems.
I'd say the above mentioned leaders (not one of mines, fortunately) weren't, or aren't, blinded by anything. They've simply been motivated by greed all along.
From http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html
American Revolution
- In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare; "France only wins when America does most of the fighting."
My contempt for the behavior and beliefs of the two major political parties cannot be adequately expressed in 120 chara
Actually, it's "maths" because it stands for "Mathematical Anti-Telharsic Harfatum Septomin".
So there.
(Serious answer: mathematics is plural, meaning "the mathematical sciences", so should be shortened to maths.)
Only non-native English speakers says "maths". It's "math", or if you must "mathematics" Carry on.
What you mean non-native English speakers like people who live in England? "Math" is an American English thing and sounds off to a native English speaker.
Some may call this flamebait. Perhaps they have been looking too long at flashing "W"s and "M"s.
Can we seriously not expect any bias from the generally left-leaning university academics? Or the LA Times? Seriously! TFA basically says that "Liberals are smarter than conservatives." I am calling bullshit on this one.
Please. The article is not news, is it a troll.
Let's get back to some real nerdy topics.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
The people here seem to think they can judge the quality of a study based on what they read of it in popular news coverage.
Try it in Paris. Alsatians have lived on the border under one side's control or the other for centuries.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
More importantly,what is the comparison to the Libertarian mind?
Where did the conservative and liberal fall short of being complete?
Why are Libertarians still of the same freedom loving mind as our forefathers,yet
conservatives and liberals are content to lose freedom for safety and let their leaders do their thinking for them?(inevitably lying to further their political aspirations)
Oh,the humanity!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
A study from two universities in states which are predominantly liberal (based on voting history) finds that liberals are "more flexible and accepting of new ideas". Shock of shockers!
Whereas I do wholly believe that there are differences in cognitive style between people are distinctly different personality types (which often gets expressed in political views), I don't give a lot of credence to the findings of a study where they base it on seeing one of two letters, and one of them is the letter associated with the leader of a particular mindset.
Then the immediate conclusion drawn uses two things the democrats tend to want to harp on , being Bush in Iraq, and that Kerry was "swift boated".
Unfortunately it smacks of an agenda from the word go IMHO.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
"France only wins when America does most of the fighting."
Most? I think Britain and Russia can claim the last one.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
-jcr
What does fascist communism have anything to do with socialism? In other words, you have no idea what socialism is and you need to shut up.
Are you even aware that socialism is more common than straight capitalism? Even in the US. Do realize that there is *gasp* capitalistic fascism that is just as bad if not worse than socialism?
Grow up. Learn about the world, then foam at the mouth.
cat sig >
Personally, I think there are more than two.
(The variation I prefer is "There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't!")
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Big whoop, there's no surpise here. As you progress up the socio-economic ladder, people tend to go from economically social and civil-rights-ly conservative to the opposite, where people are economically more conservative and are more liberal about people's rights. Granted, this is just by aggregating the classes, not saying that each individual person is like that within each class.
Sweden
Atheism is a non-prophet organisation
Only non-native English speakers say it's "math". Because only Americans say it's "math".
Native English speakers. That'd be those from England and the nearby related nations say "maths".
Deleted
If either "liberal" or "conservative" meant a goddamn thing, this study might actually mean something.
There's not a whole lot that's "conservative" about wanting to invade a country that did not attack us first, nor is there much "liberal" about maintaining a status quo of corporate influence and control of political discourse.
"Right","Left","Conservative" and "Liberal" are terms used by a media elite to keep us divided and in a continual state of anxiety and impotence. By presenting us with an intractable division, we are encouraged to believe that there's "nothing we can do about it", that there are "always two sides to every story". These are lies so big and so harmful to the body politic that they have taken the discussion completely out of the hands of people and have put it in the hands of media hacks, who simply serve their corporate masters.
The dirty little secret is that most people agree on most issues for the most part. And when allowed to present their opinions openly and in a respectful forum, will end up sorting out the areas in which they don't agree. This is why the big corporate money will always go to politicians who represent a minority that represents the most extreme view. Because if people ever realized just how poorly represented we are and just how badly we're being misused by our corporate masters, we'd run them all out of town tied to a rail.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I love how the strength of people's biases filter through to so control how we think and act in this world. The majority of responses here seem to complain about Democrat or Republicanism or some hardly veiled tack. Take a look at TFA, it purely distinguishes between liberals and conservatives (small l and small c) not Democrats and Republicans. THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE. And to assume or extrapolate otherwise is a hugely incorrect step on all our parts. As a matter of fact, the word Republicans isn't even mentioned in the report! Strangely, the word Democrat appears once describing John F. Kerry (which is the most douchebagish way of saying John Kerry...), but regardless. Another important issue, is we cannot link directly to the ACTUAL study in question" (for a separate reason: due to the controlled access of knowledge by academic institutions, which sucks). How do we know truly what the study entails, how the methodology is controlled, etc., without access to the actual paper. This is only possible if you have $30 for the article entry, btw. Nonetheless, as long as Americans continue to automatically draw the line between liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, black and white, etc., as the article quotes the author of the study: "liberals and conservatives are never going to agree". And articles like this do nothing to help. But ultimately, its all our faults for drawing lines in the sand and being so damned stubborn to the detriment of life, society, and wellbeing.
...and it should be known by now
>> Perhaps we could have a rule where Republican votes count for 3/5ths of Democrat votes...
.75 of a vote, they would have power proportionate to the population they represent.
For senate races, that would probably be about fair.
Consider that the 49 Democrats in the Senate represent about 165M people, while the 49 Republicans represent about 123M (165M vs 125M, if we spot them a Lieberman, but I won't). So the average Republican senator represents 2.5M people, while the average Democratic senator represents 3.3M. So if you nerfed the average Senator(R-XX)'s vote down to about
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Chamberlain showed a huge amount of courage and foresight, and doesn't get the credit for what he achieved. At the time he got his "piece of paper" there was no way whatsoever that Britain could have taken on the Reich. As soon as he had made the "Peace in our time" speech he shifted the economy over to a war footing, and introduced conscription (the first time in British history that there had been conscription in peace time). It deflected Hitler, and bought us the time we needed to enter the war at a time that was good for Britain, not good for the enemy. It wasn't appeasement, it was a magnificent tactic that cost Chamberlain his job but arguably won the war.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I have lived my entire life as an immigrant, a family of defectors running from the Czech communists.
My whole life I've had jingoist assholes hate me because I was not born where they were born. I've had redneck racist assholes stutter with confusion when they discover that just because I am white doesn't mean I am 'from around here' and share their racism.
I've spent my whole life trying to learn languages of where I am living and I've got to tell you languages aren't my thing I'm no good at any of the ones I speak. I've then had racists hate me because I spoke English with accent different from their accent... and they can barely speak ONE language.
Both my girlfriend and my daughter have had racists hassle them based on skin colour and accent in the US and not in Europe.
You have a whole branch of your family gone? That doesn't does make you special, that makes you average... well over half of members of my family who were living in the 30's were killed either during WWII or shortly after and you don't hear me using as an excuse to hate.
You say "the gov't wants me to let go of my culture and my country to a bunch of pricks that can't even follow the simplest of laws to get into the country!" This is the height of racist BS. No immigrant wants you let go your 'culture' (such that it is) they want to rid you of your hate. The US government does not want people to abandon culture or country affiliation, they have simply forbad you commit crimes motivated by the hate you have. People like you make me glad I took my family and my money to Europe.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
They've been targeting him for years, it's ingrained habit by now. Not a fair study when one side has had 7 years of training. :D
Let's just hope that with further studies we can find a cure for those poor conservatives.
It seems like a large portion of science articles posted on slashdot regard studies qualifying what I thought to be common knowledge or even common sense. Isn't the defining trait of a conservative supposedly adherence to traditional practices and values? And aren't liberals neccesarily open to new ideas and the incorporation of progressive thinking? Conservatives are more likely to be older, because as one slashdotter said - you have to have experience to know how important having experience is. Liberals should tend to undervalue traditional practices, seeing them as outdated. Conservatives should tend to overvalue traditional practices, seeing them as reliable.
Conservatives are mean and nasty and close-minded.
Liberals are nice and sweet and open minded.
Conservatives are antisocial and ugly!
Liberals are fun to be with and pretty!
Conservatives are dumb!
Liberals are smart!
Now insert "Jocks" and "Nerds".
Gimme a fucking break here people. This kind of self-serving crap, solely to justify one's political and personal leanings helps nobody and nothing. It doesn't even take into account the fact that one's position as a liberal or conservative must be judged on an issue-by-issue basis, as few people are conservative or liberal on EVERY issue.
What's worst? This kind of bullshit inhibits attempts to come to a consensus because "that person is weird and doesn't think like me!"
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Two things: 'illegal' immigration is not a crime right now (at least until the law is changed).
Second, past wrongs do not justify for the future ones (just 'cause your family was killed doesn't mean others have to be).
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
I hope we did not pay those idiots millions for the report that they could have got from the Enquirer for .50! I needed hip waders to avoid the crap that is filling the floor when I read this article. Everyone know that liberals are idiots. Take a look at Hollywood and then look at their books titled "Books for Dummies".
And the last time I heard the "N" word was when I lived in a "blue" state in the mid-west. I'm sorry, but the regional stereotypes on racial acceptance do not match up. Minorities have more acceptance in the south than anywhere else I have lived. It's easy to live harmoniously with minorities when you have them as thoroughly ghettoized as they are in the typical "blue" state.
Just my observations. They will be wrong often, as I can only speak anecdotally.
... the letter W? I think that could've influenced the results.
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. -- George Orwell
No. This war should be securing our own long term national interests.
Quite frankly, the suffering of the "other guy" is entirely secondary. That is as it should be. Although sometimes even that can align with your own interests. Either way, taking the near term view is just childish. There's no reason to believe that running away from the mess we've caused will alleviate either short term or long term suffering of Iraqis.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
it is not about new ideas generally, it is about critical thinking. that's why "liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts".
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
That's all fine and well and your story makes me weep, but the reality is that with your emotional diatribe, you've neglected to mention that these people are not in the USA legally. So, if these "victims" can't even be bothered to follow the laws of getting into the country, why would they even be reliably expected to follow the other laws of the country as well. And you know what, they -don't-.
So please, don't keep on lying. Immigration and illegal immigration are two entirely different things. Legal immigrants are invited to this country, and improve it. Illegal immigrants are invaders.
This is my sig.
Yes, but depending on the college, the prevailing political opinion may be heavily slanted towards one side. That would certainly skew the results, as people who couln't make their minds for themselves would be answering with locally "righteous" ideology, and cases of those who did not cave in would be more extreme (either because they felt strongly about their options, or because they stuck to their choice out of being stubborn). My wild guess is: predominantly liberal college, few conservatives to choose from, most happened to be headstrong.
Repeat the experiment with a different distribution to check for this bias, or quiz people on their political views instead of allowing them to tick a box.
> If you honestly think that *any* president of the US doesn't spend a lot of time
> very carefully thinking about the cost of military adventures -
Hell Yes. Expecially this one.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I have this love hate thing going with Atlanta. On one hand it has an international airport and a few colleges so they ameliorate the raging jingoist hate that the people in the region tend towards. On the other hand it seems that you can't gather that many people in one place and not have them become larger assholes than they would have been in a smaller town, say Chattanooga just for example.
Haven't been to Vortex in a long, long time... Actually I haven't been to little 5 points in a long, long time. I wonder if they are still making a living freaking out the rest of the state.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
That's the whole point. It is against the law to enter the USA without following certain procedures, and therefor, those that do not follow those procedures, are breaking the law, and are criminals. It's pretty cut and dry.
This is my sig.
sounds good to me!
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
In the first split second. That in no way implies it doesn't happen later. Basically, we now know how liberals vs conservatives respond if they have only an instant to think about it - we know nothing about how the process routes afterwards.
And the last republican who was worth anything was Abe Lincoln ...
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
Your current president is incapable of thinking about _anything_. His IQ hovers somewhere around room temperature.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
The differences between the brains of liberals and conservatives is probably inconclusive. Why? The differences between the beliefs of liberals and conservatives aren't even consistent. Many people that consider themselves liberal hold some conservative beliefs and vice versa.
This study makes about as much sense as studying the difference between the brains of blonds (that bleach their hair) and brunettes.
Question everything
You live in Austria. Austria used to be ruled by the Hapsburgs. Spain used be ruled by the Hapsburgs as well. Mexico used to be ruled by Spain.
Therefore you, sir, are a wetback.
If we needed any proof, Real Americans only speak the American, you speak German, so you are not a Real American quod erat demonstrandum.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There are only two choices. Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.
Keep an open mind - but not so wide open that your brain falls out.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
This is funny. I always thought the distinction was bleeding heart issues. Aren't liberals more bleeding heart than the rest? Aren't conservatives more realistic?
Aren't liberals more emotional? Isn't this why they love trees? And furry animals?
What does accuracy in recognizing a letter with a certain time frame have to do with anything? One person reported that the test in part was to distinguish between an M and a W while given less than 1/2 second to do it. If so - then one has to somehow record the answer. How? By pressing a button? If so then wouldn't this test eye hand coordination with a dyslexic tending toward the conservative camp?
------------------
What is really funny about this is that I always thought of myself as a right winger - a strong right winger.
In fact I don't like many of the policies put forward by our Canadian Liberals and the USA Democrates at all.
Yet - my son who has studied some political science says I'm far more liberal than conservative.
One of the many programs I do support however is universal medicare. I just don't think it benefits society at all and certainly not the family for instance to literally ruin the financial well being of a family if someone gets sick. I consider it a form of insurance and I'm all for insurance too. Is insurance liberal or conservative? Hmm. I dunno. I do know that many people would opt out of insurance if they were allowed too. Poor people would especially opt out because they have nothing to lose. So in an accident they could just declare bankruptcy... right? Is bankruptcy liberal or conservative?
The thing is that we don't legally allow people to drive without insurance. Yet at the same time we allow people to live without medical insurance. Which is worse? Is this a liberal idea or a conservative idea that one is ok and the other is not. IMHO clearly someone who lives without insurance imposes the greater risk on others.
Then the system gets stacked to make it virtually impossible in for instance the USA for a huge percentage of the population to even afford proper medical insurance and I've been lead to believe this is republican thinking and that it aligns with conservative thinking.
What about free enterprise? What about small business and small businessmen. Are they liberal or conservative? I always thought that enterprenarially inclined folks tended to be conservatives. I always thought that socialistic minded people and those looking for an iron rice bowl tended to be liberals.
As such - it would be the liberals through unnecessary laws and support of unions and socialistic ideas who would tend to create an unhealthy business environment which would leads to the destruction of the very jobs their retoric seeks to create for the little guy.
But now... am I worng? Its is really that they have more attention to detail? If liberals have more attention to detail does this means conservatives see a bigger picture?
What if you can both see a big picture because you are a visionary and at the same time can handle much more detail that others?
What of computer programmers? I can think of few professions who can handle as much detail as a computer programmer handles. Good computer programmers can handle prodigious amounts of detail with ease. So do they tend to be liberals? Some computer programmers have a tremendous amount of vision as well... But I don't know which could distinguish between M's and W's fastest.
The short of it is there are so many undefined premises here that the study makes no sense whatsoever. Hense I would think the researchers are biased. They probably are looking either for a cushy research post or yet another grant and in both cases I think this would tend to make them liberals. If I'm right - then a conservative would never waste his/her time in such a pursuit... unless maybe they are a private consultant in search of yet another cushy research contract? Hmm. It boggles the mind.
it could be bunnies
It is one of those forms of science that annoys me. If I agree with the statement then I give credit for it. If I disagree and point out that say I am a conservative and I think this science is bubkiss then it only proves the science only further. Remembering this is only science and there is statical deviation where most conservatives show a trend of this and liberals show a trend of that. Doesn't mean that a conservative is unable to have a brain the functions like a liberal and vice versa, just more of a trend towards that direction. Sometimes a person is conservative because they spend a lot of time thinking about it and they see the direction that the liberals give is more flawed and in the long run will cause more problems then gains. E.g. Is spending more taxes on a service that has a marginal value vs. not paying the extra taxes and have the person use it towards something that offers better value. Or the opposite can be true, Eg Person A believes that there should be more taxes for government services because they grew up taking handouts from government services and that is the only life they know.
As for a general trend I would agree with the data but you need to be sure not to go to someone with a republican bumper sticker and assume they are hard nose and cannot learn, or someone with a Democrat bumper sticker(s) (Normally the case with liberals who tend to have more bumper stickers then conservatives) you can assume they will collect information easily and can grasp new concepts easier. Because a trend doesn't equate to people falling into stereotypes, just the fact the dice is weighted slightly to one side.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A scientific study by researchers at two universities declare that some people think differently than others. I realize this study (and nearly all similar) are designed to quantify data, but really, is this a surprise to anyone?
In my opinion, this is yet another reverse correlation. All people accept and react differently to the world around them. This is why some people choose the Democratic party, others choose the Republican party, and yet others bitch about everyone else.
My contempt for the behavior and beliefs of the two major political parties cannot be adequately expressed in 120 chara
My post and my family have nothing to do with illegal immigrants however racists
You know, that's enough. You can go on and call me racist as much as you want, but, given that 30 million people in the USA are estimated to be here illegally, its pretty reasonable to think that someone who doesn't "look like us" might actually be an illegal immigrant. Illegal immigration dwarfs legal immigration by a fairly wide margin.
I mean seriously.. if you see a gang of people in an aging Ford Econline Van without license plates, I think it is reasonable to ask if the people there are here legally. It's just an epidemic. I'm sorry you got caught in the crossfire, and it was wrong for people to accost you the way you did, but suspecting someone might be here illegally is really, the most logical course of action until this country secures its borders properly.
This is my sig.
It's always important to consider the source of the information, and the likely biases of the researchers.
The study was conducted by "researchers" from New York University and UCLA, two very liberal institutions.
The analysis is provided by "experts" at UCLA and Berkley.
The article is published in the LA Times, one of the most left leaning big papers in the country.
With the above information you don't even have to look at the study to know what the results and conclusions will be.
Now consider the science. "Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy." Excuse me? Where was there any measurement of brain circuits? These were just people pressing keys.
This is nonsense, pure junk science. The only thing proven by this study, and the people here who think it proves something, is that the left is really, really gullible.
Oh man, thanks for the laugh! That's just what I needed to cheer me up this fine 9/11 morning!
Sure, we *can* win the war (read:complete clusterfuck) in Iraq, except for two obstacles:
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
Seriously, the LA Times publishing an article about a study which at least from reading TFA seems roughly equivalent to Cosmopolitan attempting to determine whether blondes really DO have more fun is not that surprising to me. The motivation behind the study is dubious at best, and the methodology is bunk; if I had tried to pass this off as research in college I would've been kicked out. But my favorite part of the article is this little gem:
"Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research who was not connected to the study, said the results "provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity."
They extensively quote a totally unrelated researcher (not a professor, incidentally) from Berkeley (not UCLA, where the study was conducted) who broke out the thesarus to say what amounts to, "this proves that conservatives are big, dumb, stupid ol' dummies." This has about as much credibility as Oral Roberts University performing the same study but swapping out "homosexual" or "atheist" for "conservative." If you wonder why people believe there is bias in the media, wonder no longer.
And meanwhile, cancer hasn't been cured yet, right? Isn't there more important research to do?
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
Why are you implying that German people are better than Spanish people? It's not the country of origin that is the problem, it is the method of entry. Your whole argument is "how dare you assume that I'm spanish, when I'm really german, and therefor, I am a racist." Sorry, I'm not going to fall into your racist nonsense. If your family is German or Spanish and is in the USA illegally, then, off to the Deportation land with you! Race is NOT a factor.
This is my sig.
I guess this means liberalism is a mental disorder. ;)
Funny! "In advance even"... that's awesome.
This is my sig.
10-to-1 this study was conducted by Liberals. By the way, the study is COMPLETELY invalidated due to poor procedural set-up.
The selection of M & W are an example of exceedingly poor scientific implementation. Why? Because almost every Liberal I know reacts extremely strongly to the letter "W" ever since the Presidency of George W. Bush. Therefore selecting the one letter of the alphabet that a liberal is going to over-react to if seen individually creates an inherent bias in this test. (Not even included the fact it's such a narrow scope with broad conclusions.)
This test needs to be re-conducted with the following letters. "b", "d", "p". That said, it does not prove anything conclusive. In fact, all this might do is prove that conservatives, or at least those conservatives in their study, had a higher tendency of dyslexia. Of note, not all forms of dyslexia correspond to learning disabilities. Some aspects tend to also correspond with those of higher intellect and creativity
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics10sep10,1,5376455.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
What this study does prove is that those who conducted it are failing to utilize intelligence.
SLASHDOT....can we stop with the constant "conservative bashing".
No, Eisenhower was OK, and Reagan meant well, at least.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"Hating the French and Mexicans is high fashion among the Dixie Republicans and Midwesterners"
Why do I find it interesting that your post about bigotry is begun with your own bigotry, which you seem to not even notice.
you have no idea what socialism is
Of course I do, and you mealy-mouthed apologists aren't fooling anyone by pretending that Stalin, HItler, and the rest of the twentieth-century butchers weren't socialists.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
No, but giving it a simple moment of your thought to see if it's worth it to go further into investigating this "new idea" is indeed a good thing.
Hard-line conservatives just shut anything different out completely. There's a reason why people call them narrow-minded. I'm not talking about conservatives, I'm talking about hard-line conservatives. You know the ones.
Internet: Serious Business
Thats the only way to properly cook a hamburger.
unless YOUR THE GUY FROM THE HAMBURGER TRAIN.....
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
... that women and men think differently. No, really. This study is a bunch of crap. HTH HAND ----- Proud Card Carrying Member of the "Decline to state party".
The biggest problem I see with this is that there is no definition for liberal or conservative. For all I know "liberal" respondants all had a college education and were bery keen on fast twitch activities, while all "conservative" respondants were born from 3rd generation incestious relationships and had no arms or legs.
Without knowing this, the whole thing comes off as, "We are right, you are wrong and we have broad generalizations of history to proove it. STFU!".
This is a very good point indeed.
However, the first split second is apt to be very important if we are talking about emotionally charged subjects, since emotional states tend to be refractory. Conservatives and liberals in the past have been able to cooperate on policies that have been hashed out at length between them; this is probably a good thing. It's the hot button issues that will always divide them most strongly.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Are you suggesting that Carter didn't? I know that a lot of conservatives hated his policies, rightly or wrongly, but his character is the best of any president in my lifetime. Seeing as how I was born in 1970, during the first Nixon administration, that's sort of damning with faint praise, of course. I think the funniest compliment/insult I've ever heard about Carter is that he makes such a great former President that he should have skipped straight to that job.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
This is why America needs a third party.
.Interesting Ask Slashdot question?)
It is also why a study like this is a bunch of crap.
Everything is on a constantly changing continuum.
I've know people who have been staunch Democrats their entire lives only to turn Republican.
Did their brains change? Did the party's ideals change? Probably a little of both.
Also, how many people do you know who are apolitical?
Who say "Oh, I don't like either candidate so I just won't vote."
These are the people who need a new alternative.
Democratic. Republican. Either way the American people lose. The pendulum swings.
We vote on the issues no one can win.
Right wing Neo-Cons want to legislate morality, keep everything status quo, and allow large corporations to keep reaping obscene profits at the expense of American health and environment.
Left Wing Socialists want to wrap everyone in a protected government envelope where everyone celebrates politically correct diversity regardless of the reality for
the American people.
Moderates sit in the middle with varying degrees of common sense. We all know this is where the American people sit. This is why Candidates play to this group every election. Except candidates haven't as much this past election. Why? Because moderate voters AREN'T VOTING! Each party's candidates now play to their base during primaries then play to the undecided moderates. I know. Duh.
When your friend, family member or co worker wants to 'not vote', remind them there is another way.
A third party. Not the Libertarian party. Not the Green Party.
OK I know you might be thinking - [GO AHEAD HUMAN. THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY!]
It doesn't have to be a vote for Kang or Kodos.
We need an actual, viable third party that represents all the people who feel there is no alternative.
If enough people felt this way and formed a third party there would be enough people for it's own primary.
YMMV, but Unity '08 might be that possible option right now. YMMV, since they are '08' and don't appear to be in it for the long haul after presidential election.
(Hmmm. .
Come on, they used a "W". To any conservative a "W" is just a letter. To any Liberal, a "W" means "George W. Bush" to which they have an adrenaline rushed response to any mention or sight.
In fact, the study almost proves this fact. For both conservatives and liberals their reactions to the letter "M" were nearly identical. Liberals only excelled in targeting the letter "W".
We pretty much already know that Liberals are very good at targeting George "W".
Bah!
***
This is some of the worst science. Thankfully, it's anti-conservative therefore Slashdot will readily post it in it's slide away from a "science" log to a "politics" log.
... "Then you have the Slashdot brain. Never click on anything and lots of activity"
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
Just tell them that you're descended from Good King Wenceslas. If you're Czech, you probably are.
Also, tell them if they kick you out, you're taking their Budweiser with you. Never mind that America's idea of a Pilsner is watered down rat-piss, they don't have to know.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Now consider the science. "Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy." Excuse me? Where was there any measurement of brain circuits? These were just people pressing keys.
EEG readings have long been accepted as an accurate way to read brain activity. It doesn't suddenly become 'junk science' simply because you don't happen to like the results.
-FL
Relying on students in a small region who self-identify themselves politically without any control mechanism to place them politically and then extrapolating meaning from button presses in a single experiment doesn't seem to be scientific to me, the non-thinking conservative. It seems to be a shitty experiment good for grabbing a headline for left-wing circle-jerks.
"To work for libertarianism -- to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual -- used to be
>> Most people here assume just accepting new ideas at face value (which is all the study suggested) is a good thing.
That's really not what the study is saying. I worry about extrapolating this very preliminary study too far, but insofar as it says anything, it's saying something very different.
It isn't saying that liberals (whether critically or uncritically) integrate new findings into their worldview faster or more completely than conservatives. Instead, it may be indicating that the "conservative mind" is less on the lookout for information that defies its expectations. Of course, the experiment only covers a situation where a snap judgment is required.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Doesn't the UK have something similar? Anyway sounds way to much like "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" or "Deutsche Demokratische Republik"
To me if you don't call your group an accurate name you know you're up to no good.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Wow. Give that man a cigar! Freud would have dug into that one with both sets of claws. Lift that mask of sanity half an inch. . .
-FL
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
The reason is neatly explained in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, who once observed, "Hell is other people."
Although being French, it is possible he may be misinformed. Perhaps hell is simply other Frenchmen. On the other hand, as an American I can state that many of my countrymen could easily match the vilest of the French. Between the French and the Americans, It's a wonder that the rest of the world hasn't found a way to emigrate to a different planet.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, kinda, but that's largely the result of a media that generally has been manipulated by the right for the last 15-20 years and generally repeats conservative talking points and framing. Liberals have found it harder to frame issues than conservatives have.
Liberals are generally standing up for the more unpopular issues and aren't looking for things to be terrified of. I spend a fair amount of time debunking various inane "OMG! The US is about to be invaded by... {insert current bugbear here}" chain emails that are increasingly fanatical and insane (the latest involves a Mexican-Canadian overpass, that I thought was someone taking an old Onion story seriously until I did some Googling and found it all over the websites of the right. There is no logic, no sanity, no rationality to this "conspiracy" and yet right wingers the country over are trying to interpret all kinds of facts to fit it.)
Note, I'm not saying the left doesn't have its own insane conspiracy theories, it's just the left doesn't seem to have that same fear thing going. The left's has to do with the right being increasingly unhinged and manipulative to an extreme, whereas the right's has to do with actual invasions by groups that, in reality, pose little or no threat.
So the right is cowardly. Their use of framing, to portray Bush as some heroic figure, a "war president", to suggest the principle of "shoot first, ask questions later" is anything other than the response of an immature teen holding a gun while peeing in his pants, is how they get away with it. It is the confusion of using violence with the very often opposite principle of bravery.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
That had never occurred to me. By Jove I think you're right!
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"....no longer definitions of political ideology but epithets"
Not the first time it's happened.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
If we're unwilling to discuss the hot button issues, yes. But that works both ways. If you tend to latch on to any idea that comes your way (without discussion) youre completely subject to the whims of chance as to whether youre right or wrong. Basically, relying on an instant decision is fatally flawed in both cases. Thats why experience is such a big deal in leadership situations - sometimes mental muscle memory will override your natural biological reactions in split second scenarios.
The US had all ready labeled the French as cowards way before they disagreed with our policy. April 30, 1995 Groundskeeper Willie "Bonjourrrrr, yah cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys!"
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
I agree that we need a viable 3rd party. Neither of the Big 2 are worth anything. I voted Libertarian in 2004, but I'm not really comfortable with their pro-business stance. I'd like a party that really IS for smaller government, but realizes that some government is needed to keep corporations in check.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
It's true. It seems like the left wants to give you SOMETHING for nothing, and the right wants to give you something for NOTHING.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Personally, I find I'm much more welcomed and treated with respect here in Shanghai than amongst most places in Seattle, WA...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Okay, all jokes aside:
Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.Isn't the first sentence pretty much the DEFINITION of conservative vs liberal? So what's surprising? Even so, I think they made a mistake in using too homogeneous a pool of participants:
Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative."At college age, most people are just starting to form their own opinions about things and typically see the opinions they were taught at home as "conservative" and the new ones they are exposed to at school as "liberal". So yes, among college students, I would expect the "liberal" ones to be "more open to new ideas". But many college students change their positions at some point in their lives. Is that because the way their brain processes information changes? I think if the study was done on a wider age range they might get different results.
Another problem is the difference between the dictionary definition of liberal and conservative vs. the political definition. Like I said, being open to new ideas is one definition of "liberal", but it may have nothing to do with believing in specific "liberal" political ideas (especially since most of those ideas are not so new anymore). The latter meaning is probably what the students were referring to in identifying themselves as liberal or conservative.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
The really scary part is that it makes sense.
It would certainly explain why the world is blowing apart at the seams today. Muslims, Sunis. . ? What's the difference? --They all have brown skin and talk funny, so they must all be in it together. Bomb them all!
Only people who remain ignorant of the details believed that Iraq had anything to do with 9-11. Saddam was anti-Muslim on principal. He certainly wasn't about to give them guns. They might have threatened his leadership. But Bush is a monkey, so he kept punching that 'W' key without blinking.
Psychopaths need to be expunged from the world. This is probably why Bush is so anti-science. If we ever worked out a test for psychopathy, we could live in a paradise.
-FL
The Nobel Prize selection committees are whacked. They gave it to Carter, and not Gandhi???
Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform
This reminds me of the "scientific" studies back in the 1800s that were used to prove blacks were inferior to whites. Somehow I think political thought has more to do with upbringing and life experience than how our brains are wired.
That was 200+ years ago. Times change.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
How about a compromise? We Americans will agree to start calling it "maths" if you Brits will agree to say "went to college" instead of "went to university."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Of course, the experiment only covers a situation where a snap judgment is required.
Hence the next sentence I posted: The article did not in any way indicate that it tested what the evaluative processes that liberals vs conservatives go through before they integrate new ideas into their view of the world.
You said: Instead, it may be indicating that the "conservative mind" is less on the lookout for information that defies its expectations.
I disagree somewhat. I would consider myself conservative (kindof sortof), but I do good work in information and data analysis. It doesn't seem to be what the brain is on the lookout for, merely what path it takes on its way to further analysis. The study doesnt cover whether or not that information was accepted for further processing, just that it wasn't acted on immediately by conservatives.
The whole evolution of our species has revolved around our ability to create metaphoral/symbolic constructs above and beyond what our initial biological reaction would have us do...it would be really surprising to me if we found that 50% of the population couldn't accept new information easily vs just processed it differently.
When you say "sold out" are you being literal or figurative? If literal, do you have any evidence that they gave him any money? If figurative, how is it any different from the many ways that Reagan sold out? I had a friend from Nicaragua who told me a lot about what Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal cost him and his friends. I very deliberately stayed away from policies, because it's easy to misconstrue them.
As "incompetent" as you think he was, do you deny that Carter was the most wholesome president in the last 40 years (never divorced, no adultery, no Contra-gate-like scandals that I'm aware of) — or is your hatred of him too strong to admit that?Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Of course I do, and you mealy-mouthed apologists aren't fooling anyone by pretending that Stalin, HItler, and the rest of the twentieth-century butchers weren't socialists.
-jcr
If you weren't serious, I'd almost think that was funny in a brash way.
cat sig >
Republican != Conservative Democrat != Liberal
I think you are somewhat correct.
However I think that liberals in general are more fearful of life and thus seek security more. This does not mean they have more fear... they may have the same fear as a conservative. However if so then they have still a greater adversity to risk or at least a perceived greater adversity to risk... which might simply mean they are less confident.
Or, it may be that people with more assets tend to have more security via what they own so they can take more chances and hence would be seen as being more enterprenarial. One with little in the way of assets would be expected to shun risk and hence seek a safe haven.
If so - then one would expect all but the brightest students to tend towards liberal thinking. The brightest would be expected to have perhaps the most confidence and would tend to favour conservative thinking. However - this idea might not be supportable. Perhaps it is simply those with more wealth who tend to lean right.
It its related to intellectual ability, then would create a paradox. You see - in this senerio, say "B" students would be expected to seek out the safe government jobs first. "C" students and those who couldn't get these jobs would end in a blue collar occupations would be expected to seek union jobs as their next best way to ensure job security. None of these people would be expected to favour too many business oriented convervative ideas - right? "A" students? Well - would they tend towards the business world and be right leaning or would they tend toward research positions and be leftward leaning?
What of the other 1/2 of the population that a) never will get a government job and b) never will take a union job? That is a big chunk of the population. This chunk includes small businessmen. One would expect that the political leanings of this group would swing to the right... they want policies that would favour business growth and reward them for the risks they take.
So in the end... the liberal with his tendancy to find the safest type of job possible would then be expected to favour policies which tend to increase his perceived saftey net. The conservative, not being as likely to occupy the type of job held by liberals, should tend to favour the business oriented part of our economy and certainly not favour more rules and red tape. So it should be the conservative who favours the status quo.
One could believe that it is the desire for safety which leads the leftest thinking person to find the safest place to live out his life with the least amount of risk, and that such a person would favour even more government and more red tape. It would also make sense that the tree huggers of the world and those most afraid of silly ideas like global warming caused by CO2, would be drawn primarily from the ranks of the liberals.... why? Because these are perceived threats. Threats are seen as risks and the liberal doesn't like risk.
I wonder what percentage of liberals invest in the stock markets compared to conservatives and in what dollar amounts. What ever this number - the paradox is that those with more security have more freedom to take risk. In fact the chap with a booming business worth a great deal of money isn't taking much risk because he knows that if the investment fails he can try again another day. Its the guy without a safety net who takes the risk.
Most wealth in the western world is inherited. One should expect those with substantial inheritances to lean to conservative ideas.
I think what this means is that as wealth becomes more concentrated in the hands of fewer people that the result is the pendulum in the country should swing to the left. I think this also means that as the birth rates go up the pendulum should swing to the left. A high birth rate tends to make a greater percentage of the population poor because fewer resources are divided over more children.
Do these speculations make sense?
If so then old school catholic countries would be
See my response here (second to last para): http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=293603&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=20552799#20553161
"In much the same way that religious voters will tolerate massive corruption and sexual perversion from politicians who claim deep religious convictions (of the White Anglo Saxon Protestant variety only please)"
Huh?
20 years ago, a Democrat was busted having sex with a Congressional page. He was reelected a number of times, and retired.
Last year, a Republican was busted sending suggestive text messages to a page. The Republican leadership kicked him out summarily.
15 years ago, a Democrat was found to have been keeping house with a male prositute, who was turning tricks on the side in an apartment of Franks. He has been reelected a number of times since, and is still a sitting member of congress.
Now, a Republican has been caught soliciting a blowjob, and he is also being pressured to leave by the Republicans.
Now, WHO is more tolerant of sexual misconduct?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
For the people approving articles, do you have to post verbatum what the submitter sent you? We have had too many articles approved lately with bad summeries.
Most people here assume just accepting new ideas at face value (which is all the study suggested) is a good thing. The article did not in any way indicate that it tested what the evaluative processes that liberals vs conservatives go through before they integrate new ideas into their view of the world. That's a critical thing to know. Frankly, I want people in charge and those voting to have some initial skepticism and to analyze new ideas before they accept them. Just because you hear it or have an initial thought doesn't make it true or valid.
Yeah, but before you can think skeptically, you need to actually be able to read and understand the data available. If a person can't tell an M from a W, then how the heck can that person be expected to have any rational insights on M's and W's in order to know which is the best option?
Measuring new ideas carefully before accepting them is very important, I agree. But installing a leader who automatically filters out the fundamental possibility of even making a choice isn't a solution. It's the result of brain damage.
It's ridiculous to think that Liberal thinkers are somehow inferior because they have the ability to make choices. That's like saying, "I prefer to be color blind because I don't want to get distracted."
Though this is understandable to a degree. --You can't expect people who have a decreased capacity for choice to necessarily recognize the value of choice. In a world filled with blind people, the guy who can see is the one they think is nuts, because his behavior doesn't appear to make any sense.
-FL
And that means you support restrictions on immigration? I take it you didn't like your family that much...?
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
The situation is worse than that, and in my opinion is one of the reasons that it is practically impossible for a member of the Legislative Branch from running for President. Kerry didn't take a single issue and change his mind a couple of times. Rather what happened was that the issue in question was a rider which was tacked onto three different other bills. What Kerry did was to vote yay or nay on the actual bill and the rider was, well, just along for the ride. Kerry was not voting against sending body armor to the troops, he was voting against making the Bush tax cuts permanent, but someone with an agenda can take that vote and make it look like Kerry was giving the troops the middle finger.
Every single legislator who has ever voted on a bill has the same exact voting record if you're willing to dig for it. When you can tack arbitrary riders to other proposed bills that is the situation you get. If you take a bill proposed to aid war veterans and tack on a rider to club baby seals there simply is no good way to vote on that bill. You either hate veterans or you hate baby seals.
Which illustrates the difference between a liberal and a conservative nicely. A liberal wouldn't mind a study which examined the question "are liberals mentally impaired?" so long as it had sound methodology.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
-- I might be stupid, but you have to be good at something.
If we limit the scope to just college students, the research may still have some explanatory power. I've had the impression over the years that the smartest conservatives used to be liberals. If we consider that liberals may consider a broader range of possibilities and are more liable to change their minds, then it is not to surprising that some would end up adopting conservative positions when they are exposed to them at school. On the other hand, conservatives, who are stuck in a rut, are simply holding onto older liberal positions such as the idea that tyrants are are bad that are no longer contoversial. Their exposure to ideas in school can have little traction. They won't often notice when an idea is in conflict with their beliefs. So, the heart of the conservative intellectual ferment is supported by the conversion of liberals who find older liberal ideas more congenial than new liberal ideas. They have the strength of thier convictions rather than just the force of habit and thus exert greater influence on the foundations of conservatism. But, since the foundations of conservatism are fundementally inertia, that influence is likely to be small though they may discover broader justification for the older liberal concepts than these had initially.
--
Rethink solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html
Not like there isn't a constant glut of deep politics all over the web. Slashdot continues it's slide from geek/tech site to a political spam site.
CAN WE PLEASE STOP AND GET BACK TO GEEK/TECH/REAL SCIENCE.
If Slashdot continues to post crud like this they're going to give cracks a good name.
I WANT MY SLASHDOT BACK!!!!
No, but giving it a simple moment of your thought to see if it's worth it to go further into investigating this "new idea" is indeed a good thing.
True in many circumstances; perhaps even most. However, not necessarily universally true under all conditions.
The conservative response (stick with the old idea) is generally gets to be of more benefit if the cost of decision analysis is high (EG, an O(2^n) algorithm), the potential cost of an incorrect dismissal is low, and the potential benefit of the new idea is low. The modern era has been marked by large numbers of new ideas where the benefits have been high (allowing new capabilities for humanity, such as the ability to work with larger amounts of energy at higher thermodynamic efficiency) and relatively low risk in trying them (due to a comparatively large surplus production beyond that needed for subsistence-level survival), making liberalism advantageous. The liberal approach is also generally beneficial in highly dynamic conditions, where previously advantageous methods become ineffective, and the value of previous experience to predicting what is going to happen is low.
HOWEVER, in the full course of human history, this may be prove a brief (thousand year) atypical aberration in the state of things. In an essentially static society, with limited surpluses, and limited room for improvement, those who experiment are more likely to end up dead than rich; evolution tends to diminish such tendencies.
Given the still generally dynamic state of the present era, conservatism is an evolutionary legacy, and deserves a certain amount of mockery. If anything, we may face an even worse period of change, with the possible effects of global warming. On the other hand, we are also facing resource depletion; geologic deposits of oil are becoming rarer, and (abiogenesis kooks aside) will not become more common again — once changed, it will not change back. Barring the Singularity, we face the Limits to Growth.
Now, for a really depressing thought: in Larry Niven's short story "Limits" speculated on the effect human mortality has on our view of the universe. We seek limits, and push at them. The lightspeed limit. The limiting strength of materials. Godel's theorem, on the limits of perfectability of mathematics. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, limiting the amount of information one can have about a particle.
What if there is a fundamental, provable limit to intelligence?
In the really long haul, the conservatives may have the correct approach.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
The summary--particular the bit about Bush--is so laughably unprofessional that this can't be considered useful. It is simply a reflection of the childish, uber-simplistic mentality of the "researchers". If the results had come out differently, the more "progressive" participants would be lauded for their reluctance to accept everything at face value and for their tendency to challenge the orthodoxy.
/. for posting it.
In other words, it's crap, and shame on
Why do you think anything you just said has any bearing on illegal immigration?
Or are you so deluded by your lifetime of "being hated" that you automatically assume those people who decry illegal immigration must be "racist"?
It takes an exceptionally closed mind to presume that a denouncement of illegal immigration has anything at all to do with racism or jingoism.
Your bigotry and racism is showing, and you can't even see it.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Thank you for demonstrating so clearly the points made in the article! Great job, Mr. Conservative!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
That said,So it's OK if I commit crimes motivated by greed?
So you think that Reagan was able to secure the release of the hostages based purely off his stupendous foreign-relation skills within minutes of being sworn in? MacGuyver and Norris have got nothing on him!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
> Please don't start with the socialist thing. Americans do not know what "socialism"
> is and they've co-opted the word to use as an insult.
Stripped of True Believerhood:
Socialism: noun Political philosophy where charismatic leaders convince masses who barely know they're alive of the wisdom of why that particular charismatic leader should have massive power over everybody's life.
Or do I exaggerate? Before modding me down, please explain where the above is wrong.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The experiment: if one letter appears on the screen, hit a key. If another letter appears on the screen, don't hit a key.
The result: self-identified liberals accurately press or don't press the correct key. Self-identified conservatives do not accurately press the key.
The conclusion: liberals are more open-minded.
Wait...what?
Alternate conclusions:
* Liberals are more likely to continue to do boring things for praise (more likely: how many PhD and Masters' candidates are left-leaning?)
* Conservatives have a short attention span (also likely: watch Fox News)
Extrapolating brain function from keypresses (or lack thereof) is a stretch.
Kissinger and Arafat got Nobel prizes, too. That doesn't put Carter in very good company, does it now?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"Time was, 6% was considered full employment." - George Will
He was referring to pre-Reagan days. Now Democrats themselves get bent out of shape over 6% unemployment as everybody "knows" it should be sub-4%. Guess why? It wasn't just because Reagan "meant well, at least".
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a "flip-flopper" for changing his mind about the conflict. Maybe some people perceived Kerry as a flip fopper because he was caught on tape repeatedly saying ridiculous things like "I actually voted for the war before I voted against it". Maybe "scientists" and "researchers" shouldn't try to overreach and extrapolate individuals hitting an "M" and "W" and translate that into dubious conclusions about political results in order to placate their fellow partisans.
They also gave it to the Dalai Lama, and to Aung San Suu Kyi, so they're not always wrong. I tend to think of those prizes as political whims, unlike the prizes for the sciences.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
In my case, I want to enforce our immigration laws. (Though I recognize there are some tricky problems involved, particularly with how we deal with the children of illegal immigrants.) But I support making immigration easier. It takes too long & it's too expensive. I can't really blame illegal Mexican immigrants for bypassing the system; many people are in hard situations, and don't have good options.
is the Answer! Mathematical proofs of lower regret index scores and essays on why RV will save us all Here.
There are many futures and only one status quo. That is why conservatives mostly agree and radicals always argue.
--13 June, p. 133
From the book "Brian Eno, A Year, with Swollen Appendices (diary and ruminations)"
This is some slashdotter's signature, and it's never been more appropriate.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
The study's authors also concluded that conservatives have less tolerance for ambiguity, a trait they say is exemplified when George Bush says things like, "Look, my job isn't to try to nuance. My job is to tell people what I think," and "I'm the decider." Those who think the world is highly dangerous and those with the greatest fear of death are the most likely to be conservative.
Liberals, on the other hand, are "more likely to see gray areas and reconcile seemingly conflicting information," says Jost. As a result, liberals like John Kerry, who see many sides to every issue, are portrayed as flip-floppers. "Whatever the cause, Bush and Kerry exemplify the cognitive styles we see in the research," says Jack Glaser, one of the study's authors, "Bush in appearing more rigid in his thinking and intolerant of uncertainty and ambiguity, and Kerry in appearing more open to ambiguity and to considering alternative positions."
Jost's meta-analysis sparked furious controversy. The House Republican Study Committee complained that the study's authors had received federal funds. George Will satirized it in his Washington Post column, and The National Review called it the "Conservatives Are Crazy" study. Jost and his colleagues point to the study's rigorous methodology. The study used political orientation as a dependent variable, meaning that where subjects fall on the political scale is computed from their own answers about whether they're liberal or conservative. Psychologists then compare factors such as fear of death and openness to new experiences, and seek statistically significant correlations. The findings are quintessentially empirical and difficult to dismiss as false. [flame suit: on]
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
"A researcher not affiliated with the study stated, liberals 'could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.'"
:p
Well, this is true by the very definitions of 'liberal' and 'conservative', but this axiom doesn't shed light on whether there are "brain differences". It contributes nothing to the article.
That said, there probably are "brain differences". Doesn't everything come down to chemical reactions anyway, which themselves are based on atomic and even sub-atomic reactions? Which would mean that Man has no "free will", but what can you do?.
More serously, from what I've experienced, "liberals" tend to be "smarter" than "conservatives". Not that they have a higher IQ, but liberals have a greater intellectual curiosity about the world and are more likely to approach matters from an intellectual standpoint than a "from-the-gut" standpoint (though doing such doesn't always lead to the "right" answer). Is it do to "brain differences"? Maybe. But it also could be due to environment (e.g. the influence of the parents (or guardians, whatever) that raised one as a child)). You know, the whole "nature vs nurture" thing.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Is being conservative a disability?
"Hating the French and Mexicans is high fashion among the Dixie Republicans and Midwesterners, I doubt they even know why. " Of course they don't know why. That would undermine the whole point. The reason they hate them is because they are told to, and they are told to because they find it reassuring, and therefore respond to the message, causing the media to be happy with the results of baiting them -- Feedback loop. The media get more reinforcement for this by politicians and corporations which find this useful. Hating someone else establishes an Us/Them relationship, and makes them feel a tighter Us bond. It also keeps them from blaming the people who actually took their jobs away and from listening to reasonable foreign policy opinions.
(BTW -- I've been to Madagascar, a former French-conquered country, and I think the French govt/corporation system is flat-out evil.)
It might even be long enough for a conservative to change his mind.
They don't even get articles up in a timely manner anymore--I've already seen everything on other sites by the time its on slashdot nowadays. Perhaps everyone is too busy reading DailyKos and Democratic Underground to do their jobs and get content up?
And yet you want them forced at gunpoint back into those hard situations?
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
In much the same way that religious voters will tolerate massive corruption and sexual perversion from politicians who claim deep religious convictions (of the White Anglo Saxon Protestant variety only please) .
Eh? I honestly don't know what you have in mind here. Can you name a name for me? Either for the massive corruption, or the sexual perversion?
When have religious voters tolerated corruption after it was made public? Don't the politicians in question usually resign in disgrace?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
How dare all those `Dixie Republicans and Midwesteners` generalize all who look/speak foreign to be of a certain origin?! It is outrageous; it is obvious that ll who make a generalized statement about a perceived group of people are idiots.
.sig? Get your own damn
Conservatives only react to stimuli like lower animals. Liberals think.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Studies like this are begging the question.
Also, the study may be immoral to do in a society where this will be spun and spun by the media...scientists do not have the unique privilege of ignoring the predictable consequences of their actions (however humble the researchers may be in their conclusions).
Beyond that, the world is not divided into "liberals" and "conservatives", however much people like Ann Coulter would like us to believe that. The liberal-->conservative spectrum of opinion in the U.S. is a very narrow one, certainly not representing my views or those of many people I know.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
lol, obviously the entire sentence is wrong! but you already knew that, didn't you? 1. political system of communal ownership: a political theory or system in which the means of production and distribution are controlled by the people and operated according to equity and fairness rather than market principles 2. movement based on socialism: a political movement based on principles of socialism, typically advocating an end to private property and to the exploitation of workers 3. stage between capitalism and communism: in Marxist theory, the stage after the proletarian revolution when a society is changing from capitalism to communism, marked by pay distributed according to work done rather than need taken from "http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861709575/socialism.html" just about every north & west european countries (& canada!) are social democracies or have socialist elements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy)
For nearly seven years, the W has been a bumper sticker in itself, with one version set in a classy serif face on a plain black field, and another version in fascist angular red white and black.
He should have chosen less loaded symbols, like SEX and TAX.
This "study" wouldn't, or shouldn't, pass in a sixth grade science class.
Do we have another Sokal affair here? Somebody just trying to find out if editors are asleep?
And something that bugs me is this constant denial that some people do, in fact, choose to fail.
.
Absolutely. Some people do choose to fail. And many have no other choice.
Being born into privelege gives you strong advantages over those not born into privelege. The system is not set up to give everyone a fair chance. Consider our education system: in many (if not most) cases, schools are funded by property tax. This translates into per-student funding in ratio to average income. This biases education in favor of upper-middle-class and above, leaving middle-class with an "average" education, and the poor with, well, poor education. This tends to reduce the opportunity of the poor, while favoring the rich.
Consider healthcare. Almost a third of Americans have essentially no health coverage. If someone gets cancer, they have no way to pay for treatment. This leads to others staying home to take care of them as they die.
I could go on about how the system is stacked against a *large* number of Americans, but why bother? I've seen how those with money don't care, and those without don't have the opportunity to make the choices to make a better life for themselves.
I think there should be numerous opportunities given to people to succeed . .
And that is the crux of the matter. Millions of people in the US are never given an opportunity to succeed, by any reasonable definition of "success." And the worst part is, the system is designed that way.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I'm Canadian. I remember Degaule's "Vive le Quebec Libre" speech in Quebec City.
[...] As far as I'm concerned, the French don't get half the ridicule that they deserve. No you don't remember that: that was in Montreal. You remember your hate of Quebec, your hate of their French ancestors, and you mingled the two.
But you don't actually base your hate on reality, you just pretend like you do.
Do you remember ever yelling "speak white!" to french speakers? That used to happen a lot... Because just speaking a different language from the majority makes one THAT easy a target of hate from people like you, just like being a different colour would.
You can pretend like the targets of your prejudiced hate deserve more hate, you can even hate an entire people for comments one of them made in the 60's, but they don't actually deserve your bile, you're just a racist with a lot of justifications and rationalizations.
And, seriously, "Long live free Quebec" is your reason for this hate? A desire for FREEDOM, of all things?
You hate them for their freedom, and you make that comment on this date? Good grief!
You can't take the sky from me...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
And yet you want them forced at gunpoint back into those hard situations?
1.) There are no simple answers.
2.) I honestly don't know the best way to handle people who are already here. It might work to simultaneously make the immigration process easier and then require illegal immigrants to go through it if they want to stay. Or something along those lines.
3.) By "hard situations", we're not talking about war-torn refugees, we're talking about lower standards of living. Depending on how low...possibly, yes.
4.) That their desire to bypass the system is understandable doesn't mean eliminating the system is the best thing. I sympathize with a poor man who steals food to improve his hungry family's situation, but my solution is not to make it effectively legal to do so--my solution is to ensure there are better ways for him to help his family. (And yes, to exercise discernment and mercy in the punishment.)
As per your "sig": My Sig spits 40 cal lead... You carry a .40 in Shanghai?
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Despite having lived in Atlanta for a number of years in the past, I was absolutely amazed to be subjected to this sort of hate.
Don't be. This sort of hate is being pushed from the highest levels of government as the latest distraction from a disintegrating economy, lack of a good health care system, an unwinnable war in the middle east, and the fact that our music sucks.
You, sir, are nothing more than a distraction from the real problems in America.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Have you ever been an American in France? At least many years ago, the French were all SO stuck up about how much better they were than the Americans - they wouldn't even speak to an American. I find that attitude all over Europe (outside of Britian and Scandinavia) - it is no surprise that Americans took offense to that when bloodied.
In fact, the real reason the French got upset was that we had always just ignored thier rantings before - but that time we were already pissed off and they were foolish enough to try to push us further, and we smacked them.
Sorry. We shouldn't have done that - but neither should you. Get over it.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
Your assumption of a .712 on some fictional absolute scale having to have the same stances as another who scored .712 is ridiculous. It's a matter of how many of your views tend to be liberal or conservative. It's not like if you're a little conservative, you're going to have the same stance on a particular conservative issue as someone else who is a little conservative.
Political leaning is a part of a human behavior. Everyone leans in one way or the other. Why is it so crazy that those who tend to lean towards one direction tend to think a certain way? True, maybe some time in the future political leanings will be more defined than just a 1 dimensional spectrum, but there will still be some similarities of those that shared the same side of the spectrum and that was the characteristic that was influencing this study.
On an off-topic note, more than two parties is dangerous because you run the risk of the majority of people not voting for the winner. If you have candidates x, y, & z where y & z share a lot of similar views except one, you can get a situation where 3/5 of the population are split amongst those two. Now, 2/5 of the votes went to x, which 3/5(obviously) of the population did not vote for, but even so, he got more votes than the other two (the other two both getting 3/10 of the vote, whereas (if you can't do math) he got 4/10). That's why more than two political parties is illogical. You can get a winner who can possibly share no views with the majority of the population.
I think its interesting that a pattern emerged amongst those who tend to think one way as opposed to another. It's not bad science. It's noticing a pattern. That's all. You could very well be an outlier who doesn't fit their model, but that doesn't mean their study lacks any merit.
You realize all this study is saying is that those who define themselves as liberals/conservative tend to share a similar way of thinking as others who label themselves as liberals/conservatives. At what point does this all of the sudden become A) that surprising, and B) that upsetting?
I regret to inform you that you were objects of ridicule for long before that.
Ummm. I don't think Americans really understand the French that well. Try being a Brit in France and you get treated in a very similar way. Also you didn't really slap the French. They are disliked by pretty much the rest of Europe. Ask a Brit, ask a German, ask (especially a Flemish) Belgian. The French generally dont care at all what other nations think of them.
I did not say Stalinists and I absolutely did not mean Stalinists. I said Socialists and I meant Socialists. Socialists exist in every parliament in Europe and I believe they play an important counter part to the capitalists.
Please do not confuse the political concept of socialism with authoritarian mass murders. Also please note that the majority of candidates, of either party, for the 2008 United States presidential election are more authoritarian than libertarian.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Um, I would throw Reagan up there, but too many would complain.
So how about Eisenhower? Through the lens of history there we many great things Eisenhower did that still have impact today.
What is this "Brain" you speak of?
> Iran never attacked US sovereign territory.
Embassys are soverign territory of the guest country. This is an ancient and accepted rule of International Law. By attacking our embassy and seizing our nationals from said US territory, Iran did indeed commit an overt act of war. Had we been inclined we could have declared a formal state of War over the incident and been 100% compliant with all International Law and the UN would have had to just sit on the sidelines.
Personally, considering the chaos in Iran at the time I'd have cut them a small amount of slack. But once a new government was in place I'd have laid down the law, as in "Ok Khomanani[sp?] you say you are now in charge, so be it. Return our people or I swear to my God I'll have your head on a pointy stick. and your Allah won't be able to save you from my wrath."
Democrat delenda est
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
In the short term, in America, "right-wing" and "conservative" overlap.
In general, conservatism is an attempt to preserve existing state, liberalism an attempt to change it, or at least an openness to change. That people who are open to change are open to change is not a surprising result.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
What they fail to conclude is that conservatives have made a clear distinction between right and wrong before the time of conflict. This minimizes the time spent on the conflict and ensures sound judgment when conflict arises. Liberals live in a gray land that has not clear distinctions of right and wrong and therefor must waffle around with the decision when they should have already made it. It seems to me that the conservatives are far more efficient in conflict than liberals who can't make simple decisions.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
I'm not French.
. .
Despite having lived in Atlanta for a number of years in the past, I was absolutely amazed to be subjected to this sort of
hate.
All people are very closed minded, period. My coworker was a chemical engineer by training that started off in circuit board engineering and his dad owned a clothing factory. He's very anti globalization as he's seen many blue collar jobs get moved overseas. My girlfriend is a physical therapist from the Philippines. She worked for over a year in Newark at a clinic that got most of its business from ambulance chasers. As a result she dealt with a lot of poor minorities looking for large settlements. Guess what, she doesn't like illegal immigrants, or people that are on government entitlement programs, as these were the source of most of her stress. I grew up in Queens, and didn't drive until I was 23. Guess what, I'm a big fan of public transportation and urban living.
I happen to have been out of the USA, spent times in states beyond the North East seaboard, and know a little more about other cultures than most of my peers (many of which are New York Liberals that voted for Kerry). However, beyond that, I'm just as closed minded as anyone, including you. Xenophobia is a natural human trait.
BTW, I hate illegal immigration, having an insecure border, and the fact that it is so hard to come here legally for those that are qualified. I don't blame those that come illegally, but do believe we should enforce the laws, or totally open the borders. I'm in agreement with Newt's "English is the language of success in this country" views, but adamantly against having an official language in this country, as our founding fathers are against it. I don't hate the Mexican's, but do hate the French for the following reasons:
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Thus, the experimental universe was most likely to include moderately bright conservatives and brighter liberals. Had they instead chosen college-age people who were not in college, the experimental universe would probably have included conservatives of mediocre intelligence and liberals who were stupider. I think that in that case, the results would have been reversed.
Nonetheless, the results of the study were so strong that there does seem to be something meaningful happening. A better designed test with many more subjects and more dimensions of political beliefs would be enlightening. A downside of better knowledge in this area would be helping lying politicians to better fine-tune their messages.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
So in other words, Conservatives are more conservative in their thinking and Liberals think more liberally?
The reason Bush can stick to his positions so easily is that his positions amount to a pack of carefully packaged lies.
Take the Bush tax cuts for example. He wanted the tax cuts, and he wanted them slanted to favor the very rich. We know that much, if only because that's exactly what he got. But his position (lie) was (depending on the day):
. We're running huge surpluses far into the future. In that light, it's immoral to collect so much in taxes.
. We're in a recession, only tax cuts for will save the economy. (and only the *same* tax cuts for the rich that happen to be the least efficient at fighting a recession)
. I'm giving a few hundred dollars in cuts to lots of middle class families, so most of my tax cuts go to middle class families. (even though in total dollars most of the money goes to the top few percent by a huge margin)
. Taxes on dividends amount to immoral double-taxation (even though Corporations take enough deductions to never pay taxes on the money).
. Repealing the inheritance tax will save family farms that would otherwise be lost.
On any given day, Bush's position was for tax cuts. But his rationale was all over the map. Likewise, his rationale for invading Iraq was all over the map (i.e. he was lying). The only difference is the *real* rationale isn't quite (oil?) as obvious (oil?) when it comes to (oil?) Iraq.
I was listening to Bill Kristol the other day explaining how invading Iraq was *still* the right thing to do, because the sanctions were going to come off. What the interviewer neglected to ask him was "who was pushing for the sanctions to come off and why"? I never heard anybody publicly call for that, but I'll bet some big Oil patch donors wanted it. So what Bill really meant was Republican beneficiaries of Oil interests were unable to resist their benefactors' requests to remove the sanctions, so we needed to go to war to destroy the regime so it was safe to remove the sanctions.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
You're close, but you missed the mark.
America doesn't need a third party. America needs to stop officially sanctioning the party system. There's no point in bringing in other groups if they are automatically marginalized.
Cancel the primaries, legally destroy the GOP and the DNC, and start it all fresh, with people and ideas. Then things will work again.
Of course, that's about as likely as religion being real.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
There really wasn't anything wrong with Chamberlain's tactics, of course. The problem was his appalling ineptitude when it came to public relations. His actions were eminently practical and responsible, and showed that he really understood the threat posed by Germany. But since this means he clearly understood that the reprieve was likely to be brief, he really should have known better to go trumpeting "peace in our time." Putting a brave face on cold reality is one thing: irrational exuberance is something else entirely.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
Or do I exaggerate? Before modding me down, please explain where the above is wrong. So you're saying that the U.S. is a socialist country, right?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Personally I think it is better to learn to be open than closed.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
We have a proverb around here (translated) "you can become wise, but your only certainty is that you are getting old". Most people don't want to devaluate the value of experience, but getting OLD does not mean you are more WISE or more EXPERIENCED, and it is proved that your cognitive function deteriorate with age.
Most people when they get older , only get older and don't really learn from life, just as they did not learn from their youth when they got adult, or did not learn from their peer as adult. Furthermore there are exception : I knew a few people which were wiser than most old people when they were young/adult.
In my own experience, most old person don't become "wise" it is more than they don#t care anymore.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
American's don't know what socialism is because you got some people who insist that we are a democracy which couldn't be further from the truth. We are a socialist republic. We used to be just a republic until our government decided to turn itself into the nanny state.
I don't need "my government" to provide for me. I can do fine on my own. I just want my money back...
Gorkman
We always get the "things changed after 9/11" argument, which I can understand to a point. That may have made it more appealing to them to remove Saddam, faulty intelligence or not. However, it certainly didn't change the problems that Cheney talked about before. It didn't change the likely outcomes of an invasion one bit. So, I don't know how we could possibly have been so unprepared, but it certainly wasn't because they were blinded by optimism.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that thing Don Rumsfeld is the devil himself...or at least he was until he left. But what they couldn't tell me....none of them, in fact, was what he did _wrong_. There was nothing, in fact: just the media trying it's best to demonify each and every thing the Bush Adminsitration did. I got "He's not one of us" and "He's not American" and "I forgot", but clearly this was nothing more than programming.
Carl Rove: same thing. Tom DeLay, same thing. In fact almost each and every person, drawn to such passion as if to spit on me, just because I asked the question, couldn't respond with an answer.
Guys, they're selling it as "First Amemendment Radio" and "The Truth" and all that, but there are some things you need to know.
1. There are no "Neo-Cons". There is, and has always been only one kind of Conservative. Use of the word helps me spot 'bots' every time.
2. The Gulf War was shut down by the UN, who called George Senior, and was told "You're angering the Arab street" by killing their entire army in the pass....so Senior told Schwartzkopf to end the fighting....and that's where it lay, all the way through the Clinton Administration, with a cease-fire. However, Saddam fired 492 SAM missiles at our aircraft, any one of which could have restarted the war, but Clinton was a very 'don't rock the boat' kind of administration.
3. Yes, Oil was a big part of the war. But face it: without oil, we'd all live on farms. Because of oil, we get to live other lives, and the oil brings the food to us in various forms. Do you know how we stopped Hitler's armies? Not by hitting the factories, but by stopping the flow of oil to the Panzers. It will stop all of us, too, if it stops. There's nothing wrong with this. (Other than we're so dependent on it.)
4. Oil profits was not what the war was about; oil was cheaper when we didn't have to fight for it. Had we been 'French' about Saddam's rage against the common man, the mutilation and us looking the other way, fuel would have been cheaper. But stopping the man that could stop the flow of oil at competitive rates- that had to happen.
5. We didn't just go to war; our men sat in tanks that were 130 degrees out in the sun for EIGHT MONTHS getting 'permission' to go to war. And Senator Rockefellor went out to the Middle East, talking to, of all people, Saddam Hussien, saying "He's going to war; we're not gonna be able to stop him!" So what's so freakin' hard to understand that Saddam moved his NBC materials to Syria, where he sent his Foxbats, hoping to outlast the war? How is that so hard to believe, and instead we should think it was merely a lie? It wasn't a lie when Kerry, Hillary, Bill, dozens of other senators all said the same words, leading up to the attack on Saddam that never came....
6. No, not an inside job. You just can get 30-40 people to open holes in concrete, wrap retaining wires around structural parts of the building, planting dynamite, and have business go on inside, completely unaware. It would take weeks. To think this possible is just insane.
The power of this programming is so powerful that Sean Penn took himself all the way to Iraq and stand in front of weapons stashes, not school kids, to be a human shield. (He came home with his tail between his legs when he learned the truth...) And Rosie O'Donnell has screamed, "It's an inside job: fire doesn't melt steel!"
(But...is there anything *else* that melts steel?)
My point in this is that despite the Democratic National Committee and George Soros, they're trying to split us apart again. On 9/11 we were unified. But the DNC doesn't need us all being happy Americans- it needs Democratic voters. So, Bush became the terrorist, Saddam wasn't such a bad guy, and calling things a "failed policy" (while we've paid off most of the war debt AND cut the defecit by 50% at the same time) doesn't make it 'failed'. We're winning. And the Democrats had nothing to do with it, but get in the way.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
A lot of new ideas are just plain wrong. Accepting every new idea that comes along just because it's new throws out knowledge and wisdom that has properly withstood the test of time. I'd rather stick with what works, than fall for every new scam that comes along.
Keep an open mind, and a lot of garbage will be thrown into it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
"Ron Paul is the candidate that has made the most sense to me so far, and most consider him FAR right..."
Is that because he's the ONLY Republican candidate to not endorse preemptive nuclear strikes against Iran?
But seriously, I also wonder what they, or anyone, mean by conservative. Maybe if you have a big enough survey it washes out?
Take Ron Paul. He wants to abolish the EPA, IRS, Dept. of Education, etc. so clearly he is fiscally conservative. Bush and Reagan were liberals in that dept and we'll be paying for that for 50-100 years. All the Republican candidates are socially conservative, even on the Democratic side only one had the guts to support equality for gays (Kucinich). So, who is liberal or conservative and which issue proves it?
Then we have civil rights. Ron Paul seems to be the only Republican candidate who cares what the Constitution says about issues like torture and privacy. Is he a liberal? Or is not wanting to ignore/liberally-interpret the Constitution make you conservative? The ACLU likes to claim it's the most conservative group in the country...
Should I put gay marriage under civil right? What about anti-abortion vs anti-nationalizing-the-uterus?
The more you look at polarized politics the less sense it makes.
There was no winning that one. Had he not put on an exuberant face his bluff would have been called by the Reich and Britain would have been in Hitler's sights before they were ready.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Tapping a W when supposed to be tapping a M makes you "dumb?" What a fucking joke. If you ask me, anyone who can see how a W could be an M (but upside down) is MORE open minded, MORE creative. Someone capable of seeing both sides of an issue.
And this is a joke to "liberals 'could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas."
Come visit the San Francisco Bay Area. The liberals here just as intolerant and just has condeming as an conservative. Liberals here hate religion, refuse to accept science that conflicts with their beliefs, and refuse to accept that some lifestyles are OK even if they are undesirable.
Its more of a matter of who is the dominant group. Dominance demands conformity.
*
btw I am not a Republican if you were jumping to conclusions.
Scientists from NYU and UCLA have developed a new kind of science, where the conclusion comes first, then the research comes 2nd. When asked 'What if your conclusion is wrong?' they responded. We cannot be wrong, we are scientists!
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Right on. "Socialism" is at best an ad hoc concept, able to exclude "bad people" at will. Modern day socialists want to have their cake and eat it too: they want to separate themselves from Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, and all the other evil fuckheads while remaining committed to the collectivist moral ideals they espoused. When you've accepted that the rights of the individual may be trampled on for the sake of the group, the actual number of corpses is just a matter of details.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
There's your answer right there
Liberals disagree with christians so much precisely because christian ideology (well any religious ideology) is illiberal by definition. Religious ideology is about conforming to one particular view of the world.
As an example Galileo (died 1642) was only forgiven by the catholic church in 1992 for teaching the copernican heliocentric view of the solar system.
Oh well, 350 years to accept an observable fact isn't too bad on the evolutionary timescale. ;-)
America, Home of the Brave.
Could be that after 2000 years, we Christians are part of the Establishment, "The Man" that liberalism must cast down. New ideas, are alway superior to old, etc.
Or it could be because Christians believe in personal responsibility, accountability, salvation, and (gasp!) that there is a power higher than ourselves. Liberalism (in its modern stripe, anyway), subscribes to none of those ideas. It pushes government control in the Marxist mold and makes much of being a Victim, something Christians didn't go in for even when we were routinely being put into the Roman coliseum with lions.
Maybe all of the above.
The funny thing is, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and followers various other faiths also, by and large, believe in those things, yet liberalism seems to hate only Christians, while simpering at the feet of radical Islam and claiming its attacks are not because it is evil but because its victims. Go figure. Liberals claim to be about "tolerance" but are terribly intolerant of Christianity, while at the same time not only tolerating radical Islam and its atrocities, but blaming those atrocities on the victims rather than the perps.
This "war" (if you want to call it that) should have no other purpose than to ensure that the American people and territory are protected from further attack. (Admittedly, nothing we do in Iraq is going to affect that, so we should just bring the troops back home.) The Iraqi people weren't our problem to begin with, and if they weren't willing to seek freedom (or the mob rule we brought to the place) on their own, it's not our prerogative to hand it to them.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
I've wondered about the same issue, but I think it's a question of misidentification more than anything else. If you look at "Progressive" blogs - DailyKos, MyLeftWing, etc. - you'll find a significant portion of the posters who are quite happy to bash Christianity and Judaism while turning a blind eye towards Islamic fundamentalism.
I wouldn't say that those self-declared "Progressives" are actually "Liberals" - they remind me of the folks in the 1950's who would argue that Stalin was a great man. All purpose-activists who don't recognize their own hypocrisy.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Sorry man, after 2000 years you don't get to be 'new' anymore.
When it came to WWII, we really solved a problem we had created. If the US and the UK had been willing to back France and put real teeth in the Treaty of Versailles, a second world war wouldn't have happened in Europe. Instead, we let the Weimar politicians (and later Hitler) get away with bucking the treaty in both letter and spirit, the inevitable happened, and France (a victim of two previous wars of German agression in the last hundred years, and the top candidate for "bloody charnel house" in the third) said the equivalent of "Fuck you guys."
I will concede the point regarding Soviet aggression, however. I remember reading that the Soviets were contemplating an invasion of Western Europe as late as 1983, but backing off after the UK's strong showing in the Falklands.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
Your assumption of a .712 on some fictional absolute scale having to have the same stances as another who scored .712 is ridiculous.
I didn't say that. I used it as an example of what's wrong with the simplification. It's like using a "strawberry vs chocolate" metric to find out what you like to eat. Politics should be about taking stances on issues. Political marketing is about convincing you that it's all reducible to "us vs them", and that the only thing you should worry about is cheering your team or bashing the opponents.
It's a matter of how many of your views tend to be liberal or conservative. It's not like if you're a little conservative, you're going to have the same stance on a particular conservative issue as someone else who is a little conservative.
So you say there is a full "conservative" view and a full "liberal" view of the world, and that both of us can agree on what an ideal conservative and an ideal liberal would say on any topic?. That's plain wrong. Hard problems do not have unique "left" and "right" viewpoints.
[...] Political leaning is a part of a human behavior. Everyone leans in one way or the other. Why is it so crazy that those who tend to lean towards one direction tend to think a certain way?
Because I think that oversimplifications are dangerous; and I do not think that the paper supports this particular generalization. I also think that "liberal" and "conservative" are moving targets, and to that extent are more like marketing brands than real products.
[...] On an off-topic note, more than two parties is dangerous because you run the risk of the majority of people not voting for the winner. If you have candidates x, y, & z where y & z share a lot of similar views except one, you can get a situation where 3/5 of the population are split amongst those two. Now, 2/5 of the votes went to x, which 3/5(obviously) of the population did not vote for, but even so, he got more votes than the other two (the other two both getting 3/10 of the vote, whereas (if you can't do math) he got 4/10). That's why more than two political parties is illogical. You can get a winner who can possibly share no views with the majority of the population.
You are describing a "winner takes all" approach. AFAIK, that's very rare. In my country, x&y would have to join forces, or x&z or y&z. Government requires 50% +1 support to be elected. If no agreement is reached, voting is repeated. There's a whole theory on voting out there, and it *is* possible to get multi-party democracies off the ground. In fact, most of the democracies of the world work that way (at least nominally; many are de-facto 2-party systems). Start by checking wipedia.
The bad part about only 2 parties is that you either vote for one, for another, or abstain. You always end up voting "lesser evils", and the system lives on. If there were credible contenders, with which alliances could be formed, you could vote for co-alligned "y" and thus transmit a message to "x" that yes, you are mostly co-aligned, but somehow pissed at them. If there's only "x" and "z", you'd have to either abstain or vote "z". Abstaining and voting blank (marginally better) are too similar, since there are too many ways to interpret what your goal was when doing so. Two-party systems also promote finding where the "middle ground" is and appealing to it (since that is what decides an election if you manage to get everybody nicely layed out in a 1-d spectrum). That gives you reactive, poll-driven politicians which have no real opinions, instead of active politicians who can stand for the ideas you voted them for.
[...]You realize all this study is saying is that those who define themselves as liberals/conservative tend to share a similar way of thinking as others who label themselves as liberals/conserva
Just a quick note, but we're not _all_ assholes. At least not to the degree you've seen.
Sorry about the crap you've had to endure.
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
More recently our butchers have been capitalists- No one called Saddam or Milosevic socialists, and the brutal genocides in Africa weren't done by socialists either. History is filled with butchers, killing people for political ideas, religious ideas, race, and profit. Sure, the Chinese are still killing dissenters, but they've pretty much gone capitalist now, and aren't butchering people by the millions, just thousands. The problem is with Totalitarian systems, not which type of system (Fascism, Theocracy, Monarchies, Communism, etc.) is being totalitarian. Even a democratic capitalist state could become a tyranny of the majority without protection for the rights of the minority. (If you don't believe me, check out the history of slavery in the U.S.) On the other hand, a democratic socialist state could be a decent place to live, as evidenced by the many European countries that are pretty socialist at this point.
People like George Orwell (who hated Stalin, Mao, and all the totalitarian madmen who controlled Communist States) still described themselves as socialists, specifically as democratic socialists. Plenty of Democrats in our modern age are socialist (or close enough). Certainly our current economic system is a mix of socialist and capitalist ideas, with plenty of government interference in the economy. Now, I personally think that less government interference is in my best interests, and the best interests of the country as a whole, but that doesn't mean the socialists don't have a few good points and ideas somewhere in their philosophy.
All I'm trying to say is that placing all socialists in the same category of butchers as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao is like saying all atheists are butchers, or all males are butchers. The problem isn't socialists, the problem is people who have the power to kill off everyone they find inconvenient.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
A good point I saw elsewhere about this article: Liberals are more likely to be women than conservatives are. Thus, a simple liberal/conservative split would probably introduce a sexual bias into the measurements, and there are major differences between how men and women process information. Was this test controlled for gender?
There are racial and social class drivers of political ideology as well... there's a number of potential problems with this test.
However as a non American I must ask what did you think of the treatment of the French. Who disagreed with US policy and have the American media and public ridicule them as a country of cowards and idiots.
:-)
:) ) I found this behavior fairly appalling.
Let me begin with it is really the French government and elites that many Americans have problems with, as is the case with many of those who have problems with the US. It is not simply the disagreement over Iraq. It is a persistent notion among French elites that it is France's role to oppose the US, as publicly admitted by the previous administration. While Americans understand France's desire to regain a position of respect and leadership in the world community, many find this particular strategy to be rather insulting given the American blood shed for France, twice. Competing on superior ideas would be one thing, riding anti-American sentiment is another. Given the results of the French presidential elections it seems that the French people were not too fond of anti-American elitists either.
The French government also lost moral credibility to Americans by continuing to arm Iraq after their use chemical weapons on civilians. The previous French government seemed to be "in bed" with Saddam. France's willingness to use lethal military force against Greenpeace - killing one member, but not Saddam, is the sort of hypocrisy many American's expect.
"The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Operation Satanic[1], was a special operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), carried out on July 10, 1985. It aimed to sink the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior, while she was docked in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, to prevent her from interfering in a nuclear test in Moruroa.
Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship. Two of the French agents were subsequently arrested by the New Zealand Police on passport fraud and immigration charges. Following questioning, they were subsequently charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder. As part of a plea bargain, they eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years, just over two of which they served.
The ensuing scandal resulted in the resignation of the French Defence Minister Charles Hernu, and the subject became so touchy that it was not until twenty years afterward that the personal responsibility of French President François Mitterrand was officially admitted."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/rainbow-warrior-bombing/spy-story
IIRC, France requested that their agents be allowed to complete their 10 year prison sentences in French territory. France violated the agreement and freed them soon after arrival.
Even tho I dont like the French(Ive had to work with them
I've worked with the French for many years. While Parisians have a certain reputation/stereotype, much like New Yorkers, I've had friendly business relationships with them. I had noticed that those from the country side were more willing to engage in off-time recreational activities. However these activities were predominantly outdoor activities and perhaps it was simply an urbanite thing.
While traveling in Paris, and only being able to speak a few words of French - poorly, I've always been treated very well. This includes fancy restaurants and random bars off the tourist tracks. I don't rule out good luck. However I keep in mind something I heard at a marketing seminar, people are three times more likely to share negative experiences compared to positive experiences.
I think what you perceive as hatred is simply an unwillingness to accept religious doctrine that was laid down 400 years ago as inviolate in a modern world. Not everyone that refuses to adopt your philosophy without question 'hates' you.
Have gnu, will travel.
- Sober or stoned
- Straight or gay
- Just got off a 12 hour shift or a living on a trust fund
- Athletically talented or clumsy as hell
- Man or woman
That they call this 'science' makes me want to quit my job and start selling cars..."Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
Assuming both c and l types can make the appropriate decision given enough time, we can then say the only time it really matters is under pressure.
,and only if, you see 'X', and yet, this is the test that c types did worse than l types.
I can not think of a situation that is more black and white than push the button if
Sadly, the real world only gets more complicated than this.
The entire left vs. right spectrum is an oversimplification of political beliefs. Everyone has been led to believe that you either have to be a liberal or conservative. There's a big difference between Bush's neo-conservatism and traditional conservatism. There's also a big difference between the present day liberals, who are a stone's throw away from being socialists, and the classic liberals.
I hate the generalization of all Democrats being Liberals and all Republicans being Conservatives. I am a democrat, I drive a car when I could easily bike to work, waste plenty of electricity, and still believe in personal responsibility (I'm not even going to get into that one). In other words, I'm not a Liberal, please don't call me one.
Both conservatives and liberals suffer from "If everyone just" disorder. (IEJD)
.. "if everyone just did this or if everyone just felt like that then the world would be a perfect." Sometimes people go so far as to use force to get people to do what they feel is "right".
For some reason people think
No! This is wrong. Everyone will not just think a certain way, they will not "see the light", they are not you and they will come to their own conclusions about things. I know this because I don't have this disorder.. I'm a Libertarian.
"What has always made a hell on earth has been that man has tried to make it his heaven."
~Friedrich Holderlin
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Also, your definition of "liberal" and mine are bound to be quite different; I happen to think it is a gross oversimplification, which fits nicely into a two-party system where many end up thinking there's only two possible stances on each subject (and furthermore, that the one espoused by their "team" is the right one). I think it is obvious that it would be more accurate to quiz people for key issues where "left" and "right" differ, and see where they actually end up when you map the answers to the scale. Or even better, try to correlate with particular stances on particular issues. Asking "conservative or liberal" when neither is clearly defined is, IMHO, flawed.
Kerry wasn't being a politician, he was being a pollitician. (as in poll) Change your day to day behavior to capture the most votes. He technique seems useless, seeing as he was not to be able to create a land slide victory over an ape like GW Bush, how sad for him.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
What I think is ironic about the entirety of this whole topic is the fact that one of the most critically liberal institutes in the US did the study, and then analyzed the data to reflect their own liberal dominance. But that isn't uncommon, if a liberal FEELS the world is flat, ITS FLAT. Liberals are morons, a complete zoid of logic.
The only mistake made was that they used the wrong titles. It should say, "Those Who Think They're Liberal" and "Those Who Think They're Conservative." That would fix most of the problems that you find in this study. The other problems would be fixed if you just didn't take the media's word on a study and interpreted the results yourself. The study boiled down to "People who chose A over B tend to think in format X. People who chose B over A tend to think in format Z." There's nothing wrong with a study like that.
This is just a study that found a pattern correlating the way certain people behave and think. The pattern may be part of some much more complex pattern and this is an extremely simple view, but its a pattern nonetheless. I'm sure there are error margins and everything. I'm sure not every liberal fit their model and not every conservative fit their model.
Having a problem with something doesn't necessarily make it wrong.
So if we know what the difference is between liberals and conservatives...
Does that mean we can finally fix the conservatives?
You're either dumb in that you've completely missed the meaning of my statements, or you're a disingenuous, lying asshole.
Either way, I don't see any reason to continue this thread any longer.
cat sig >
This is far from a test of intelligence people need to stop reading that into it. "They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W." So extreme liberals follow orders and are more naive than extreme conservatives. Extreme conservatives are more stubborn and traditional extreme liberals. Remember they are not testing moderates or even libertarian groups here, these are more dyed in the wool straight ticket people. The people who are interpreting only one side of this study are really showing their own level of intelligence.
Furthermore this study tell us nothing we didn't already know and works more at polarizing this country more than it does bringing any common sense to the world. Your tax dollars at work.
you made me laugh.
if i had a mod point you'd get it.
Read through all the user comments on the article... The vast majority of them are COCKSURE. It's a human tendency that we should try to overcome. Conservatives tend to exhibit this headlong stubbornness more so than liberals. But, it exists in all of us. "Don't let overconfidence consume THEE!" (+10 pts to whomever remembers what old Mac video game that quote is from) Quick thinking is rarely a sign of wisdom. I think wisdom and critical thinking are best measured by a person's ability to put on the brakes when they think they have formed a conclusion and continuously go back up their decision-tree to revisit assumptions. And, put their ego aside. No one likes to be wrong... just watch how angry I get when someone trolls this post.
"The funny thing is, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and followers various other faiths also, by and large, believe in those things, yet liberalism seems to hate only Christians, while simpering at the feet of radical Islam and claiming its attacks are not because it is evil but because its victims. Go figure. Liberals claim to be about "tolerance" but are terribly intolerant of Christianity, while at the same time not only tolerating radical Islam and its atrocities, but blaming those atrocities on the victims rather than the perps."
...What.
I'm sure Papa Bear has been able to conjure up a couple of examples of people who sympathize with radical Islam (and then labeled them as 'Liberals' because I guess everything that isn't conservative and godfearing is radical leftism to you people.) However, it's pretty dumb of you to claim that leftists hate Christians but give Muslims a free pass. It implies that you think a group of people are educated enough to be aware of history's countless atrocities committed in the name of the bible, but stupid enough to think it's okay to kill a few thousand civilians to satisfy your grievances which most of these victims weren't even aware of. Please.
Honestly? I'll be the loudest to admit that I'm intolerant of many forms of theism, Christianity included, because there are too many theist religions that are themselves intolerant by doctrine. Quite frankly, I'd argue that if theism and all theist texts and artifacts disappeared tomorrow, the only people who would start worshiping God(s) again would be the insane.
Could this difference be indicative of a human species difference (or more SciFic Physics/Reality)?
... I am better, I am christian ... my god is good ...). Central HSS personality characteristic is adelophobic (an irrational fear of the unknown). HSS requires exclusive mythology/dogma self-perception and self-centric reality/world definition for marginally sane (truth+lies) functionality, and there cannot be doubt/question. Favoring traditional views and values fixated with preventing change that would potentially introduce possibly uncontrollable unknowns. This may apply to many politicians today, but I would not consider a "Conservative" as HSS unless they are dogma fixated for mental and emotional stability, which is proof of their psychological disability. [Binary: 1-0, on-off, yes-no ...]
... It can or It cain't). Only real (no myth) repeatable results dispel dogma, dread, doubt and have value to life, purpose, and survival. Favoring traditional views and values (art, philosophy, myth/religion ...) by respecting and preserving culturally significant icons/objects for meaningful social functions and posterity inheritances. All unknowns are personal and community adventures for HSP endeavors seeking improvement. This may apply to far to few politicians today, but I would not consider a "Liberal" as HSP unless their mental and emotional stability are fixated on discovering the unknown, which is proof of their psychological ability to use change (the real fact of life) as a tool for enhancing the complete human-family/species condition. [Imaginary: -1sqrt-isqr, APES-Virtual, no-maybe-yes ...]
HomoSapien-Neanderthal (HSN): I never knew a HSN and cannot provide comment except to say that extinction implies something very obvious.
HomoSapien-Sapient (HSS): Limitless hindsight learning capability with strong conformist functionality. HSS is best at good social survival skills, and focusing on prevailing mythology spin/revisionist justification/validation (I am rich
HomoSapien-Prescient(HSP): Limited foresight and insight learning capability with strong iconoclast functionality. HSP is curious, and best at provoking questions/proposals for change/reform, open/tolerant to change/progress, and focusing on replicating and predicting real provable results (I is or I ain't
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
"Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W"
seeing as how we didn't vote for him either time, I would tend to agree.
(ba da bump)
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
actually, the tfa says nothing like that. It says liberals tolerate ambiguity better, and conservatives think in a more structured manner. Which is better (if at all) would depend on the situation.
I'm rather surprised that they didn't report what major the subjects were (it seems they were all UCLA/NYU college students). Various studies and common knowledge have shown that people in engineering and the hard sciences tend to be more conservative/libertarian than people in arts, social sciences, and the humanities. Of course, people in engineering/science also tend to think in a more structured manner, and I wouldn't be surprised if all the "conservatives" they had happened to be in the sciences.
Science/engineering aptitude might be an even better explanatory factor for their results than political perspective.
This is just bad science again. The major difference between an M and a W is that one has been spun around 180 degrees. They are the same symbol. This became an issue for me over the past year, as my 3 year old started reading. He would confuse "b", "d", "p", and "q". He would also confuse "6" and "9". Why? because he would look at the symbol and recognize it, irrelevant of it's orientation. This also means he can read a book whether it is upside down, sideways, or right side up. It also means that he is very good at puzzles. When he sees a puzzle piece, he sees it as it's shape. Not it's orientation.
Clear thinking is as much about disregarding the irrelevant, as it is about recognizing the relevant. Just play the "Why" game with a small child to find out why in the end you must disregard irrelevant information. The fact that conservatives pressed the button on W more often doesn't tell us anything useful. I can think of several reasons this could happen just off the top of:
*Conservatives recognize that M and W are the same shape, while the liberals don't.
*Conservatives act more out of habit than liberals.
*Conservatives have faster reaction times, so they are pressing the button before anyone can recognize the symbol
*Conservatives are slower to recognize the orientation of the symbol so they guess at the button in the amount of time the liberal recognizes it
*etc, etc, etc...
It is just as likely that liberals are easier to confuse and disorient. Thus, they used the confusion as an internal trigger to indicate when to press the button when the orientation changes, as it is that the conservatives couldn't tell the difference. If that is the case, it is actually the "liberals" that have the more rigid thinking, and inability to accept new ideas.
Of course, since that wouldn't fit with the "researchers" biases, it is not likely to be the explanation they use in their paper.
Lets not forget that peoples political affiliation is often influenced by community, and thus geography. This could also explain a difference in reaction time. Are people raised in a rural area more likely to be conservative, AND dismiss orientation than people raised in a large metropolitan area?
I find (via personal unscientific observation) that the whole liberal/conservative thing more often than not falls along the lines of what is best for the given person, or at least what they perceive is the best for them. If they believe that they have less than most people, they tend to be liberal, if they believe they have more, they tend to be conservative. More or less they tend to accept the philosophy that they believe would be likely to get them more personally. After all, if you really have and make much less than most people, then a more socialist system, which is associated with a liberal stance at least in the US, would be likely to get you more. More even distribution of wealth, which you'd be on the receiving end of. Likewise if you have and especially if you make a lot then a more free market system would let you keep more of that, and thus have more.
I think you are right that this is the fundamental reason behind the age divide. The older you are in general the more you are likely to have.
I really think this accounts for at least the economic part of ideology more often than people want to admit. They haven't thought through what they really think would work the best overall, in part because it is an exceedingly complex issue. Rather they take their personal situation and want to make it better, and as such project it to society at large and base their stance on that. It is more about greed than a genuinely well thought out belief in how to make things work better.
Often people argue that isn't true that a conservative (meaning in this case free market) view is greedy and a liberal (socialist) one is altruistic. However that is too simplistic. A "You keeps what's yours and only get what you earn," view is greedy coming from a billionaire, but not coming from someone earning minimum wage at McDonalds. When you have little saying "I may not have much, but I have what I've earned and that's all I'm due," is quite unselfish. In that situation it is actually greedy to say that things should be more evenly distributed so that you get more. Not wrong necessairily, just greedy. You want a system that will give you more, that is self serving.
I really think that political stance on economics very often simply comes down to what a person believes will help themselves the most.
I don't mean to troll here, but what exactly was the point of linking to the Wikipedia article about England? I didn't see the word "maths" anywhere on that page. So again, I'm just wondering how exactly that supports your argument. Is it common knowledge in England that people in England use the word? I've never heard anyone say "maths" nor had I seen anyone write it before I started reading /.
/. I never realized how much people enjoyed over using the phrase "order of magnitude". Now I read that phrase so often that I can't help but suspect this is all the work of Dr. Klahn and his fighting force of "extraordinary magnitude".
Then again, before I started reading
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
...asking Philip Morris to do a study on the health effects of smoking.
Seriously, there is a major academic freedom crisis on campuses across the country. If you aren't a 100% Marxist, they laugh at you, ruin you, humiliate you, and censor your work. I've been there. I know.
Yes, there are plenty of sheepish conservatives. There are plenty of sheepish liberals, too. Remember the MTV sheep and "B.J." Clinton in the 1990s? I'm sure there are plenty of conservatives who feel that wars for spreading democracy are justified. Despite the fact the Bush and his cronies are the furthest thing from "conservative" since FDR.
Personally, I'm an anarcho-capitalist, meaning that I want to hold the government accountable by allowing multiple competing governments. I'm conservative in that I favor smaller government and traditional Judeo-Christian values, yet I am liberal in that I favor radical political change and allowing people to make their own decisions about their lives and their values. Am I a sheep, or am I open to new ideas? Or am I just my own person?
Just my two cents.
Could this explain some of the so-called "media bias" - that the media leans left because the majority of successful media personnel must readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas?
You don't honestly think that Big Government, Big Bussiness, Big Religion, Tax and Spend Bush is a conservative do you?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
So the ultra-rich seek to nationalize the economy with themselves in control, that way they have total power and no longer have to worry about competition. Of course, the capitalists realize that if they admitted they were nationalizing the economy for their own benifit, that no one would go along with it - So they promote the idea that nationalization of the means of production is to "help the workers", or "protect the citizens", or "promote equality", or whatever people want to hear. These guys are the masters of advertising and marketing, so it isn't hard to get suckers to start believing it.
Teddy Roosevelt did but he wasn't a very conservative Republican.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
someone should moderate the f articles these dayz ...
Are you saying that intelligent people are naturally luckier than stupid people? That they have fewer morals (I guess this could be argued about both sides by the other side)? That more intelligent people are born rich? This can't be true. Luck is, well, not definable. And even if more children who are born to rich families that are intelligent as opposed to rich stupid families, that doesn't necessarily mean that their children will be intelligent.
In America, at least, people make their own luck for the most part, and virtually anyone can become successful if they work hard enough and make intelligent decisions. I know plenty of people who make more than they should if income equaled intelligence (me included). Conversely, plenty of my friends are extremely intelligent and choose to be teachers or nurses or in one case a construction worker because it makes them happy. I have no doubt that if the latter group wanted to be more financially successful, they could be. Being rich has very little to do with luck, being born "privileged", or having fewer morals. Intelligence and hard work are certainly much bigger factors.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
Perhaps conservatives dislike "ambiguity" because they desire logical rigor. Maybe conservative brains are wired to prefer consistency, while liberal brains "tolerate" contradictions and absurdities. Maybe.
Society is nothing but collaboration.
There's one more problem: The traffic is a demon spawn from hell.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Are you seriously comparing the Iraq war, a war of aggression(Iraq hasn't invaded anybody since we left) with the prelude to WWII(Hitler was invading left and right) and the American Revolution(after decades of salutary neglect the British sent in a bunch of Redcoats)? If that's not ignorance I don't know what is.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I think we're at about the same point as the UK: the only real decisions voters can make is to decide which side seems less corrupt at the moment. And, frankly, that's like trying to decide whether coal is blacker than oil.
First thing I said when I read the story summary was "kdawson must have posted this"
It's scary when I'm right.
(You can mark this as off-topic all you'd like. I'll still say this site is no place for this kind of political BS.)
Two sides of the same corrupt political machine that WILL NOT allow the existence of a viable third party!
Outside of third world banana republics and Communist dictatorships this kind of political repression and manipulation is unknown.
Vote for a THIRD party! Not the incestuous and utterly ridiculous "Two Party System" that only fools the elderly (80+) and the worlds stupidest electorate!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
He should have linked to this
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
As evidenced by a Google search of UK academic sites:
"math" site:.ac.uk vs "maths" site:.ac.uk.
Note how many site names are www.maths.___.ac.uk.
Comparing US edu sites:
"math" site:.edu vs "maths" site:.edu
Most are www.math._____.edu.
I have a difficult time believing that this comment was labeled "insightful."
Traditionally, conservatives are considered resistant to change and interested in maintaining the status quo. This notion is in league with the ideologies of most old (or older) individuals: it isn't a lack of "cognitive function" as much as it is the desire to maintain things as they were.
Besides, one needs to be very careful regarding studies that suggest one particular subset of the population is inferior in contrast to another. Remember what happened during the 1930s and 1940s... Jews were touted as inferior. Subscribing to the notion that those whose inherent ideologies--perhaps even their philosophical world view, interests, and so forth--are different from your own is dangerous.
He who has no
Interesting that you can take one single incident with some obviously racist people and extrapolate it to cover two whole countries.
I also wonder how you identified the political leanings of those people. Did you happen to see their voter registration cards while they were disparaging you? Or did you happen to engage them in a socio-poltiical discussion and graph their responses on a political spectrum?
Funny that you would take that one incident and condemn a whole region of people for it. Personally I would just condemn those people who said it. Thinking to yourself that everyone else in the whole midwest region thinks the same way as a few ignorant individuals you encountered smacks of bigotry itself, mixed with unhealthy doses of paranoia.
If I were to follow your methodology of thought I would call all black people racists. I even have a much better sample size. I have been mugged 3 times. I have been violently attacked by people I do not know and have never shared so much as a look with on 5 occasions. All of these transgressions were performed by black people and were accompanied by racial epithets like "Lets go kick the white boy's ass" or "I like your watch, honky, give it to me." Fortunately, somewhere along the way, I realized that individual people are responsible for their own actions. You can't blame their race, or where they are from, or how they talk, or what they look like.
It would do you well to attribute blame to those individuals who actually do you wrong and not to a whole subset of people. It makes you look less biased, bigoted, and hateful.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
You might be right...
I mean, they didn't even have the announcement of new iPods until it was all over the web. I think Slashdot was almost the last site I read to post about it.
What a reversal...
The truth is, if this is the trend than Slashdot will lose readers & advertisers. Some other site will be founded to take it's place.
Thanks for clarifying that you're pandering to provincialism. IMHO, that's just as bad as the douchebag who "corrected" you for using "maths" instead of "math."
Just because England is where the language originated doesn't make your particular dialect any more "correct" than any other dialect. English is a family of languages. I shouldn't need to point out that American English is in many ways a version of the language that was frozen in time -- many idioms that died out in the UK persisted in the colonies.
There's actually evidence to suggest that the spelling in England was changed sometime after the Mayflower set sail. Quite a long time, actually; please see this article, which states:So "maths" is a neologism here, and "math" is the older form.
This isn't much different from the history of the spelling (and pronunciation) of "aluminum" vs. "aluminium" -- Sir Humphry Davy settled on "aluminum" in 1812, and an anonymous contributor to a British journal objected to this because (paraphrasing) it didn't sound right. We actually used "aluminium" in America for quite some time, until the early 20th century. Kind of odd how we reverted to Davy's choice of spelling while the British insisted on keeping that extra syllable.
I guess I must be a hippy-dippy liberal, because it's times like these I just want to say, "Can't we all just get along?"
In case you didn't notice the line: THE CONSERVATIVES MADE MORE MISTAKES! The conservatives WERE WRONG! There's no two ways about this: the LIBERALS RESPONDED TO THE TASK AT HAND **CORRECTLY** WHILE THE CONSERVATIVES FAILED! Nobody is 'susceptible' to liberalism because of age -- and you're only susceptible to conservatism IF YOUR BRAIN STOPS BEING ABLE TO RECOGNIZE THE REALITIES IT IS PRESENTED WITH FOR WHAT THEY ARE and / or YOU BEING TO RESPOND INCORRECTLY. (Now, conservative and liberal are in need of defining in any discussion of the two. But, in general, we know what we're talking about here, and given those common-understanding definitions, what I wrote is true. And now we have the science to back it up. Bush is an idiot monkey sitting there banging on a keyboard while he's looking at a losing war, even though he was instructors [logic] to take a new tact. This is because, just like the subjects in the study, the Conservatives are UNABLE TO FOLLOW DIRECTIONS AND RESPOND ACCORDING TO THEM.)
"90% of psychological research is done with college students."
Source this please, because I know it's false and I'd like to watch you attempt it. ( you won't, you'll pretend you didn't see my post and avoid sourcing anything)
+5 insightful for a made up statistic...
I don't even have to read TFA to know it is flawed. A Republican and a Democrat are not the automatic equivalent of "Conservative" or "Liberal".
Actually one of the symptoms / characteristics of extremely low IQ (developmental disability) is rigid thinking. Job coaching DD clients is quite challenging, as once they get a concept in their heads it is extremely hard to dislodge, they fixate on it. Much like many conservatives I know. I'm just sayin'.
Granted, Kerry wasn't the best candidate. By far. But being able to reason out various thoughts and change your decisions if the situation merits it is a sign of intelligence
The same John Kerry who got worse grades than Bush at Yale? C'mon. Bush ain't no nuculur scientist, but "Kerry" and "intelligence" in the same sentence? Please, Kerry is merely as amoral and narcissistic as Bill Clinton, but with about half the IQ.
So when Kerry - in the same 24-hour period - went to an environmental group and bragged that he didn't own any SUVs (Theresa did, nice obfuscation), then went to a UAW rally and bragged about owning SUVs, that was intelligence? Seems to me it was the opposite of intelligence.
Of course, the greatest flip-flop of them all was starting his political career as an anti-war guy, telling the Senate that US GIs were all baby-killers akin to Ghengis Khan, then having the audacity to actually run on his war record 30 years later ("John Kerry reporting for duty"). And then complaining when the Swift Boat Veterans - still burning from his slander of Vietnam vets - pointed out his shameless political opportunism.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Wasn't it the Dems saying that all of those potential Gore votes were lost due to confusion over the ballot? I didn't hear conservatives making that argument.
I can push buttons way better than my liberal friends in PC games like Unreal Tournament 2004 and Battlefield 2. I am smarter, yay!
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
TFA is not about democrats and republicans. That's kdawson's bit.
I read a recent poll which showed that 40% of Repulicans NOW continues to believe that Sadam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attack on the USA.
I'm scared pantless that these people will be voing for the next president....
So a liberally biased newsrag reports on a study in which typing more accurately supposedly equates to a better understanding of the world in general? And this is news? Maybe it just means liberals should all be in the typing pool taking notes for conservatives. Maybe it means the self-described conservatives were more likely to daydream, or to think, "gee, this is a silly little exercise to study". Maybe it means liberals pay more attention to visual differences (maybe even like skin color, height, weight, age, etc).
I'm at a loss to follow how even if they prove that liberalism vs. conservatism is tied to visual acuity and fine motor skills that they go on to tie that to religion, politics, and social beliefs.
We still win- the last republican worth a damn was Teddy Roosevelt. And he left your party.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
To equate all the members of the opposition party with MoveOn.org, is rather ignorant, don't you think?
And why is it so many times someone hears something they don't like about USA, the response is, "Love it or Leave it". Maybe, just maybe it is your version of USA that is warped. But I'll tell you what, lets do this thing called, "voting" and the winner gets to decide how things are run. And, lets also have this other thing called, "Freedom of Speech".
And even if you don't Noam, it is healthy to read about other possibilities. But I guess that is exactly what this article is about.
Now back to the ad in question. If the General will only do interviews with Fox News, does that mean he does not trust the "liberal" media? And if so, then he has made a conscious decision on which political side of the fence he is on. Thus, he is now biased. Now MoveOn is as classless as they come, but they are still just as American as you or I.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Since I heard it on BBC, I've taken to calling it maths as well. Much less clumsy than mathematics.
I love reading different newspapers to see which articles are printed and how they are written. I enjoy reading the LA times daily, but I wonder what this story would look like if it was printed in the Salt Lake Tribune.
I'm just here for the sigs
I think the article makes quite a leap in judgment from the results to the conclusion. An undisclosed number of college students who identify themselves as "liberal" or "conservative" (whatever that means) took a hand-eye coordination test and the "liberals" won. ...somehow that means that George Bush is single minded and John Kerry, who had lower college grades than GWB, has a more intelligent and agile mind!? WTF!? I think the real morons are the people are providing the ridiculous analysis.
So, what was the breakout of gamers to non-gamers? Perhaps "conservative" students spend more time on school work while "liberals" spend more time playing games.
I wonder how the results might be different if this study had been done 30 or 40 years ago. Since the early 1980s the Republican party has consistently use cultural hot button issues to recruit "social conservatives" into voting for their candidates.
A typical mayor, governor, representative, or even president has limited (but not zero) ability to influence things like teaching of evolution, abortion, or prayer in schools. They do however have significant practical influence on economic or "pocketbook" issues. For a middle or lower class person to vote for republicans they must ignore their own economic interests and vote for emotional or non-rational issues. Since the republicans have been very successful in exploiting this dynamic in the last 30 years the party has gone from getting votes primarily from the affluent to getting votes from a wide economic cross section of people, but primarily from people who make decisions on a "gut" basis.
I suspect that the critical thinking bias has probably moved from one party to the other in the last 30 years but that the relative willingness to accept social change has been a consistent hallmark of the democrats.
-- QED
Funny that. Most people in South East England call it "maffs." Most people in the UK live in South East England... (or you might think so from the cultural media bias).
Stick Men
I'm fascinated by the number of posts saying this somehow shows conservatives are 'less smart' then liberals.
"M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter."
Let's take that for example. Now "W" is only shown 20% of the time, that means "M" is shown 80%. With 80% odds, it seems likely that "M" will be the next letter to show up. Maybe a conservative will go from his past experience to try and predict the letter will likely be an "M", thus getting ready to hit the space bar as soon as the letter appears. And maybe the liberal has to sit and analyze the situation every time the letter is displayed, not taking into account the past. Much like they seem to do politically. Who would be less intelligent in this circumstance? I would say neither, because learning from the past AND paying attention to the present are both important. Although using this reasoning I think you could formulate that the liberals are neglecting the past, and therefore are inherently dumber, because everyone can see the difference between a "W" and an "M" even the conservatives, but they are attempting for speed not as much accuracy. I don't believe that myself, but I'm saying that reasoning the other way around is completely possible.
Oh, and just having fun. The conservatives seem to think about the problem less and go with instinct. However, in the majority of the posts I've seen, the liberals are doing the same thing. Simply pointing out that they are intellectually superior without even thinking if this could mean anything else.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
then they should try being a conservative sometime.
I would have expected hard-core liberals to remove the W key from the keyboard altogether.
Colleges in the UK (outside of oxbridge) tend to be vocational establishments for adult learning. They aren't simply tertiary education organisations. To say one went to college would be inaccurate for the majority.
Deleted
Also I have never heard an economist call 6% full employment. Back in the Phillips curve days most people considered 4% full emplyment. Since the advent of the Cult of Friedman (and his NAIRU), nobody really talks about full employment.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
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I've got a request: can we start using the word "partisan" as an epithet - a curse word? As in "all the liberals and conservatives who always vote the party line, no matter what their representatives are doing are filthy traitorous non-thinking partisans".
Nathan's blog
Liberal parties are called Liberal parties in Commonwealth countries because capitalism was originally a liberal ideology, as opposed to the state-controlled merchantilist economies that preceded it. These were not socialist, but probably what you'd consider even more "capitalist"; government supporting particular large corporations for the purposes of consolidating power in the hands of the ruling elite of the nation in question. Free market capitalism arose as a part of the general liberal movement against government authority; that sort of pro-market attitude which was classically called liberalism is today also known as (surprise) "classical liberalism" or, in the United States, libertarianism. Newer movements have since co-opted the name "liberal" for themselves, despite promoting often illiberal agendas, and labeled the older liberal movement (accurately) "conservative"; though in the US at least, large portions of those classically liberal conservatives have somehow become entangled with the sort of authoritarian conservatives that the original liberalism was rebelling against.
Liberal and Conservative are not antonyms. "Liberal" just means in favor of liberty, and its antonym is "authoritarian". "Conservative" just means in favor of the status quo, and its antonym is "progressive". When liberal democracies first started arising out of the mire of medieval monarchies and aristocracies, the liberals were progressive, because the status quo was highly authoritarian, and so authoritarians were rightly called conservative. Thus the terms "liberal" and "conservative" functioned like antonyms for a time; but only because the liberals happened to be the new guys (the progressives) and the conservatives (the establishment) happened to be authoritarian.
Eventually the progressive liberals mostly won out, but the societies they built still weren't satisfactory for everyone (viz. the pitfalls of so-called "actually existing capitalism", as opposed to the peaceful, voluntarist, competitive free markets that classical liberal authors dreamt of). So new movements, mainly socialism, continued to push for further change, in many ways changing back away from liberal ideals to more authoritarian ones, just intending to use that authority more benevolently. But the terminology didn't keep up with that. The people pushing for more authority (to be used benevolently) still call themselves "liberals". Further confusing the issue is that in addition to the liberals who are now conservative in comparison to socialists, there are still also the old elitist authoritarians who are even more conservative - though I guess a more apt term for them would be "regressive", as they want to change many things back to how they used to be long ago. Still adding further confusion to the issue, in America at least, is that the "progressive" socialists and the "regressive" old conservatives have made enough headway by now that the people who originally called themselves "conservatives" (now more often called "libertarians"), wanting to keep this country liberal as it was founded, are now in many ways progressive, or even regressive; wanting to change things from the now-authoritarian status quo, back to the liberal way things used to be. And all of this hides the issue that both libertarians and authoritarians can be subdivided on the issue of egalitarianism (though the split between the old aristocratic authoritarians and the new socialist authoritarians hints at this).
I find that the simplest way to clear up all the confusion is to stop all the talk about progressive or conservative, as those terms are entirely time-relative and imply different things now than they did a hundred years ago, and have even less in common with what they implied two or three hundred years ago, even though the words literally *mean* the same thing in all those times (i.e. someone who is in fact [not self-labeled] conservative now holds an ideology very different from someone who was in fact conservative 100 years ago, because the status quo now is very
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
They only resign if they know they will be replaced by another Republican. If there is no viable Republican candidate to replace them, they will stay in office and scream bloody murder that they did nothing wrong.
Pooty tweet
First, an unattributed quote... and then, no egregiously bad analogy?
You're letting me down, man. A BadAnalogyGuy post without a bad analogy is like.. a car without one of those little hooky things for attaching car seats! Think of the children!!!!
Dude, hate is their culture. Get rid of the hate, and they'd be empty shells. Which would be an improvement, sure. I'm just saying... kinda a poor culture some folks got in this country.
Socialism is not an all or nothing idea. Just like democracy is not an all or nothing idea. What we have in the states is very far from true Greek Democracy(TM). Democracy is government by the people... literally by the people. It's a process of debate leading to consensus. The United States is a Democratic Republic... a representative government which uses aspects of democracy in choosing the representatives.
Also, there are aspects of socialism current in our country. Welfare and basic education are socialist ideals. Using tax payer money to provide public services is socialist at it's very core.
Socialism can be measured in degrees... just as democracy can. And no country in the world has actually pulled off what Marx and Engels outlined in the Communist Manifesto. They get to the revolution and get stuck at the military state phase and turn into dictatorships. They never actually reach the ideal of handing the government and the economy back to the people. They become oppressive socialist states.
The world should look to places like Scandinavia which successfully blend, capitalism, democracy via a representative government and a measure of socialism to create the highest quality of living in the world.
The world needs to stop thinking in these black and white terms about inherently utopian ideas that can never come to pass as written because people are inherently territorial, selfish and afraid. There is good to be found in Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, Democracy and Republicanism. Take the good and ignore the flawed.
As long as religion is kept out of the halls of government and officials work on the behalf of the people, the world could actually be a decent place to live in.
As long as government remains and old boys club where it is seen as a moneymaking career and not a civic duty... the world is in trouble.
Pooty tweet
What's interesting here is both the bashing and aligning that goes with politics and ideology. Ironically, neither "conservative" or "liberal" is really correct or useful on it's own. An ideally suited person would have characteristics of both:
1) On well established and understood principles, they would be conservative
-however
2) They would realize the limits of their own abilities and be open to new ideas discussions about how their established principles and views are incomplete, inaccurate, or otherwise require modification.
That's basically how a lot of science works, right? For example, Newtonian laws of physics are reasonably "conservative" and apply quite well in specific (well established) contexts. However, a real scientist has to be open to the ideas of Einstein; otherwise, they are simply limiting their own abilities.
Wouldn't it be better if we could learn the best from each other's ideology instead of creating a divide between the two?
Tellysavalliskojak Johnson, of Bartholomew, Illinois. He was born to a crack whore in a squalid apartment on fourth street. (His sister, Imaginemyjoy, also had no opportunity.)
There. I've named two.
Out of millions.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Hey hey, not so fast :-)
Thanks for clarifying that you're pandering to provincialism. IMHO, that's just as bad as the douchebag who "corrected" you for using "maths" instead of "math."
Just because England is where the language originated doesn't make your particular dialect any more "correct" than any other dialect.
By hinting at exactly which meaning of "native English" I was referring to, I was acknowledging that there are actually other meanings of that phrase that are equally valid—I wasn't saying that mine was more correct (and if it came across like that, I apologise!) Mathematics (pl.) originally denoted the mathematical sciences collectively, including geometry, astronomy, optics. Math is the Amer.Eng. shortening, attested from 1890; the British preference, maths is attested from 1911. So "maths" is a neologism here, and "math" is the older form.Who said anything about neologisms? I only said it was an Americanism—that is, a word or phrase commonly used in American English but not other dialects: nothing wrong with that (and after all, there are plenty of Britishisms; I usually discover this when my American friends start looking at me oddly after I've said something!). It's what makes language interesting :-).
(Though I'd dispute that that evidence is conclusive proof that "math" is older than "maths"—only that it survives older in print. It's entirely possible that at that time such shortenings were more acceptable in American publications than British ones—that sort of thing seems to come in and out of fashion periodically...)
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
Given a post both accusatory and pedantic, I feel you are neither "hippy-dippy", nor geniunely desire to "just get along"!
That's exactly what I was arguing. A good comparison is to the way many Brits hate how their government has been caving to the US government's demands, but that doesn't mean they hate Americans.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
So the answer to my question was "no"?
There are many kinds of math, hence maths. The field is known as "mathematics," not "mathematic." Growing up in the U.S., as a person who enjoys math (what I call it), I noticed a strong aversion to math among my peers: being smart was not cool. Hence, the tendency to lump all studies of mathematics into one simple term, "math." That's my theory, and I'm sticking with it.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
A Republican representative will not resign his/her post if the person choosing his/her replacement is a Democrat governor who will replace this person with a Democrat instead of a Republican. If there's a Republican governor in power, The Grand Ole Party has no problem throwing one of their own to the wolves.
So, sorry not to give you a "yes" or a "no", but you didn't ask that sort of a question.
Pooty tweet
Yeah, Ron Paul is a Libterarian running as a Republican which no doubt pisses of lots of Republicans because this guy is actually in support of personal freedoms... and wants to put his money where his mouth is in terms of smaller government, etc. I can't say I necessarily agree with Ron Paul, but I respect him for being a straight shooter even if he had to join a party other than his chosen one to get some visibility.
Pooty tweet
The yes-or-no question was "Can you name a name for me?"
You're going to make me do actual research while I'm goofing off at work? Where's the fun in that?
Pooty tweet
Conservatives more likely to be conservative! Liberals more likely to be liberal! Because of BRAINS! Fascinating stuff, really.
It's possible that 1994 Cheney believed what he was saying and, though some series of events, came to believe the claims made by 2003 Cheney. On March 16th, 2003, Cheney said the following on Meet the Press:
...I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with various groups and individuals, people who've devoted their lives from the outside to try and change things inside of Iraq. The read we get on the people of Iraq is there's no question but that they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.So maybe Cheney was convinced by Ahmed Chalabi and the other Iraqi exiles that, once Saddam was gone, they'd be there to come in and run things. What a seductive idea: replace Saddam with their own little puppet. Of course, Chalabi was feeding them a stream of lies, but they were the right lies.
Your basic claim (lifted straight from Jon Stewart, I might add
My ideals are liberal, but I'm a fiscal conservative. By this study, you and I are polar opposites, one of us is stupid and the other is lazy. I guess we have nothing in common and are destined to be enemies. Sorry. This works well for me as I've mentally noted the statistical chance of where we both stand on the issue of "the right to bear arms". Umm... You're not one of those pro-gun liberals, right? Right?!
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Assuming you're right (just for the sake of discussion), there's a huge difference between having farms of greater than 10 acres confiscated, and being hung up by your fingernails while your testicles are branded. That doesn't mean either of these things are right, but I'd much rather have my land confiscated. Giving funds to the Contras directly helped them torture citizens who were now being forced to choose between being tortured by the Sandanistas or being tortured by the Contras. Of course, there's also the little thing about it being illegal.
OK, now that I'm done assuming you're right, I'd also like to point out that you're wrong. During most of the Carter administration, Nicaragua was led by Somoza. In 1979, the Sandanistas came to power through violent means. If you want to read about Carter's role in this, check out Wikipedia. If you think Carter had Marxist sympathies, then you know nothing about the man.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I'm sorry, but this article fails on it's own premises. Following the argument to its logical conclusion requires accepting that conservatives have functioning minds, and that's obviously a fallacy. Sorry folks. The researchers have to go back to the drawing board.
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
[...]or why Liberals are a bunch of pansies that want to back out of a war we need to win and can win?
Ah, the problem there is, we won the war. Saddam Hussein and his republican guard have both been defeated. Right now, we're trying to win the peace. This is a much more difficult battle.
The two best historical examples of defeated countries being converted into peaceful democracies are Germany and Japan. Both countries had a powerfully homogenous, unified, nationalistic population; both countries had relatively strong pre-war economies; and both countries were subdued and pacified to the point where there would be negligable to no armed resistance by civilians. Compare it to Iraq today: Iraq is split into three factions, all of whom hate at least one of the other factions to the point of open warfare; the pre-war economy of Iraq was in tatters and had been since the Iran-Iraq war, before which Saddam Hussein actually did a great job of liberalising and modernising the country(Not that it matters, since that was the 1970s); The civilian armed resistance is far greater than the organized militia and army of the previous government.
The empires of France, Great Britain, and Spain all tell the story of what happens when you try to use force to suppress native people like that. Just a reminder, none of those empires are empires anymore.
As for why neither Democrats nor Republicans have real arguements, this is why. One fifth of Americans can't point out their own country on an unmarked world map. If you bring up a fact about WWII other than 'We kicked ass!' or 'Japan attacked us and we kicked ass!' or 'Hitler was evil and we kicked his ass!', you've just lost one fifth of the vote.
It's been a long time.
That's what it sounded to me like, anyways. ;)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Such a lovely comment ruined by bad html tags...
[...]or why Liberals are a bunch of pansies that want to back out of a war we need to win and can win?
Ah, the problem there is, we won the war. Saddam Hussein and his republican guard have both been defeated. Right now, we're trying to win the peace. This is a much more difficult battle.
The two best historical examples of defeated countries being converted into peaceful democracies are Germany and Japan. Both countries had a powerfully homogenous, unified, nationalistic population; both countries had relatively strong pre-war economies; and both countries were subdued and pacified to the point where there would be negligable to no armed resistance by civilians. Compare it to Iraq today: Iraq is split into three factions, all of whom hate at least one of the other factions to the point of open warfare; the pre-war economy of Iraq was in tatters and had been since the Iran-Iraq war, before which Saddam Hussein actually did a great job of liberalising and modernising the country(Not that it matters, since that was the 1970s); The civilian armed resistance is far greater than the organized militia and army of the previous government.
The empires of France, Great Britain, and Spain all tell the story of what happens when you try to use force to suppress native people like that. Just a reminder, none of those empires are empires anymore.
As for why neither Democrats nor Republicans have real arguements, this is why. One fifth of Americans can't point out their own country on an unmarked world map. If you bring up a fact about WWII other than 'We kicked ass!' or 'Japan attacked us and we kicked ass!' or 'Hitler was evil and we kicked his ass!', you've just lost one fifth of the vote.
It's been a long time.
If you honestly think that *any* president of the US doesn't spend a lot of time very carefully thinking about the cost of military adventures - especially the cost of lives on the soldiers - then you need a lot more help than what a Democrat in the White House can give you.
Apparently he didn't think the lives of our soldiers were important enough to tell the truth about why we were going to war. Instead he blatantly lied about intelligence coming from that region, and made inferences to terrorism that the evidence has never supported.
Just a thought.
It's been a long time.
DAMN YOU AUSTRIA-DWELLERS!
How the hell is a good, hard working hillbilly supposed to try to look intelligent and informed with more than one kind of dark skinned foreigner clogging the tubes?
Go to Mexico for probably the first time, then buy a house and fulfill the legal requirements for citizenship, then come back here, THEN GO BACK TO MEXICO, YOU DAMNED AMERICAN-AUSTRIAN CAMBODIAN SOON TO BE WETBACK!!!
I love it. It's a modern miracle that Americans wonder why the international community makes fun of them. Humour like that keeps my blood pressure low.
It's been a long time.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Actually, it's "maths" because it stands for "Mathematical Anti-Telharsic Harfatum Septomin".
It is true, I saw it in an educational video!
Look around you!
Pshaw! Blow off work. Arguments are more fun.
I watch the pre-election debates and I wonder how well this selection of Presidential hopefuls really represent the average American. They all seem very polarized whereas I am more center and, as you point out, so are many others I know. No single canidate really seems to embody my thoughts on issues as a whole and at times the debates seem to get downright stupid.
One example, in the New Hampshire debate among Republican canidates one of them (the guy from Colorado I think) was asked that if a US city had just been nuked and we'd captured some of the people responsible and they claimed other US cities were soon to be nuked also would the government be justified in using torture to obtain the information that could save millions of our citizens' lives. Of course he answered yes and was cut down for giving such an answer - that torture is never justified. That is just a bullshit question designed to cause argument. Not many of us are actually pro-torture but in this actually scenario would you really want our officials to waffle and just let millions of our friends and family die so that we wouldn't do something cruel? Of course not. Extreme situations call for extreme solutions. That doesn't mean we want to make a general policy that torture is okay. The other canidates that answered the politcally correct no torture under any circumstances answer all went down in my eyes because of that question though. Would I want to vote for someone that wouldn't do what was needed in such a situation? It's a stupid question that had no business being asked in that forum.
From the same debate, one of the canidates pointed out that part of the anti illegal immigrantion movement comes from racial fears. He was vilified for having said this although it's obviously true. He didn't say that all of this issue is racial - just some of it and that he didn't want to behave in a way that is inappropiate. Something needs to be done but it needs to be done in the right manner and for the right reasons. Evidently we're not ready to hear that kind of truth. If we can't be honest about what we're doing and why then how can we make the right choices? Do we just need someone to use as a scrapgoat for all our shortcomings?
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I would like to see how people who have switched political sides during their lifetimes would be handled.
But the real question is: will anyone read my post after 1000 posts in this thread?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Wouldn't there be more English speakers in China than the UK?
Shouldn't we ask them?
Or does it depend on who invented it?
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
How can you know their motivation?
I am 20 years old and I consider myself to be conservative. I don't think it is solely based on age nor the lack of processing information, but rather thinking it trough more thoroughly. Liberals tend to jump to new ideas without thinking them trough thoroughly. throughout history, you can see how this can spark revolution or spark failure. Sure, John Kerry agreed with everyone's points of view at the drop of a hat because he is a politician, but he is also more of a risk taker. Fundamentally, liberalism is about change and trying new things; while conservatism is about staying with proven concepts to limit the possibility of unforeseen problems. The war in Iraq is for a good logical reason; it was just poorly implemented and unplanned. Then of course we did not ask for terrorists to hijack our planes and crash them into innocent people.
...I get it.
Jeez. Enough already with the "studies".
It's "math" in Canada.
In 5 years, see who is still referencing this study, and who isn't, and then tell me who is open to changing views, and who locks into one view and sticks with it.
Who better to criticize war than a veteran? Nobody. But when thatsame veteran runs on that same war record 30 years later - after essentially calling everyone in that war baby killers, even admitting to committing atrocities himself - we've got a flip-flopping opportunist.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Did capitalism result in prosperity, strong middle class and trickle down effect the first few times it was applied? As I recall, it resulted in violent uprisings of pissed off workers?
Was democracy successful the first few times it was applied? The first democratic republics eventually elected dictators, and so did Germans in not so distant history.
Here are some things that are self evident
Well, said! In all sincerity, I applaud you, sir! :)
Pooty tweet
I always say 'Maths' as an abbreviation, or the longer words 'mathematics' and 'mathematical'.
You're right, I am an native English speaker and I was born in England.
Does it make any difference that 'mathematics' is one of my favourite subjects?
-Nivag
"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." The quote presumably falsely attributed to Churchill
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Germany has about 5 parties above the 2M voters watermark, many of which run local administrations. They can freely organize themselves into coalitions (that is, co-aligned parties can pool their votes together after an election) to achieve majorities when required. Voters have more choices, and there's not that many coalitions a party can enter unless it actually gets voted. Spain also has quite a few major parties. Don't want to vote for Socialist Party (social democrats in europe are like liberals in the US)? -- vote for the United Left party; they have similar goals and are likely to form a coalition if neither can rule by itself. Not that the system is perfect, but you do get slightly more "competition for ideas" and accountability than with a party system where minority parties don't get to play at all. There's lots of ways to organize a parliamentary democracy.
The actual study demonstrated that, for a given population (details on the selection of which were not provided), those that self-described themselves as liberals (whatever that label means) reacted differently to a situation (monitored by a certain measure of neural responses) than those that self-described themselves as conservatives. That part is "good science", though I may find it inconclusive. The bad part is where the study itself (from here) concludes that
Stronger conservatism (versus liberalism) was associated with less neurocognitive sensitivity to response conicts. At the behavioral level, conservatives were also more likely to make errors of commission.This is only true within the experimental population, conservatism and liberalism where asked (instead of "measured"), and the neurocognitive sensitivity can depend on a host of other factors (mostly dependent on the selection of the experimental population), which may better explain the differences between subject's reactions. This part I find wrong.
When you read it, you find this:
a study that found a pattern correlating the way certain people behave and think There may be a pattern that correlates the way people think and their "left vs right" positioning -- but I will refuse to understand that "conservatives just can't help being hard of head" (tempting though it would beThus, returning us to the topic of the article. ;)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I suppose in your world a lot of Jews themselves (the ones that have problems with Israeli foreign policy) are Jew-hating rednecks. Right?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Got a few fun toys at the Shanghai Gun Club... My .40 is in the US, though.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Fahrenheit. If it were Centigrade, he wouldn't be breathing, would he?
What a long, strange trip it's been.
I concede Eisenhower (after all he did warn us against the military-industrial complex), but Reagan _never_ meant well. He was an evil-hearted fucker who (when head honcho of the screen guild, kind of a union I guess) ratted out a lot of people suspected of being commies. Fuck him. I'm nearly as glad he's dead as Nixon.
I was aiming for drama, and pointing out the paucity of worthwhile Republicans.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
No. Not Reagan. Evil to the core. The only thing that distinguishes him from Nixon is that Nixon was a bit smarter.
Eisenhower was probably a decent man, but he didn't have the impact Lincoln did.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
You're either dumb
You claimed that I don't know what socialism is. I do know what it is, both in theory and in practice, and it is repugnant in both.
you're a disingenuous, lying asshole.
Funny, I was just thinking the very same thing about you. Socialists are misanthropes, and you can all go to hell. In fact, hell exists on earth, right now, and it's called North Korea.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
> liberals 'could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.'
Stated another way, they're less sceptical, less discerning, more gullible.
But more likely the study is just bunk.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
However, it seems that you're saying that these Jews are Jew-haters — just not rednecks.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
It's "maths" here in Australia, and I believe in New Zealand as well.
Besides, it's not one thing so "maths" makes more sense. Is anyone arguing that arithmetic and differential calculus and algebra are all the same branch of the philosophy of mathematics? They're distinct, but related, pieces, so the plural form makes sense.
We're a bit off topic here though...
Because of course they've got a real chance of winning.
(Note: I vote Liberal Democrat. I know I'm throwing my vote away)
Peter
According to the tests I took while in college (Purdue), I use the left and right side of my brain equally; and I am a Conservative. I work in a company in which 40% of the employees are artists, and the Conservative/Liberal split is almost 50/50. This study is initially flawed in that it assumes liberals and conservatives always follow the same left or right brain dominance, and that dominance on one side is somehow better than the other.
Stereotypically speaking, liberals tend to be right side dominant, and conservatives tend to be left side dominant. The left side of the brain is thought be logic driven, while the right side is creative driven. This shows another of the test's bias - it was a pattern recognition test, which focuses on the right side of the brain.
Try re-running the test with rapid fire logic and math questions and see the results.
What a silly study.
I am Slad.
I'm not for a second going to defend the decision to invade Iraq or excuse the lack of planning. It was almost certain to go badly and their inability to recognize this fact shows an unfathomably deep level of incompetence. I'm not, however, sure that it shows malice. Recklessness and callousness, almost certainly.
Isn't it simpler to assume that their positive thinking got the best of them than that they actually wanted to get us into a situation like this? I know what 1994 Cheney said, but keep in mind that he was defending the decision, made years earlier, not to invade Baghdad. It's possible that he had wanted to invade in 1991 and was showing public solidarity with his boss' decision.
The point of my blathering is that there's a real lesson here if we can extract it. The decision-making process can be quickly co-opted by groupthink if we only listen to people with the same ideology as ourselves. This applies to people with any political inclination, from the offices of power to the lowly message boards online.
They used 9/11 as one of the reasons for the invasion in the first place, but we've already lost a lot more soldiers and civilians than we lost on 9/11, and that doesn't even begin to touch the numbers of Iraqi civilians who've been killed by us and by the sectarian groups that have been running rampant since order broke down in the country. It's looking more and more like Cheney was right about Iraq flying apart. The three main factions will likely end up carving out their own pieces of the country with the support of other countries in the region, and the area will remain very volatile for a long time to come as they fight over land, religious sites and resources.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
...your arrogance sickens me.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Plus, it's wrong to torture people. It's against our word as a nation, and our constitution. If you want more examples of how our current administration is eroding our rights, just ask.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
communismn. a social theory that the common people should own all property and means of production.
socialismn. ownership of exploitable capital and means of production by the government, not by individuals or by private enterprise.
Webster Handy College Dictionary Third Edition, New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc. New York August p 629 1995 In practice, communism essentially requires that a country's entire economy be socialist; note that the only real definition for 'common people' is the community as a whole, which ultimately means government. Socialism was never, and will never, be about helping other people, but about stripping all people of the right to private property.