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Gene Found to Explain Repeated Mistakes
palegray.net writes "A December 6th article in Nature explores the relationship between a specific gene and those of us prone to repeatedly making the same mistakes. From the article: "Drug addicts, alcoholics and compulsive gamblers are known to be more likely than other people to have this genetic mutation ..." The gene results in the development of fewer D2 receptors in the brain, a condition which the study has shown leads to a lessened ability to learn from experience." So no complaining about dupes and typos: it's genetic!
When our society already has plenty of excuses to avoid personal responsibility (e.g. overdiagnosis of ADD to include kids who are just undiscipled), we give more ammunition to people who just don't want to try to get it right.
Just look at the ad state of the World. What we would need is people that can learn from other's mistakes, but what we have seems to be a majority that cannot even learn from their own.
Back on topic, I think this is very interesting reaearch. Dare one even hope for the possibility of a cure?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I think that having this repeated mistake poriblem directly causes you to want to tell others what to do. After all, you do not learn from giving bad advice or instructions either. Explains a lot in politics, religion and management. All these creers where you can be sucessful even after having repeatedly demonstrated bad judgement.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
But isn't this almost the definition of stupidity?
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The road called "genes" isn't the only one that can take you to Rome. There are plenty of others. If life was like a golf green, genes would be the contour and speed of the green. Learning, society and environment would be the skill of the golfer, the putter, the wind, etc.
American's hate all forms of government. We just hate ours the least. I doubt hating our government officials is a uniquely American phenomenon either. Perhaps our two party system makes it a bit more pronounced, but I find it hard to believe that no other country shows disdain for its leaders. Also hating ones leaders fits well into the belief that government is a necessary evil.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
We don't count on the politicians to be perfect. If you do, you'll inevitably be extremely disappointed, since they are people like other people. They'll look out for themselves just like most people do. Plus many of them love power. We count on that, and adjust our system in such ways that their self-interest will work in our favor.
There's no need to expect extraordinary idealism and then be surprised and despise them for being just like everybody. Expect them to be selfish and work with it.
I still wonder what you'd prefer instead.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
+1 insightful, buddy. But the average American confuses the system with the nation. Despise the system? Then you're being unpatriotic. Another built-in design problem is that as you say, we should change the system so that the politicians have checks and balances. But we can't do that; only the politicians can. This is a deep and serious design flaw.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
One of the best systems for checks and balances is the press, the media, checking on the politicians and reporting to the people. Of course this requires that a large proportion of the citizens be active, carefully choosing media that play this role faithfully, demanding that they do it well.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
The citizens themselves, outside this collusion, could solve this problem, by carefully choosing media that defend democracy, by guarding the guardians. The citizens could demand from the media that they perform this task with great care.
One very unfortunate part of the US system is the widespread belief that institutional checks and balances make sense and are sufficient. If instead you saw the media as crucial, you'd demand more from your media, and your media would see this as a selling argument.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Ok, let's look at that. The press discovers behavior X, for instance, voting themselves a raise constantly. Reports it to the people. The people have no method to control, punish or regulate this behavior. So the one thing the people can do is vote a politician out on the next cycle. This has to be done one at a time, because if you live in state A, you can't vote on the politician from state B. This also has to be done in the face of perceived good the politician has done in other areas for the locals. If successful, the political party, another entity the people have no power over, promptly provides a new candidate set with the same sets of inclinations, while rewarding the first politician with a lucrative seat on a thinktank or something similar for their service to the party. The people choose from this set, and we're right back where we started.
This is why the press doesn't work to police the system. The best it can do is knock off a politician here and there, but that has no significant effect on legislation or the behavior of the group because no law or other output from the group can be affected by the actions of any particular member. Remember: They're misbehaving as a group.
That's why we're getting laws that proclaim the Internet is a terrorist threat, the USAPATRIOT act (which very few legislators bothered to read), numerous unconstitutional laws, that's why the head of a committee very much responsible for affecting regulation of the Internet thought it was a "series of tubes", and so forth on the legislative front. There's no means for us to change any of that.
That's why pork and bill stuffing continues unabated; that's why PACs and corporations continue to purchase laws with money, sex, junkets, etc. on the manipulation front. That's why senators feel free to hardly ever show up in the senate when running for president or (fill in the blank) on the "duty" front. These things are blessed by the political parties, and that means that you will never have a candidate that doesn't support them, albeit tacitly.
Further, that's why the press feels free to try to manipulate the election process - because the only difference it will make is how responsive the system is to the corporations that own the press. So they're quite intent on getting the most corporate friendly candidate in there, it can affect their bottom line. Watch how they behave, and have been behaving, with regard to Ron Paul for a terrific current example of this kind of behavior. Poll manipulation, sidelining in debates, failure to mention in (otherwise) general coverage of the candidates... if you actually pay attention, it could hardly be more obvious. The problem is, and has been for quite some time, that paying attention doesn't solve the problem. We have no mechanism that can solve the problem; the system has evolved to lock us - the citizens - out.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
There's no need to expect extraordinary idealism and then be surprised and despise them for being just like everybody. Expect them to be selfish and work with it.
I still wonder what you'd prefer instead
Bitching about politicians is patriotic and an American birthright. If Jesus Christ were President, we would bitch about him too, and he'd never make it over 50% in the polls unless He bombed someone.
We know our form of government is the best and our country is the best, but, if we don't keep bitching about it, or trying to improve ourselves, then, we'll wind up as yet another nation that lost its purpose. Democrat, Republican, Conservative, or Liberal, alike, are all trying to put forth ideas to improve our country. If they didn't, and didn't fight about it, then, wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of Democracy?
This is my sig.
I'm doing my part to fix things. How about you?
We've pretty much run out of Flynn effect. IQ is predicted to drop a point or so each year based simply on who is having the kids. (IQ is not recentered, and thus not fixed at a mean of 100)
It won't keep up forever. It can't, because society can not be sustained with stupidity. Industry will eventually collapse. We're so interconnected these days that it will be a bit of a chain reaction.
In the coming disaster, survival will mean having all the old-style survival traits.
Look at the evolutionary pressure today. The big thing to overcome is birth control. It's unlikely that we will overcome birth control via body changes. Behavioral changes can do it though. The immediate effect is that stupid people are selected for. Long term though, it'll be people who just WANT lots of kids.
I think it's more infantile. Americans like as little government as possible over themselves, and as much as possible over other people. People resent being told that they can't add an addition to their house but are happy to force their neighbors to care for their lawns.
I don't see this kind of divided thinking in a lot of other countries. One thing about Americans is that they have a sort of egalitarian blindness - they assume that the differences between the people below them and themselves are based on a defect of character of those lower, while attributing differences between themselves and those above them in rank and status as either arbitrary or unfair. They want the government to enforce the differences between themselves and those they deem beneath them, but to leave them alone.