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Researchers Claim To Be Able To Determine Political Leaning By How Messy You Are
According to a study to be published in The Journal of Political Psychology, you can tell someone's political affiliation by looking at the condition of their offices and bedrooms. Conservatives tend to be neat and liberals love a mess. Researchers found that the bedrooms and offices of liberals tend to be colorful and full of books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia. Their conservative contemporaries, on the other hand, tend to surround themselves with calendars, postage stamps, laundry baskets, irons and sewing materials. Their bedrooms and offices are well lit and decorated with sports paraphernalia and flags — especially American ones. Sam Gosling, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, says these room cues are "behavioral residue." The findings are just the latest in a series of recent attempts to unearth politics in personality, the brain and DNA. I, for one, support a woman's right to clean.
Got books from Karl Marx, you might be a socialist, if you got book from Nozick or Ayn Rand you might be a liberal.
I should have taken sociology courses instead.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
It seems to make sense to me, conservatives in my view have always been about protecting and preserving the America's physical assets and wealth, where as liberals conversely tend to put ideals above the nation's power and prosperity.
and just for the record in case it matters to anyone. I tend to view myself a somewhat left leaning moderate.
the mess makes you!
Seriously though these kinds of analysis of political leaning toward behavior seem as silly as the easily startled tend to be more conservative.
How much of this do you folks in the Slashdot community out there really buy into?
ACK
The rest of the world dont use.
Trying to be social determinismts, you must use the most general and stereotypical easy deffinition, that's so broad contradictions don't got something to grab on.
On my course about writing papers, the lecturer warned us about using generalities.
This is beyond stupid.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
You know this is probably true because if you think about it, people leaning towards liberalism are more free spirited, going on vacation, listening to music, doing what makes them feel good, having the attitude of a college student, and whatever they have in their homes is going to reflect that. Conservatives are more about responsibility, working hard, living below your means, advancing your family, being proud of America, and what they put in their homes will also reflect that. In all this is an interesting study.
'cause we've sure left a bit of a mess around. But at the same time we've put the mess places we can't see it, and made our own order where we can. Kinda reminds me of skeletons. In closets.
"Researchers found that the bedrooms and offices of liberals tend to be ... full of books about ... feminism."
Really now? I totally would have expected the conservatives to be into feminism.
A comedy genius is born.
Conservatives surround themselves with irons? :looks around:
C'mon, is my web cam on? Nobody I've ever known surrounds themselves with irons.
I've got a messy desk, though I try to keep it organized every few days, I've got music on my drive from Flowing Waters to ragas to Beethoven to Miles Davis to trash pop, all my books are on shelves unless I'm using them, and, yes, I have an alligator head from Louisiana nearby, as well as a Voltron, but my workspace is well-lit and I have some postage stamps in this desk's hutch. No flags or sports memorabilia are in sight.
I suspect that my mess's characteristics don't fit their model because the Liberal/Conservative single-political-dimension model is wildly oversimplistic. Trying to draw any conclusions based on it is just going to give you bad ideas.
In the real world most people would think I'm a conservative, though people who actually know me would think I'm a Classical Liberal. I know, I'm off-axis, for shame.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
What does it mean if they're dimly lit and well decorated with drug paraphernalia?
As opposed to your boy hero who just nationalized the banks.
Boy Hero? Bush is not a conservative...socially yes (which is stupid) fiscally...not....so....much. Calling Bush a real conservative is about as realistic as their being a pro-Microsoft article on Slashdot followed by pro-Microsoft comments, completely unrealistic. But thanks for identifying yourself as a "liberal" who can't take a joke. Perhaps they should add that characteristic to the study
All sides have dirty hands in that, from the very beginning.
This meltdown has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans failing us. It has to do with the black-box government as a whole failing us.
Perhaps our representatives could, at some point, get back to the job of representing us.
It would get me exactly backwards! Sounds more like stereotyping than research.
Did they ask five whole people from each party? Wow. (I know they asked more than that). The way TFA reads makes me think they hand picked their participants. I'm very conservative and my house is still a mess, we have art supplies everywhere, we like to travel, I like folk, classic rock, and modern rock. This study sounds too specifically biased towards perceived stereotypes. And blinking! Wow! I'm glad to know I'm more easily startled. I just love articles that make one group of people sound more human and personable than another group that would otherwise be exactly the same. Maybe I just need to be a more timid, anal-retentive Windows user (as opposed to an outgoing, artsy, Mac user).
I'm not a huge fan of idle, but if we're going to get random crap, it might as well be interesting, random crap. This story isn't too bad - I guess.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
This sounds like pop psychology to me. Is this journal an "A pub?" Is it even a high B? Funny how the description was spun to make leftists look vital and engaging, while conservatives are portrayed as pedestrian or even boorish.
I'm a staunch small-L Libertarian (which to leftists is indistinguishable from a conservative) and my home is usually quite neat and tidy. But in most other respects the description of a "liberal" abode matches mine. My home is filled with books, music, art, musical instruments, nice furniture, and two cats. I suspect that if one of the people behind this supposed study were to enter my home, they'd assume I was a leftist, at least until they started peering over the titles on my bookshelf.
I will say this however, the leftists where I work do tend to be the most messy, even slovenly in some cases.
The way I see it, the way that someone deals with the environment under their control says a lot about them. If someone can't even manage to keep their own space functional, then how can they handle the other aspects of life? People who take responsibility for themselves tend to embrace ideas derived from the concept of personal responsibility. People who avoid taking responsibility for themselves will embrace ideas that downplay or go against the concept of personal responsibility. So it isn't surprising that people who can't manage to take responsibility for their own living and working spaces would be most likely to embrace a philosophy that tells them they shouldn't have to.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I wonder if:
1. younger people tend to have messier rooms than older people (age correlates with political identity)
2. military people tend to be neater than non-military people
3. poorer people tend to be messier than richer people (again, correlation)
I'd like to see the actual report when it comes out to see which variables they're controlling for.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
This means that people with messy rooms can be targetted for voter intimidation! Just wait until they can work out your leanings from the way you dress, that'll be so much fun at polling stations.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
You know you will be justified in calling them a fascist
Someone tagged that with "correlationisnotcausation." Yeah. Great. Really insightful there. Clearly no claim of causation was made, but it's important to remind us of that bumper-sticker bit of wisdom. Anything else? Can we get a "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag in there? Because really, something could ALWAYS unexpectedly go wrong. Maybe some more basic logic, like "adhominemattacksdontproveyourpoint?"
Yes, I promise you there are a lot more people looking for ways to call Obama an arab without actually calling him an arab. That's a dumber thing to research. There are people who are testing what is the best way to make large groups of schoolchildren believe in creationism, that's a dumber study. Nearly all market research provides us with more trivial insights into human nature than this. What colors make us want to buy laundry detergent is something that has far less impact than what makes us choose the course for the country.
The Obama Hope poster on the wall is also a dead giveaway that you're in a liberal's den.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
We could be discussing the discussion.
This space reserved for administrative use.
...don't clean house until after November 4. Please.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I guess this means I'm somewhere in the middle since my interests would indicate I'm a liberal but I have a tendency to want things neat and organized.
I have to say, it's quite obnoxious how utterly polarized politics has become in the US. It's basically all or nothing with too many people on both sides, to the point where a potentially sound idea is completely dismissed because it might have hints of being conservative or liberal. Instead of fixing existing systems too many people are intent on completely trashing it and replacing it with whatever conforms to their worldview. I don't even bother trying to discuss politics with some people I know because it results in them becoming openly hostile. They wont even take the time to consider my viewpoint and argue it. Instead I'm dismissed as a shill for one entity or another. The friends I do get into interesting discussions with are the ones who are legitimately moderate.
And this is amongst people who are somewhat informed, although some might draw all their news from one side of the aisle. Unfortunately, I encounter far too many people who don't know what the hell is going on beyond what they hear in sound bites. I find that overseas people seem to be better informed about politics. And their opinions seem to be more balanced. They seem inclined to side with parties based more on specific issues. And there's much less of this notion that one side has to take one stance on issues and the other side has to adopt the opposite stance.
What troubles me is that this is basically using science to reinforce stereotypes. Maybe someday someone will come along and tell us we can be cured of our political affiliations.
In complete opposition, one of my best friends, a fairly hardcore republican conservative, is the messiest person I know in life. Meanwhile, I am very liberal, independent and can't stand messes.
This article just blithely assumes personality traits are fixed at birth and then determine political beliefs, and makes essentially arbitrary value judgements on those traits.
Positive personality traits associated with liberalism (self-reliant, resilient, dominating and energetic) and negative ones attributed to conservatism (easily victimized or offended, indecisive, fearful and rigid) appear as young as nursery school-age kids--and correlate with those children's political beliefs in adulthood, according to a 20-year study published in 2006 in the Journal of Research in Personality. More recently, scientists linked the strength of a person's startle response to their political leanings: conservatives tended to scare easier, blinking harder than liberals when they heard a loud noise.
Now that thing about the startle response is interesting, especially because it's a simple enough trait that one can easily imagine it really is just genetics. On the other hand what's the point in describing personality traits as positive or negative here? Why not just say these traits were more common in liberals, and these over here were more common in conservatives? What purpose is served by mixing value judgements in with the attempted science like that? What kind of messed-up person describes 'dominating' as a positive trait in a political context, anyway?
what about the library of congress?
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
And that must be the result of being Libertarian!
I don't want Obama, I have convinced myself he is a socialist, which is fine, but I don't want that.
Errrrr, *gosh*, I don't really want McCain either. He's (R) but not a conservative. I'd trust his foreign policy, but his domestic policy would be some smarmy mish-mash of capitalist and socialist ideas that would get all fubar and result in just as much misery as I think Obama domestic policy would.
I learned much too late that I really, really, liked Ron Paul. *snuffed*
So now I'm thinking, Bob Barr? He seems like a reasonable second to Ron Paul, but I don't know if I care for his VP. I'd honestly rather have Palin in there.
Slashdot and Digg and all the high-tech Web 2.0 destinations are vibrant with Obama supporters, God love 'em. I wonder why these communities are so tilted that way?
To those folks, I'm still seeking an answer to a problem which has been troubling me throughout the campaign: All the nations' leaders who are in an adversarial relationship with us have publicly and openly voiced support for Obama, and continue to wish him well for the election. Is it possible to despise tyrants like Amadinejad and Chavez, but still root for an Obama victory alongside them? I keep asking myself what it is about Obama that makes dictators such as they want to give him their support? If Amadinejad comes to our United States and condemns the life all we Americans have worked so hard for (for generations) in front of the UN, and then proceeds to encourage us to vote for Obama, what exactly is the "change" which he's expecting to get? I am frightened at the prospect that in Obama, people like Mamoud and Hugo see someone whose governing policy is more aligned with theirs, and would push America in the directions which Iran and Venezuela have gone.
I think most of our fine and earnest citizens of Iranian and Venezuelan heritage would say that such an alignment and transformation would be a terrible thing, and would be in keeping with the values and opportunities which motivated them to come here and become fellow Americans (please speak up and don't let me speak for you).
I'm fiscally conservative, and socially libertarian. I don't approve of the actions our gov't has taken with respect to creating this crisis, or the actions now purported to try to solve it. Free markets and deregulation were not to blame, because the market was not free to start with. Subsidy distorted it and disconnected, for the financial segment, the risk-reward relationship of a naturally free, open, and transparent market. Mostly Dems inflated subsidy, and mostly Repubs removed "select" regulations and clouded transparency. Both types of manipulation are contra to a free market. Hopefully the damage will end up being minimal, but we are eerily following in lock-step with the fiscal and social game plans which took a devastating, but short-lived stock market downturn, and transformed it into a crushing depression.
I believe that as an American, you are free to do what you will in your own private life. Whatever lifestyle you choose. Tempered with personal responsibility and respect for your neighbors.
Freedom doesn't mean free-for-all, which is an ironic sort of tyranny in itself. The highest degrees of freedom carry also the highest responsibilities. I want the freedom to act in my own self-interests, and I accept the responsibility to do right by my neighbors when decided when, where, and how to enjoy any particular freedom. But I want it to be my choice.
Our modern popular culture I think realizes the responsibilities necessary to grab hold of, but increasingly does not want to shoulder its burdens. The rationalization is that less true freedom may not feel soo great, but abdicating the burden of responsibility more than makes up for that loss. That kind of carefree "feels" better. Or, so such the culture believes.
My wager, is that such is a fools bargain. Carefree != freedom. Is there a harm in trying it? Yes, I believe there is,
USNG: 14TPU4605
... because I don't fit their liberal living-space profile at all! Not even remotely. And I'm not even remotely conservative (I ridicule and despise tradition and ceremony for the sakes of themselves).
They should have included me in their little study. I would have been the fly in the statistical ointment.
does that mean most black people are messy?
at least those other studies were well done
this one is just propaganda.
I don't know about you, but...
did it take a researcher to discover this. Of course liberals are more open minded and love travel, ethnic foods and are bit messy. That's because their behaviour and thinking multitask, it doesn't mean they are dis-organized, it just means they have a lot to think about and not enough time to organize themselves, that's why they hire a conservative to that for them.
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I never knew that about myself. I must be one of the most extreme radicals I've ever met. Nevermind what I _believe_, nevermind that I'd have voted for Dan Quayle for President if he ever got the nomination, I must be a liberal, because my room and desk are extremely messy!
Either that, or there's a sociologist somewhere with entirely too much time on his hands.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Either way this upcoming election should mean the final retirement of the corrupt Nixon cronies that came with Bush. so you might see a return to the traditional party line instead of this stupid "child molesters for the family" type of hypocritical representation with one financial/sexual/security scandal after another. You need representatives that don't have hands out for bribes and don't have their hands in the pants of "pages" while telling everybody how Christian they are. Take a look at some overseas press to see how these "patriots" are actuallly ruining the declining reputation of the USA.
What fool tagged this with correlationisnotcausation? TFA and TFS don't suggest that messiness, or lack therefore, *causes* political views, only that they can predict it!
I, for one, support a woman's right to clean.
And I, for one, welcome our new woman's right to clean overlords.
Seriously, about TFA, I've got opposite results right in my immediate family. My oldest brother is conservative on many issues, particularly the economy, votes for the right (as opposed to left) political party every time, and you should see his so-called "organized mess" in his office and home office, which nobody is allowed to touch, stacks of papers all over the place, some of them collapsed, even.
Often, when I need some document, Firewire cable, software CD, you name it, half the time the man cannot find it, so much for his "system". Some times, he even calls me up to ask if I've got his stuff, my answer being invariably "no".
Therefore, I call BS on the article.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
I think a lot of people probably realise that the words "liberal" and "conservative" are rather simplistic labels and don't adequately express their views. The problem is knowing which words to use instead.
This website proposes a two dimension system (Left to Right, and Libertarian to Authoritarian). You can answer a series of questions to see where your ideals fit onto these axes, and there are some really interesting charts showing where various politicians and other famous and infamous people fit.
See http://www.politicalcompass.org/, read the introduction and click the "Take the test" link.
There's a page on the US Presidential Election 2008, here: http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008
maybe I should do a study to figure out whether they are morons or not.
I'm a total messy. My desk is cluttered at best and a complete disaster area when I've let it go for longer than a month without a tidy. The rest of my living space is much the same. To others it looks like a tornado hit a trailer park but to me it's quite functional. I'm all about function before form and I care more about how the space works for me, than how it looks to visitors. My kitchen is the exception to my mess as it's spotless and has nice clean open spaces in which to cook.
I'm a Lib that used to be a Repub. I have pretty much nothing on my walls these days and don't have any of the stuff mentioned in the article that would denote one part or the other, not in sufficient quality to be relevant to my political leanings anyway. But then again, as a Lib, I guess my setup really does reflect my leanings.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
So is it safe to say that in most of the western world outside of the US there are no tidy rooms? Would I find myself struck with culture shock if I traveled north to Canada and witnessed the disarray of most the homes and the bright colors? Let me make a note to stay far away from France and Germany as I'm likely to be buried in an avalanche of travel brochures. Have these researchers ever spent anytime in the deep south? I don't think I'd consider stacks of old cars in your front yard as tidy (though they are stacked!), but I bet they'll be voting Republican this November. The whole study seems to be looking for some stereotypical visual indicators where they probably only appear in a vocal minority. PS I'm a messy libertarian and my wife is a very neat liberal
* looks around his place *
I guess I'm Che Guevara.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
This makes for poor comparison. I won't disagree with you on the first part, but to say that liberals (and I shall assume that the Democratic Party is the defining political authority on liberalism) conversely enjoy freedom is a farce. Both conservatives and liberals alike enjoy freedom and in politics enjoy taking it away. My freedom was taken away with the Patriot Act, the ~$850 million bailout, industry regulation, use of my taxes to pay welfare, etc. All of these things have been supported by both liberals and conservatives to varying degrees. We can blame certain items more centrally on one or the other, but they both love to take away freedom.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
What if my books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia, are neatly stowed away in a well lit room?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Like many other research, this is just an example of someone who has a belief and only uses examples that support that belief to justify that belief, while ignoring everything else.
my wife is a neat freak and a raging liberal.
I'm extremely cluttered and a moderate.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Since my house looks like a tornado just struck. My wife and I used to clean up our kids' toys, but they would just scatter them around again so we stopped. (One is 5 so he could learn to clean up, but the other is only 17 months and won't know what "clean up" is for awhile.)
Then there's the dining room table that seems to be a magnet for miscellaneous junk. Old mail, my son's drawings, magazines, etc, all wind up there. Eventually, we clean it up, but it doesn't last.
The kitchen is no better. I try to stay on top of it but we don't have enough cabinet space. The cabinets wind up overflowing onto the counters and canvas bags (to avoid the paper/plastic decision) litter the ground.
We would love to clean up but working and taking care of two little ones leaves us tired at the end of the day. Once both boys are asleep, we have about 2 hours at most before we turn in. It is hard to do all of the cleaning (as well as all other household chores) during that time.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
My point, are the beginning of my post, was that is the recent, US-only, meaning of liberal. The older meaning, used by the rest of the English speaking world, says nothing about SUVs. It may say something about women's rights (they should have the same liberty as men, in all senses) and racism (ditto). A UK liberal says you are free to have your SUV provided you pay the true cost of owning it - which might put up the cost of gas to compensate for the pollution you create.
In the UK, "spreading the wealth around" is socialism, not liberalism. The two are different.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Except it works better in other countries, right now. Why doesn't it work so well in yours?
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
How do these people get funding?
It seems to me that you would need larger samples in more life/professional areas to draw reasonable conclusions. Could the tendency to be more or less organized also be attributable to one's profession or current life circumstance?
My room is full of trinkets and mementos, three guitars, a set of congas, clutter, and colorful trinkets from friends in other countries, and colorful gifts from friends who have traveled where I have not had the opportunity to go. You'll find evidence of my hobby of dabbling in foreign languages. You won't find a single American flag, sport poster, or banner, yet the majority of my political views are squarely conservative. While it is an interesting topic of study, the sample will need to be much larger, and the demographic divisors much more granular, before onclusions may be extended to the general population.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
If your first thought was gay, you're gay.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
... an empty bookshelf ...
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
I'm so glad political views have been reduced to house clutter. I thought we had bottomed out, but I was so, so wrong.
Liberals are "messy" as they say because they don't feel constrained by boundries, old social taboos based on archaic religions, and feel there exists an ideal future that can be reached for where everyone is equal and free and personkind cna evolve socially out of our tribalism and medieval mentality..
Of course, the way to achieve this enlightenment is to create a totalitarian single-party government that controls all aspects of personkind's lives and is economically fascist. When the freedoms have been attained there will, of course, no longer be need for such a governmental system and those in control of it will naturally give up power.
I'm a satanic clam.
You know you will be justified in calling them a fascist
The implication here being that Fascism arises from the Right. Unfortunately, all the real rights-infringing jack-boot legislation in the past 20 years seems to be coming from the Left: Laws dictating where you can smoke, what you can eat, what cars you can drive, which guns you can buy, what media you can record on which devices, etc. all seem to emanate from the Nanny-State Entertainment-Lobby First-Church-Of-Gaia Left Wingnuts. The Right Wing rights infringement has been pretty much beaten down, due in no small part to the derision it has experienced in the media.
<disclaimer>I am a republican.</disclaimer>
This article paints republicans as being stupid. Books and art are replaced with flags and calendars, and neither I nor any of my friends have calendars or flags on the wall in our house. Sounds like the researchers have an agenda of poisoning culture to view us as simple.
That's easy. Poorly designed electoral systems which lead to a 2 party duopoly. The U.S. needs massive electoral reform and the rise of some additional parties to diversify the real choices offered to voters. Having only 2 parties to choose from leads to voters having to choose the least corrupt party every time they vote, but the 2 party system makes it easy to subvert a large portion of voters by constantly campaigning against "the other guys". It's really just a big mess.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
FTA: "It's pleasurable for liberals to think more. They gravitate toward art, to things that are not as concrete," says Carney. "Conservatives have a need for order, for there not to be ambiguity. There you see that expressed by being more orderly, having more cleaning supplies, needing to have everything lined up and organized so that one feels one's environment is predictable and therefore safe."
Who wants to bet that the person who made that comment is a messy liberal? "Liberals like thinking"? Even if there is a strong correlation here, how does having more books mean you like thinking more. Maybe "liberals like reading" would have made more sense. Then they go on to make being neat sound bad -- like it's some obsessive need based on insecurity. As for myself, I'm a very messy conservative who reads a lot and likes art.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
My passionately liberal friends keep a very clean house.
My passionately conservative friends house is stark it is so clean and organized.
My conservative girlfriend's house used to be extremely neat but her newest job leaves her tired all the time and the house has suffered (getting her a roomba).
I am libertarian (fiscally conservative and socially liberal unlike modern "conservatives" who are socially conservative, pro-wealthy, and fiscally irresponsible). My house is frequently a wreck- but the roomba has helped me a ton.
I am not seeing a strong correlation but I do see some correlation.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Given that most recent studies have determined conservatives to be coward, violent and unadaptable as well as uncaring, and even kind of stupid, being messy doesn't seem that bad in comparison.
But... the future refused to change.
So you are orthodox Muslim?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
"In the UK, "spreading the wealth around" is socialism, not liberalism. The two are different."
BINGO!!!
and what we call "Conservatives" here are really neocons, which really means...come on now, help me out, starts with an "f" and ends with "ist"
We really should start using the appropriate terminology here. A rose by any other name and all...
When you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
The anarchist shoots first and asks questions later. Libertarians accept that there are legitimate functions for government, including police and courts.
I'll shoot anyone who doesn't draw this distinction.
Libertarianism virtually doesn't exist outside of the United States. 'Left anarchism' isn't libertarianism as it's most widely understood and defined. Just because a cat wears a label that says it's a dog, doesn't make it a dog.
I also find it hilarious how people conflate libertarianism and Objectivism. Ayn Rand hated libertarians, primarily because she made the same mistake that everybody and their dog makes about libertarianism: she failed to realize that it's not a philosophy. Libertarianism is and should be a simple system of government that only deals with matters of harm (physical or financial) between persons. It doesn't make value judgments about actions outside of that spectrum, because it's not the role of a libertarian government to say whether it is better or worse for an individual to devote their lives to curing cancer or jerking off to porn. Because libertarianism wouldn't take any kind of stand on what man should do (only what man shouldn't do), Ayn Rand thought it was a weak and spineless philosophy, consequently missing the point that it wasn't a philosophy in the first place.
As highly as I think of Ayn Rand, she basically doomed Objectivism when she said that anybody who didn't believe exactly as she did couldn't call themselves an Objectivist. (This is not hypocrisy in the context of my first paragraph. There are reasonable and unreasonable degrees of interpretive difference. Lutherans and Baptists have interpretive differences but they're both Christian. A muslim couldn't reasonably call himself a Christian even if he argued about the role Christ has in the Quran. It's a subjective matter of symantics to some extent.) Particularly ironic and inconsistent considering that she herself wrote about the value of evolving philosophies and the fallacy of the pursuit much less the attainment of perfection. This has resulted in stagnancy by design.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
next time your mother asks you to tidy your basement
There, fixed that for ya.
I actually prefer Anthem. The fact that it gets to the point faster allows me to push it off on interested people much more easily than the 3000 page Atlas Shrugged. American Libertarians believe in both economic and personal liberty, hence the root of the word.
You hate your job? There's a support group for that. It's called "everybody" and they meet at the bar. -Drew Carey.
What site is this? 250+ comments and nobody has mentioned the Mac==Liberal, PC==Conservative stereotype??
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
Outside the US, Libertarianism is a common term for Anarchism in general. When someone outside the US uses the term 'Libertarian' they mean something very different from what someone in the US means. Most anarchists outside the US are not of the capitalist/free market/individualist anarchist variety, they are left anarchists.
All anarchists, social and individualist, believe that government should be a simple system that only deals with harm. That is not the cause of the schism, that is the root of all anarchism. The schism is over two issues, first, what is property, and second, what is harm? Individualist anarchists advocate strong individual property rights and lax definitions of harm. By lax I mean, me using economic force to subjugate you is not harming you, it is helping you in individualist anarchist's eyes. If I weren't there to subjugate you financially, what would you eat? Social anarchists believe in democratic control of the means of production, and strict definitions of harm. We believe that people have a right to be free from financial subjugation, and that the only fair way to control the world's resources is through democratic control. One person or group asserting ownership of a natural resource amounts to stealing it from the rest of us.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
We used an interesting system here in London to pick our mayor: Your ballot has two columns - your first choice and your second choice. You can't vote for the same person in both.
The idea is that the votes from everyone's first column are totalled up. If nobody gets more than 50% of the vote, they eliminate all but the top two candidates. They then add to each candidate's total all of the votes for that candidate in the second column. The winner is the one with the highest total from both columns combined.
In practice what this means is that you vote in column 1 for the candidate you'd really prefer, even if he has no chance of winning. You vote in the column 2 for a candidate who has a realistic chance of winning and whom you don't mind too much.
Applied to the national elections in America, it would mean that the greens could all vote for Nader safe in the knowledge that it wouldn't result in a "lost vote" for the Democrats. And libertarians could vote for Paul.
The beauty of such a system is that the final result would be a better reflection of the electorate's will (Gore would have won, for instance), and the true extent of minority candidates' support would also be more obvious, so those candidates would have a bigger influence on the election - for instance, they might not fall foul of the 15% "viability" standard required to participate in the debates. And in the long run, it's just possible that a third party might break the stranglehold of the Dems and Reps.
Am I crazy, or is this idea worth exploring in America?
-- Note to Mods: There is a good reason there's no "-1 Disagree" option. --
Someone mod parent up. This is the must succinct and informed view of the left/right anarchism split I've -ever- seen on the internet. Although, I wouldn't use the term "subjugate" like he did (and he reveals his own bias doing so).
I would ask you, how is your "democratic control" any different from government? It seems more like mob rule to me.
Although, I wouldn't use the term "subjugate" like he did (and he reveals his own bias doing so).
Trolling. That part was pure troll, sometimes I just can't help myself. But I usually admit it when called on it :)
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This really scares me ..."Researchers found that the bedrooms and offices of liberals tend to be colorful and full of books about travel, ethnicity, feminism"
Just what we need, a bunch of liberal men reading books on feminism...
That disregards the value added by labor, and the legacy of fair exchange. Most natural resources require labor to extract, refine, transport, and manufacture, and if the people who currently possess them acquired them ethically and have put their labor into the process, how can they be ethically disenfranchised?
Not to mention that the whole concept of freedom and liberty fall apart when a group tries to exert more power than any individual within it has. If Joe can't appropriate Jack's land etc. because of whatever moral excuse he makes up for himself, then it doesn't matter if it's Joe and his mom, Joe and his neighborhood, or Joe and his whole country, any right that an individual doesn't have can't be made to exist magically by an increase in numbers.
Robert Nozick does a damn better job than I do of explaining the ethics of harm and property in the minimalist state.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Me (libertarian), and my family (all Republicans), keep very very very messy living spaces. Our rooms are, in general, decorated with dirty laundry, dirty dishes, computers, beds, dressers and occasionally curtains (sometimes windows accompanying these). We have racks and racks of books about various mechanical devices, several complete sets of various encyclopedias and religious books (along with various other fictional works). (In my own home, .. I have a kindle.)
So uh, no. I don't think this is even a little true, at least not in my experience. My only liberal relative keeps the cleanest house in the (hundreds strong) family.
If ownership of natural resources is predicated on adding value through labor, by what right does one add labor in the first place? Without adding the labor, one does not own the resource, therefore, one is stealing by adding one's labor to a resource one doesn't own.
Fair exchange? Is it fair exchange to hire a hit man to kill you? Is it fair exchange to hire a thief to steal your things? If I buy a bicycle from someone who stole it from you, to whom does the bike rightfully belong? Why is it fair exchange to purchase stolen land?
So, what moral excuse did Jack use to appropriate the land in the first place?
What happens when one individual wields more power through financial gamesmanship than any group can defend against?
No individual has any inherent rights. In fact, the concept of rights only exists in a social context. Without that context, one should more properly speak of power.
Rights derive from agreements between individuals. Specifically, rights come from an agreement to uphold and defend the right, and an agreement to punish those who would infringe the right. You can bleat on and on about your property rights, or your right to be free from attack, but without a group willing to back you up, or the power to defend yourself, your rights are meaningless to those who would take them from you.
What I'm hearing from you in regard to Nozick is, "I don't understand these ideas well enough to put them in my own words. I believe them because I like the consequences of believing them, not because I understand them." If you can't make the case yourself, you don't understand the concept, and I'm not going to go read someone you claim understands it better.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This is total BS I've seen people from both spectrums fit either side. I find it funny that the researchers leave out the alternatives. What about the people that think the neo-cons of the Republicans and the neo-socialist of the Democrats are all just power hungry whores that want to screw up this country with their asinine new world order ideology? We are probably just put in the social outcast section of the clean and dirty rooms.
Libertarianism in the US doesn't really equate to anarchism, quite the opposite, it's more like feudalism. Really you should differentiate libertarians (little 'l') as people who value individual liberty, from Libertarians, supporters of the US Libertarian Party who are really more interested in free trade.
As far as I can see, Libertarians are very much based on law and order, just a lack of government regulation over business interests. Libertarians are very dubiously libertarians, in that they very much believe in society and it's trappings that place limits on individual liberty, they just want reduced controls over business. They rely on the government, or their own power, to deal with those who do not live up to contracted terms. Many of the more well spoken Libertarians are wealthy, and would be the new royalty.
I consider myself a libertarian, but I want nothing to do with Libertarians. Corporations to me, are another form of government, one I can't elect. My viewpoint is that government exists to promote liberty for all individuals, and in so doing, must curtail some liberties for all individuals and other entities. Thus as a libertarian, I can't be much of an anarchist.
For example: I naively and unwittingly joined a corporation which has no-hire agreements with most companies that would hire me (in my industry, or not) in this area, I am not free to find a new employer (short of a long distance move), in spite of how many are out there. My individual liberty has been seriously compromised. Libertarians, however, may endorse this practice and would resent government interference here. I would get little support in my state in proposing a law to make this behavior illegal. My state (which normally votes republican), is very much Libertarian in philosophy.
And really, all of that is the trouble with Libertarians and libertarians. To quote Oliver Wendell Holmes "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins". Only one person can have true freedom. So the precise way in which you legislate liberty tends to migrate towards more mainstream politics and the false dichotomy we call the Democrats vs. Republicans. None of those parties adequately represents pretty much anyones position on anything, but they are more cohesive in philosophy than "libertarianism", however you define it. There is no liberty or Liberty to be had by either party, just lesser evils. Libertarianism (either type of L) really doesn't work as a political philosophy, so when an American calls themselves a [L|l]ibertarian I'm not sure what to make of them either.
Totally and 100% BS on both your post and the one that started this thread.
The writers of the studies are projecting their own biases.
It would be a great idea to explore (2nd choice, Instant Runoff, etc). But the system was rigged (maybe not rigged, but it certainly works out that way) to be a 2 party system a long time ago. Try convincing the 2 controlling parties who have something to lose that this would be a good idea.
Maybe this explains why I usually don't bother voting.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Did they even try? My conversative roommate and best friend at home both have rooms just as messy as mine. And my liberal boyfriend keeps his room compulsively clean.
Libertarianism as a structured philosophy makes no sense when you consider police, fire, and education.
Perosnally I don't feel that the fire department should only put out the burning homes of the wealthy.
Personally I don't want the wealthy to be the only ones with a police force.
Personally I think it's objectionable that only the wealthy would receive an education while the poor (for lack of funds, or caring) would never have their children educated.
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
I like how you can be so dismissive about my capacity because I can't fully regurgitate several chapters of complex concepts that somebody could give lectures on for weeks into a few digested paragraphs in a matter of minutes between all the other crap I have to work on all day. That's extremely condescending and disingenuous. It's one thing to counter the points within and understand limitations that should be assumed in good faith, and under other circumstances I might have found some time to offer a more coherent rebuttal when more pressing matters were out of the way, but your attitude gives no benefit of the doubt and no good faith. Probably stems directly from your low opinion of the value of individuals. In any case, I'm glad that such an early showing of your true colors has given me sufficient demonstration of your relative value that I can avoid any later significant effort in more detailed argument.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
You might want to read up on Anarchism. It is the total rejection of state. It's individualism in it's entirety with no group holding authority over any one person.
Bullish Machine Tzar
You might want to reread that article yourself, you will find that the schism between individualist and social anarchism that I mention is covered in depth there.
No group can hold authority unless the individual grants it to that group. Anarchism does not mean a total rejection of collective decision making and action. Under anarchism, 'the state' has a specific meaning, which is governance by force rather than governance by consent. Anarchism embraces governance by consent.
In fact, I am not aware of any branch of Anarchy outside of the street punk circle A variety that rejects all governance. Even the most hard core individualist anarchist acknowledges the need for some sort of collective decision making and governance, even if it is only a system of laws and mutual defense.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
Holy crap.
A well-thought-out and information post on Slashdot.
About POLITICS, no less.
HOLY CRAP! You're NOT NEW HERE?!
If this is indicitive of the beginnings of this site, I missed out :(
Learn about Photography Basics.
People tend to use the liberal, convervative labels too broadly IMO. Most of us vary depending on the issue I'd say. Maybe your socially liberal but fiscally conservative. You're pro-choice but against gay marriage. Hopefully we are all more complex and thoughtful than a simplistic liberal/conservative label. However I've noticed that if someone is indeed across the board conservative or across the board liberal they tend to be pretty close-minded an impervious to rational argument.
To be able to steal a resource it has to be owned. What you're describing is how acquisition of unowned resources work. Stealing requires ownership.
If you were serious with the above I suggest you don't skip the step where you show why a resource can't be unowned and/or read more about classical liberalism. If it was a troll then congratulations for reeling me in.
I didn't read the rest of the post due to the errors in the first paragraph. I'm not really interested in a debate until you acquire rudimentary knowledge of the subject you're trying to criticize.
I would, however, say that "democratic control" is mass subjugation. After going through elementary school and seeing how children gang up on individuals that are different I can't say I support democracy. Though, I suppose you might see things differently if you're one of the alpha males.
An unowned piece of land can be used by all people. After someone takes it, it can not be used by all people. By what right do they deny me the use of something I once could use? I was not a party to that agreement. That, to me, is tantamount to stealing.
Nice try at the ad-hominem though. I obviously understand the issue better than you do, you can't even refute a single point I brought up! I suggest you read up a little more, or, you know, try to actually debate the points rather than act like a condescending little shit.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Good point. I'm no alpha male, but no one ganged up on me. Probably because I went to gifted programs and everyone was a nerd.
It really is the stickiest point to all political systems. What do you do in the case where the majority is wrong or evil? The problem is not limited to democracy. Even in a strict libertarian free market system, people can gang up on others.
Consider this scenario under a pure free market system. What if I didn't like you, and I had a lot of money? What if I convinced everyone not to hire you, or to give you any food, or let you grow your own, or let you onto their land. "here's ten thousand dollars. Don't give MindlessAutomaton anything, let him die, starving, cold and alone."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Would you give that a break? Learn some history and see how countries with multiple fragmented parties work out. Hint: not well.
Your duopoly of parties reflects american politcal will: liberterian and way right of center (from a world perspctive).
meh
Nothing; however, it would not be unexpected if someone did something massively, completely wrong like went on a murdering spree of homosexuals or something.
Anyway, with a democracy it's still worse because you could be essentially forced to not help someone, instead of individuals choosing not to associate with someone.
Democracy also validates conformity and the bigotries of the masses. There's no real solution to anything, though; I mostly go through life knowing that people are shit and try to keep a low profile.
Having actually read the researcher's book(Snoop, and that is not an affiliate link, so click away.), I'd like to point out a thing or two that make me think this area of study is worthwhile:
Say you're interviewing someone. You'd like to know if the person would make a good employee or not, or at the very least try to figure out what sort of employee you could expect. So, these researchers studied interviews by having interviewers rate people based on what they saw. Interviewees who spent more time talking, who gestured a lot, and who dressed more formally were judged to be higher on both social skills and work motivation.
However, when they looked at what these people were actually like, talking, gesturing, and dress were indeed valid cues for social skills, but only the formality of dress predicted the applicant's work motivation.
Most of that was from pages 169 and 170 in the book.
Now, if you're interviewing for a position, wouldn't it be nice to have some sort of guide as to where our senses tend to be accurate, and where they tend to lead us astray? As an interviewee, wouldn't it be nice to know how people are likely to respond to you if you act in a certain way? Is it really better to assume that, since we'll never be 100% certain about what one thing or another means, we shouldn't study it at all?
Seeing sports posters up on the wall, or an American flag in a certain area can lead you to ask certain questions that you might not think to ask otherwise. It's not an open invitation to pigeon-hole and dismiss a person.
If I'm going to get FLAIMBAIT then I'm going to earn it...
Slashdot moderators are a bunch of COCK SMOKING LIBERALS!
But people aren't shit. Don't let a few bad apples spoil the best thing about being human: other humans. Sure, maybe you're a true introvert and can do without us most of the time, but even introverts need companionship sometimes.
A constitutional republic like ours seems a good compromise. The masses can't go too far in screwing things up for minorities in a system like ours.
I'd say, the real problem isn't the masses acting like asses. That's relatively rare, and you can always find more masses. Masses are lazy, they won't chase you very far in most cases. The real problem is sociopaths.
Most people are born with empathy and a strong desire for fairness and reciprocity. Most people will voluntarily take one for the team if they can be garaunteed of punishing unfairness in the process. Google 'fairness reciprocity economic research' or look up the ultimatum game on wiki for a good overview of new research. Most people only act unfairly when they feel they have to, because everyone around them is acting that way.
But sociopaths have faulty mirror neurons and no empathy. They can't see others as anything but objects. And they gravitate towards power, so the upper ranks of politicians and fortune 500 CEOs are rife with them.
The real problem, in my opinion, is how to give people power of self determination without empowering the sociopaths even more.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I would mod your post: +1 Insightful.
USNG: 14TPU4605
Here here.
USNG: 14TPU4605
You mean Paulson's plan? Written by Paulson?
Libertarianism virtually doesn't exist outside of the United States. 'Left anarchism' isn't libertarianism as it's most widely understood and defined
Being outside the US, the only meaning of 'libertarian' I knew for many years, was a form communist who respects individual rights, more or less synonymous with anarcho-communist. The first time I heard the word used in regard to US libertarians as some sort of ultra-capitalists radical 'liberal' (which also means something completely different outside the US) was in an economics lecture. I presumed it was a marxist lecturer's specious attack on anarchists. Turns out there are 'libertarians' who fitted his description (in the US) and that, just because he was of the left, he wasn't necessarily a marxist either.
In any case OP is absolutely correct, outside the US 'libertarian' traditionally referred to left anarchists.
Just because a cat wears a label that says it's a dog, doesn't make it a dog.
'Gift' is the German word for poison. There is nothing inherent in the string of characters 'd-o-g' which refers for all time and in all places to a canine. Even within a single language like English there are many examples of words which have one meaning say in the US, and another elsewhere in the English speaking word. Take 'libertarian' for example ...
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I know many liberals that are obsessively neat and conservatives that are quite messy. However, the notion that liberal and conservative are even that distinct anymore is questionable. In a fiscal sense, there are true conservatives in office anymore- as one of our most "conservative" presidents, George W. Bush has made the largest spending increase in history and racked up the largest deficit in history. Spending wildly while cutting taxes is not conservative. Likewise, social conservatives are no better than big government liberals with their push for government intrusion into people's personal lives.
"Libertarianism virtually doesn't exist outside of the United States."
What?! Get f***ed! In a single line in Australia's constitution guarantees free trade between the states. This, coupled with an interpretation of "trade" as ANY interaction between the people, and support this a with a dead rainforest of case law which supports all the variations of this interpretation, Australia has at least as much liberty as the USA, probably more, because we have the Westminster system (executive by committee, not individual) as the basis of our state and federal parliaments.
Liberty exists by will of the people, not by some stupid fantasy that the USA invented democracy and still has the best one. (And clearly the whole "hanging chads" debacle proves you don't have the best there. S*** American "democracy" makes me angry.)
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1