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Researchers Find a 'Liberal Gene'
An anonymous reader writes "Liberals may owe their political outlook partly to their genetic make-up, according to new research from the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. Ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4. The study's authors say this is the first research to identify a specific gene that predisposes people to certain political views."
Look at the sales figures for Prozac and its ilk. We've already got a pharmacated electorate.
It's the same gene that makes people loud, manipulative and greedy. So naturally, research should begin with politicians.
Ever heard of medicine that will numb your feelings? That cure that bleeding heart, so to speak? They're way ahead of you...
Seriously, though: Prozac and the like are a life-saver for some people, while being too liberally prescribed to other people.
And another point: Once one is thoroughly indoctrinated in the liberal/socialist or whatever morals, one doesn't need to feel liberal feelings to do the right thing. One can think liberal thoughts without feeling.
I was once prescribed such meds. While the SSRI:s took away my feelings, I didn't feel emotionally about anything, I could still think the "liberal" thoughts I had learned to feel and think during my life. The SSRI:s also took away my fear and care for consequences (maybe they weren't a perfect fit for me?), so I'd often go into 7-11 to steal stacks of ready made meals that I distributed to homeless drug addicts.
In hindsight, that wasn't very clever and I'm glad I didn't get into trouble.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Actually, I remember reading (forgot the name of the specific book) that being liberal or conservative has roots in our evolutionary history. So if this news is absolutely true, it would lend credit to that said theory. As far as a personal opinion, I would think so, being either is influence not just by nurture but by nature as well(if not more nature then nurture).
The SSRI:s also took away my fear and care for consequences (maybe they weren't a perfect fit for me?), so I'd often go into 7-11 to steal stacks of ready made meals that I distributed to homeless drug addicts.
The funny thing is that if those homeless were addicted to the same SSRI:s that made you steal it would create a positive-feedback system...
Seriously, maybe your "liberal" thoughts weren't too precise to begin with. Perhaps the solution to homelessness caused by drug addiction should be to cure the addiction instead of feeding the homeless.
To cure the addiction, the "conservative" way would be to punish drug addicts enough that no one would dare to try to use drugs. The "scientific" way would be to find what happens inside the brain that causes some people to become addicted to drugs.
I will be willing to bet your next paycheck that the same folks who will now exclaim, "See! It's in their genes! I told you there was something wrong with liberals!" will be the same people who will deny there is a gay gene (or genes).
It's always funny to see people who deny that people are the way they are because of their genes, yet when it is shown that a person has a predisposition to something because of their genes, then it's suddenly science proving them right.
Flame away.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Nope.
Prozac and its ilk affect dopamine levels as well, so why aren't these selfish power hungry tightwads loosening up some?
Maybe the conservatives are off their meds?
(Yeah, I know how I'll be modded. I don't care.)
Free Martian Whores!
The conservative base is about all we have protecting our freedom at this point.
By ensuring the government is a Christian theocracy and that you should treat your neighbor as yourself? Unless, of course, your neighbor is gay, black, from another country, ...
So you're saying there's a gene that makes people realize that it's better to try to solve problems before they occur, that makes you realize things can change, and that "look out for number one" isn't a policy that gets us very far as a species? So, basically it's the same as the gene for intelligence.
I call BS on that. Many of the smartest people I know are of the 'conservative' bent. They are very conservative in the way they go about things and how they work on things. Why? Many are engineers. We are a cautious lot as when we screw up many people can die or 500 people are out of a job... If you find someone who is 'take it or leave it' they are just following the route they were taught and being myopic. If you find someone who is at least willing to listen but then discard your ideas because they are batshit stupid you may have found a conservative. If you find someone who is willing to listen then do it it anyway no matter how crazy you may have found a liberal.
Or in other words conservative 'hold on a min lets do a sanity check this may or may not be working', liberal 'who cares everyone else is doing it and it doesnt matter we will fix it later if we need to'. Each method has its pros and cons. The first you end up exactly where you want first time. However it may cost you a lot of extra time and money in the middle to do so self affirming you were correct 'trust but verify'. The second method carries greater risk. You may get where you want but it may have took you 2 or 3 tries to get it right. If you get it right the first time you are good. But if you get it wrong there is the cost of doing it over many times until you do get it right.
What is interesting they actually may have found a gene that correlates to 'i dont give a shit that sounds good'. Thats pretty cool. I would say it probably more closely correlates to how people do risk management but sometimes these studies are not about actual science but about self affirmation.
Also many 'liberals' these days want to think (even going so far as to make studies like you show) 'dems smarter than repubs'. As it is a way of producing a 'we vs they' mentality. You see it on the news and even from government leaders. People can act like a heard in large numbers and imitate what they see. It is a way to appeal to your base instincts 'your not stupid are you?' Almost everyone does not like to be called stupid (even truly stupid people). It is a form of manipulation and self affirmation. It is a form of marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing and sales. Each of these large political machines have vested (monetary) interests in getting their people elected. There is no shortage on either 'side' of people who actual believe the BS. As we soak in the material from both sides everyday in the form of news, tv, and movies.
A study a couple of years ago noted a tie between a strong startle response and conservatism.
Still waiting to see a 'Fearful by nature, conservative by choice' tee shirt.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Sorry for highjacking your high-scoring comment, but otherwise noone will read my late comment which I think could be useful for people who want to go in details:
Here is the original article:
http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu/friends_drd4_and_political_ideology.pdf
but not the first research linking the same gene to a very similar trait:
Basically, what commentator in the original post says is that "novelty seeking" is correlated with leaning towards liberal views. Surprise!
I leave ripping the paper on the basis of liberal (no pun intended) usage of statistics to others here.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Liberal as it relates to a liberal education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education, "a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and a stronger sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement, characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, and more a way of studying than a specific course or field of study". Could it be any simpler.
There is a direct correlation between welfare net and crime, the more effective the social welfare net the lower the crime rate. It is simply enlightened self interest to have an effective social welfare net. For the idiot right wingers who refuse to accept the blindingly obvious, for the numb nuts of the political spectrum simply compare Canada, to the US, to Mexico, of course right wingers will want to waffle on all kinds of bullshit rather than accept the obvious.
The liberal gene could also be the empathic and or socially conscious gene, the basis upon which human societies are formed rather than the sociopath gene the basis upon which human societies are torn apart in bloody violence (the far right gene).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
From your link:
The single biggest predictor of someone's altruism, Willett says, is religion. It increasingly correlates with conservative political affiliations because, as Brooks' book says, "the percentage of self-described Democrats who say they have 'no religion' has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s." America is largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately conservative. One demonstration that religion is a strong determinant of charitable behavior is that the least charitable cohort is a relatively small one -- secular conservatives.
How much more likely are they to give to non-religious charities (as in not the church they attend)? Most non-religious people don't go hang out somewhere on Sundays where there is a collection plate going around.
E pluribus unum
Just wanted to bring Jonathan Haidt's "5 Moral Foundations" theory into the conversation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt
Or watch the TED video if you're too lazy to read
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/341
Should be easier to tie in dopamine receptor genes to one or more of those traits:
1. Care for others, protecting them from harm. (He also referred to this dimension as Harm.)
2. Fairness, Justice, treating others equally.
3. Loyalty to your group, family, nation. (He also referred to this dimension as Ingroup.)
4. Respect for tradition and legitimate authority. (He also referred to this dimension as Authority.)
5. Purity, avoiding disgusting things, foods, actions.
Strange about the introvert vs. extrovert thing... I would have surmised just the opposite... being an introverted engineer liberal type myself. And conservatives are the ones that typically go out to church to collect as a community.
And then there is this absolutely priceless anecdote about Billy Kristol, the scion of the founder of The Weekly Standard: http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/10/most-awesome-wi.html .
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
To some people, a "liberal" is someone who believes the government should take care of people who have been left behind someway in the economic process, the unemployed, the homeless, those who are at a disadvantage in some way. Under that point of view, Cuba should be considered one of the most "liberal" regimes in the world.
Ironically, the welfare state (which concept I believe subsumes what you've described as what some people call "liberal") was originally a conservative concept, founded on the idea that if people needn't be concerned about risk (e.g. to their health) they will be able to do more work.
I don't have a link to that on the web, but I recall reading that in Niall Ferguson's book the Ascent of Money.
Just to keep your post going. Conservatives are more likely to read both left wing and right wing news sources than liberals are: http://www.livescience.com/culture/090608-media-message.html.
"People with stronger party affiliation, conservative political views, and greater interest in politics proved more likely to click on articles with opposing views, according to the Ohio State study. 'It appears that people with these characteristics are more confident in their views and so they’re more inclined to at least take a quick look at the counterarguments,' Knobloch-Westerwick noted. However, Knobloch-Westerwick added that her latest study was not designed to assess reader motives, and that she hopes to more carefully study the issue in the future. The Brigham Young University survey found that journalists also tended to read liberal blogs — perhaps a reflection of journalists' political beliefs, although even conservatives said liberal blogs were often better-written, Davis pointed out. Among the political blog readers, a similar trend emerged in which 'liberals read almost exclusively liberal blogs, but conservatives tend to read both,' Davis said." (emphasis added).
In the final analysis, liberals always win. If we didn't, we'd still be living in caves. Always remember that.
Here, I fixed it for you.
Don't tell us people with rich parents don't get hand-outs.
It's got nothing to do with ideology. Heck just look at the Kennedy's, or some of the other liberal New England political families.
The difference though is that the Kennedys are not hypocrites like the Bushs. The Kennedys readily acknowledge that their personal success is largely due to great wealth and powerful connections, in addition to any personal merits, and seek to assist those who are born without the silver spoon.
The privileged right pretend it is only their personal merits that cause them to succeed, and that it is a terrible thing to try helping those lacking a fortune. As Ann Richards said (about GHW Bush) "He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." This is infinitely more true of his thoroughly incompetent offspring GW Bush.
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Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Hmmm... that explains the conservative, (actually, downright selfish and power hungry, which "conservative" is a euphemism for) bent you see at slashdot so often.
While liberals might use "conservative" as an epithet meaning "selfish and power hungry", true conservatives know that they're happiest when content and helping their family and neighbors. The libs I know tend to be users and abusers (selfish and power hungry). When one is more likely to ignore society's traditions and values in preference to one's own, one is essentially more inwardly focused.
Love...
And also Hell and the punishment for sin and God's love in sending Jesus.
Jesus was not a "social" figure, nor a "political" figure. Jesus did not come for that, and didn't claim to be that. He was not a "cool" guy. In fact, most people eventually wanted to kill him and release a murderer instead. He offended a lot of people by telling them they were sinning. He made people uncomfortable. He claimed to be a lot of things, He preached some pretty hard messages.
The only way you can get the "Jesus just wanted us to all love each other" message from the Biblical account is if you take what supports that opinion and disregard the rest...
This article is yet another example of the media getting science wrong.
And it's great to see that eugenics appeared in the /. comment thread nearly immediately.
And yet here we are with arguably the most liberal president and congress ever...
I'm arguing. Obama isn't very liberal, he's a conservative Democrat. Why am I arguing this, for the very reasons you state in your post. His actions are not very liberal in that he's basically acting like the conservatives before him. The only liberal thing he has done, so far, is the healthcare crap, which is more like welfare for Insurance companies than any actual liberal proposal.
I am a liberal (according to the silly politics test I'm further left than Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, though also more libertarian than Ron Paul), and Obama just looks like a slightly lesser conservative than Bush, Bush, or Reagan. Same with Clinton, to be honest. I don't think we've had a fully liberal president in the US since FDR.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The whole stimulus thing is a "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" proposition.
If you're a typical high school graduate, deficit spending in a downturn seems like a bad idea. If you're a college graduate (in something other than economics), it seems like a good idea. If you've got an Economics degree, you're not sure.
Here's the thing - all of so-called Keynesian economics revolves around an idea called "The Paradox of Thrift" - an error of composition that says while it may be good for an individual to save in hard times, if everyone does it, the aggregate demand curve shifts leftward and you sink ever deeper into a depression. "Stimulus" spending is a measure to thwart this.
If we accept all of this so far, there are still problems - a high marginal propensity to consume, like the American people have, means that the effect was minimal, i.e., the money would have been spent anyway. Will the money be spent in an economically stimulating way, or will it merely clean out the wish list of the politicians in power? Does the spending create perverse incentives? Does the marginal cost of borrowing outweigh the stimulus as compared to the marginal propensity to consume?
Like I said, these are all open questions IF YOU ACCEPT THE PARADOX OF THRIFT. But the Paradox of Thrift relies on a situation where people are literally, and not figuratively, sticking their money in mattresses. At least, they are neither consuming nor investing - they are holding cash. If you stick in a savings account at the bank - no POT. If you buy gold - no POT. If you invest in your 401k - no POT. This is all because the money is continuing to circulate as capital formation.
You can't fault Keynes for this - in his time, people really, literally, stuck money in their mattresses. This is just one of those things we continue to believe academically because it is INCREDIBLY politically expedient, just like ALL tax cuts pay for themselves (some might, under certain circumstances, at certain times). As an economist, I can stipulate conditions under which stimulus spending might work - but those conditions are not the conditions of the 21st century Western world.
And don't get me started about health care. The problem with health care is insurance, and the bill makes the provision of health care more reliant on insurance. It does something - it makes things far worse. The whole problem is that American refuse to save. Insuring certainties is a sure road to financial ruin - you're not going to outguess the actuaries.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
If you're a typical high school graduate, deficit spending in a downturn seems like a bad idea. If you're a college graduate (in something other than economics), it seems like a good idea. If you've got an Economics degree, you're not sure.
What too many people forget is that for Keynesian economics to work, in times of prosperity you must run surpluses, or at the very least, reduce deficit spending to the point where the growth of the economy shrinks your debt ratio. Critics point to the last 30 years as evidence against Keynesian economics, either forgetting or not realizing that in the last 30 years, with the exception of the eight year span of the Clinton administration, our government hasn't actually been practicing it.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
A broken dopamine receptor D4 (the same gene TFA is about) also has a tendency to make one less vulnerable to addiction, and especially stress addiction. For an example of how painful a runaway stress-driven dopamine feedback loop can be, look no further than Dilbert.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
Complaining about the bank bailout is pretty foolish at this point, considering it's on pace to make money. The only thing that irritated me about it is that the government loaned the idiots money, instead of just buying them outright for a fraction of the cost (in early 2008 we gave tens of billions to banks whose value on the market was depressed to less than 10 billion!)
Sure the conservatives would have screamed "SOCIALISM!" but that's the perfect way to deal with "too big to fail." Buy it up, and then dismantle it back into the private sector for a profit. Instead we just bought the shitty assets...Which wasn't a bad deal, mind. They'll break even with change to spare...but it was stupid.
Mind you, I don't agree with this as far as the auto companies go: they should have been allowed to tank. Bailing them out just makes them weak.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.