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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."
Now "they" will be able to make a drug to counter-act the receptor and cure liberalness. Just what we need, a pharmacated electorate.
in the bat-sh*t crazy Glen Becks of the world?
That's got to be deserving of enough research to find a cure. (As best we can tell, about 25% of American people are afflicted.)
What's wrong with calling it the 'Conservative Gene'? I'm sure it would have been if it had been discovered anywhere between 2 and 10 years ago.
Supposedly, intelligence correlates strongly with liberal tendencies. Somehow I don't think we should all persistently imbibe to see if we can fix that little problem. The same applies to "curing" liberalism, as you put it.
As we know, there are only two political viewpoints: right and wrong or, depending on your genetics, left and wrong.
The reason that I'm going to call bullshit on this is that empirically "lefties" tend to become "righties" through age or experience. A liberal is just a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You may not have the liberal gene, but you sure have paranoid schizophrenia.
Who gets to define "intelligence?"
The "cure" for liberalism is exactly the same as the "cure" for conservatism: elect a lot of it and wait a few years for the electorate to "cure" themselves.
No dice. Most political differences are a result of disagreement of premises, not conclusions. No amount of formal logic is going to help that.
I'm sorry, but if we were all going to stop caring about civil liberties and human rights the first time we ran into an asshole, we'd have stopped being liberals the first time we met a conservative. What I find far more likely from your "age or experience" qualification is that some liberals get a degree of success in life, or get old enough to have accumulated some wealth, and they begin covering their own asses. This is alternately called human nature or selling out, depending on whether you're the one doing it or not. Also add in the fact that older people tend to become less zealous about their ideology. Consider phrases like, "Not as young as I used to be," or "too old to fight."
Anyway, you and I both know this research is bullshit, so let's all get our jokes in. These pukes needed a splashy tag line so they could justify their funding, and they came up with "the liberal gene." This gene doesn't determine your political views any more than one gene determines whether or not you'll be smart. We're not even sure if there's a "gay" gene, and now these guys are so sure they've found a "supports gay marriage" gene? This stuff cheapens science.
--Obyron
What's "Liberal"?
What about moderates? Do they only have a "Liberal" gene from one parent?
I mean come on, this "study" reeks.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
That's actually kind of offensive. The liberals in this country have done most of the freedom-damaging legislating in this country. Big government etc.
The conservative base is about all we have protecting our freedom at this point.
Republican != Conservative.
There is a huge overlap, but there are liberal republicans (just like there are conservative democrats).
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 disagree. Americans' freedom is best protected by deadlock between the purported liberals and the purported conservatives.
If you're asking for a cure, you already are leaning towards a particular view. Your statement of a "cure" is just you stating that you feel people of a particular persuasion need to be "fixed".
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Young adults who subjectively identify themselves as "very liberal" have an average IQ of 106 during adolescence while those who identify themselves as "very conservative" have an average IQ of 95 during adolescence.
Except it holds true even before university.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I have friends that self-identify from socialist to religiously conservative to libertarian. I even have openly gay friends. I do not attend church. I voted for Bush and refer to myself as conservative. I am also getting a MA in Political Science. Not every conservative is a close-minded, uneducated religious fanatic. There are many of us out there who have examined both ideologies and have found that the conservative camp is closest to our beliefs. We feel that our money is our money, and-except for what the government needs to provide ESSENTIAL functions of a government, ie defense, infrastructure, and administration- should be left with us to spend as we see fit. No redistribution of wealth, up or down. Everyone should pay their fair share, the poor, the rich, and those in between. We are out there, we are slowly getting our voices heard, and as much as the Tea Partiers and the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs would like to subvert our message and supplant it with fanatics, we will get our shot. Please, do not lump all conservatives together. Many of us are very open minded and can think for ourselves.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The gene in question does not "make someone liberal". It is a gene that promotes novelty seeking, and leads to many wide ranging friendships in adolescence, resulting in exposure to many points of view, and this predisposes one to be liberal as an adult (this is all in the TA).
Without the 'wide ranging friendships in adolescence' there is no effect. It is the life experience of being open to other points of view, the additional knowledge gained, that makes you more likely to be liberal.
For the conservatives here crowing nonsense about "curing liberalism", perhaps the fact that absence of this gene promotes the opposite - fewer friends and ignorance of other points of view - should make one be less enthused with this finding. Unless, of course "closed mindedness" is considered a conservative virtue.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
I'm sorry, but if we were all going to stop caring about civil liberties and human rights the first time we ran into an asshole, we'd have stopped being liberals the first time we met a conservative.
So how long did it take for the Liberals to convince you that only they care about civil liberties and human rights?
"His name was James Damore."
I find your premise that conservatives don't care about civil liberties or human rights -- that only liberals care about such things -- laughably pathetic and ill-informed.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
I seem to recall hearing of a certain young republican who went to an Ivy League school and partied through his undergraduate on his father's dime (and reputation). He pulled pretty lackluster grades, really nothing to be proud of at all considering he wasn't working at the time and had nothing else that he needed to do beyond school. He then went to another Ivy League school afterwards for an MBA, also on his father's dime and reputation. He was known for using drugs and alcohol during those times as well, and didn't get particularly good grades as an MBA student either.
He then attempted to run a few businesses, with some assistance from his dad at getting in to those businesses. Most of those, he ran into the ground (including a petroleum company in a petroleum-rich state when petroleum was only continuing to gain in value).
So what ever happened to this young republican? He decided to follow his dad into politics. There he also couldn't get far without his dad's help; eventually being appointed president of the united states by some of his dad's close friends.
Don't tell us republicans don't get hand-outs.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"people with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to be liberal as adults, but only if they had an active social life in adolescence."
In other words, they had friends and fun times growing up which leads them to be adventurous and outgoing.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
And all the Patriot Act sunsets removed by who? OH! Right! Obama.
George Bush was no more conservative than Obama is. Stop thinking in terms of Donkeys and Elephants. Think more government and less government.
Expand your political spectrum a bit to actually include liberty. Nothing that George Bush did, with the exception of striking back at the people that attacked us on 9/11, had anything to do with liberty and less government.
"Thoughts are more powerful than any weapon, and I don't even let my people own guns." --Joseph Stalin
Nope.
The problem with the word "liberal" is that it can be used for any position in the political spectrum.
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.
To other people, a "liberal" is someone who believes in liberty, in letting everyone do their own thing, in a minimalist government.
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.
8 years.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
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.
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
Yes. All rich people are rich because they worked hard and all poor people are poor because they did not. And yes, how much you earn is perfectly proportional to how much you contribute to society. This explains Wall Street, the best and brightest of your great nation, perfectly.
After all, it makes much more sense to let the country's infrastructure fall apart and the children of the working poor be left uneducated, than to pay taxes to invest in the country you live in. The tax money you save can be used to pay for a business class flight out of the country when it turns into shit. You can then retire and enjoy functioning infrastructure built with other people's tax money.
It really does make complete sense from an individual perspective. I guess progressivism fails because it assumes that people can actually care about anyone but themselves.
And all the Patriot Act sunsets removed by who? OH! Right! Obama.
George Bush was no more conservative than Obama is. Stop thinking in terms of Donkeys and Elephants. Think more government and less government.
Expand your political spectrum a bit to actually include liberty. Nothing that George Bush did, with the exception of striking back at the people that attacked us on 9/11, had anything to do with liberty and less government.
You are right to identify Obama as a conservative, he is moderate conservative, well to the right in many areas compared with, say, Richard Nixon. His health care reform plan is very similar to Mitt Romney's for example, and much more conservative than Nixon's plan (not enacted due to the collapse of his presidency). In the Eisenhower era he might well have been a Republican. (Which puts paid to the utterly-disconnected-from-reality ranting about him being a "socialist" much less a Marxist).
Bush was/is however far more right wing than Obama. Being right-wing is not the same thing as being conservative. The right wing radicalism of the "Tea Party" (seeking to remove constitutional amendments, or else suspend their effect?) is not conservative at all.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Well first, to take your example of Amtrak, whether it worked and why it worked or didn't work is still open to interpretation. I notice you limited your "results" to Amtrak's overall balance sheet. You haven't taken into account the benefit Amtrak brought to the people who do take trains, nor the alleviation of car traffic brought to congested cities. There's also the fact that some routes are more heavily trafficked than others, and Amtrak could be said to be very successful if you only looked at those routes. So in some ways, I'd say that Amtrak is a successful program.
But also your criticism of "not enough customers" doesn't begin to address the question of "why weren't there enough customers?" There are tons of socioeconomic issues involving culture, infrastructure development, and civic design that lead to a situation where taking a train is undesirable or infeasible-- but most of those things can be changed.
In reality, most people decide first whether they like/dislike public transportation on emotional grounds, and then find arguments that support their position.
>>>Most political differences are a result of disagreement of premises, not conclusions.
What do you mean? It seems like logic would work. You create a program (say Amtrak), look at the results (near-bankruptcy), and then decide whether or not it worked (it didn't unfortunately - not enough customers).
Case in point: Your premise is that the purpose of Amtrak was to make a profit. In fact, the purpose of Amtrak was to preserve valuable infrastructure that the private sector was no longer able to maintain due to heavily-subsidized air and road competition. In that regard it was mildly successful, in spite of funding problems, and has proven its worth many times (including the post-9/11 grounding and the Katrina evacuation, to name a few).
If it's not a recessive gene, then my conservative parents may have a difficult conversation ahead of them.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
after reading the title, that is exactly what i was hoping for.
Awesome, let's make everyone exactly the same! I, for one, welcome our new heterosexual, uniform-skin-toned, drugs-and-alcohol-hating, women-should-be-in the-home-not-working, lets-pretend-the-world-never-changes population! </sarcasm>
Actually, it seems you should've read the article:
people with the novelty-seeking gene variant would be more interested in learning about their friends' points of view. As a consequence, people with this genetic predisposition who have a greater-than-average number of friends would be exposed to a wider variety of social norms and lifestyles, which might make them more liberal than average
So, according to the hypothesis, liberals seek out novelty and challenges, have more friends, and gain more life experience. Those are generally acknowledged as positive traits - maybe the true genetic flaw is in those who lack a copy of this specific gene variant? Anyway, interesting to see this follow on from similar news in 2008.
Give a logical reasoning test to subjects and correlate with political affiliation.
Here's an interesting one. Alcohol ranks higher than cannabis on all measures of harm to both oneself and society at large. Logically, if the aim of drugs policy is as stated - to minimise the harm that drugs cause - then either both drugs should be treated the same (legal/illegal) or cannabis should be legal and alcohol illegal. That is the only logical result given the stated premise for drug control (a premise that appears to be accepted by the population at large). Conservatives are generally opposed to legalising cannabis. Liberals are generally supportive of legalising cannabis. Which is the more logical in this case?
I just read Richard Nixon's proposal for health care reform. It's not at all conservative and I don't see how you can use it as a marker for the division between conservative and liberal.
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/September/03/nixon-proposal.aspx
Wow. First, I'm impressed that you make enough money to lose 40% to taxes. I've never known anyone to pay more than about 25% of their income in federal taxes (they made well over $500,000/yr). You probably have state taxes. MD was pretty rough at ~5-6% of actual gross income. Cali might be the worst - it's close to 8% (top bracket is 11% iirc).
Note: When I lived in CA a decade ago - before the Bush tax cuts - My wife and I made $120k+/- and had no deductions (renters, no kids). We paid 10% federal and 5-6% state on our gross income.
So you've got 25% fed, 8% state, and 7.5% FICA (I'm assuming you count that as a tax) - but that doesn't jive, 'cause once you hit $80-100k, FICA drops to just medicare which is only 1.5%. What else is getting taken out?
Here's what I don't understand. You asked for:
In this world I want something back that affects me directly and personally, i.e. a retirement plan that is immune from market manipulation, health care even when I'm unemployed, etc.
Well, the 7.5% you pay (and the 7.5% your employer pays) for FICA goes to the retirement plan that is immune from market manipulation known as Social Security. You also seem to want health care even when you're unemployed, and that's called medicaid. The check you get when you're unemployed? That's part of FUTA (and SUTA) which is a tax paid by your employer.
Before those taxes, nobody footed the bill. The rich and powerful didn't give a shot about the little guy. You were at the mercy of local charities, and people died of malnutrition and illnesses which were easily curable.
What bugs me is people who think they pay too much, but use an inordinate amount of taxpayer resources. People with children: I'm looking at you. Every child that gets sent to a public school costs about $10,000 a year. Attend an in-state college? That counts, too. I know very few people who actually pay more than $20,000 in taxes, but a lot of people who have 2 or more kids. And to top it off, for each kid you have, you actually get a tax *reduction*. One of my employees makes $50k, has two kids (not in school yet), and pays essentially zero federal and state income taxes. But I digress...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
In the final analysis, liberals always win. If we didn't, we'd still be living in caves. Always remember that.
Did the researchers avoid making the mistake of the "chopstick gene"?
There's a gene that determines how good you are with chopsticks. It's otherwise known as the blue-eye gene...
I have met many intelligent people who had very unintelligent views. Academics sometimes live in such a different world that they'll advocate action that makes perfect sense on paper, but that would fail in practice.
There is a significant difference between intelligence and wisdom. I would argue wisdom is much less common than intelligence, and that people who are wise are not a strict subset of people who are intelligent.
Let's read that again, so that it's more clear.
Researchers have found a gene which, when lacking in humans, leads them to be far more likely to fall into conservatism.
People without the novelty-seeking gene variant would be less interested in learning about their friends' points of view. As a consequence, people with this genetic predisposition may be more conservative than average.
I boil down to only this: Amtrak is a company. It should survive or fail without help from the government. I didn't say anything about the countries entire train system.
And the reason you disagree is because you start with different premises. Your argument is:
P1.) Amtrack's purpose is to make a profit
P2.) Amtrack did not make a profit
C.) Amtrack failed.
His argument is:
P1.) Amtrack's purpose is to provide public transportation.
P2.) Amtrack has provided public transportation.
C.) Amtrack succeeded
A young teenage girl was about to finish her first year of college. She considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat but her father was a rather staunch Republican.
One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to taxes and welfare programs. He stopped her and asked her how she was doing in school.
She answered that she had a 4.0 GPA but it was really tough. She had to study most of the time, and she seldom had time to go out and party. She didn't have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of spending so much time studying.
He asked, "How is your friend Mary?" She replied that Mary was barely getting by. She had a 2.0 GPA and studied harder than her, but couldn't study as much because she had to work for money. Between working and studying she never had time to go out and party. She didn't have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of spending all her time working to pay her tuition and books.
Dad then asked his daughter why she didn't help her friend out with her tuition and books, since her grandfather's inheritance had left her well off.
The daughter angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! It's MY money!
The father slowly smiled and said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."
Free Martian Whores!
Re: Amtrak. Very little transit is self-sufficient, economically: mass-transit or personal. In the case for an airport, a city may spend many dollars building roads to and from an airport, provide security, and so-on. This money is rarely collected directly back from the airport via the airline tickets, but the city expects that the net economic benefit to itself will be best due to tourism, etc. Thus, in their own way, airports are subsidized.
Roadways are another example: roads are built using tax dollars, usually derived from a general fund and not distinct from gas taxes. The roads are built under the premise that allowing people to get where they want will be a net-positive economically for the area.
No mass-transit system I can think of survive solely on fares. Amtrak has the added curse that many routes and stops were added during its inception purely for political pork; a legislator's vote for initial and continued Amtrak funding could be best assured by giving the train a stop in their district. If you've ever taken Amtrak, you'd know that many of the stops are in the middle of nowhere - some trains carry more than the town population.
from the let-the-flame-war-begin dept.
science
politics
Scrameustache writes "Conservatives may owe their political outlook 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. Lead researcher James H. Fowler and his colleagues hypothesized that people with the novelty-avoiding gene variant would be less interested in learning about other points of view."
You can't take the sky from me...
I'm a libertarian but I have to say, there's a fair argument to be made that Amtrack is having to compete against a heavily subsidized road program. It's definitely not a level playing field but when the government is involved, what is?
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
This is a fact.
This is a value proposition on which rationality has nothing to say, and furthermore on which there is, in practice, no consensus. Its a controversial value proposition in the case of "companies" generally, and its a particularly controversial value proposition in the case of companies established by the government for the purpose of acheiving government policy goals.
Yes, once you assume that everyone agrees with you on all value propositions, its easy to further conclude that rationality is all you need to get to consensus on policy. The problem there, though, is with that first assumption.
Do you actually buy into what you're saying?
Of course. I never argue a position I don't believe is valid.
Do you actually think anybody with a liberal ideology actually is smarter, better, and less likely to repeat their mistakes?
Oh, no not at all. I didn't mean to say that all liberals are smarter than all conservatives, or that any specific liberal is smarter than any specific conservative. These are admittedly generalizations, frequently wrong but with an element of truth.
Consider the debate between science and religion. Both claim to be ways of finding truth. Now I've met some pretty stupid scientists and some really smart priests. But science on the whole has a much better track record for finding facts and improving the lives of people than religion does.
And yet here we are with arguably the most liberal president and congress ever.
You could argue that, but you'd be wrong. Consider the two biggest things this president has done, passed health care reform, and stimulus spending. His health care plan is more conservative than Nixons, so he's certainly no liberal there. His stimulus policies were just a continuation of Bush's, so that doesn't sound too liberal either.
Guantanamo is still open, the Iraq war is still ongoing, and most of the Patriot act is still in place or is being expanded. The poor will probably become slightly less poor, the middle class will become poor, and the really rich will stay really rich and in power.
And all these things are happening because of insufficient liberalism on the part of our government. Conservatives created the fiction that Guantanamo was outside of US jurisdiction. Conservatives lied their way into the Iraq war. Conservatives wrote the Patriot act (though the Democrats (none of them liberals) who voted for it are not without blame). And the gap between the rich and poor has gotten ever wider in the last 30 years of Conservative rule.
These policies continue because our government can in no way be described as liberal.
Now of course conservatives aren't perfect. But at least they usually aren't willing to force their untested ideologically-based and ridiculously expensive systems on people.
War on Drugs? Don't Ask Don't Tell? The War in Iraq? Border fences? Abstinence only education?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Taxis and buses could do the exact-same job, and they are profitable.
No, they don't do the exact-same job. I can't reasonably take a taxi from Boston to Washington DC, and taking that trip on a train vs a bus is a pretty different experience in terms of reliability, comfort, and throughput.
Yeah I've looked at the numbers for my area (Baltimore). The number of Amtrak riders is 0.1% of the total number of daily commuters
Yeah, but you're talking about commuters in Baltimore. What are you going to do when the Amtrak train lets you out in Penn Station, take the light rail? The problem isn't the train, the problem is that you live in fricken Baltimore.
I agree with this point, but you'll notice those routes never get shutdown.
Yes, and part of the reason is because the point isn't necessarily to be profitable, but to provide a public transportation option.
The C64 is an old obsolete technology, and so too is the train, because it's tied to steel rails and can't go anywhere but where the rails lead it.
That's madness, frankly. It's like saying planes are an obsolete form of transportation because you can only go to other airports. Or saying Internet backbones are obsolete because they don't cover the last mile. Aside from shipping on water, rail is the most energy efficient form of travel. Newer trains can go hundreds of miles per hour much more safely than anything on a road.
I can hop in my car right now, and drive to the beach, without having to check schedules. I can even do it in the middle of the night, when trains do run.
I can hop on a train and go to the beach right now, without having to check schedules. I can do it in the middle of the night, because the trains run 24/7. And I can do it without spending tens of thousands of dollars on a car, paying for gas and maintenance, and buying car insurance. And if I get drunk on the beach, I can get back home without driving drunk. Don't blame the technology because your city sucks.
And then she shot back, "these two things aren't even remotely comparable, you nitwit." The father's smile quickly vanished from his face.
She never spoke to her father again, due to his poorly reasoned attempts to control her.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
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