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Is "Left" Vs. "Right" Hard-coded Into Your Brain?
New submitter kyjellyfish writes "Research published in the journal PLOS ONE, suggests that your parents 'Left
or 'Right' party affiliations are not the only factor at work shaping a person's political identity. Differences in opinion between 'Lefties' and 'Righties' may reflect specific physiological processes. In research performed over 10 years ago, brain scans showed that London cab drivers' gray matter grew larger to help them store a mental map of the city."
From the article: "Other scans have shown that brain regions associated with risk and uncertainty, such as the fear-processing amygdala, differ in structure in liberals and conservatives. And different architecture means different behavior. Liberals tend to seek out novelty and uncertainty, while conservatives exhibit strong changes in attitude to threatening situations. The former are more willing to accept risk, while the latter tends to have more intense physical reactions to threatening stimuli."
When you vote for the lesser of two evils, you get ever increasing evil.
"His name was James Damore."
Oh look, it's news reinforcing the false premise of the two party system.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
yeah because they don't mind having their lives ever more micromanaged and sanitized by big daddy.. see I can stereotype and ad-hom too..
What about those of us that want a universal health care system because the system we have now costs society more in things like crime, lower productivity and inefficiency that a universal system would?
It has nothing to do with fear, it is just practicality. The profit motive for medicine is not really working and it leading to pretty poor health outcomes. Based on various recent studies our computer systems give about 40% better patient outcomes at about 50% of the cost.
I think the medical system is due for a massive overhaul to make it work better and cheaper but I don't see that happening with the corporate system we have now and I also doubt that the kind of universal health care system we can get in this country would get us there either but it would still be better than what we have now.
For global warming the way I see the problem is companies are allowed to damage private and communal property without paying for it. If companies that damaged underground aquifers by fracking had to actually play the FULL COST to clean up the damage they would do it safely or stop pretty quickly. The entire reason that companies can do all this polluting is they are externalizing the costs to the taxpayer and future generations in return for profits for them right now. Look at BP, the fine they got for polluting the gulf of mexico is insignificant compared to the costs of the cleanup. So long as that remains true they are going to keep doing it because that is the way the incentive structure is setup. You get the behavior you incentivize for, not the behavior you claim to support.
For guns I just want universal background checks. I don't care about the clip sizes or the types of weapons very much. Especially given that pistols are the most common weapon used to kill people not rifle type weapons.
I do like government protection against unemployment. Mostly because I like that more than desperate people doing whatever they can to get food for themselves and their family which costs a lot more to the society than just helping them. However I don't think we help people effectively. If you lose your job it would be nice if your skills could be evaluated and training offered for indemand positions. So a welding company that can't fill a position could basically tell a government jobs program about the position and a person could be offered to be trained for that position.
Sometimes social programs are just the cheapest way to solve a given problem. It is a nice idea to say that everyone needs to stand on their own and deal with their own problems. However humans are also pretty violent when pushed into a corner and if someone has no other way to get food they will tend to just take it which is more expensive for all of us.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
I don't think it's at all reversed. Here's how I rationalized it: At a low level, people with "conservative" brains tend to be risk-averse. As a result they engage in less risky and novel behaviors, and overall have more positive (or less tragically negative?) outcomes. The end result is that they tend to be more self-reliant, and in their higher cognition don't see why one should need an extensive social safety net, and therefore oppose it. Conversely, people with "liberal" brains seek out novelty and therefore expose themselves to more risk. As a result, some liberals end up with tragically bad outcomes, and the ones who don't (i.e., have trained themselves to be appropriately risk-averse) can cognitively understand how one might end up in a bad spot. This, coupled with their tendency towards feelings of connectedness and presumably empathy, result in a greater desire for more extensive social safety nets.
Put another way, conservative brains are all like, "Well, I would never let myself get into that position. Even if I did, I'd get myself out of it. I don't see why they deserve help." and liberal brains are all like, "Even if that person didn't make the best choices at every juncture in their life (or even made lots of bad ones), I can totally understand how they made the choices they did. At some less wise point in my life, I might have made the same decisions. They deserve our help."
I don't come from a country that uses the term 'liberal'. However, I *think* I'm a liberal, and OP is easy to rebuff.
1. Freedom of speech must be balanced against those that seek to cause harm, i.e. by inciting violence. The state should press charges if you for yelling 'fire' in a crowded movie theatre. This means, don't be surprised if I object to your poorly worded 'critical expression' if I feel as if it will incite violence.
2. I'm not *for* guns, or else I'd be *for* guns for everyone, especially those that cannot afford them. I don't see anyone argue *for* subsidised guns for everyone.
3. I'm not afraid of self-empowerment. It just shouldn't come at the cost of not restricting the freedoms of others. The bucket filling program that you write about is probably less a liberal position, but more a tool to manage a classroom. Anything to help kids think about their actions is a good thing.
4. I don't prefer either. The end of the scale, aggression, is generally a form of coercion. If you need to be aggressive towards someone, you're probably removing their ability to make their own decisions.
I finish off my post with some sweeping generalisations, and then a emotive, rousing call to arms. Just kidding.
Note that being 'out-numbered' isn't an excuse to be an asshole.
Are you trying to tell me that most of everywhere else in the world considers the level of retarded behavior and thought process in somewhere like San Francisco is "middle of the road"? I'm glad I don't have a visa...
The problem is actually that the WAY that "middle of the road" is implemented in such places is retarded.
Both traditional "left" (as practiced in parts of Europe) and traditional "right" (the US Conservatives) have their advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I lean significantly more "left" than "right", but I can certainly see some disadvantages to my preferences and some advantages to the other way of looking at things. However, when you take a "right" stance and then implement ONLY SOME "left" policies, you end up with a complete shitstorm that fails to work at all.
You can't have "a bit" of public transport and then ignore your road infrastructure - you need a LOT of WELL PLANNED public transport in order to even consider reducing your investment in roads. Likewise, you can't have a half-hearted attempt at a public health system and expect it to help everyone as it should. Nor can you simply throw in free education without changing a lot of the systems around it in order to compensate for the financial upheaval it would cause.
Now, I'm in favour of good public transport, public health-care, and free education; but to me, the way such things get discussed in the US miss the point entirely. The European left and the US left both share the goals of having these things, but the European left at least pays attention to how it can be achieved without fucking everything else up badly in the process; something I feel the US left ignores on the vast majority of occasions.
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And SF is one of the most prosperous places on Earth. (The New England states are more prosperous but they have also had a lot longer to develop.) It seems that being run like a circus and being full of lazy people works. That, or your generalisations weren't worth the bother of writing down because they are just lazy Conservative stigmatising of anything new.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
This in fact highlights the difference between how the left and right perceive freedom of speech.
To the left, the most important aspect of freedom of speech is being able to constructively criticise without fear of censure.
To the right, the most important aspect of freedom of speech is being able to verbally abuse others.
This is why from the left we get laws against inciting racial hatred, but from the right we get "free speech zones".
The marriage thing isn't really an issue of freedom - nothing stops gays from having religious ceremonies and making lifetime commitments - it's more an issue of forcing others to agree that gay marriage is good
You know, I'd have no problem with churches banning gay marriage and stopping gay people from having the religious ceremonies. They are free to have pretty much any views - consistent or self-contradictory - that they want, and I'm free to point and laugh at them. The thing I find indefensible is that a gay person who has been in a monogamous relationship with another for 20 years is not permitted to be their next of kin for legal purposes, while a drunk heterosexual couple that just met and stumbles into a wedding chapel can get this - along with certain tax breaks - immediately. These legal rights should be granted to any couple (or even group) that wishes to have them, not reserved for certain combinations of genitalia.
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