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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."
So how does this work in a traditionally free country like America...
Please stop. You're suggesting that the brains from one country are somehow different from that of another country. If we change 'country' out for 'race', it should be painfully obvious what the problem here is.
American conservatives are afraid to place their fates into the hands of the elected experts on human happiness.
You really shouldn't comment on the complex political landscape of another country whose citizens you apparently have little regular contact with. It makes you look like an idiot. No, "american" conservatives are just like "british" conservatives which are just like "african" conservatives, which are just like every conservative. Ever. The definition of conservativism doesn't change because of the country you're in. Perhaps its expression does, but the study here isn't about expression, but reaction. In that, conservatives broadly and as an aggregate group, are simply risk-averse. And because of how the human mind operates, an unknown risk is almost always subjectively larger in a person's mind than a known one. This is why we spent trillions of dollars combatting terrorism (an unknown risk) while both retrospectively and at the time, it could have easily been shown that a known risk (drunk driving) costs far more lives.
To extrapolate from a specific behavior (risk aversion) a complete political ideology is... at best... dubious.
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Oh look, it's news reinforcing the false premise of the two party system.
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No, the article says that conservatives are corrupt, authoritarian fascists, and that liberals are drug taking, fuck-anything-that-moves, dirty hippies
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Well, at least the way I hear it used on the news, American conservatives are very different from Chinese and Russian conservatives. American, Chinese, and Russian conservatives do have something in common - they want to preserve the status quo or even revert in some ways to how things were before. But "how things were before" is very different depending on the country. For an American conservative, the desire is to return to a time of less government intrusion in people's lives. For Chinese and Russian conservatives the desire is to return to a time of much greater government intrusion into people's lives.
Islamic conservatives provide another example of "conservative" that is very different from an American conservative (and actually pretty different from an American liberal too). Although I suppose if you really look at some of the societies the Islamic conservatives are actually very conservative because they are attempting to change (or have recently changed) their countries to be very different from what they were before. For example, women in Iran and Egypt used to walk around with their heads uncovered, now the so-called "conservatives" have forced them to start covering their hair or face harassment.
An American conservatives my be similar to a British conservative - I don't follow British politics much so I can't say for sure, but an American conservatives is very different from many conservatives throughout the world.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
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!
We like to call ourselves Libertarian.
It's funny, I'm surrounded by mostly conservatives, and some (maybe most) don't object to the "universal background checks" so much as they object to what it'll really be. Most of us already go through background checks in our states. This is the sort of thing we might admit when nobody is listening, though of course I do not speak for the whole forty-something percent of the nation. ;)
First, we know what happens when you have databases of people that possess firearms. You've probably seen the google maps plots of everyone's home addresses. If you're a gun owner in a state that has firearm licensing, you know that even when required by law, they can take months longer than allowed to process a one page form, and there's nothing you can do about it. During that time, all manner of nasty things can happen, not least of which is having your card expire and having your firearms suddenly become illegal. Now you're a felon. Imagine how that makes you feel if you live anywhere near this scumbag. We also know that people that shouldn't clear often do, while people that should clear often don't. They have to hire lawyers to help them through the process, and it's a nightmare. We'll skip past the really scary bits of national gun owner databases for the sake of brevity (too late, I know).
Straw purchases are a problem in some places. With handguns, specifically. And only around cities where handguns are already illegal (let's face it, the gun control laws don't actually work). But it's still a problem everyone wants solved. What we don't want is a running leap down the slippery slope, coupled with the issues listed above.
The magazine size thing is just bullshit. Almost no crime is committed with rifles, only a tiny subset of those are committed with "the black rifles", and you'd be hard-pressed to make the case that in any of those very, very rare cases, magazine size had anything to do with the commission of the crime. It's just another thing to ban, for no reason other than political points... and it's at the expense of lawful people.
Again, slippery slope with no benefit to society.
There's probably common ground to be had on some of this stuff, somewhere, but it's obscured by decades of awful politics perpetrated by liberals in office against normal, law-abiding citizens. Those of us who are old enough know better have noticed that the President has been using the phrase "common sense" over and over and over. There's a reason for that... nothing about it is "common sense." He's selling BS legislation.
And so we fight. Some of us even give money to groups we may not particularly love, like the NRA. When you know you have to do something to defend your constitutional rights, and there's a good chance you're about to lose the battle to the 24hr news cycle. Remember, we live among a population that would trade their own children if you promised it would make them safer.
Remember how easy it was to sell everyone on bogus wars over "tururrism"? Yeah, we remember too. Tell people you're going to "Stop the senseless bloodshed by banning these ultra-mega-high-capacity magazines for ruthless killers", and they'll sign on the dotted line, even if it doesn't make any sense.
We did exactly this, already, just a few years ago. If you don't remember, go hit the wiki. It did absolutely nothing, for anyone except the politicians that pushed it. But memories are short, and it's possible we'll end up doing this dance again. That's the feeling that makes people belt out some pretty silly stuff about the direction this country is headed.
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.
> I'm glad I don't have a visa...
So are we :-)
It's not that SF is really all that extreme, it's that its politics are so far left that the place is run like a circus.
Special interest groups run the city.
They make ill-informed 'green' decisions which have drastic negative reprecussions for the city, resulting in 3rd world like conditions (see: their sanitary system - google 'why does san francisco always smell like shit')
They do asinine things to the flow of traffic and eliminate parking spots to 'penalize' people for driving, such as removing lanes and parking spaces. Net result: everyone suffers, and driving in the city just becomes more difficult.
Public transit, the liberal dream, is only given lip service, in so far as it serves the city to milk it for funding and claim they've got a good public transit system. (NYC MTA puts these chumps to shame.)
They 'patch' roadways with steel, not even diamond pattern steel. They do this in San Francisco, one of the dirtiest, grimiest cities in the US. Want to guess what happens to that steel when it rains?
I got modded down, significantly, for the GP post. Why? Because they didn't like what I had to say, not that there was anything actually factual with what I said.
Where a city like NYC would have built a dozen bridges and/or tunnels to deal with traffic demand, San Francisco does.... nothing. Or rather, they shut down an existing bridge so they can widen it.
San Francisco is a "one party" city. (Hopefully I don't have to explain why a single party environment is bad for accountability; the expected corruption from such an environment is quite evident.)
The city doesn't really need a reason to raise taxes. They just do, and you better hope you aren't an actual property owner or you'll likely be hurt by it.
SF area people are more in favor of illegal immigrants than they are people from "flyover country". Racial and cultural ad hominem will abound for the people who they disagree with - their fellow countrymen.
They elected Nancy Pelosi. Multiple times. This is the woman who has abused federal coffers excessively (eg. demanding Air Force planes to fly her around and frequently back/forth to SF from DC). Her voting record aside, she's one of the 'entitled' members of Congress who think they're better than the rest, and act accordingly.
The populace takes pride in hedonistic displays as a whole, with multiple city-wide festivals per year.
I've never visited or worked anywhere in the US where people seem so incredibly lazy.
Pick a view, any view, and hold it: it's valid, accepted, and celebrated, as long as it's not traditional Christianity or a conservative American lifestyle.
Whereas in somewhere like NYC, you can have some guy tell you to go fuck yourself and then pick up a conversation with the person 5 minutes later in a line about the weather, in San Francisco someone's liable to throw paint on you for wearing the wrong style or generally be confrontational and hostile for no apparent reason. Even the homeless/beggars are obnoxious and in your face.
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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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The average american, and average slashdot poster is CLUELESS about politics.
As opposed to the average citizen of any other country? Why is it necessary to hold the average american up to some special standard?
Reality is the average american is too ignorant/stupid to have any kind of informed political view of america given the huge amount of propaganda that pervades their media and education system.
Reality is... every first world country has a government with a bureaucratic process so dense as to blunt, if not entirely dissipate, any creative process for change. You say they're ignorant and stupid, but that's an ignorant and stupid attitude. The truth is, most people aren't interested in politics because its emotionally painful if one becomes overly-involved. That's not an unintelligent response to a hopelessly and needlessly complex system designed specifically to be resistant to intelligent and thoughtful discourse.
You simply picked the one with the largest military and economy in the world to shit on, for no other reason than because you want to pull it down for your own emotional gratification. How you managed to get this to be labelled "+5 insightful" is simply saying that a great many people also have such emotional needs... but having offered no proof or objective analysis, "insightful" is not the word I would use to describe your reaction. But then, there is no "+5, I Agree Because I Have Emotional Needs That Depend On Crapping On Others" option.
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