Reactions To Disgusting Images Predict a Persons Political Ideology

LuxuryYacht writes A new study shows that the way your brain responds to photos of of maggots, mutilated carcasses, and gunk in the kitchen sink gives a pretty good indication of whether you're liberal or conservative. "Remarkably, we found that the brain's response to a single disgusting image was enough to predict an individual's political ideology," Read Montague, a Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute psychology professor who led the study, said in a written statement. 83 men and women viewed a series of images while having their brains scanned in a functional MRI (fMRI) machine. The images included the disgusting photos described above, along with photos of babies and pleasant landscapes. Afterward, the participants were asked to rate how grossed out they were by each photo. They also completed a survey about their political beliefs, which included questions about their attitudes toward school prayer, gun control, immigration, and gay marriage. There was no significant difference in how liberals and conservatives rated the photos. But the researchers noted differences between the two groups in the activity of brain regions associated with disgust recognition, emotion regulation, attention and even memory. The differences were so pronounced that the researchers could analyze a scan and predict the person's political leaning with 95 percent accuracy.

Comments

are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn.. They are prone to over react and manipulate and lie about things, so damn tight there will be obvious differences.

obamasweapon.com

Re: are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really believe anything on that consipracy website you should commit yourself to a psych ward (or even better, just blow your brains out)

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[lgw]

Obvious differences indeed - I'm guessing the conservatives' brains lit up in the areas associated with planning the work to clean up the mess, and liberals' brains in the areas with hope that the government would fix it?

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, now I understand the 6 years of political gridlock by the Republicants... they're planning to clean up the mess! That explains it all. So what decade are they going to get around to cleaning it up?

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Boronx]

You should read the paper. Conservative brains light up in areas associated with blaming immigrants, unions and Obama for the mess.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's leave the discussion of what the patterns of activation imply about liberals and conservatives to people that understand what the specific patterns of activation mean.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Xyrus]

Obvious differences indeed - I'm guessing the REPUBLICANS's brains lit up in the areas associated with MAKING the mess, and DEMOCRATS' brains in the areas with hope that they might be able to clean it up?

FTFY. The republicans in this country aren't any more "conservative" than the democrats are "liberal". Also, an F-MRI of the current crop of republicans would show zero activity. Or at least that's the impression I get whenever I see a scientists go before a panel of congressmen. The fact that the congressmen on the SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITEE don't even understand basic concepts that most 4th graders understand tells you all you need to know.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whereas Democrats brains light up in the areas associated with blaming white men, corporations, and Bush for the mess.

Re: are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote he should blow his brains out. Although, that would be a pretty disgusting image.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect example of the humorless Liberal.

Come on, Man! That was funny! Even a sanctimonious, self righteous, War of Everything Liberal should laugh at that.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Six years? political gridlock by the republicans the first two years of which they held no majorities?

Fool.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[TarPitt]

It seems very reasonable to blame those with the greatest share for wealth and power for the current state of society, rather than the impoverished and marginalized.

Though the latter position has a long heritage, stating back to the days when isolated, quirky old women were burned for being witches, somehow causing famine and pestilence despite their poverty and lack of influence.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha ha, no. "planning the work to clean up the mess?" only if those "plans" require someone else to do the work, someone else to pay for it, and someone else to take the responsibility/blame. The most action today's "conservatives" will ever consider is building a higher fence to keep the riff-raff outside, and then only because some for-profit sees some easy money in charging tolls for going in and out.

That's the difference. Liberals understand they live in or near the mess, and are highly motivated to "fix it" with whatever resources are available. Conservatives live in a fantasy that the mess is always of someone else's doing on the other side of the tracks and therefore should never concern them. I'm rich, I got mine, you fuck off I don't owe nobody nothing leave me alone I'll be dead before the disaster hits so get off my lawn.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Feyshtey]

"Political Gridlock" is a fabricated phrase coined by petulant children who are actually saying "Do it my way, damnit!"

It is not the job of Congress to ensure that laws get passed. It is not the intent of our government's structure to ensure that compromises are met and new rules are enacted. It is structured so that unless there is a majority in agreement, not one god damn thing is forced upon the people.

Somehow we've lost sight of that fact, and now we measure the effectiveness of Congress on an abundant tally of their bloated, incongruous and often self-contradicting and self-serving laws, rather than on how intelligently and efficiently they structure the few laws that should be actually enacted.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[lgw]

Have you actually had your sense of humor surgically removed, or did you meditate for years to accomplish that?

Re: are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? So the republicans are planning a government solution while the Democrats are waiting for government (republicans?) to help?

Your troll game is weak, son.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

It most certainly is the job of congress to ensure that government fulfills its function. Part of that means passing laws, part of that mean passing bills which are not laws (banal executive decisions are the majority of what congress actually does), none of that can happen when a large enough group of congressmen declare that they're going to stand in everyone's way until they get everything exactly how they want it.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[narcc]

Also, an F-MRI of the current crop of republicans would show zero activity.

That's not true. When exposed to goatse, activity in the cortical anterior fap gyrus increase by over 9000%.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[omfgnosis]

I don't think it's disputable that the US Congress is configured (by a combination of design and historical precedent) to limit legislative action. I also don't think it's disputable that this limitation is a source of stability and a mitigation for some extreme action. I even think that some extremely successful Congressional actions are evidence that this limitation is necessary (at least in context) and should be applied more thoroughly.

But it's facile to then say that a dysfunctional Congress is right or desirable. Whether a law should be enacted depends upon the gravity of circumstance, the character of the law itself, the education of the Congress members themselves, the education of the public, and any number of incentives. It simply isn't apparent that the government which governs least governs best.

I don't think anyone really means to say that Congress should be a well oiled legislation factory. Quite plainly, people are just as displeased with the quality of legislation that does escape as they are with what doesn't. People are upset because they expect Congress to take certain actions that are not being taken.

Besides specific legislative needs—some of which, like declaration of war, are quite grave and Congress has completely shirked—there is also an expectation that members act in what they believe to be the best interest of their constituents. It is obvious that many do not see this expectation being fulfilled, and that is what rankles people about Congress and "gridlock".

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[cold fjord]

It seems very reasonable to blame those with the greatest share for wealth and power for the current state of society, rather than the impoverished and marginalized.

It may seem reasonable, but it largely isn't. It is just another set of scapegoats used to rally people. They don't make the countless individual decisions that people make as to how to act in their day to day live, what values they have, and how they act on them.

The position you reference has a long and bloody heritage too. You only need to look at the Marxist revolutions that have taken place around the world leading to mass murder and the impoverishment of entire nations due to misguided values.

People keep trying to claim that corporations are evil, or that they run the government. Can you show me one vote cast by a corporation in the Senate? Corporation is just a word for things we do together voluntarily.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Feyshtey]

I disagree. There are some people that think that some laws are necessary, and when they don't see those laws being fast-tracked thru Congress they equate that to dysfunction. What should be evident is that if the law doesn't pass, it really isn't that necessary and not favored heavily enough by enough people.

If a congressman refuses to vote in favor of a thing that his or her electorate feels is critical, he will be removed upon the next election. If his electorate is so intellectually bankrupt (as oh so many Americans are), then they will leave that person in Congress to continue failing to do things that are critical. The former is a check on the system; those failing to represent those who elected him is removed. The latter is not a symptom of dysfunction in Congress. It's a symptom of the dysfunction of the voters.

We were never supposed to have a government that built an ever-growing catalogue of all things we citizens cannot do. They were never intended to prevent us from being offended, or uncomfortable. They were meant to defend our borders, settle disputes between states, and very little else. They (and the plethora of activists) have taken it upon themselves to try to govern how we think, act, drive, read, are entertained, eat, sleep, breath... They have changed the foundation of our system from innocent until proven guilty at which time you'll be punished, to attempting to prevent us from ever becoming guilty by forcing the behavior they desire.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Feyshtey]

Our government's intended function is mostly to stay the hell out of our way. In your example, not only should that Congressman stand in the way of action by others that is not critical to the very limited intended purpose of government, but also every other Congressman should stand in his way to ensure that he isn't using strong-arm tactics, coercion and back-room deals to foist more crap on We The People.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[omfgnosis]

What should be evident is that if the law doesn't pass, it really isn't that necessary and not favored heavily enough by enough people.

In fantasy, sure. In reality, there are political forces much greater than what people favor. There are countless polls, not only about particular issues where the public and the Congress are tragically out of step, but where voters say they don't think either party represents them. (Happy to provide links if you care and doubt it... I have done a ton of research on this, but I won't bother unless the conversation remains relatively engaging.) Voters simply don't have much leverage.

If a congressman refuses to vote in favor of a thing that his or her electorate feels is critical, he will be removed upon the next election.

Even in fantasy, this would be unlikely. Voters often compromise on things they consider critical, in order to protect other things they consider critical.

If his electorate is so intellectually bankrupt (as oh so many Americans are), then they will leave that person in Congress to continue failing to do things that are critical. The former is a check on the system; those failing to represent those who elected him is removed. The latter is not a symptom of dysfunction in Congress. It's a symptom of the dysfunction of the voters.

This is cartoonishly simplistic. Suppose, for example, a person finds climate change critical. The vast majority of voters have no credible option available to express this, even if they were willing to compromise other critical issues. Organizing credible options is a task beyond the vast majority of citizens' means; organizing it over time requires far more political acumen than your "if you don't like it vote differently" picture, but rather a world class marketing effort with essentially no misstep. This is beyond the reach of the voting public as a whole. And even if it could be mustered, it would almost certainly come at the cost of other critical issues.

We were never supposed to have a government that built an ever-growing catalogue of all things we citizens cannot do. They were never intended to prevent us from being offended, or uncomfortable. They were meant to defend our borders, settle disputes between states, and very little else. They (and the plethora of activists) have taken it upon themselves to try to govern how we think, act, drive, read, are entertained, eat, sleep, breath... They have changed the foundation of our system from innocent until proven guilty at which time you'll be punished, to attempting to prevent us from ever becoming guilty by forcing the behavior they desire.

I tried to respond to the previous bits in good faith, despite realizing this was coming. I hope you'll agree that I made a reasonable effort there. But this... most of what you're describing is first a caricature of the Constitution and second a caricature of liberalism. Your efforts to describe a constitutional ideal are undermined by this. There is real over-regulation, but it is mostly a product of powerful business interests.

There is an actual need for regulation, though. I need to be sure that my drinking water isn't dangerous. I need to be sure I can make an educated decision about my nutrition and health. I need to be sure that if a neighbor in my apartment building starts a fire, I have an otherwise unobstructed path out of the building. I need to be sure that my employer will actually produce a valid check for the amount I was promised in exchange for my labor. Quoth the Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." I considered adding emphasis, but I would have emphasized nearly the entire quote.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[mcswell]

Duh, of course there are differences. The surprising thing is that these two differences are correlated. At least it seems surprising to most of us.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[thunderclap]

What should be evident is that if the law doesn't pass, it really isn't that necessary and not favored heavily enough by enough people.

In fantasy, sure. In reality, there are political forces much greater than what people favor. There are countless polls, not only about particular issues where the public and the Congress are tragically out of step, but where voters say they don't think either party represents them. (Happy to provide links if you care and doubt it... I have done a ton of research on this, but I won't bother unless the conversation remains relatively engaging.) Voters simply don't have much leverage.

If a congressman refuses to vote in favor of a thing that his or her electorate feels is critical, he will be removed upon the next election.

Even in fantasy, this would be unlikely. Voters often compromise on things they consider critical, in order to protect other things they consider critical.

If his electorate is so intellectually bankrupt (as oh so many Americans are), then they will leave that person in Congress to continue failing to do things that are critical. The former is a check on the system; those failing to represent those who elected him is removed. The latter is not a symptom of dysfunction in Congress. It's a symptom of the dysfunction of the voters.

This is cartoonishly simplistic. Suppose, for example, a person finds climate change critical. The vast majority of voters have no credible option available to express this, even if they were willing to compromise other critical issues. Organizing credible options is a task beyond the vast majority of citizens' means; organizing it over time requires far more political acumen than your "if you don't like it vote differently" picture, but rather a world class marketing effort with essentially no misstep. This is beyond the reach of the voting public as a whole. And even if it could be mustered, it would almost certainly come at the cost of other critical issues.

We were never supposed to have a government that built an ever-growing catalogue of all things we citizens cannot do. They were never intended to prevent us from being offended, or uncomfortable. They were meant to defend our borders, settle disputes between states, and very little else. They (and the plethora of activists) have taken it upon themselves to try to govern how we think, act, drive, read, are entertained, eat, sleep, breath... They have changed the foundation of our system from innocent until proven guilty at which time you'll be punished, to attempting to prevent us from ever becoming guilty by forcing the behavior they desire.

I tried to respond to the previous bits in good faith, despite realizing this was coming. I hope you'll agree that I made a reasonable effort there. But this... most of what you're describing is first a caricature of the Constitution and second a caricature of liberalism. Your efforts to describe a constitutional ideal are undermined by this. There is real over-regulation, but it is mostly a product of powerful business interests.

There is an actual need for regulation, though. I need to be sure that my drinking water isn't dangerous. I need to be sure I can make an educated decision about my nutrition and health. I need to be sure that if a neighbor in my apartment building starts a fire, I have an otherwise unobstructed path out of the building. I need to be sure that my employer will actually produce a valid check for the amount I was promised in exchange for my labor. Quoth the Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." I considered adding emphasis, but I would have emphasized nearly the entire quote.

This is why we have a representative Oligarchy now and not a republic like the founders designed.

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[omfgnosis]

You quoted the whole thing, so it's unclear: are you saying that the reason for the oligarchy is because of the numerous points I made about political realities? Or because I closed with a paragraph indicating that the government has a role in providing for basic regulations that allow us to live our lives in safety with confidence?

If you mean the former, that is the system the founders designed. It's in many, many ways a flawed design. If you mean the latter, I'd like to know how the examples of regulations I provided lead to an oligarchy.

In either case, just to clarify, we do live in a republic. All that means is we don't have a monarch.

Re: are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Herds Derf liberals love government Derf berf!

Re:are conservatives just showing more reaction?

[Optali]

From what I can see in the press the conservatives are only interested in God, their guns and speaking shit lie that the earth is 6000 years old. I don't think that they can plan too much. And if I just open Google and see the pure fucking chaos that your Dubya and his dad organised I am perfectly reassured.

Or maybe you are talking about other type of conservatives.

HINT: From the standard political point of view I would be on the Far Right of your conservatives (yeah, Ziklon B and stuff)

Concrete proof at last

[Anonymous Coward]

Conservatives enjoy suffering.

Re:Concrete proof at last

[TarPitt]

Conservative believe people suffer because they have freely made bad life choices. People who suffer therefore do not deserve our assistance or our sympathy, as they are wholly to blame for their condition. Public policy should discourage bad choices by allowing these people to suffer the consequences of their freely chosen action. Welfare, unemployment insurance, and public healthcare are wrong, as they go against the natural order by isolating people from the consequences of their actions.

Conversely, the wealthy and powerful have made good life choices and deserve our admiration. Public policy should encourage these high ranking individuals through lower taxes and less regulation of their activities.

Re:Concrete proof at last

[tepples]

How is it a "bad life choice", say, to be born with cerebral palsy or to develop type 1 diabetes mellitus?

Re:Concrete proof at last

[Anonymous Coward]

watch your diet and don't get immunizations for your kids, clearly

Re:Concrete proof at last

[mjwx]

How is it a "bad life choice", say, to be born with cerebral palsy or to develop type 1 diabetes mellitus?

Well obviously their parents did something wrong, their parents also being quite poor are to blame for that situation as well.

This is sarcasm, for the sarcastically impaired (as was the GGP).

Re:Concrete proof at last

[Anonymous Coward]

You had me going there until this:

Conversely, the wealthy and powerful have made good life choices and deserve our admiration.

+4 Insightful? Apparently you had a lot of 'free market' idiots who read Diary of Anne Rand think you're the next Ronald Reagan.

+5 funny.

Re:Concrete proof at last

[JakeBurn]

Among my friends, every one who enjoys horror and zombie movies is liberal except myself. Also funny how anti-conservative every horror movie board I go to is. Every single person I know who listens to death metal is liberal leaning except myself. Strange that nearly everyone I meet who loves intense gore, violence and suffering in the media they choose to enjoy are liberals. Unless, that is, your guess as to why the data played out the way it did is entirely incorrect. Conservatives don't enjoy suffering we're just mostly indifferent to it. Its something that happens in everyone's life at some point and to some degree. Why get bent out of shape over it? Analyze it, figure out how best to avoid it in the future and move on.

Re:Concrete proof at last

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it a "good life choice", say, to vote that your children need to work well into their 70s to pay for my 30-year retirement pension?

Re:Concrete proof at last

[vandamme]

Unless you are a conservative, please keep your opinions of how "they" think to yourself.

Two things.

[khasim]

First:

Eighty-three healthy individuals (males/females = 41/42; age = 18â"62; mean [SD] = 29.0 [11.3] years) in Roanoke and Blacksburg, VA, area were recruited ...

Second:

They also completed a survey about their political beliefs, which included questions about their attitudes toward school prayer, gun control, immigration, and gay marriage.

So what would the results be if the recruits were from a more "Liberal" country?

That is the problem with these "studies". DO NOT look in your backyard for cases that support your bias. Look for cases that contradict your bias. Even if you have to look at the people in other countries. Particularly countries where there is less focus on the items that are controversial in the USofA.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me the plot of Divergent.

Re:Two things.

[Chrisje]

And boy let me tell you, the items that are controversial in the USofA are not the same ones that are controversial over here in Europe. Of course we get a smattering of IS and Ebola related news this time of year, but in general political discourse tends to not involve discussions on what one should be doing with one's penis, vagina, uterus or the contents thereof, but much more about the re-distribution of wealth and the state of law.

I see that both in Israel and the US, to be honest: A focus on the irrelevant. Case in point being that the security craze and hype surrounding 9/11 has caused a spike in ground traffic that killed more people than the 9/11 incident itself. It seems to me that both the US and Israel have a greater tendency than normal to hype relatively small risk factors and completely and blatantly ignore evidence for large looming risk factors, even in the face of mounting evidence.

The more progressive a society gets, the more balanced people's view is on risk. Whether the one causes the other or vice versa, I do not know. The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland are decidedly more earthy in their political discourse, even if obviously we do have some fear mongering rotten apples. Case in point in the Netherlands being the fascist reactionaries that crawled from under all the rocks in the country in the wake of the discussion on whether blackface is a good idea, but I digress.

So while the findings are interesting, firstly 83 subjects is a piss in the pond and secondly the original poster is right: Is this finding universal for all the cultures we find on the globe?

Lastly, by US standards I would be a flaming liberal. There's nothing wrong with smoking a doozie, I am atheist, I think abortion isn't even worth a discussion since babies only really become sentient some 2 months after birth, obviously I am in favour of gay marriage and last but not least I think the proliferation of weapons amongst civilians (and even the army, but I digress again) is a really really silly idea.

However, I self identify as a Left Winger in terms of economic re-distribution politics, as a Constitutional Conservative when it comes to safeguarding the state of law in my country, a Conservationist in terms of the environment and indeed finally as a Liberal in terms of sexual practice and tolerance and the tolerance for people of other color. But when it comes to my atheism I am quite extremist. I think people who are god-believers are simply lesser beings and I do strive to stamp out god-belief and related silliness wherever I encounter it.

Now I wonder, given all my views and thoughts on things, whether I would be deemed a "Conservative" or "Liberal", and what selection criteria would be used for classifying me such. Because none of those were mentioned in the article.

Re:Two things.

[Zontar The Mindless]

You mean it's YAYADE*? How so?

(Yet Another Young Adult Dystopian Epic)

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

...Meanwhile, how do you feel about immigration? It's one of the many issues that Europe seems absurdly right wing on from a US perspective.

Re:Two things.

[itzly]

Immigration is a real and growing problem in Europe. If slowing down the wave of immigration is considered "absurdly right wing", then so be it.

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask Europeans what they think about Conchita Wurst or abortion. If you think you'll get unanimous, progressive answers, then you've never been outside one of the major cities or talked to people outside a subset of what you find in the cities. The French pro-family protests, Spain's bipolar split on abortion rights, and the conservatism of the countryside (think Bavaria, the Tirol, etc) are every bit a match for US focus on the body in politics.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it stood for You Are Yammering Acronyms Despite Expounding

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with your views, but I add one of my own: understanding or non-judgmental

Belief in god is much easier to understand if you look at it from a historic and scientific way. Historic in that if you don't understand how anything works then it's all magical. Our brains are constantly looking for patterns even if they don't exist. We must find patterns to be calm. If you don't understand how anything works and you screamed out for rain, promising something, and then it rained. And you did that a few times. It's easy to see how someone can start to believe in some out there. Adding to that that people like to think someone is watching out for them. That no matter what mistakes you make, someone still loves you and that everything will turn out in the end. (What I don't understand is fear of death. When I die I'll be dead and won't feel anything. What's so scary about that? I don't require that anything else exists afterwards. I'm fine with life being pointless.)

In terms of science, deep prayer has the same effects on your brain as deep meditation (they've done brain scans): disassociation, calmness, well-being, and hallucinations. If you don't understand that these things can happen with focused self-concentration it's very easy to attribute them to whatever you're praying to. Disassociation can be easily attributed to leaving your body and feeling connecting with your soul. Hallucinating while disassociated can be an awesome or terrible experience. Anything can happen to you and if you were already concentrating on a certain topic... There's also the presence you feel when your mind wakes up before your body does at the end of sleep. I've had that happen a few times. It's freaken crazy if you don't understand what's happening. Easily attributed to an evil spirit or alien trying to do something to you. Every sense I had knew there was something standing right outside my vision and about to smother me. And on top of that you can't move to look and feel completely defenseless. I knew a anything falling on my head would suffocate me as I couldn't turn away or blow it off. Even though that's not true, your body would instantly snap out of it just like you do when you're asleep and someone smacked you, but that's not how it feels, so that's not what you believe. Someone must be doing this to you; holding you down.

My point being don't see them as lower people, but uninformed, needy ones. Belief in gods can provide excellent emotional support, why would someone want to throw that away when it can't be disproved? You can disproved tons of parts of different religions, but most followers don't even do half the things they're supposed to. You can't disprove the theory of god.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

In terms of science, deep prayer has the same effects on your brain as deep meditation (they've done brain scans): disassociation, calmness, well-being, and hallucinations.

Sounds like soft science nonsense to me; subjective and not rigorous.

But even if that is so, I'd rather not live a lie.

You can't disprove the theory of god.

You can't disprove the theory of the magical undetectable pink unicorn living on mars. There's just no reason to believe it exists, and doing so is irrational.

Re:Two things.

[umafuckit]

Indeed. I've just returned to Europe following a 6 year stint in the US. There were a lot of things I really liked about America, but what I won't miss is watching the news, seeing how increasingly fucked up and dysfunctional is the whole political system, and hearing the meaning of the word "freedom" being twisted out of all recognition. It's all together rather depressing.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

The more progressive a society gets, the more balanced people's view is on risk.

Yeah, we COMPLETELY see that in Europe, where you guys are pushing so much immigration that the immigrants will breed you out in a generation or two, and erect a caliphate of their own.

You guys are so way ahead of us on risk. Uh huh.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Immigration is real and growing - why do you assume that is a problem? Migrants in general are net contributor to society (tax and culture wise). The UK economy would collapse without them.

Re:Two things.

[Prune]

The following quote from the paper suggests that, contrary to your claim, there is a natural basis for defining what is a moderate position:

Political attitudes and interest did not show a significant linear relationship [r(81)= 0.148, p= 0.182], but instead showed a U-shaped curve (FigureS1A), indicating that greater political interest is associated with polarized political attitudes.

The actual figure shows there is a fairly even distribution in terms of frequency throughout the range of political attitudes (you can see it by eye even if you don't create a histogram of the data), but the centrality of the lowest interest section along the attitudes axis needs to be explained. If you were to be correct, the range of attitudes on that axis covered by samples (removing outliers, if any), would be significantly shifted based on which country the sample group is taken from. Then either the location of the lowest interest section would not be central in the sample range for some countries (and, from experience spending time in a dozen different countries, I would bet my life against that--polarization is evident and ubiquitous), or the lowest interest section would be shifted along the attitudes axis, preserving its relative centrality for each country's data set. The latter requires a mechanism to generate it, and I'm extremely skeptical as to your ability to propose a convincing one that is based on primarily sociological considerations (biological ones are out of the question due to the relative biological uniformity across many countries with seemingly different political leanings according to your perception). I expect neither to be the case--that you are mistaken, and plots of sample groups from different nations will have far more overlap on the attitudes axis than you perceive. The range of fundamental political attitudes does not vary greatly from country to country and, as this paper implies, likely has a strong biological basis; rather, small differences are magnified by complex sociocultural mechanisms to create the biases of the overarching political landscape in each country.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

I too think believing in God is silly. But I try to see all beings as being equally valuable. It's hard sometimes, but once you get the hang of it, it actually feels quite good, and you don't have to spend so much energy getting mad at things that you can't control anyway.

Getting mad at them god-believers is actually exactly what they want you to. On their own, their ideas are quite useless, harmless, they have no effect. Their ideas can only exist if they are in oposition to other ideas. So they constantly have to evoke conflict, either in discussion, or by going to war. By responding to that, you give them meaning for existence. I'm not saying it is wrong protesting your country going to war, but I am saying it is wrong of terorists to blow up civilians as a revenge for the USA blowing up other civilians. And it is wrong to get in discussion with them over the topic "believing in god", because they will use stupid arguments and false claims, and lies and whatever, just to get you mad at them. They are like spoiled kids, that are looking for trouble to fight their boredom. Giving in to that doesn't make you much different from them.

Give it a try.

Re:Two things.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So what would the results be if the recruits were from a more "Liberal" country?

Well, presumably, it's not the only factor. I'd imagine that these brain differences could be an additive factor that gets superimposed onto the culturally induced average.

Particularly countries where there is less focus on the items that are controversial in the USofA.?

More "liberal" (whatever that means) countries surely have either similar debates or some analogical issues. You may not have school prayer debates in France but you get debates on religious clothing in schools. Immigration is a universal issue. And you don't need to be religious to have gay marriage debates; there are many irreligious people who instinctively feel it's "wrong", for some weird reason. If you don't get to have rabid Christians in your country, these people will still be there, even if in small percentages perhaps.

Re:Two things.

[Zappy]

Immigration is not a problem per se. Immigration of large groups not willing to conform to our local ethnics is.

I'm from north western europe. Our ethnics is largely atheist and liberal and we are under constant pressure from minorities trying to force their "sensibilities" on society. Well if they don't like our way of living, they are welcome to leave as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Two things.

[doctorsdad]

given all my views and thoughts on things,

you should just be considered ....sensible.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the U.S., emergency services are authorized to take the dangerously insane into immediate custody without judicial delay. If you're unable to vote or contribute to a political campaign due to incarceration, you wouldn't be classified as either conservative or liberal. HTH.

Re:Two things.

[itzly]

The (mostly North African/Middle Eastern) immigrants have the highest unemployed rates, lowest education level, and are most active in crime. And many of the mediaeval cultural values they bring with them, we can do without. I don't see a net contribution in either tax or culture.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

The study appears pretty clearcut - it's not that either side views the images as more or less disgusting (that was made clear even in the summary) - it's that one side is reactionary and emotive while the other side leans more toward logic and reason - the conclusion is the same in either case for something as simple as rating images but the latter is far more likely to be capable of higher thought processes.

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Most UK immigrants are from Eastern Europe, not Africa.

2. Rates of education and employment are higher amongst immigrants than in the native UK population. Natives are less likely to be higher educated, and more likely to be unemployed and on benefits.

3. UKIP are morons. Deporting 3 million employed and productive people is the plan of economic illiterates.

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll never understand this reasoning. Perhaps because it's blatantly racist. In a generation, they are us.

Re:Two things.

[DirePickle]

In the US, you would be a liberal (left of center). None of the things you listed would make you the slightest bit "conservative," as it's defined here.

Re:Two things.

[LF11]

You are putting too much into the study. This study shows that there IS a biological basis for SOME political beliefs. This flies directly in the face of a great deal of currently-accepted knowledge, and is very important. This study shows that there is room for more research to explore all the questions you describe.

If you come away with more questions than answers, it's probably good research.

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all immigrants are create equal.

The hardworking Asians and Indians prop things up for the lazy Arabs and Africans.

Don't like that? Sorry, reality isn't as PC as you'd like.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, the point of the survey is that they use it to control for the effects that are represented by the latent factors within that survey. Which means that the political orientation is conditionally independent of all other factors, on average, except political orientation.

With that said, I haven't read the paper, although now I will. Psychologists (speaking as one, although one who got his doctorate in computational statistics) often get statistics miserably wrong. They use rule of thumbs instead of understanding the reason why things in statistics are done. However, studies do not have to be generalisable to be actual science, especially in social science. The problem is contexts change how things function (in statistics, we call these moderators, or interactions). So what works in the home doesn't work the same in the workplace. However, knowledge is knowledge. If they get significant effects, especially if they use something like boosting or structural equation modelling, and get meaningful effects, thats actually wonderful. Especially using SEM, which is harder to get publishable results in a small sample than in a medium size (~200+) one. With all that said,this is how I would do this study, using the counterfactual methodology of Rubin (1974, 1978, and a shitload more; Rubin is a statistican, btw, at Harvard):

Model the probability of being republican or democrat (assuming only two political camps were used, use as many groups as necessary), in which the probability of group assignment is given from a non-parametric, non-linear function computed from a boosted prediction framework (many FOSS frameworks exist). Then match on the probability of group membership, or complex survey weight on probability of group membership, so that matched units are equally likely to be in either group, but are in mutually exclusive conditions. Check for differential probabilities of reaction to pictures, when conditioning on the given political orientation, and compute the accuracy, entropy association, or whatever similarity/dissimilarity metric you want. Test that average difference for significance (i.e., partial wald test, point estimation of difference / standard error of difference). If meaningfully different (significance less than .05 or large effect size; remember, small sample size actually means lower power to find significant effects, which means that your p value is actually likely to be too large, i.e., effect is more meaningful than just found). Publish results.

Just because science doesn't describe everything doesn't mean that it is valueless. Gravity isn't a constant 9.8m/s**2 all over the planet, but using that value is still a valuable approximation that gives us useful, testable hypotheses.

Moreover, the heuristic argument that the researchers make is substantiated by researcher in moral psychology, namely that of Haidt at NYU Stern SOB. Most ethics appear to be post-hoc rationalisations over why we did the things we did, rather than guidelines about how we act in the future. Reactions to disgusting things is differential across humanity, and our tolerance to immediate culural mores is a proxy for in group tribalism, loyalty, trangression forgiveness and other aspects of humanity. Hence the political connotation. That said, there's no guarantee these researchers didn't just throw an ANCOVA at it and accept the marginally significant results and publish (like I said, didn't read the paper yet), but it isn't just a political hot topic button to press. There's empirical precendence, that has been somewhat adequately replicated across the planet in different cultural norms.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

English isn't your first language is it?

Local ethnics = term a "old timey" racist would use to describe migrants

Local ethics = morals and accepted behaviour of a local group

Re:Two things.

[CrimsonAvenger]

And I've remained in the USA for the last...hmm, it's been almost forty years since I lived in Europe.

And I haven't bothered to watch the (TV) news in longer than that. I'll scan the web for headlines, but that's about it.

Amazing how much happier it's possible to be when you don't waste your time worrying about things you have no control over....

Re:Two things.

[umghhh]

ot as it is: your judgement of first language may be correct ut based on flawed argument of one badly used word which more likely than not was a typo and not conscious usage.

Re:Two things.

[Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki]

Immigration is a hotter topic in europe specifically because we have better social security.

The US has this attitude of letting everybody in and just have them take care of themselves, while many european countries actually take care of their own people.

This creates a situation when we get people into the country who were not born there but who will get social security, free health care and everything like that.

Re:Two things.

[umghhh]

in my rational view your 'rational' view is just irrational. Your post as AC so I cannot be sure but most of people using similar arhuments (although not all) are irrational bigots.

Re:Two things.

[umghhh]

The really interesting part is this: if all that in the study is true then one can imagine a device that determines your voting preferences automatically. I can even imagine making similar scans early in the childhood (as soon as that is technically possible - I would imagine early teens is already good enough). Make an implant or something not easilly removable and you do not even have to go trough all the trouble of visiting polling station anymore. Optimizing it further I can imagine that your preference can be noted in a voting register (together with some other preferences deduced from the scans) and use them whenever an election or some other silly routine is started. When technology is advanced enough we can even put some people (rated dangerous or not very useful for society) on the way trough the chimney with a single and simple database query although that may require some amendments to currently existing laws in some jurisdictions.

Re: Two things.

[itzly]

Europe isn't just UK. Go look in the other countries.

Re:Two things.

[itzly]

Even worse. Some people try to immigrate, and fail the necessary requirements, but are allowed to stay and get free healthcare just for being sick.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

The city of Roanoke is largely "Liberal". The surrounding counties are not.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're clearly a liberal according to the US taxonomy.

Re:Two things.

[trout007]

Well as popular as your views may be on /. it doesn't matter in the long run. You are not breeding and will be extinct in the near future.

Re: Two things.

[steven.db.clark]

You would let them die in the street?

Re:Two things.

[jbolden]

That is the problem with these "studies". DO NOT look in your backyard for cases that support your bias. Look for cases that contradict your bias. Even if you have to look at the people in other countries. Particularly countries where there is less focus on the items that are controversial in the USofA.

This work is a long tradition of gauging support for rightwing authoritarianism. The earliest forms of the research were done in Italy. It moved to the USA because 70% of all psychology / sociology research is done in the USA.

Re:Two things.

[jbolden]

You would be a liberal politically or possibly libertarian.

As for USA sillyness regarding risk, I can make pretty similar claims about your countries. For example obsession about dangers of radiation like dangers to food safety from radiation cleaning of meat. Under your theory that this sort of risk poor assessment is unique to USA and Israel how would you explain that?

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really easy to understand, see, if you treat cultures and social groups as species, you can also understand that some immigrants are good additions to an ecosystem while other types are invasive species. There's the risk that invasive species (ex. goats and rats in gallapago islands) will outright destroy the species in the old ecosystem before they die of starvation, so a good politician would prevent those invasive species from taking root in the ecosystem. Meanwhile, an irresponsible politician would erroneously think that more species = more diversity = better and refuse to see there's a problem with it even with constant news of problems caused by the newly introduced species. It just happens that liberals are by far more prone to take irresponsible stances than conservatives, which by definition take a conservative and pragmatic approach to problems. This is also one of the reasons why as soon as Europe became entirely liberal we got an economic depression of biblic proportions, and why the most "liberal" countries such as Spain, Chipre and Greece got totally obliterated and still haven't recovered. It also explains why anti-immigrant political parties are becoming commonplace in Europe, as it's obvious that socialdemocrat parties are oblivious and blind by ideology.

Re:Two things.

[noshellswill]

Yep you're an anti-enlightenment  Euro-shill for lib.com  sheeple drool.  Here ... take this  smashmouth iron bootheel ... yes, that feels better, much better. And oh yes ... when again the Slavs come marching west ... and come marching west they will ...  we Americans will this-time let them EAT you.

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would let them die at home.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not irrational at all, unless you think that believing in magical sky daddies when you have no evidence of their existence is rational.

are irrational bigots.

"bigots"? I am intolerant towards many things. Irrationality. Murder. Theft. Rape. And so are you, apparently. There's nothing wrong with being intolerant, as long as it's directed at an actual problem. Irrational belief in deities is a problem.

Re:Two things.

[LF11]

All of what you said is interesting and concerning, but brains are actually quite plastic. Patterns change. New patterns form. Old patterns fade. The shift from liberal to conservative with age is well-documented. A single encounter with psilocybin can create permanent personality changes.

Do we put them through a chimney, or invite them to have a cup of mushroom tea?

Or just marvel at the biological diversity that characterizes our brains, and treasure every twisted piece of it, because when cataclysms strike, diversity is the only way for a species to survive?

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd make a great little Nazi.. Consequently, your grandfather probably was one.

Re:Two things.

[Oligonicella]

Immigration is not a problem per se. Immigration of large groups not willing to conform to our local ethnics is.

Who exactly was it that let them in? Who exactly was it that didn't screen and educate them as to what was expected (unfortunately, not required)?

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people continually confuse culture/beliefs/attitudes with race? Is it because they like to play that supposed trump-card of "racist" and simply attempt to win an argument by labeling their opponents, rather than coming up with something intelligent and thought-provoking?

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I wondern whether I would be deemed a "Conservative" or "Liberal", and what selection criteria would be used for classifying me such.

http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2020019128/2039886187/mmc2.pdf - the questionnaires used for determining people's political orientation are on pp. 35-37. The questions are specifically geared towards US Americans ('Did you vote for Romney or Obama in 2012?' etc). But you would very probably end up in the liberal box.

This is far from being the first study of the link between 'disgust sensitivity' and 'conservatism'. Search that in Google Scholar and have a look for yourself.

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, if they failed to meet the necessary requirements I'd deport them so that they could die in their country of origin.

Please, drop the appeal to emotion under the auspices of faux-moral outrage.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

>There's nothing wrong with smoking a doozie

Fuck you, pothead.

Re: Two things.

[MillionthMonkey]

No, if they failed to meet the necessary requirements I'd deport them so that they could die in their country of origin.

Every hospital emergency room can have a speeding ambulance ready to pick bleeding Mexicans off the ground and whisk them across the Rio Grande before they stop breathing. Problem solved!

Re:Two things.

[budgenator]

However, I self identify as a Left Winger in terms of economic re-distribution politics

As much as I hate litmus tests, that's pretty much the litmus test; When society can take a Man's property soley based on some arbitary definition of "fairness", society can take anything.

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

You could be a poster boy for racism.
Step 1: dehumanize the "others".
Step 2: claim an existential threat.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Propose a "Final Solution".

Yeah, Godwin, but this is quite literally rhetoric that the Nazis could get behind.

It's easier to blame others than it is to take responsibility. It's almost hard-wired into the brain to see people that are different as being bad, especially if you never outgrew middle school. No matter where you come from, or where you go, it's really hard to be a first-generation immigrant. There will be cultural differences that you didn't even realize were part of your culture, and simple things like idioms will be a daily struggle. The second-generation immigrant is (probably) still a child of two worlds, but succeeding generations will be indistinguishable from societal norms.

Being different from others does not mean "bad", even if they're brown and don't believe in the same sky fairy that you do. Welcome to Earth, please try to get along with the rest of the children. Being an immigrant is harder than you have the capacity to imagine, so cut them some slack.

Re:Two things.

[ememisya]

Third:

First:

Eighty-three healthy individuals (males/females = 41/42; age = 18â"62; mean [SD] = 29.0 [11.3] years) in Roanoke and Blacksburg, VA, area were recruited ...

Second:

They also completed a survey about their political beliefs, which included questions about their attitudes toward school prayer, gun control, immigration, and gay marriage.

So what would the results be if the recruits were from a more "Liberal" country?

That is the problem with these "studies". DO NOT look in your backyard for cases that support your bias. Look for cases that contradict your bias. Even if you have to look at the people in other countries. Particularly countries where there is less focus on the items that are controversial in the USofA.

Did you know that Blacksburg is an international college town? We have more Chinese and Indian people here than local Virginians depending on the year and semester. So the 18-30 is a global mix, 30-62 would most likely be the more "backyard" bias, although we also have locals from around the world, like Iranians, Turks, it's a fairly diverse town to represent a sampling of the planet.

They also completed a survey about their political beliefs, which included questions about their attitudes toward school prayer, gun control, immigration, and gay marriage.

Also you seemed to imply here that taking a survey of the people's political opinions is a negative? Well how else are they supposed to compare the results? I'm assuming in your mind simply doing the experiment and not checking to see if the correlation actually existed would be good enough?

Re:Two things.

[budgenator]

Social Security is definately a factor here as well, there are something like 18 million social security accounts that have multiple people contributing to them, but will only have a single person recieving the benefits from, or at least there were back in the late '90s.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

SSShhh... That's called "science", and we can't have any of that around here. Upsets too many people when their biases aren't confirmed.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

To further add to the flaws with this study I don't see any mention of a control group; such as a group that would only view pictures of things emotionally neutral (such as buildings or something or that nature?) or even no pictures at all, so it seems this study is inherently flawed.

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

You would let them die in the street?

No, they would be sent back to their country of origin to die.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Divergent being written by an author who was just out of a relationship with a self-described intellectual, bitter about it, and who admitted allowing that relationship to impact her writing... well, I don't think one can exactly call it a clear-headed look at human nature.

Re:Two things.

[OldSport]

Here in the US, our infotainment industry has been in full swing for decades now convincing us to care, and care deeply and personally, about things that really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. At this point people are so goddamned confused about the state of our country and world that they consistently vote against their own best interests, and do so with pride and a sense of superiority.

Anyway, "liberal" and "conservative" seem to me entirely artificial concepts these days. The traditional (real) definitions of those terms are so divorced from their modern political manifestations (for example, can you really call yourself "conservative" if you support mass surveillance?) that they are for all intents and purposes meaningless. The only thing they demonstrate is how bamboozled you are by FOX News or MSNBC.

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, there's a difference.

You say all the other groups are nonsense, and that you are right.

We say you are almost right, except that you mistakenly believe one bit of nonsense.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Truthly young children aren't fully developed until after puberty. I am sure its ok to kill them at that age as well.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think people who are god-believers are simply lesser beings and I do strive to stamp out god-belief and related silliness wherever I encounter it."

Much like the islamo-extremists who behead infidels, I see.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

absurdly right wing

1. Even though we're both apparently in the US, you obviously don't share my perspective.
2. What's so "absurd" about reasonable restrictions on immigration?

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

So Europeans can be Libertarians? The desire for self-determination and freedom from oppression may finally be returning to one of the continents that created it.

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

no, you should run over the boats.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

How can this comment be rated insightful? It is complete nonsense. Did the commenter even read the paper?????

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lastly, by US standards I would be a flaming liberal. There's nothing wrong with smoking a doozie, I am atheist, I think abortion isn't even worth a discussion since babies only really become sentient some 2 months after birth, obviously I am in favour of gay marriage and last but not least I think the proliferation of weapons amongst civilians (and even the army, but I digress again) is a really really silly idea.

No, you aren't a liberal, you are a sociopath. Why? "babies only really become sentient some 2 months after birth" Seriously, WTF? I am happy you aren't a citizen of US. AS for the survey, its the usual political garbage designed to create specific results.

Re:Two things.

[mcswell]

"Getting mad at them god-believers is actually exactly what they want you to." No I don't, and none of the other Christians I know want that either, although I'm sure there are such people somewhere. On the other hand, I do see a handful of vocal atheists who seem to want exactly that. Not saying you do, nor even that most atheists--nor yet that a substantial portion do. What I am saying is that wanting people who disagree with one's beliefs to get mad is perhaps a quality of the proud and boastful. And afaict, pride and boastfulness are no more prevalent among the religious, the unreligious, the left, the right, the...you name it.

Re:Two things.

[mcswell]

"... they consistently vote against their own best interests." Altruistic, you say? Ok, that was a cut. But perhaps what it really means is that some people decide their vote on factors other than self interest.

Re:Two things.

[mcswell]

" Immigration is a universal issue." Well, there is North Korea...

Re:Two things.

[OldSport]

Poorly worded, maybe. Perhaps better phrased "are consistently convinced to vote for things that benefit neither themselves nor their fellow citizens, but rather benefit a small group of already powerful/wealthy people trying to further cement their own interests."

Re: Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you come to the north and 95% or something think abortion is ok. It's offered for free by public health. The one sthinking it's not ok are free to not abort themselves. We are not having any discussion about aborts. We will, sooner or later, legalize gay marriage. ( they already kinda have the same thing, just not with the word "marriage" ). Most people still belong to some organized religion, but in reality don't give a rats ass about religion or god. Most people here hope immigrants could just give up their silly believes. Or at least tone down A LOT.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything human-will related is biological. I read these results as: "Political affiliations is rooted deeper then normally thought". Sadly, this also means that somewhere, sometime in the future, killing or jailing for life people found guilty of thought crime, as "irreparable", will be rationalized by these findings.

Re:Two things.

[Zappy]

Correct English is not my first language, having said that. From a dictionary:

ethnic (thnk) adj. 1. a. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage.

Your definition of choice is in there as well btw.

And to be honest, I couldn't care less about somebody genetic heritage. I care about their behaviour.

Re:Two things.

[Zappy]

I'll just leave this here fyi

http://www.worldaudit.org/demo...

Re:Two things.

[xSander]

Saw Divergent on the plane earlier this year. Basically a Harry Potter clone, with a nonsensical plot. Fortunately I watched the movie on a red-eye flight, or it would have been a bigger waste of my time.

And yet a sequel is already in the works...

Re:Two things.

[TwoEyedJack]

Um, there are still vast areas of inquiry where mankind has no clue about what is going on. One small example: gravitational attraction between masses. Every particle attracts every other particle in the known universe with the exact same force. We have no clue as to the mechanism by which this happens. We cannot shield it, or even modify it. We cannot observe any particles being interchanged, yet there it is. The gravitational constant is empirically derived (no theoretical basis). When I got my degree in physics one of my takeaways is that we don't really know much at all about science. True scientists maintain a high level of humility before Nature.

Re:Two things.

[jfengel]

In this case, it might be the opposite: Blacksburg is the home of Virginia Tech, and between the students and the professors it's considerably more liberal than the deep red you'd see on a coarser-grained map of the area. It does give them access to a large pool of both liberals and conservatives, if they're seeking volunteers from off campus.

At the very least they'd be able to statistically adjust it against national demographics, though the study isn't very large. I'd think of it as an interesting bit of preliminary work, but it would have to be replicated very broadly before taking it seriously.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

You just confessed sharing the guilt of the deaths of tens of millions of people during the twentieth century. You want sex and violence because these are the EROTIC AND POLITICAL PASSIONS of which Aldous Huxley wrote in Ends and Means.

Remember to raise a clenched fist to the ceiling when you die.

66 I think people who are god-believers are simply lesser beings and I do strive to stamp out god-belief and related silliness wherever I encounter it. 99

Eleven men were hung after the Guck Fodwin Nürnberg Trial because certain people were thought of as "lesser beings". Now you have put yourself in a position that requires that you prove a negative with respect to being devoid of a conscience, relentless, imperious and cruel.

Re:Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I wonder, given all my views and thoughts on things, whether I would be deemed a "Conservative" or "Liberal", and what selection criteria would be used for classifying me such. Because none of those were mentioned in the article.

But... you're not an AMERICAN? Well then, you're a flaming, dangerous liberal! End of discussion! God Bless America!!!!!

Re:Two things.

[lucien86]

There's just one thing wrong with your idea - theoretical neurology and modern psychology are both total pseudoscience's. You'll get more effective and reliable results if you get Uri Geller to give you a tea leaf reading.
I'm not speaking as a layman here, I'm speaking as an expert in Strong AI and machine/human consciousness. If you read the scientific literature you will find theoretical neurologists arguing about whether consciousness even exists, you will also find a lot of theories about neural networks and systems that are totally unrealistic or ludicrously wrongheaded - and they still haven't even learned basic lessons that people who work with neural networks have known for decades. (for instance they haven't even figured out that the brain is primarily a synchronous sequential machine)
Modern Psychology is even worse - giving advice to people that is hopelessly erroneous or even downright dangerous. Modern Psychology seemingly hasn't yet even discovered/acknowledged the implications of humans being evolved animals - mammals, with self-evolving mammal brains. - If humans have mammalian brains then this has the implication that the psychology of not smacking and of totally withholding all physical punishments from children could cause them a type of systematic brain damage that could make them psychologically weak and or deformed for the rest of their future lives.

Now I don't believe in god as such and have to say the beliefs and behaviour of the most heavily religiously indoctrinated are pretty unpleasant. However it is still ultimately an open question and from a reductionist perspective there is insufficient data either way. God gets a lot more complex when you look inside the brain, god is literally part of the wiring of the brain, part of its core algorithm - but is it a physical god? not really, it is a logical god. Its not surprising that we invent gods and spirits and stuff.

Re:Two things.

[romons]

And I've remained in the USA for the last...hmm, it's been almost forty years since I lived in Europe.

And I haven't bothered to watch the (TV) news in longer than that. I'll scan the web for headlines, but that's about it.

Amazing how much happier it's possible to be when you don't waste your time worrying about things you have no control over....

In a democracy, you are supposed to have control (a teeny weeny bit of control) over government. You can't exercise that control unless you keep track of what is going on.

We are having a mid-term election today in the U.S. that is probably going to allow the wrong party to control congress. When I say 'wrong', I mean the party that doesn't have the most popular support. This is the fault of people who don't pay attention. That control will allow them to cement their control of the supreme court, and many lower courts. It will allow them to continue to block legislation that could easily get us out of our current crappy job situation. It will enable them to gut the first step towards a national healthcare service we've been able to make since the 1960s. It will allow them to block meaningful legislation that could help avoid global warming. It will enable them to continue to roll back reproductive rights for women.

Well there goes the last bastion of privacy

[Crashmarik]

I wonder how long before your thoughts will be ruled physical evidence ?

Re:Well there goes the last bastion of privacy

[gestalt_n_pepper]

I'd say, less than 5 years: http://www.newscientist.com/ar...

Slasher movies

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess conservatives were disgusted by disgusting images, but liberals were sexually aroused by them, aka why they love slashed movies so much...

Re: Slasher movies

[Anonymous Coward]

One mans trash is anothers treasure.

But really, conservatives were probably more shocked because they live sheltered lives. Liberals by definition are more openminded and therefore not as shocked or disgusted.

Re: Slasher movies

[mcswell]

I've never heard *that* definition of liberals before. By that definition I must be a Republican-voting liberal.

H'yup, The Parallax View

[TheRealHocusLocus]

"Welcome to the testing room of the Parallax Corporation's Division of Human Engineering. You will now please go up to the chair, and you will sit down, make yourself comfortable, be sure to place each one of your hands on the box on either side of the chair, making sure that each one of your fingers is on one of the white rectangles. Just sit back, nothing is required of you, except to observed the visual materials that are presented to you. Be sure to keep your fingers on the box at all times. All right, I hope you find the test a pleasant experience."

Take the test: Montage from the film, The Parallax View [1974]

More info about the 'test'

So

[Anonymous Coward]

... photos of of maggots, mutilated carcasses ...

I think people experience maggots and mutilated carcasses before political beliefs, particularly in rural areas. Since there seems to be no link between location and political belief, this research argues the frequency or quantity of such experiences do not define one's political beliefs. Maybe it's really arguing that political beliefs are a consequence of the gut reaction to the disgusting truth.

This single experiment provides 95% confidence that people easily upset choose conservative policies. Which is strange given that so-called conservative parties are choosing a "I got mine, everybody else drop dead" extremist mind-set.

... "greater political interest is associated with polarized political attitudes" ...

Translation: Extremists spend more time whining. It's not obvious how this is linked to the issue of reacting to disgusting photos.

Re:So

[Prune]

No. The fact that within the disgust category it's only the mutilated carcass image that was highly correlated with political attitude discredits your "rural area" hypothesis (maggot image was not correlated with political attitude, for example).

One is compelled to ask, how can National Science

[Anonymous Coward]

"We proposed that conservatives, compared to liberals, have greater negativity bias [13], which includes both disgusting and threatening conditions in our study. Our finding that only disgusting pictures, especially in the animal-reminder category, differentiate conservatives from liberals might be indicative of a primacy for disgust in the pantheon of human aversions, but it is also possible that this result is due to the fact that, compared to threat, disgust is much easier to evoke with visual images on a computer screen."

Re:One is compelled to ask, how can National Scien

[Anonymous Coward]

What in the hell is a "disgusting image"? That's utterly subjective. How can they call this science?

Captain obvious

[Kazoo the Clown]

So they've figured out that conservatives are more chickenshit than liberals. This is news?

Re:Captain obvious

[RuffMasterD]

I don't know man. Its gotta take courage from somewhere to vote for most filth riddled cretins in politics. I couldn't.

Anyone have copies of these images?

[Karmashock]

I'm a little curious what precisely they were showing to these people.

I mean... the images could have had political connotations that are not evident in the abstract's description.

In any case, politics are largely taught cultural traits rather then innate biological traits. So... not entirely sure where this is going.

Someone that watches more horror movies for example is going to have a higher threshold for disgust and shock probably then someone that doesn't.

I know that most men for example don't get grossed out, threatened, or shocked by things will tend to cause many women to gag, become uncomfortable, or otherwise become startled.

Then you have age and generational issues in that given ages and generations have different cultural perspectives that influence the way they respond to things.

My grandfather for example fought in WW2 but I'm pretty sure I could shock or gross him out with stuff that wouldn't really bother most of my peers.

It is a very murky issue and from what I am reading here they don't appear to have controlled for all the variables properly.

I'd want to grab college students for example because they're all pretty close to the same age. That would limit the study to some extent and control for some of the age issues. And then the images you show them really do need to be examined for subtle political connotations which really are very hard to eliminate. ... this is a stickier issue then I think the study properly appreciates. That said, glad they're having fun with the MRI machine... looks neato.

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone have copies of these images?

I believe you can find an archive of everything at www.4chan.org. The images are labelled under the "Random" category.

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rosie O'Donnell eating out Hillary Clinton.

Apparently it grosses out libs while cons just put on a "I told you so" face.

Also, you're underestimating your grandfather due to age. He's seen all the shit you've seen and more.

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[__aaltlg1547]

The article says the image that gave the only significant difference by political ideology was a mutilated body.

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Karmashock]

A mutilated body of whom? If I showed you a picture of mussolini hanging from a lamp post that would give you some sort of reaction. If I showed that to some other people... they might have different reactions.

I show it to old Italians for example and there are going to be different emotions happening in their heads.

The point I am making is that you really need to include some of those images... especially the key ones that showed a difference so people know what triggered it.

I also want to know if the gender break down was the same. They say conservatives did this and liberals did that. But what if for some reason there was a gender split on political lines?

There are a lot of things that can effect these things. The human mind is complex thing. Lets not think we can boil something as complicated as ideology down to "what is your reaction to this image that we won't show you in the abstract for no apparent reason even though we showed you other images and this is probably the most important bit of data in the entire study."...

I mean. If that ONE image was doing that. You need to show it. Full stop.

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which would explain why some liberals think ISIS is just a junior varsity terrorist organization. Beheading videos? Pictures of children being machine gunned? Pfft.

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Karmashock]

I'm sure your grandfather has... and what would make you think my grandfather hasn't?

The man just gets upset at things that don't bother me. For example, he gets upset when he sees men that wear baseball caps the wrong way. Either backwards or sideways. He just doesn't like it. It pisses him off. Its kind of adorable.

Now how many people in my generation... his children's children's generation are likely to get upset by seeing someone with a baseball cap the wrong way?

For me... no real reaction. I think it is a stupid fashion statement but I can't say I really care about it.

Now flip that around... how many people in his generation might have a negative reaction to any of a million things in our modern culture that you or I might not care about?

generation is relevant. You have to filter for that if you're going to play this game. You need to have your sample be as homogenous as possible with the EXCEPTION that some of them swing one way politically and the others swing another. If for example all the men happen to republicans then are you filtering for republicans or are you filtering for men? Savvy?

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might find the information that you seek in their supplemental experimental procedures.

Supplemental experimental procedures

They presented a wide array of disgusting / threatening images, listed as such:

1) Disgusting:

Snakes, Roaches, FliesOnPie, RoachOnPizza, Needle, Garbage, Dirty, Vomit, Dishes, Dog, Mutilation, Mutilation, Mutilation, Burn victim, Mutilation, Mutilation, Baby tumor, OpenChest, Injury, Sliced hand

2) Threatening:

Attack, Attack, Attack, Gang, Police, Plane Crash, Jet, Auto accident, Car accident, Auto accident, Snake, Dog, AngryFace, Tornado, AimedGun, Gang, AimedGun, Attack, Guns, Bomb

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says the image that gave the only significant difference by political ideology was a mutilated body.

Was it that conservatives displayed an aversion while liberals started masturbating while mumbling, "That's what we're going to do to the damn cons once we herd them into the camps."?

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I would suppose it would have had the opposite effect. The cons would rally in justification that these evil women must be stopped in the name of family values, and the liberals would be like, who cares.

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Karmashock]

Photos are not in that link.

I did find something else that might be a problem as well. They're not determining political affiliation through self identification but rather through a series of questions about various issues which they then determine to be one thing or another.

That strikes me as possibly problematic as well. A self identification test would be more useful in most cases. People are complex sometimes. A lot of union democrats for example that attend church and don't like heavy immigration. Just as an example.

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Anonymous Coward]

These are IAPS images. They are a standard set of images that have been used in a countless number of studies. These images are categorized across a number of types. Disgust is one, with subtypes involving different kinds of stimuli, e.g. rotting food, etc. They most certainly were not reacting to a single image. What they found is that after they build their model, they could expose new individuals to a single image, look at their brain scans, and classify that new individual correctly.

Re:Anyone have copies of these images?

[Karmashock]

can I see them and see which sort of image separated people?

A disgusting image?

[Anonymous Coward]

A picture of a middle class worker with job security and a pension? A corporation paying its fair share of taxes?

Re:A disgusting image?

[Anonymous Coward]

"These are the things that strike fear into a republican! A whip!... A chain!.. Affordable healthcare for the middle class!"

Uncle Rukkas couldn't have said it better!

what about the poor 5%

[Anonymous Coward]

who are in the wrong political party?

Two things.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the problem with these "studies". DO NOT look in your backyard for cases that support your bias. Look for cases that contradict your bias. Even if you have to look at the people in other countries. Particularly countries where there is less focus on the items that are controversial in the USofA.

That is exactly why you cannot believe any study from any country. The researchers are getting what they want because they are interviewing or testing people that have been raised to believe in a certain way of life. Most of these people more then likely hunt as well, so seeing pictures of bodies in various states would do little to cause a reaction. The question I would raise from this study, where, and of what culture/country did the pictures originate? The US press has no problem showing other poeple such as Iraq, or West African people laying in in the streets blown to pieces or bloated after dying from Ebola but they have a problem showing US military personal in the same state, or US citizens, either in the US or in a war zone.

Did it occur to these researchers that these people are borderline psychotic? I would also mention just because of the state itself that shouldn't result in a judgement that they were all, or at least a majority are right wingers. But you only point out what I've been bitch'in about with studies for years.

Off topic, I was listening to "Wait, Wait, Don't tell me" on NPR and they mentioned another study that claimed drinking 3 glasses of milk a day would cause you to die faster or earlier in life. I figured I would give you something else to laugh at!

Strange how liberals

[Vinegar Joe]

Didn't bat an eye when Stalin was butchering the Ukrainians, Mao butchering the Chinese or Pol Pot butchering the Cambodians.

"If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life." - George Galloway

Re:Strange how liberals

[The Ickle Jones]

It's strange how the bogeymen groups known as "liberals" and "conservatives" are apparently some sort of ill-defined hivemind.

Re:Strange how liberals

[itzly]

Probably because they didn't see the pictures.

Re:Strange how liberals

[meglon]

Strange how conservatives very actively want to take us back to the good old days of conservative dominance of WW2 Germany, Italy and Japan. I'd rather be a socialist worried about the welfare of people rather than a fascist worried about power and money at the expense of the people. I guess a good rule would be: don't put sociopaths in positions of power... obviously something you fascists haven't learned yet as that's exactly what you're still trying to do.

Re:Strange how liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Calling George "would you like me to be the cat?" Galloway a socialist because he supported the USSR is like calling Ronald "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" Reagan a libertarian because of the Star Wars programme.

Re:Strange how liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

If you worry about fascism and nazism, you shouldn't be on the liberal side! The confusion is logic because socialists, thanks to Stalin's propaganda tend to use fascist as an insult towards other ideologies, but actually fascism is socialism. USA liberals act exactly like in Orwell's 1984: control of the media, political affiliation over meritocracy, and social police. The raise of scandals like gamergate and the SJW movements is because of the crap that they feed you everyday through their corrupted media, including Slashdot since it got bought by liberals, or are you going to justify that posting feminist bullshit every day in gaming and technology-related news sites makes sense?

Re:Strange how liberals

[thaylin]

Actually it is a combination of conservationism and liberalism. It is conservative positions with liberal politics. To claim that it is "socialism" is just you showing your bias.

What is this political ideology you speak of?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "issues" appear to be from the American political arena, which is about as much about political ideology as World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is about sports. They're also highly polarised, in that they all come in red and blue versions with no alternative views possible, that are then conveniently grouped such that anyone leaning toward either colour in any one issue is then expected to be leaning toward matching colours in the other issues.

So what does this study tell us? I think we're seeing two cases of pervading and mutually opposed groupthink, where the patterns have become distinctive enough to be discernible -- recall that limited "thought readers" already exist. In other words, I don't see a necessity for biological predisposition here. It could be, but do note that to people used to multi-party systems (n>>2), "American politics" looks like an one-party system consisting of two factions that are only interested in duking it out with the other group, to the point of (either faction) being willing to shut down the government over some petty squabble or other. In other words, the discerning this thing does is really quite limited because the source spectrum is so poorly populated with just two possible inputs that are strongly polarised against each other to boot.

Re:What is this political ideology you speak of?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, what this shows is that American conservative republicans really are a standard genetic abnormality we can screen for during the first trimester.

Linear political ideology?

[John.Banister]

I've never considered my political ideology to be something that exists on a linear scale. How I feel about a particular political issue is often different from the feelings of either of the large political groups, and where my feelings align with those of political groups, I have some that align with people of groups considered to be at either end of this scale. I could be mistaken in thinking that other people are similar to me this way, but when I read about a study that first confines political ideology to a linear scale, and then uses [insert method] to predict where one lands on that scale, I have to give some thought to the possibility of inherent confirmation bias in the design of the system.

Re:Linear political ideology?

[itzly]

With a two party system, everything becomes a linear scale.

Re:Linear political ideology?

[John.Banister]

I can see that concept, but I think, with people there's room for more differences. For example, Democrats in Illinois and Democrats in West Virginia may have somewhat different opinions regarding firearms regulation.

Re:Linear political ideology?

[Anonymous Coward]

The linear political scale has little to do with you personally. To exist, it requires sufficient correlations so that if you know where someone lies on the scale, you have a better-than-random chance of guessing their views on several political topics. That this procedure works poorly on many people is uninteresting - all that matters is that there is that better-than-random chance at the population level. In the same way, some people smoke and don't get lung cancer, but that is not compelling evidence that there is no link between smoking and getting lung cancer, because the link is not about individuals, it's about population-level statistics.

Re:Linear political ideology?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet they are just one party, so you get no real alternatives in any case. The two party system is rotten, just combine them to a one party and then have different factions inside that. The chinese only have the communist party, and it's looking more and more like a "i want a say" kind of thing. The real parties are inside the bigger party.

Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberals wants others to suffer while they immerse themselves in enjoyment. The more they see others suffer the more orgy the Liberals get

Conservatives on the other hand, work hard to prevent any suffering from happening, and if suffering is inevitable, the Conservatives volunteer themselves to be the one w ho suffer

The Liberals use any excuse they can find to increase the suffer of others

For example, the Liberals use the "Pro Choice" excuse excuse to legally slaughtering babies, even babies which are already 8 to 9 months old, the Liberals insist that those babies are *NOT* human, hence, it is totally legal to cut the babies, piece by piece, alive

On the other hand, the Conservatives fight hard to keep the babies alive, because to the Conservatives, slaughtering babies, no matter under what circumstance, should *NOT* be permitted, and work very hard to keep the abortion to the minimum, especially the late term abortions

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Conservatives on the other hand, work hard to prevent any suffering from happening

Yeah, according to their own handy definitions. "We have to lynch you or send you a camp where they will make you straight, because otherwise you'd burn in the eternal hell fire, so we're really being very kind to you." It's amazing what some people can rationalize when they really put their minds to it.

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[MillionthMonkey]

Liberals wants others to suffer

Screw brain images! *I* can predict a person's political leanings with >95% accuracy just by observing their grammar!

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[sycodon]

It's ironic that you accuse Conservatives of wanting to send people to camps when it's the Liberals that actually do it.

Re: Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[BarbaraHudson]

Every problem bears within it the seeds of its solution. Tell everyone that we can now find out how, from the way their brains react, whether they're in the closet or not, and that there will soon be an app for that which works by monitoring the iris, and watch how many people start singing about how we need more brotherly love instead of condemnation. The iPhone version could be even simpler, just one screen with a message saying "come on, you own an iPhone. Do you really have to ask?" All kidding aside, I've noticed that the iPhone demographic has changed. Users tend to be less liberal, tolerant, whatever. That's the price to pay when you're no longer seen as cool so much as the safe choice for soccer moms and grandparents.

Re: Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That's indeed a bad idea; around here, they'd be given a hefty fine, and if the situation repeated, the fine would simply progressively increase. Also, I'm still not sure those people would get abused the way that people in American straightening camps do. That's a very disingenuous comparison to mere telling people that they shouldn't be abusing minorities because it's not nice.

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[omfgnosis]

Unless a "pro life" person is against all killing of humans—including institutional killing (war, police shootings, death penalty)—I don't take their "pro life" claim seriously at all. Additionally, unless a "pro life" person also promotes policies which improve conditions for humans outside the womb—including promotion of good education, access to quality nutrition and healthcare—I don't take their "pro life" claim seriously at all.

Now, there are a few people who meet those criteria. I don't see eye-to-eye with their position on abortion (and sometimes even birth control), but I respect their conviction, consistency and intentions. You may be one of those people, but I sincerely doubt it: you have identified yourself with conservatives, a group which often (but not always) tends to be at odds with all of the other values I listed. (And yes, I realize that many liberals tend to also be at odds with some or all of those values. This is why broad political affiliation is problematic.)

Until the "pro life" movement becomes anything other than an absolute joke, hypocritically shaming perceived moral ills most of its members broadly support in other contexts, it can expect to become increasingly marginalized as a more empowered generation elects to make decisions about whether or when it parents children by answering questions like:

- Is parenting something I'll ever want?
- Is parenting something I want right now?
- Will I be able to provide a good life for the child?
- Will I be able to be a responsible and loving parent?

All of these can have a profound impact on the life of a child, and ultimately an adult as well. It's astonishing that so many "pro life" people readily dismiss them. Pro "life", but what kind of life?

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[MikeBabcock]

That's a strange requirement. What if a pro-life person said they're against killing innocent people? Wouldn't that be good enough for a morally valid judgement?

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[omfgnosis]

This is a good question. I want to say that first, because this topic is so often devoid of good questions.

There are a variety of ways the "pro life" movement places itself in this corner: insistence on a "right to life", little regard for the wrongful killing of post-natal innocents, little regard for other ways innocent children are abused or suffer. In a way, I'm repeating myself, but because I think I've mostly already addressed this. There is only one case of killing that most "pro life" people care about: that of a fetus. They typically care about few other harms than killing, even though many can ruin lives just the same.

The alternative position you raise is also one without much distinction. Scarcely anyone will claim that it is morally justified to kill innocent people. That kind of rationalization is either done by altering the definition of innocence and guilt, or by arithmetical sleight of hand. In any case, assignment of guilt and innocence has proved extremely problematic, especially in cases of institutional killing such as I mentioned. In order to really defend those types of killings, one must either place undue trust on the prevailing actors or simply accept that "pro life" is not absolute.

Because your alternative has little distinction, it essentially forces the conversation become the dreaded debate over the definition of "human life", but while accepting that certain classes of humans are incapable of being moral agents in any way—and therefore by definition "innocent". While I agree that a fetus cannot be assigned "guilt" by any reasonable assessment, I think the other debate—over how to define "human life"—is morally pointless. It's an excuse to produce a permanent impasse.

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[mcswell]

Predict them, you can.

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[thunderclap]

Well, I am against people murdering babies who can't defend themselves. I am also against people being murdered who aren't given a chance to defend themselves. I think both sets of murders deserve the punishment they mete out. That's fairness. However, life isn't that black and white so while its fairly obvious who murders the unborn its not always obvious who murders the others. Death penalty is a simple solution. Once all those who want no criminals to die have to support all those living criminals via their own money and no one else, they will reach a point that they either can't afford to support them or they will change their mind.

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[omfgnosis]

That's fairness.

Hardly. That's revenge. They're not actually the same thing.

However, life isn't that black and white so while its fairly obvious who murders the unborn its not always obvious who murders the others. Death penalty is a simple solution.

So you are saying, unequivocally, that you accept institutional murder of innocent people. Not very "pro life".

Once all those who want no criminals to die have to support all those living criminals via their own money and no one else, they will reach a point that they either can't afford to support them or they will change their mind.

Wait, now it's about money? Not fairness or justice or morality? By the way. In any justice system with a hint of protection for the wrongly accused, it costs more to kill a prisoner than not to.

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[LoyalOpposition]

Unless a "pro life" person is against all killing of humans—including institutional killing (war, police shootings, death penalty)—I don't take their "pro life" claim seriously at all.

Do you hold the same opinion of "pro choice" people?

~Loyal

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[omfgnosis]

I'm not sure why I should, we don't claim a "right to life".

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[LoyalOpposition]

I'm not sure why I should, we don't claim a "right to life".

To be clear...do you claim that one shouldn't take a "pro choice" person seriously unless that person is against all coercion? In particular, a pro choice person should permit a person to hire and fire whomever they will, regardless of race, creed, national origin, sex, or sexual orientation? They should allow people to collude together to restrict prices, markets, entry, engage in price gouging and any other means to increase profits. They should be able to spray whatever weedkiller, fertilizer, or other chemical on their lawns they wish. They should be able to decide how much of their money goes to the poor, unwed mothers, drug addicts, sick, or arts. They should be able to quit the military any time they wish, including on the battle front while engaged with the enemy. A pro choice person should be in favor of allowing a person to make any choice whatsoever. Is that what you claim?

Or do you hold a double standard--interpreting "pro life" quite broadly, but interpreting "pro life" very narrowly?

~Loyal

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[LoyalOpposition]

Or do you hold a double standard--interpreting "pro life" quite broadly, but interpreting "pro choice" very narrowly?

FTFM

~Loyal

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[thunderclap]

a bullet to the forehead is more expensive than room and board for years? That kind of math is why the country is so much trouble.

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[Stuarticus]

Yeah, I hear Sensitivity training is like a concentration camp, wait, was that insensitive? Since it's often hard to tell what people mean on the internet, I'll briefly add - you're an idiot.

Re:Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[MikeBabcock]

That final paragraph is precisely the debate every rational pro-life person I know wishes would happen, and yet it gets stiffled continually by so-called "women's rights" which are supposedly being trampled.

Once upon a time, women weren't allowed to vote, and letting them vote would've trampled "men's rights" ...
Once upon a time, slaves were forced to labour in fields for no pay, and allowing them fair treatment would have trampled on "owners' rights" ...

Having a tough conversation about where a woman's rights truly end and where the unborn child's begin isn't happening and it should. We may decide as a culture that children have no rights to live until they're 2 years old; we may instead decide that 5 months after conception is a viable human life that deserves recognition. Unfortunately this discussion is simply being stifled.

False dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

If they used a control to differentiate authoritarianism vs libertarianism, I wonder how much it would impact their predictions. For example, if one asks me if I support gay marriage, I'll say absolutely not: I don't think the government should define any marriage and believe that people should be able to decide their vows/agreements however they see fit regardless of being gay, straight, monogamous, polyamorous, etc. Would I be marked as a conservative or liberal in this study?

Truly disgusting pictures

[Taco Cowboy]

Consider the pictures that I link below --- to the Conservatives they are totally inexcusable. On the other hand, to the Liberals, those are consider *MEAT*

Warning! Please do not click on any of the links below if your threshold of gore has been set too low

http://images.sodahead.com/pol...

http://pro-lifetube.com/upload...

http://images.sodahead.com/pol...

http://clinicquotes.com/wp-con...

http://www.fletcherarmstrongbl...

Re:Truly disgusting pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

You should probably say that these are aborted babies. Some people might have a high gore threshold but still might see these as triggers.

Re:Truly disgusting pictures

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Or perhaps some of us simply value mind over matter. The precursor to a human being is a lump of molecules, then a lump of cells, then a very juvenile vertebrate individual with zero consciousness. At some point, it becomes a human being as we know it where virtually everyone thinks it's wrong. Some people would apparently like me to think that disposing of a zygote is murder. In that case, well, you'd have to put Mother Nature on trial. It's she who sacrifices about one zygote for each two live newborns. The problem is that there's no fixed boundary. And since you're applying a binary classifier on this problem, and people are different, almost by definition, there will always be regions when someone thinks it's right and someone else will think it's wrong. Ever for the zygote, there will be people who will always think it's wrong. I'm sorry, but this whole issue seems like a manufactured problem. There's no solution to this in the same sense that there's a solution to "do alien civilizations exist?" or "does P=NP?". It's simply an issue of a completely different class. To be honest, I find it puzzling that people even argue about it as if trying to convince anyone about one's own opinion - which is what you seem to be doing - made somehow sense. I don't think it does.

Re:Truly disgusting pictures

[kanweg]

"Consider the pictures that I link below --- to the Conservatives they are totally inexcusable. On the other hand, to the Liberals, those are consider *MEAT*"

Which is a slight. Just like the pictures in the study, this sentence reveals your political orientation. Plus your (lack of) mental capabilities and lack of honesty. You don't have data on how well liberals agree with this (I doubt the number of liberals in favour of 24 week term abortions is very high). Also, the background of the pictures is lacking. They could be foetuses died in the womb for all we know.

Having said that, it is conservatives that are responsible for the relatively high number of abortions in the US. In many other countries, teens have access to (oral) contraceptives. Religion (a form of delusion more prevalent among conservatives) keeps people from making a rational decision and keeps the abortion rates high.

Bert

Re:Truly disgusting pictures

[jmac_the_man]

In many other countries, teens have access to (oral) contraceptives.

Interesting, then, that only Republican candidates are talking about making The Pill available over the counter. Democrats are against the idea because apparently a lot of women go to Planned Parenthood specifically to get prescriptions for The Pill, and Planned Parenthood is a huge Democrat donor.

Re: Truly disgusting pictures

[steven.db.clark]

Why did conservatives only come out in favor of over- the-counter contraceptives after ACA mandated that health care plans pay for prescriptions?

Re: Truly disgusting pictures

[sycodon]

Changing regulations to make oral contraceptives over the counter is not the same as forcing others to pay for them.

Re: Truly disgusting pictures

[jmac_the_man]

Obamacare doesn't mandate that health care plans pay for prescriptions. Prescription medications are subject to the same copay rules as anything else, which still makes some prescription mediation unaffordable for some.

But not birth control. The birth control pill itself costs about $8 per month without insurance paying for it. It would almost definitely come down from there if it doesn't require a prescription.

The biggest part of the cost for birth control pills is the doctor's visit required to get it (and the opportunity cost, i.e. taking off work to see a doctor). You'll note that a charitable reading of Obamacare shows that it does NOTHING to affect this cost. (An uncharitable, or "accurate", reading of the law shows that Obamacare makes this cost worse.) This is the part that some Republicans are trying to eliminate in order to bring costs down.

Re:Truly disgusting pictures

[sir-gold]

Ok, you posted some really gross pictures with zero context.

Was this even in the US? If so, was this done in an actual public clinic, or someone's basement?

How about some facts, instead of pure emotional outrage.

I tried to find some info on the Sodahead.com site, but it's a complete mess and couldn't find any actual text to go with those pictures.
One thing I did find interesting on the front page was that 69% of the site's viewers voted Republican, while a whopping 57% believe that demonic possession is a real thing.

Re:Truly disgusting pictures

[X0563511]

You should probably examine URLs on sites like this before clicking them. The first two should have set off some red flags.

Re: Truly disgusting pictures

[dgatwood]

I think the point was that Republicans were suddenly in favor of it because the rules were forcing them to pay for it. Unless explicitly prescribed to treat a medical condition, insurance companies don't pay for OTC medication.

As a rule, U.S. conservatives have been against birth control. The recent turn appears to be motivated by preventing them from having to pay for it, and decreasing access (by making it more expensive for the consumer), rather than wanting to increase access as you seem to assume.

Re:Truly disgusting pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

Same AC here.
I did check them first. That's why I didn't click on them. However, as much as I'd like everyone else to be able to handle themselves properly on the internet, I'm not sure that's ever going to happen.

Re:Truly disgusting pictures

[mcswell]

"...put Mother Nature on trial. It's she who sacrifices about one zygote for each two live newborns..." Well, better put her on trial for the fact that everyone (and every multicellular animal) eventually dies. But if your point was to say that aborting a zygote is not evil because Mother Nature does it, then by the same logic killing an adult cannot be evil, because Mother Nature does that too. In other words, this particular argument doesn't go through.

Re: Truly disgusting pictures

[jmac_the_man]

As a rule, U.S. conservatives have been against birth control. The recent turn appears to be motivated by preventing them from having to pay for it, and decreasing access (by making it more expensive for the consumer)

Nice talking point, but it's inaccurate. There's a huge difference between being against people using birth control and being against paying for someone else's birth control.

The Pill costs about $8 for a month's supply without a prescription, and it isn't free with the copay required with insurance. Making it OTC would lower the cost from $8/month. Also, making it OTC removes the cost of a doctor's visit as well as the opportunity cost of missing a day of work. (Liberals are against removing the doctor's visit because a large number of poor women get their prescription through Planned Parenthood, which is one of the larger donors to the Democratic party.) Taking something that costs less than $10 per month and removing an upfront cost is NOT "reducing access" in any meaningful way.

Face it. Any adult in this country who wants to be taking the pill already has access to it. All you're doing is scaremongering, and luckily people have wised up to your ruse. Look at Mark Udall's campaign to see how well this War on Women nonsense is working for your guys,

Re: Truly disgusting pictures

[dgatwood]

Nice talking point, but it's inaccurate. There's a huge difference between being against people using birth control and being against paying for someone else's birth control.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying I hold that position at all. I was merely clarifying what I believed to be the previous poster's assertion.

The Pill costs about $8 for a month's supply without a prescription, and it isn't free with the copay required with insurance. Making it OTC would lower the cost from $8/month.

Actually, for those varieties, it would probably would have little effect on the price. That's lower than nearly anyone's copay, so the insurance company doesn't pay a penny of it; it just contributes towards the maximum total out-of-pocket cost, which most people young enough to need birth control are unlikely to ever reach anyway. At best, there's the extra overhead caused by the pharmacist handling it, but that's replaced with the extra cost of retail packaging and small-quantity shipping instead of bulk packaging, so I'd expect folks to roughly break even unless the OTC availability encourages other companies to start making the product in expectation of a surge in sales because young people won't have to ask their doctor, and even then, I doubt more competition will have a huge effect on the price.

Taking something that costs less than $10 per month and removing an upfront cost is NOT "reducing access" in any meaningful way.

Although you can get birth control pills for $8 per month from some locations, that's based on the price from (IIRC) Target, which mostly has a retail presence in medium to large cities. In rural areas, the average price is higher.

But even if we assume that such cheap prices are ubiquitous, that cheapness still only applies to standard birth control pills. For people who aren't able to take those for whatever reason, and have to take the more expensive varieties, that's not necessarily true. It depends on where they decide to draw the line for OTC status. And if the FDA makes the cheap stuff available OTC (which they probably should, to be perfectly honest), there's a good chance that Republicans will use that as an excuse to push for removing mandatory insurance coverage for the other varieties that aren't cheap, many of which have medical uses beyond birth control.

So...

[msobkow]

People vote the way they do because of brain damage. *LOL*

Conservative: Light 'em up == simple joy

[burni2]

Because the "right" people got killed.

Liberals: Ohh my god how can people do this to other people can't they change their perspective?

Conservative: Isn't the purpose of the Red Cross to make aiming easier on the battlefield?

Re:Conservative: Light 'em up == simple joy

[Anonymous Coward]

You got it backwards! Liberals are bad people that enjoy watching videos of decapitations, while conservatives are entirely disgusted by them and refuse to watch!! Liberals only show disgust towards pictures of people throwing kittens down a cliff, because deep down they understand that a only would show affection towards them! The underlying problem is that liberals tend to hang out with other liberals, who tend to take advantage of them, steal their things, and induce them paranoia because that's what liberals do, then they lose faith on humanity because their world is filled with thieves and crimminals.

Please do yourself a favor and take a look at the political affiliations of the people that enjoy to visit shock sites like the Darwin Awards. Hint: the name Darwin should put you on the right track.

Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Immigration is not the problem. MUSLIM IMMIGRATION is.

Normal immigrants aren't going to try to enforce Sharia law all over the world like Muslims try to do. Muslim immigration is a THREAT to progressive modern society and needs to be limited. If you want to live in an ass-backwards society like Sharia law dictates, then stay in the fucking Middle East. If you want to come to a 21st century modern world, then you have to leave all that stone age bullshit behind.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Crawl back under your rock - you are the one from the stone age.

Stop beleiving Fox or the Sun or UKIP.

Go to a mosque and talk to a muslim. You might learn something.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Go to a mosque and talk to a muslim. You might learn something.

I rather wouldn't. It might be disturbing.

I'm sorry, but the more we learn, the more we have to accept that being religious in most forms is simply being delusional in the truest sense of the word.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[itzly]

I don't need Fox, Sun or UKIP to tell me what I see happening in the streets.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to a mosque and talk to a muslim. You might learn something.

I try to avoid crazy people who believe in imaginary bullcrap.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anecdotes are not statistics.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather trust my own observations than some dubious source of "statistics".

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that Buddhism is an atheist religion? Most forms of Buddhism recognize their scriptures as being mythological, and high in metaphorical content (stuff like Karma, Nirvana, etc....all metaphors for real world processes and/or mental states).

I would like to know where the delusions are in that religion.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Go to a mosque and talk to a muslim. You might learn something.

Something I for one learned, after talking to more than one Muslim, is that: it's worse than you think.

To the point where you wish those guys, whose views were in eerie correlation despite of their vastly different backgrounds, just weren't representative. Because if they are, we have some nasty shit ahead.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[PRMan]

Actually, "The fool says in his heart there is no God." God has done so many things for me. "You have not because you ask not." If you don't want God, he's not going to barge in and force you.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[X0563511]

Your sig references a bible verse, so I assume you identify yourself as Christian.

Let me ask, should we use the Westboro Baptist Church as the exemplar of Christianity? No? Then why should we use that same logic for other religions?

Disclaimer: the closest thing I identify with is a deist on a good day, and an agnostic on a bad one. So please don't think that I have an interest in defending Islam, here.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[skine]

Your sig references a bible verse, so I assume you identify yourself as Christian.

There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. -Ezekiel 23:20

Re: Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

*hillbilly voice*

DEY TUK ERR LAAAAWS.

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Muslims in Austria supporting the death penalty isn't a problem in the USA. Muslims in Austria supporting less democracy isn't a problem in the USA. Now if you asked about the death penalty in the USA, you get two answers from the same audience depending on how you ask the questions. If you ask about permitting democracy in the USA, you get one answer regarless of religious orientation. No USA base Muslim group of any statistical significance (or other group) is anti-democracy in the USA (and the USA is about 20% Muslim, so we would notice if it was a primary agenda).

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[bigdavex]

No USA base Muslim group of any statistical significance (or other group) is anti-democracy in the USA (and the USA is about 20% Muslim, so we would notice if it was a primary agenda).

According to Pew Research, Americans are 0.6% Muslim.
http://religions.pewforum.org/...

Where did you find 20%?

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[UnknownSoldier]

Buddhism teaches the myopic view of non attachment and to deny the ego. The fallacy of Buddhism is that you are NOT a divine nothing. There is nothing wrong in loving your spouse; in fact the exact opposite should be honored, respected, and cherished. Buddhism focuses on the false ego and ignores the true self -- which loves everything unconditionally.

Other then that, it is a wonderful system as it provides Atheists a way to understand the beginnings of God: Know Thyself

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only did you not refute his point of delusion, you reinforced it by quoting words from an arbitrary text from an arbitrary time by arbitrary men all chosen among the hundreds of religions that all say they are right and you are wrong.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, immigration from Europe IS the problem. You'll find that with all the visa requirements for non-EU citizens, not so many immigrants from Arab countries succeed to establish in the country. Before 9/11, nobody actually noticed muslims.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO... call me silly if you want:

We should not be limiting immigration based on religion. Religion is something you can grow out of as long as you are exposed to other belief or non-belief systems. When you live in the crackpot middle east "Islam is the one and only... blah blah blah" you aren't exposed to any different belief systems because you will be killed for even looking into it.

If those immigrants come to the US, Canada or even parts of Europe or Australia, they should not be pigeon-holed into muslim communities, because that just causes an eventual conflict (see various eastern European conflicts post-USSR) , likewise we shouldn't be pigeon-holing Chinese into "China Town" or Italians into "Little Italy", doing so only gives them the belief that they aren't accepted by society as a whole.

Where I life, I live right in the middle of Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants who speak CJK, and the shops around here frequently have CJK signage in addition to English. The few places that do not, are implicitly not catering to "white" people or the other asian ethnic groups. I'm surrouned by a dozen Sushi places, where only 1/4 of them are operated by Japanese, the rest are operated by Koreans. The food courts are almost entirely employed by south asian (eg India), not east Asian's.

And Asians are super-racist to each other. It's absolutely bizarre because when you come from "the land of rednecks and multi-acre farms" where the average family is a 10 minute walk away at least, you know all your neighbors. Here it's like "I won't even say hello unless they're my race"

What we need to do, is stop dividing communities into their Euro/Asia/Africa origins. It's nice to share a culture, but the culture you should be learning to adapt is the Country you live in now, not trying to strictly adhere to the culture you left.

Like for the most part, children get it. As horrible as television and the internet can be at times, the fact that people don't share your religious beliefs and don't believe in the sky-god/boogeyman and are doing just fine, is enough evidence for you to question things. Religious organizations don't like being questioned.

And this is where every country differs quite a bit. In Canada, we have a lot of east-Indian, Chinese immigrants... possibly too much, but I don't want less immigration on that basis. I want immigration based on job availability. If there are no jobs here, then stop immigrating hundreds of thousands of people every year. That just makes the unemployment situation worse, and makes the value of getting an education here completely worthless. Why should I spend money and time getting a degree in something, when the hospital will hire someone from China or India for the lowest wage possible? Last time I checked, "Chinese Medicine" was still considered pseudo-science.

I've talked to Taxi drivers here. Why do we have foreing-born doctors driving taxis? Because their medical degree is worthless here. So why is it we're still immigrating people when the people we need are already here, just working shitty jobs that our born-here teens should be working?

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I visited 3 religious centers in the same day some years ago:

Mosque - A serious-looking guy said I'd best keep my distance and not go into the main area, but keep at the benches by the main entrance. He stated I could be in danger and should leave soon.

A hindu temple - I went in a very crowded temple while they performed rituals. Sang with them, and went out. Foreign and some strange looks, but no fear or threats.

A church - Could go in and out as I pleased. All kinds of people were welcome and people were smiling.

I highly recommend doing your own research.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Buddhism teaches the myopic view of non attachment and to deny the ego.

Actually, "Buddhism" is a relatively modern (and western) invention that unifies a scattered, disjointed mythos with a few common characters and themes into an over-arching religion that its practitioners would not have recognized as anything like a part of some unified whole for most of their existence.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

crawl back to your middle eastern or african country.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[MikeBabcock]

Sounds like being atheistic suddenly means being a closed-minded bigot ...

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your sig references a bible verse, so I assume you identify yourself as Christian.

There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. -Ezekiel 23:20

It always amuses me when people decide to take the bible out of context. It amuses me more people fail to understand the history around the scripture. I won't bore you with that. However, since you decided to post the entirety of that thought.

Wild with Lust
23 1-4 God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, there were two women, daughters of the same mother. They became whores in Egypt, whores from a young age. Their breasts were fondled, their young bosoms caressed. The older sister was named Oholah, the younger was Oholibah. They were my daughters, and they gave birth to sons and daughters.
“Oholah is Samaria and Oholibah is Jerusalem. 5-8 “Oholah started whoring while she was still mine. She lusted after Assyrians as lovers: military men smartly uniformed in blue, ambassadors and governors, good-looking young men mounted on fine horses. Her lust was unrestrained. She was a whore to the Assyrian elite. She compounded her filth with the idols of those to whom she gave herself in lust. She never slowed down. The whoring she began while young in Egypt she continued, sleeping with men who played with her breasts and spent their lust on her.
9-10 “So I left her to her Assyrian lovers, for whom she was so obsessed with lust. They ripped off her clothes, took away her children, and then, the final indignity, killed her. Among women her name became Shame—history’s judgment on her.
11-18 “Her sister Oholibah saw all this, but she became even worse than her sister in lust and whoring, if you can believe it. She also went crazy with lust for Assyrians: ambassadors and governors, military men smartly dressed and mounted on fine horses—the Assyrian elite. And I saw that she also had become incredibly filthy. Both women followed the same path. But Oholibah surpassed her sister. When she saw figures of Babylonians carved in relief on the walls and painted red, fancy belts around their waists, elaborate turbans on their heads, all of them looking important—famous Babylonians!—she went wild with lust and sent invitations to them in Babylon. The Babylonians came on the run, fornicated with her, made her dirty inside and out. When they had thoroughly debased her, she lost interest in them. Then she went public with her fornication. She exhibited her sex to the world.
18-21 “I turned my back on her just as I had on her sister. But that didn’t slow her down. She went at her whoring harder than ever. She remembered when she was young, just starting out as a whore in Egypt. That whetted her appetite for more virile, vulgar, and violent lovers—stallions obsessive in their lust. She longed for the sexual prowess of her youth back in Egypt, where her firm young breasts were caressed and fondled.
22-27 “‘Therefore, Oholibah, this is the Message from God, the Master: I will incite your old lovers against you, lovers you got tired of and left in disgust. I’ll bring them against you from every direction, Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all Assyrians—good-looking young men, ambassadors and governors, elite officers and celebrities—all of them mounted on fine, spirited horses. They’ll come down on you out of the north, armed to the teeth, bringing chariots and troops from all sides. I’ll turn over the task of judgment to them. They’ll punish you according to their rules. I’ll stand totally and relentlessly against you as they rip into you furiously. They’ll mutilate you, cutting off your ears and nose, killing at random. They’ll enslave your children—and anybody left over will be burned. They’ll rip off your clothes a

Re: Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I will never understand the quoting of that particular verse. Many athiests could easily find a quote in some athiest friendly philosophy book that says "everyone who believes in God is a fucking moron". But anyone who would quote that to other people [especially those who would obviously disagree] is a self important douchebag. Doesnt matter what you believe or dont.

Its also used inappropriately, as if god or jesus had said it. It comes from a songbook, Psalms. Written by humans, for humans.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

tell me, what streets are adopting sharia law?

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to a Jewish temple, and now I don't have a foreskin.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm not close-minded, but I happen to be aware of meanings of certain words. Of course, you could demonstrate to me where I'm wrong, but I figure you're not even going to try.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Pew Research, Americans are 0.6% Muslim.

What, all of them?

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

We have no idea how the earth formed. We think we do. Yet ignoring other possibilities only makes you what you mock.

Those sentences have nothing to do with the rest of your post. I have never read the Bible in English and I have to say goddam it's hot stuff! Some other languages make the text so much serene and calmer.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[lucien86]

I was talking to a Muslim just the other day , he was advocating that God commands Muslims to kill all gays. I'm sure if he wasn't a liberal Muslim he would have included Christians and Atheists as well, the beheading of women who get raped, and the death penalty for anyone who accidently insults the prophet or his 'god' in any way. Very tolerant.

BTW I'm Liberal and I vote UKIP. - As for racism at least UKIP don't have a whites only immigration policy - unlike the EU. And as for the Sun, I would rather be associated with paedophiles and child molesters than them..

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buddhism focuses on the false ego and ignores the true self -- which loves everything unconditionally.

You might want to spend some time on the "bigger boat" and its theology, and those marrying laypeople as well. Buddhism teaches that there is no true, independent and unconditional self. That's a core anti-thesis to the Hinduism. Since all these religions under discussion have developed in their particular cultures and time periods, there a lot of room for misunderstandings.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[UnknownSoldier]

Yes that is another short coming of Buddhism: It is ignorant of the Soul and how it transcends time with past, concurrent, and potential lives. When you make assumptions naturally you will come to the wrong conclusion. :-( Can't really fault them for that.

Other then that Buddhists certainly is more grounded in reality then other religions by not focusing on dogma as much. Of course there are a lot of shitty religious teachers unable to grasp the 3 levels of "scripture." Fundamentalists in any group, be it theist, or atheist, are pretty intolerant of others with their myopic views.

What I like about Buddhism is that it gets the foundation for enlightenment correct:

Know Thyself.

i.e. "How can you know God if you don't first know yourself?"

Which is a modern paraphrase of this beautiful quote:

A brahmin once asked the Blessed One: "Are you a God?"
"No, brahmin," said the Blessed One.
"Are you a saint?"
"No, brahmin," said the Blessed One.
"Are you a magician?"
"No, brahmin," said the Blessed One.
"What are you then?"
"I am awake."

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is ignorant of the Soul and how it transcends time with past, concurrent, and potential lives. When you make assumptions naturally you will come to the wrong conclusion.

:) Of course in Buddhism, one arrives to this conclusion not by assumption, but by observation. But enough of that. Multiplicity of religions and cultures is like the diversity of nature, all products of evolution. The world would be boring and destitute place with only one religion, or humans and grey goo all over the place.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[vandamme]

Dearborn, Michigan.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[MikeBabcock]

I could cite thousands of examples of religious people who are not delusional and you'd claim they were just because they're religious. That makes you closed-minded and bigotted. Just because some *people* have issues or are morons doesn't mean what they stand for should be painted in that light. What they stand for should be judged on its own merits, and the person on their own.

Painting all religious people with the "delusional" brush as you did is far too broad a statement to be properly rational.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I could cite thousands of examples of religious people who are not delusional and you'd claim they were just because they're religious

The OED defines delusion quite concisely and aptly as "a fixed false opinion or belief with regard to objective things". Now I'm clearly not saying that in theory, every person of faith is necessarily delusional (witness the "most forms" in my statement), but in practice, with ~45% of Americans believing that the Earth is younger than 10k years, and a significant portion of the rest believing in things like Noah's flood and similar, one could make the case that the majority of believers includes at least one objectively delusional element in their worldview. With Americans counting hundreds of millions, and theists world-wide counting billions in their ranks, I'm not sure that your thousands would make a dent in it.

Re:Immigration is not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Our born-here teens won't work for shitty wages.

Why didn't they

[Anonymous Coward]

include the goatse image in there? Really curious to see how conservatives vs. liberals react to it.

Re: Why didn't they

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the "wide stance" conservatives might like it...

Voight-Kamph

[itsdapead]

"Is this testing whether I'm a republican or a lesbian, Mr Deckard?"

Just don't ask the subjects about their mother...

Mod parent down

[Prune]

This is irrelevant. The paper is pretty clear in that they're only examining this particular dimension of the political space. I don't see anywhere that they're trying to sweep that under the carpet. Moreover, there is no problem with the fact that various political issues used in the questionnaire may have a larger component along other dimensions compared to the "left-right" one. There is no way that ignoring the other dimensions can introduce bias, because that process obviously doesn't affect the coordinates that the different stances on these issues have along the specific axis chosen by the study. In other words, your post is orthogonal to the discussion in the paper--it's off-topic and should be moderated accordingly. All it accomplishes is to demonstrate your willingness to showcase political sophistication (left-right? pfft, I'm above and beyond that, etc.).

January 3rd

[raymorris]

The Republicans will have control of Congress on January 3rd and get to work cleaning things up. Some of what they clean up may be mess you'd prefer to sweep under the rug, or stuff you'd rather leave alone.

Re:January 3rd

[smittyoneeach]

It remains to be seen how much substantial reform the GOP will pursue. Certainly, #OccupyResoluteDesk's two year gold extravaganza isn't going to help much. I anticipate significant whinging about "Well, we'd love to go after these issues hammer-and-tongs, but well need the Presidency in 2016 for that."
Seeing an actual budget promises to be a novel treat.

Re:January 3rd

[Boronx]

You must be new here. To the world, I mean.

Re:January 3rd

[thaylin]

And by cleaning things up you mean a return to the great recession that they created 8 years ago?

Re:January 3rd

[thunderclap]

You seem to be confused. 8 years ago, Congress was controlled by Democrats and the president was a republican. So are you suggesting they return to policies implemented when Pelosi was Speaker. Policies that Reid as the current Democratic majority leader continues?

Choices define experience

[baffled]

If the differences are a level of shock, and history of exposure to similar stimuli is a predictor of level of shock, then perhaps political leanings correlate with what stimuli people choose to expose themselves to throughout their lives. For instance, liberals watching guts in medical dramas and conservatives watching love stories in family dramas.

thinking=consistency. feel = all over the place

[raymorris]

You used the word "feel" twice to describe your positions. You didn't say "what I think" about the issues. Many people may do more thinking about the issues as opposed to feeling and thereby end up with a consistent set of thoughts. As an example, if you think that "we" should fix things and that federal government is the appropriate instrument of "we", that'll be consistent and you'll think that the federal government should do all sorts of things - you'll be a Democrat. If you think that the federal government should stick to what the Constitution authorizes them to do, or that they tend to screw up, you will conclude that they shouldn't do many of the things Democrats want them to do - you'll be a Republican.

The first amendment is one notable thing where this doesn't hold true, however. On that, the parties are inconsistent with their systems of thought.

Re:thinking=consistency. feel = all over the place

[jmac_the_man]

The first amendment is one notable thing where this doesn't hold true, however. On that, the parties are inconsistent with their systems of thought.

How so? From my perspective, the self-consistent Democrat view towards "fixing things" via the first Amendment would have them doing things like limiting how people can ask for redress of grievances by slow walking tax exemption applications.Or by using a state tax service as a tool to conduct a secret investigation into an opponent's donors, thus making it difficult for the opponent to get donors. Or by hassling Christians whose exercise of religion extends to providing logistical support to weddings. Or by instituting "speech codes" on campus. Or by mandating that every citizen who pays income tax pay for two government news services (one on TV, one on radio) that don't even pretend to give a non-Big Government view.

Re:thinking=consistency. feel = all over the place

[The Ickle Jones]

If you think that the federal government should stick to what the Constitution authorizes them to do, or that they tend to screw up, you will conclude that they shouldn't do many of the things Democrats want them to do - you'll be a Republican.

Where are these Republicans (or Democrats) that want to follow the constitution? All I see is them supporting the NSA's mass surveillance, the TSA, DUI checkpoints, protest permits, 'indecency' censorship, and about a million other unconstitutional policies. I'm not sure how anyone could possibly believe that either party wants to respect your freedoms or the constitution.

Re:thinking=consistency. feel = all over the place

[thaylin]

Because the respublicans love to follow the constitution. You heard of the patriot act, which is anything but patriotic? You know, the act that gives the dems and repubs the authority to break the constitution, that was pasted by both parties?

I see

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans lean towards more of a Goatse preference, while democrats really prefer Tubgirl.

Re:I see

[Anonymous Coward]

The study reached the opposite conclusion. But don't let science distort your view of the world.

Re:I see

[iggymanz]

That only proves the bias of the researchers in not including Two Girls One Cup

No this is the second step

[aepervius]

The first step is to try and find an effect, even in your own backyard. Once you did, the second step as a further study, is to try to falsify it by using different source to try to reproduce the effect when you do not expect it, or to try to NOT reproduce the effect when you DO expect it. You are putting the cart before the horse. Now I expect further study of the two kinds I mentionned above, rightfully putting the cart behind the horse's ass.

Sample size

[Anonymous Coward]

Sample size under 100. Don't fucking waste my time!

what other questions were included?

[Anonymous Coward]

like abortion, welfare state, illegal aliens, government bureaucracy, american flag, freedom, constitution, treason, racism?

What control groups of images/questions were used.

Its been mentioned elsewhere that there are definite differences in brain patterns between conservatives and what these days are called liberals.

tl;dr

[hduff]

"We proposed that conservatives, compared to liberals, have greater negativity bias, which includes both disgusting and threatening conditions in our study."

So, the more disgusted you react to disgusting photos indicates greater political conservatism.

Re:tl;dr

[Lehk228]

It's already well known that leftists embrace disgusting things. < /foxnews >

subpoenas for all sermons on Houston too?

[raymorris]

Would that also include subpoenas of all sermons in Houston, Tx that mentioned either gay marriage or a certain city official?
I suppose you have a point.

Re:subpoenas for all sermons on Houston too?

[jmac_the_man]

I left out the subpoenas in Houston simply because the list was too long, but yeah, that's another example of the phenomenon. Democrats are remarkably self-consistent on "expanding government" when it comes to First Amendment issues.

Re:subpoenas for all sermons on Houston too?

[rjstanford]

That's one area I'd love to see some Supreme Court guidance on. The issues really stem from the fact that Churches are granted an unprecedented tax exemption (every other organization that wants to not pay taxes has to open its books for a start) in exchange for following a very small yet undefined set of rules, some of the most important being 1) claiming to be a church and 2) agreeing to stay out of politics. Risking that massive taxpayer subsidy for a violation of the staying out of politics rules seems like a poor decision on their part at the very least.

Re:subpoenas for all sermons on Houston too?

[rjstanford]

I don't think anyone would argue against their right to say it - making it not a first amendment issue - what's being argued is that they may not have the right to continue to claim the right to avoid both taxes and financial disclosure while at the same time saying what they're saying. That's very different.

Re:subpoenas for all sermons on Houston too?

[thaylin]

You mean the list for all sermons that were being used for political purposes, and not for religious purposes?

Re:subpoenas for all sermons on Houston too?

[jmac_the_man]

I don't think anyone would argue against their right to say it - making it not a first amendment issue...

Let me educate you. The First Amendment recognizes six rights. The Amendment begins "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." These two prohibitions (which are commonly summarized as "freedom of religion") are just as much a part of the First Amendment as freedom of speech is.

what's being argued is that they may not have the right to continue to claim the right to avoid both taxes and financial disclosure while at the same time saying what they're saying

The Establishment Clause of the Constitution (the first of those recognized rights) means that the Government (through incorporation, the First Amendment applies to states and municipalities as well as the Federal Government) isn't allowed to have one set of tax laws for religions whose leaders support the mayor and a second set for religions whose leaders oppose the mayor.

Also, that isn't even what's being argued. The definition of tax exempt organization is a federal decision and this is a municipal matter. Religious leaders circulated a petition to have a question placed on the ballot to repeal a law that they opposed, but they mayor supported. The municipal government claims that some of the signatures on the petition are improper and so are refusing to place the question on the ballot. Supporters of the initiative are suing to have the signatures ruled valid and the question ordered onto the ballot. Since the city is being sued, it gets to request RELEVANT documents from the plaintiffs (this is called "discovery.") The mayor's office filed papers claiming that the sermons were relevant. When the subpoenas were revealed to the media, there was a shitstorm, leading the mayor's office to claim that the subpoenas were pro forma and ultimately that the sermons were requested by mistake. Nobody really believes them (especially because they are still demanding most of the same information,) but according EVEN TO THE MAYOR OF HOUSTON, the mayor's office shouldn't be requesting this kind of stuff.

The churches in Houston are NOT actually being accused of tax evasion. This is a dopey fishing trip designed to punish the political opponents of an elected Democrat. The sole purpose here is to scare the pastors' allies and the mayor's enemies. Which all plays into my thesis that Democrats are willing to ignore the First Amendment to the Constitution if it prohibits them from a "Big Government" goal, just like they're willing to ignore any other part of the Constitution that gets in their way.

Trick Questions

[lazy genes]

Just a symptom of humans in the early stages of evolution. Illegal immigration leads to a form of slavery. Legal immigration eventually ends racism. If MTV promoted sheep raping to the normally sexually confused youth the way they promoted gay life, things would be much different. Most of the issues we face can be solved by understanding that humans are not yet an intelligent species. If population size is relative to intelligence we need another 7 billion.

Eugenics Ahoy!

[DevsVult]

Soon there'll be DNA tests for political leaning, politics-selective abortion, and companies offering to select eggs / sperm that lean in the "correct" direction.

get the point here?

[Anonymous Coward]

this is a great first step for having your political opponents declared mentally unstable/unfit.

imagine, being able to simply declare 'science says if you disagree, there is something wrong with you'...

every politicians dream...

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a Flatland problem (see book or youtube.)

It is impossible to accurately explain something which is 2 dimensional if you only can comprehend in 1 dimension.

Sample and study size will not matter when you are describing complex things in overly simplistic terms. There is no left or right except in the French Parliament where it was invented to minimize the number of physical brawls.

see PoliticalCompass.org

GREAT POINT!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is like describing a 2D circle passing thru a 1D line.

The line's perspective is going to see 1 point split into two points accelerating away from each other and then slowing down and accelerating back towards each other until they become 1 point again.

The line will describe this in complex terms without any idea it is a circle. Perhaps even getting highly abstract like saying "the behavior is that of two cosine functions with the 2nd function being offset by pi." Then the genius line person will figure out part of the equation for a circle and make a leap saying the two together represent that equation, which he'll call a "circle."

show me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me an image of Obarry and I'll puke.

Does this make me a liberal?

I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of you

[whistlingtony]

I'm sick of this thread, and I'm sick of all of you. You're all petulant children throwing tantrums. These comments aren't even worth reading. They're all just more of the same bashing without any substance or actual discussion.

This is INTERESTING and you're all too busy throwing out tropes that any honest actor would dismiss as ad hominem attacks to actually discuss this. Conservatives react slightly stronger to disgusting images. We know this of course. This has been theorized and shown before. Of course, a more liberal person will have different areas light up too.

This means there's a very real perception filter difference happening here, and perhaps we need to extend a little empathy across the quite imaginary isle and try to TALK to one another.

No. Liberals do not want to laze around and let the government do everything for them. No. Conservatives do not want perpetual war. No. Liberals do not want other people to pay for their stuff. No. Conservatives do not blame unions and immigrants for everything. You people should KNOW these simplistic tropes are full of it, and here they are flung around as if true.

I'm liberal. My best friend is conservative. When we listen to each other, really listen instead of hearing what the TV wants us to hear from each other, we can have very nice discussions about economics and the world. We both want bankers punished for what they did. We both want the economic system to be regulated. We both want clean air and water. We both want to get the !@#$ out of the middle east. We both want to live in a country that's fair and just. Our differences are far less than our similarities.

Bah. I'm ranting.... this is interesting science and all of you completely missed it in an attempt to sling shit all over. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Re:I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of you

[macsimcon]

I did read the link, and I surmised only that conservatives or more deeply disgusted by the images than liberals.

Does this mean liberals are more tolerant of the reprehensible? Does this mean conservatives are less tolerant of the reprehensible? Who knows.

I’m not sure that the study has any practical application.

Re: I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of you

[rasmusbr]

Yeah, I suspect all they have is a machine learning algorithm that was good at predicting how 83 particular individuals felt about politics in 2014.

Good luck using the same algorithm on a different group of people, or on the same group a few years later.

Re: I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of you

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm a neuroscientist ... I haven't read the paper"

You admit to not RTFA, and are commenting like you know more than the actual scientists carrying out the study? I shudder to think what your definition of "neuroscientist" is.

Re: I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of you

[Anonymous Coward]

Key quote: I haven't read the paper.

But pony points for for actually discussing the paper instead of the rest of /. What a pile of dung it has become.

Re:I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of you

[thunderclap]

Agreed. However, while you and your friend might be democrat and republican, the bulk of washington is neither. Its Progressive. Its progressive donkey or or progressive elephant. So what is progressive?

"The Progressives were reformers in the late 19th and early 20th century who believed that in order to address modern problems, America needed to abandon the old ideas of the Founding in favor of a new expansive conception of the role of government. Progressives paved the way for modern liberalism and politics, and their core ideas are still the mainstay of today’s liberalism. Some Progressives were prominent journalists such as Herbert Croly (co-founder of The New Republic), some were distinguished professors such as John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson (president of Princeton before he was President of the U.S.), and many were political leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette. Progressives could be found in both political parties: Wilson was a Democrat, Roosevelt was a Republican. The Progressives were united in their contempt for what they called the “individualism” of the Founding. Instead of a government that protects natural rights through limited, decentralized powers, they envisioned an expansive government, a “living” and evolving Constitution, and the rule of “experts” in nationally centralized administrative agencies." First Principles essay by Thomas G. West and William A. Schambra “The Progressive Movement and the Transformation of American Politics.”

We will never get back to the vision of what the founders wanted (a limited REPUBLIC governed by its citizens) until we dispense with progressivism and the belief that we are democracy. A democrary by definition is mob rule. A democracy is American idol. Of course you have gridlock. We sent people who are the best liars, who want to promote their agenda in Washington.
You know the Benjamin Rush one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was against the death penalty? That he helped Paine write Common sense? He suggested that the citizen who could vote nominate those from their community to serve as representatives and if anyone steps up of their own accord they should be disqualified for that reason.
While I agree the document should be discussed on its merits. I believe it has little merits. 83 people is not enough of a representation to be meaningful. Its .000028% of our population. Thanks.

Re: I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of you

[SoftwareArtist]

Unfortunately this is most likely sensationalist BS, not interesting science. I haven't read the paper.

So maybe you should read the paper? Then you'll know. Instead you just posted lots of totally uninformed speculation about what they "probably did" while presenting this as some sort of authoritative view. In just a few minutes you could have skimmed the paper (it's not very long and quite clearly written), then posted a useful commentary that would actually add to the conversation.

Re:I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of you

[whistlingtony]

The idea of a large vs. small government goes all the way back to Hamilton and Jefferson. Don't try to tell us it's some newfangled idea that's overthrowing the Will Of The Founders. The Founders argued about this stuff all the time.

Further, don't try to make washington out to be Progressives. Washington's not progressive at all. Progressives would actually use the power of government to help people. FDR was a freak'in progressive. I can count real progressives in Washington on one hand.... And I'd have to look up a few names...

Re:I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of you

[superstition222]

"I'm liberal. My best friend is conservative. When we listen to each other, really listen: Then you're actually moderates wearing different labels.

Re:One is compelled to ask, how can National Scien

[Anonymous Coward]

What in the hell is a "disgusting image"?

"And today, AC learned about Goatse, the Blue Waffle, and questions that one should never ask on the Internet"

Instant recognition

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't even have to see the image of the stimulus response from the link to guess which way the results go. Just see how your parents behave and you find the results obvious and having a strong anecdotal correlation. ;)

these disgusting images you speak of

[Anonymous Coward]

are they congressmen's mugshots?

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Here we go again ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

"... those people who disagree with me are not just wrong, they are crazy!"

Nothing new. See "The Authoritarian Personality" (1950), a ringing 'scientific' denunciation of authoritarianism by the party that now wants to force you to bake wedding cakes for human-lobster weddings, even if you don't want to ...

Re:Here we go again ...

[frank_adrian314159]

And what the hell is wrong with a human-lobster wedding? It might be true love, after all. Perhaps the human admires her shapely antennae, while she admires his stunning personality! A few quick dates and... Bob's yer uncle! Time for the wedding (and lets hope the new Mrs. Isn't expecting her little prawns too soon, but you know how impatient those new brides can get... wink, wink).

Now, wouldn't you feel silly, if that were the case?

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83 participants?

[MPBoulton]

That sounds like a small sample...but necessary I imagine given the cost of an MRI scan.

Re:One is compelled to ask, how can National Scien

[thaylin]

That is the point. Using how a person response, aka the subjectiveness associated by the person, they can determine the category. If it was not subjective then there would have been zero effect from the image.

There is group think / hive mind

[Anonymous Coward]

It's strange how the bogeymen groups known as "liberals" and "conservatives" are apparently some sort of ill-defined hivemind.

Are they ill defined? In the US about 1/3 of the population votes for the Democratic candidate, regardless of the candidate's merit. And about 1/3 do the same for the Republican candidate, regardless of merit. Now look at the primary process where these candidates are selected. It seems that the candidate that best regurgitates the expected party platform positions and expected party ideology of the day has the best chance, regardless of their actual record and whether they had supported these positions and ideologies in the past. During the primary process both Democratics and Republicans know very well what the expected answers are, the notion that there is a whole lot of group think going on is very likely.

Re:There is group think / hive mind

[The Ickle Jones]

Are they ill defined?

Yes, absolutely. A person's individual positions matter more than worthless labels like "liberal," "conservative," "left," or "right." Few can even agree that position X is liberal or conservative, and it doesn't really matter.

Don't make the mistake of assuming that republicans are conservatives and democrats are liberals; both are just scumbags who want to ignore the constitution and infringe upon our fundamental liberties.

return to 4.5% unemployment would be great

[raymorris]

Eight years ago, the unemployment rate was 4.5%, so it would be great to return to that. (It's averaged about 8% over Obama's tenure.), Unemployment has ALWAYS improved during every period of Republican control of the Senate.

Until Bush Jr's final year, economic growth had always improved under every republican president's budgets since the great depression. It's always gotten worse under every democrat president. You can legitimately disagree with republicans on social issues; the clear fact is that the economy consistently does better under republicans, and always has. Saying that republicans are bad for the economy is like calling democrats war-mongers- ot flies in the face of obvious facts.

Re:return to 4.5% unemployment would be great

[Anonymous Coward]

Every GOP administration since WW2 has added nothing but debt, financial crises brought on by deregulation, weak foreign policy, etc.

thou shalt not kill

[raymorris]

Thou shalt not kill predates the Democrat party by several thousand years.

Grandfather not grossed out by picture ...

[perpenso]

My grandfather for example fought in WW2 but I'm pretty sure I could shock or gross him out with stuff that wouldn't really bother most of my peers.

And do you know why? Because those images may be triggering actual memories of close friends being mutilated by enemy fire, of picking pieces of a close friend's guts and brains off his face and uniform, of the smells of decaying corpses that one can not avoid. You, your friends and myself have a very different set of thoughts and memories and emotions for these images to trigger. Your grandfather is not being grossed out by what he sees in the picture, but rather what he experienced in real life. Add to this that memories created during high stress like combat are some of the most vivid and persistent, its nature's way of making sure we don't forget the lessons of a close encounter with death.

I knew a WW2 paratrooper. I asked him if parachuting was scary. He said it was terrifying. That at Normandy he was near the end of the line of troopers to go out the door. That their plane was taking enemy fire and they stood there unmoving waiting for the signal to jump. And when the signal was given it seemed like forever for him to get to the door. He said he didn't "relax" until he hit the ground. He said for the Market Garden jump he was scared sh*tless from the moment he put the parachute on until he hit the ground despite the fact that there was no enemy fire this time. Show this guy a picture of someone parachuting and it is not the thought of hanging high above the ground supported by a piece of nylon and some thin cords that it causing him to feel some anxiety, as my original question attempted to query regarding.

Re:Grandfather not grossed out by picture ...

[Karmashock]

I see no reason to discuss these things with someone intentionally misunderstanding everything I say.

Good day.

Re:Grandfather not grossed out by picture ...

[perpenso]

I see no reason to discuss these things with someone intentionally misunderstanding everything I say.

Good day.

Who is misunderstanding whom? I am countering the notion that you and your friends have a higher threshold for disgust than your WW2 vet grandfather because of growing up on modern horror movies. You may simply be misinterpreting and misunderstanding his reaction to gross images.

You claim others haven't adjusted for various variables. Your interpretations/examples seem to suffer from a similar shallow analysis.

Re:Grandfather not grossed out by picture ...

[Karmashock]

because you completely missed the point... the point is not about some guy that has seen worse in a war decades ago... a guy you personally know NOTHING about and I know far more about then you ever could.

No the point is that someone from different generations despite being exposed on occasion to some nasty stuff might have different reactions to those images in media.

Anyone that has spent any time with people from different generations knows this.

Good day.

Re:Grandfather not grossed out by picture ...

[perpenso]

Sorry, but you are the one missing the point. Its not about your grandfather, about one individual vet. Its about the erroneous notion that you put forward that you and your friends are somehow less likely to be grossed out by an image because of growing up on horror movies. That is such a simplistic and superficial analysis.

It even contradicts the point you attempt to make. You fail to consider that the vets reactions are not necessarily due to a lack of horror movie exposure. It is far more likely based on an entirely different set of life experiences. It is well established that memories of combat are some of the most vivid and persistent, and these memories can be triggered for recall even by quite tangential events. A gross image can trigger such a recollection and motivate a reaction.

You are correct that life experiences can influence reactions, and that there can be a generational aspect to this. However to suggest a vet reacts differently that you due to horror movie exposure is absurd. That is my point.

And your guess about my not spending time around different generations, that is quite mistaken. I grew up in fairly small town with multiple generations of my family in relatively close proximity. I know very few people who spent more time around several different generations. This includes the WW2 generation.

Re:Grandfather not grossed out by picture ...

[Karmashock]

You've missed the point every single fucking time.

Restart. Just forget everything above because some bullshit got into your brain and it is fucking everything up. Restart.

Do you think that a man today would have identical reactions to ALL visual stimuli as a man from 20,40,60,80, or 100 years ago?

Yes or no?

Do you think his reactions TO EVERYTHING would be identical or not?

If not, then age is a factor that has to be controlled for in this experiment.

The only way you're going argue the inverse is if you think reactions would be remain identical over that time frame. I assume you're not going to make that argument.

So you now understand what I said in the first place and we are now done unless you want to try the inverse argument which... is instant fail.

Good day.

Re:Grandfather not grossed out by picture ...

[perpenso]

Again, I have never disagreed with the notion that different generations may have different reactions. If someone is missing the point every single time it is you. If you think I have argued the "inverse" you are thoroughly confused.

My disagreement is entirely with your notion that horror movies explain you and your friend's reaction to gross images compared to a WW2 vet. That statement was absurdly naive. The "contradiction" I referred to is you complaining that others did not properly account for other variables and yet you do the same in the WW2 vet vs your friends example.

Re:Grandfather not grossed out by picture ...

[Karmashock]

I'm glad you agreed with everything I said then...

Good day.

Re:Grandfather not grossed out by picture ...

[perpenso]

I'm glad you agreed with everything I said then...

You have a persistent reading comprehension problem. :-)

Re:Grandfather not grossed out by picture ...

[Karmashock]

Nah, I just got a label maker... it is awesome. I typed apple into it, and labeled all my apples.

Then I typed "this conversation is done because you were never actually arguing with my thesis" and posted that on this conversation.

It was sort of a long tag... but it needed a label.

That's a fair point

[raymorris]

That's a fair criticism of the consistency of Republican (and democrat) policy as passed by Congress. The Patriot Act is inconsistent with limited government and I'ved called out my (republican) congressman on that when he was on the radio, and on his Facebook page.

It is perhaps also fair to point out that while congress-critters from both parties voted for it, few average Americans support it. In other words, neither Democrats nor Republicans support it, their politicians do.

Lastly, it may be interesting to note that because the bill was so huge, nobody has read it, leading to massive misinformation about it from every direction.

Re:That's a fair point

[The Ickle Jones]

few average Americans support it

I've seen no evidence that this is so. Most people are either apathetic to the idea of sacrificing fundamental liberties for safety, or support it.

Liberals are Egoistical Maniacs

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, like you even have any liberals over there. You are ALL conservative as hell. You major political parties and parties inside those parties are all right wing conservative. That's why you are in the mess you are in.

fairly straightforward basis, actually

[Rudisaurus]

The liberal-conservative taxonomy in the study is based on a simple premise:

- brain activity detected: liberal
- no brain activity observed: conservative

See? Pretty easy..

Actually they found out moral-vegetarians are libe

[Anonymous Coward]

So here's the real finding " Our finding that only disgusting pictures, especially in the animal-reminder category, differentiate conservatives from liberals..."

So what they actually found out was thmoral-vegetarians are liberal, that is people that are super-disgusted by seeing an animal dead (for example because they think animals are people) are liberals.

We already knew this.
  I bet 'disgust' with a mountain being strip-mined is also going to predict people being liberal.
 
  The paper itself uses a throw-away line (so called because it should be thrown away) implying that 'political scientists are hesitant to admit that political views are emotional'. This much more shows the lack of knowledge of the kids playing with their fMIR than the dearth of theory regarding emotions by political science.

This study explains an old double entendre.

[Anonymous Coward]

The peasants are revolting!

Re: I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of yo

[tgv]

It gets worse. I've seen this coming since 2008, but gene sequencing, preferably in combination with fMRI, is getting bigger. Not that it means anything: we don't know how a lump of neurons that consume more oxygen relate to behavior, and we don't know how genes affect lumps of neurons at any subtle level, let alone that we can conclude something from gene sequencing, but since it is very sexy and has new images to enhance psychological studies, there will be more and more of it, until you read one day: Reactions to Disgusting Images Determined by Genes.

Conservatives don't accept that Humans are animals

[maple_shaft]

From the article:

[quote]We proposed that conservatives, compared to liberals, have greater negativity bias [13], which includes both disgusting and threatening conditions in our study. Our finding that only disgusting pictures, especially in the animal-reminder category, differentiate conservatives from liberals might be indicative of a primacy for disgust in the pantheon of human aversions, but it is also possible that this result is due to the fact that, compared to threat, disgust is much easier to evoke with visual images on a computer screen.[/quote]

My take on this as a US liberal, is that this might be indicative of a conservative having an aversion to being reminded of how humans are little more than animals. If it disgusts a conservative to think of us as animals then that might be why they have less fear about how dangerous, barbaric and predatory humans can truly be to each other. Giving more freedoms and powers to humans might not seem something to be feared as much as a powerful government. If they accepted that human beings are primal animals when you peel away the layers, and if they witnessed just how private individuals can be more dangerous to one than a powerful government ruled by the people, then they might have a different perspective.

I Call BoviSterc®®

[Anonymous Coward]

This has all the hallmarks of an attack on a Transcendent Moral Ethic. The reason why the USA and Israel are lumped together is an attack on what came down from Mount Sinai. It is like that book Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. where Godwin's Favorite Austrian® is captured and when he explains why he did what he did, the answer was "there had to be a final solution." Yes, a final solution to the problem that a Transcendental Moral Ethic that the Jews brought into the world that Christendom had continued has done two things: circumcision is a wound on the flesh and conscience is a wound on the soul.

""If we present a man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case, prone. I became acquainted," Frankl continued, "with the last stage of that corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment--or, as the Nazi liked to say, of 'Blood and Soil.' I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers."

Viktor Frankl Doctor of the Soul

Drop a can of Zyklon-B on every professor's desk and lectern in every college. People with influence need to prove a negative, i.e. that their behavior does not lead to the deaths of wholesale numbers of human beings.

Those accustom to rural life, likely conservative

[Anonymous Coward]

If you grew up in the city you may have never seen a rotting animal carcass and you are more likely liberal. If you grew up rural, especially on a farm, you have probably dealt with things in life that are generally repulsive. I would guess your brain would respond differently if you have dealt with these situations on a regular basis. Unless you account for this, the study means little.

Re:Conservatives don't accept that Humans are anim

[SoftwareArtist]

My take on this as a US liberal, is that this might be indicative of a conservative having an aversion to being reminded of how humans are little more than animals.

I'm not at all surprised that, as a liberal, you would interpret it that way. Even though there's nothing in the study that actually supports that interpretation. A conservative, of course, would almost certainly not interpret it that way. The liberal and the conservative are both being equally emotional and non-rational in their reasoning.

Think carefully about what you just did. You first decided (based primarily on emotion) what conclusion you wanted to reach, then interpreted the data as supporting that conclusion. You did that (as everyone does, many times a day) despite the fact that it required wild extrapolations, and there are tons of other interpretations equally consistent with the data. This is exactly the sort of thing this article is talking about. Humans are not rational. We make decisions based on emotion, then rationalize them to convince ourselves they were actually based on logic. If you are human, then you are not rational. If you believe you are, that's just an example of one of your irrational beliefs.

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Re: I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of yo

[SoftwareArtist]

How about you? What were you going to add?

I was going to add (and did add) the suggestion that you read the paper so you could post informed opinions rather than uninformed ones. (It amazes me how often my signature quote turns out to be exactly relevant.) And that led you to do it, so I totally count it as a positive contribution to the discussion!

I do, however, think you're being overly harsh toward this paper. They crossvalidated their results, and also included negative controls in the study. If their statistics were really as badly done as you claim, they would have found just as strong predictors based on the pleasant and neutral images. But they didn't.

Why

[GoCrazy]

Why do you tease me so blurb.

Bet I can guess....

[Anonymous Coward]

DNRTFA: But I'm guessing men were more conservative and were less bothered by the gross stuff?

Click this link to send cash!

[amoreperfectvacuum]

So now all we need to do is correlate how long it takes for each person to click a link after seeing an unpleasant image, and we know who to hit up for cash for the NRA! Life is getting so simple!

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Re: I'm sick of this thread and sick of all of yo

[SoftwareArtist]

No. You just said several things that are simply false. Please let me clarify them.

First, you seem to have the idea that experiments like this are expensive to perform. They aren't. I used to work in an MRI research lab. The cost of doing a scan is close to zero. Buying the machine in the first place is expensive, but since my lab was in a hospital, they already had that. The hospital used it for patients during the day, and then left it idle most of the night. That's when the graduate students ran their experiments. The cost of doing this study is whatever you have to pay some undergraduates to come in the middle of the night and get their brains scanned: not very much.

Second, this study was not a fishing expedition. It's the latest in a growing body of literature on the subject. They included various types of "disgusting" images because previous studies had shown (based on skin response and the like) that conservatives have a stronger response to them than liberals do. They included threat images for the same reason: previous studies have shown that conservatives have a stronger startle reflex than liberals. They were a bit surprised when they didn't find anything for those images, and they include commentary speculating on why they didn't. There is no previous evidence that conservatives and liberals respond differently to pleasant images, so they would have been surprised if anything had shown up there. And it would have been very surprising if they'd found any difference for neutral images, making those a good negative control.

Third, as a neuroscientist you're well aware that we know more about the brain than just the sensory and motor parts. That doesn't mean we have detailed circuits, but we do know, for example, that particular regions are involved in emotion, memory, higher cognitive tasks, etc. Maybe those parts aren't what you are personally interested in, but that doesn't make them invalid subjects to study.

Re:Conservatives don't accept that Humans are anim

[maple_shaft]

Well no I didn't just preconceive an argument and try to find ways to support it. I did have an emotional reaction though but only because I used to be staunchly conservative and libertarian before I went through a period of transformation. I emotionally react to conservatives now with a disgust but also an understanding of the emotions that I had at the time. I had a particular disgust at that time with people that didn't live up to the standards of what i felt a quality person should be. I realized just how animalistic, primal and backwards the majority of humanity truly is and I lost faith that Libertarian values truly could better the human condition. I sort of became a Liberal in certain aspects, however in others I believe that an authoritarian government keeps our animal and predatory behaviors in line. Something akin to Socialism might work in a country with high amounts of wealth and only with high amounts of relative wealth, otherwise the country might do well if they are lucky enough for a benevolent monarchy. At least that gives a chance at a successful society. I very much believe a successful Libertarian society is never possible until such day that humanity transcends their more primal nature. Even moving in that direction is a bad idea as it allows bad behavior from powerful groups to further hurt people and cause societal unrest. It is in much the same way that in a third world African country without a strong dictator is run by powerful gangs that impoverish and hurt the common people. Strong government prevents abuses more often than causes them.

These are beliefs I built over my life based on my life experiences and triggered by deep emotional reactions. They molded the logic behind my observation just as you said. Pretty much what went through my head was that I had to google animal reminder disgust then it seemed obvious to me that since I view humanity as hopeless animals and since the birth of that belief in me was untenable with my previous Libertarian beliefs, that perhaps the opposite is true, perhaps a conservative or libertarian has a profoundly optimistic view of human nature and defaults to seeing people in the best possible light, that our default state is transcended human and not an ignorant ape. This thought gave me a positive emotional reaction (intuition).

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I wonder what would have happened if...

[daniel.lynn.mills]

Their brains were scanned with a non-functional MRI.