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Our brains are prewired to liberal or conservative?

Started by trekgeezer, September 11, 2007, 07:48:18 AM

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ulthar

Quote from: Him on September 11, 2007, 12:33:01 PM

Then you aren't really a conservative and the people you are refering to aren't really liberals.


Well, without getting into definition-based quibbles over the use of these terms, I *AM* fundamentally conservative as the term is used colloquially today.  That does NOT mean I am closed-minded bigot, but that seems to be the stereotype.  And the liberals I referenced were academics and would most certainly self-categorize 'liberal' (or perhaps progressive, much the same thing).  And they were FAR FAR from open minded and tolerant of viewpoints other than their own, which is the liberal stereotype being discussed here.

The point I was making was that the STEREOTYPE of conservative = closed minded, liberal = open minded is totally wrong - or at the very least, very, very overgeneralized.  True, I know conservatives and liberals that fit the stereotypes, but I also know many more in each group that stand the stereotypes on their heads.
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nshumate

Quote from: Him on September 11, 2007, 01:19:36 PM
Quote from: trekgeezer on September 11, 2007, 12:46:28 PM
Tolerance or intolerance is universal, it just depends on what you're being intolerant of.  Democrats are just as intolerant about some things as Republicans are about others. That's where the whole pig-headed thing I was talking about comes in. 

You can't paint people with such a wide brush.  People and their opinions are complex and this too often gets lost with the use of labels like liberal and conservative. They're nothing but pigeon holes created by the news media to put people in.

But the article you posted isn't about Republicans and Democrats. It's about Liberal minded people vs Conservative minded people.

No it isn't, it's about people who self-affix the political labels "Liberal" or "Conservative," which political labels or factions do NOT line up seamlessly with the idea of being "liberal-minded" or not.
Nathan Shumate
Cold Fusion Video Reviews
Sci-fi, Horror, and General Whoopass

Mofo Rising

#17
The author of the news article is playing it very tongue-in-cheek.  I was prepared to call the whole thing a sham, except I was able to find the original journal article in Nature Neuroscience.  (Getting an article published in Nature or any of its supplementaries is no small thing.)

The author declaratively states that the research claims that there are differences between liberal and conservative thinking (EDIT: It says it quite a bit stronger than that.  You get the point), rather than there is a relationship between neural-activity timing when faced with differing stimuli and liberal/conservative leanings.  There's a bit of a difference between the first statement and the second, which goes to show the pitfalls of interpreting data.

It's unfortunate that the original researchers picked the letters M and W as their choices.

"...conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter."

"Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W..." (My emphasis.)

Considering the nature of their study, they could have easily avoided that obvious and pointed remark.  (To spell it out: George W. Bush.)

Finally, notice that most of the people quoted in the article are "not related to the original study."  Scientific news is distorted and twisted for "spin" just as much as any other story.  Especially considering the air of authority "science" has.

Don't believe everything you read.
Every dead body that is not exterminated becomes one of them. It gets up and kills. The people it kills, get up and kill.

LilCerberus

I don't believe in genetic predispositions.
I say it's all in our zodiacs, offset by what music is popular at certain points in our lives, with just a dash of karma at daily intervals to bring it alive.
"Science Fiction & Nostalgia have become the same thing!" - T Bone Burnett
The world runs off money, even for those with a warped sense of what the world is.

RCMerchant

Quote from: LilCerberus on September 11, 2007, 10:41:50 PM
I don't believe in genetic predispositions.
I say it's all in our zodiacs, offset by what music is popular at certain points in our lives, with just a dash of karma at daily intervals to bring it alive.

Believe it or not...I think your answer made more sense to me than any other!!! No, really!  :thumbup:

  I think I'm prewired to disagree with anything that is in vouge at the time, politically wise...(and most anything eles.)
Supernatural?...perhaps. Baloney?...Perhaps not!" Bela Lugosi-the BLACK CAT (1934)
Interviewer-"Does Dracula ever end for you?
Lugosi-"No. Dracula-never ends."
Slobber, Drool, Drip!
https://www.tumblr.com/ronmerchant

Jack

#20
The "definition" of conservative as used in the study is just the liberal's negative view of conservatives (dogmatic in their beliefs, not open to new ideas).  The validity of it is just about equal to the conservative definition of liberals (tax the hell out of somebody else and give the money to me).  If anything, it just serves to point out that these people are engaged in stereotyping, which is a completely typical example of the usual open-mindedness and dedication to serious research we've come to expect from "scholars".
The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.

- Paulo Coelho

CheezeFlixz

If you are not a liberal when you are 20, you have no heart.

If you are not a conservative when you are 40, you have no brain.

It's got nothing to do with science, it's got to do with life.

LilCerberus

One thing I've been wondering lately, why is it always artists who become communists?
"Science Fiction & Nostalgia have become the same thing!" - T Bone Burnett
The world runs off money, even for those with a warped sense of what the world is.

nshumate

Quote from: LilCerberus on September 12, 2007, 01:38:05 PM
One thing I've been wondering lately, why is it always artists who become communists?

Idealism.

Communism is a terrific system, IF everyone involved buys into it and no one at the top is corrupted by power or self-interest.  In other words, it's great in the abstract -- not so good in the real world.

Free-market capitalism, on the other hand, is at least nominally geared to take competition and self-interest into account.
Nathan Shumate
Cold Fusion Video Reviews
Sci-fi, Horror, and General Whoopass

Him

Quote from: nshumate on September 12, 2007, 02:02:57 PM
Quote from: LilCerberus on September 12, 2007, 01:38:05 PM
One thing I've been wondering lately, why is it always artists who become communists?

Idealism.

Communism is a terrific system, IF everyone involved buys into it and no one at the top is corrupted by power or self-interest.  In other words, it's great in the abstract -- not so good in the real world.

Free-market capitalism, on the other hand, is at least nominally geared to take competition and self-interest into account.

Actually neither system works in its purist form. The ideal system contains elements of both.

nshumate

Quote from: Him on September 12, 2007, 03:59:08 PM
Quote from: nshumate on September 12, 2007, 02:02:57 PM
Quote from: LilCerberus on September 12, 2007, 01:38:05 PM
One thing I've been wondering lately, why is it always artists who become communists?

Idealism.

Communism is a terrific system, IF everyone involved buys into it and no one at the top is corrupted by power or self-interest.  In other words, it's great in the abstract -- not so good in the real world.

Free-market capitalism, on the other hand, is at least nominally geared to take competition and self-interest into account.

Actually neither system works in its purist form. The ideal system contains elements of both.

Well, the ideal system is populated by ideal people.  So what we're left here on Planet Earth is systems which have to encompass venal, small-minded, selfish, and evil people as well as well-meaning idiots.  Given the options, I think the one with the best possible rate of success would be one which allows for and makes use of the impulse to self-interest.
Nathan Shumate
Cold Fusion Video Reviews
Sci-fi, Horror, and General Whoopass

trekgeezer

Communism would probably work if the world were populated with zombies.



And you thought Trek isn't cool.

LilCerberus

My favorite example of a communist is Diego Rivera.
That's why I just don't get it.
I know absolutely nothing about his paintings, and I think it's because every PBS show I've ever seen about him is about his lifestyle, not his art.

To me personally, everything about the man just screams gluttony, excess & selfishness, from his appearance, to his relationship with his wife, to his feud with the Rockefellers, & ultimately strikes me as the kind of individual who would in no way, shape or form benefit from communism, even under the most ideal circumstances.

Or maybe I've just been creatively, sexually & financially frustrated for way too long.
"Science Fiction & Nostalgia have become the same thing!" - T Bone Burnett
The world runs off money, even for those with a warped sense of what the world is.

CheezeFlixz

Quote from: LilCerberus on September 12, 2007, 08:33:23 PM
My favorite example of a communist is Diego Rivera.
That's why I just don't get it.
I know absolutely nothing about his paintings, and I think it's because every PBS show I've ever seen about him is about his lifestyle, not his art.

To me personally, everything about the man just screams gluttony, excess & selfishness, from his appearance, to his relationship with his wife, to his feud with the Rockefellers, & ultimately strikes me as the kind of individual who would in no way, shape or form benefit from communism, even under the most ideal circumstances.

Or maybe I've just been creatively, sexually & financially frustrated for way too long.

His work in interesting and has great color. However you are correct in a communist world he would have fell flat. Nothing about him would have worked under communism, and why he embraced it is anybodies guess. Just because it was new and different perhaps, much like many of the American ex-patriots of turn of the 20th Century France threw about the 1920's. That whole the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.
Over all I like Rivera work, but as a person I thought he was an ass.

ulthar

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Professor Hathaway:  I noticed you stopped stuttering.
Bodie:      I've been giving myself shock treatments.
Professor Hathaway: Up the voltage.

--Real Genius