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Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013)
- didsomeonesay 7y ago(2013)
- new2628 7y agoMissing quotes around evidence.
- asdfman123 7y agoI believe it's not just parasites -- it's also things like diseases and famine as well. The reason it's called "parasite-stress theory" is not because parasites are so important for the selection of government, but because it's a reference to parasite-stress theory in biology. It makes sense. If you don't even have basic healthcare or security, a strongman willing to swoop in and take decisive action does sound appealing. Unfortunately, though, they usually just make things worse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite-stress_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite-stress_theory
- jariel 7y ago"a strongman willing to swoop in and take decisive action does sound appealing" Or maybe a group of people facing existential calamity actually do need fairly strong leadership? Taiwan and especially Singapore might be characterized as much less 'liberal democratic' than the US, and they have already tamed coronavirus while the US flails and a lot of people are dying. Maybe that's not a perfect example, but it surely illustrates the point.
- etrautmann 7y agoStrong leadership != authoritarianism This seems like a dangerous meme right now
- zbyte64 7y agoA group of people stressed by the lack of basics are more likely to make a mistake in choosing strong leadership.
- jariel 7y ago"by the lack of basics are more likely to make a mistake in choosing strong leadership." Citation? Examples? Where is the evidence of this? I think Trump is an excellent example of 'Completely lacking in competency 'fake' strong man' - but there are plenty of counterexamples.
- asdfman123 7y agoThat's true. I'm normally very anti-authoritarian but these days I applaud when police come by and shut down public gatherings due to COVID-19. I think everyone is more comfortable with authoritarianism during this crisis. To be fair, there is a place for decisive action during emergency, as long as those emergency powers don't last forever. However, long term, authoritarian leadership makes things worse due to lack of transparency and accountability to the people. They can clean things up short term, but then they hold onto power and rot society. I guess there could be a place for temporary authoritarian governments to swoop in, sweep up the mess, and then hand over things to liberal democracies, but they don't hand over power easily. A book I read on Vietnam (A Bright Shining Lie) floated the idea that communism never delivered on its promise to make society more equitable, but communist revolutions have played a role in eliminating backwards feudal governments and clearing the way for liberal democracies to take over. Kind of like a shock treatment, but with a very high price in terms of human suffering. Anyway, we should all be very suspicious and ready to oppose authoritarian creep, because we're all susceptible to it right now, and it could stick around even after this virus passes.
- droithomme 7y agoI'm not sure that police shutting down parties is always authoritarianism. In the present case we have public health authorities issuing very sound and science based banning on large gatherings, done under temporary emergency authority during a declared emergency, all in compliance with established law and long known medical knowledge of epidemic management. These orders are then enforced by police. Is this really then an authoritarian government that operates this way? It seems to me the authoritarian way would be that the strong man issues an edict which may or may not be legally allowed or based on reason, and then his stooges, which may be the police or military, enforce it in a draconian manner, without regard to what the written law may permit.
- bb88 7y agoInteresting, those variables have been attempted to be accounted in the paper. They have variables specified for that in their model. Now that's not to say the paper is accurate as I am not a scientist, but it is to say I find it an interesting read.
- S_A_P 7y agoIt would seem to me that if you are sick or your health is suffering, several things can result: 1) you dont have the time or energy to consider what the (authoritarian) leader is doing as carefully (cognitive) 2) you may just be too tired/sick to do anything about it (physical)
- saagarjha 7y agoAnd 3) if a leader promises they can help if you just give up your freedoms, you’re more likely to do so.
- asdfman123 7y agoYou're lower on the hierarchy of needs. If you're afraid you're going to get killed or starve you don't care about abstract things like freedom of artistic expression.
- anovikov 7y agoWhole history of the Soviet Union is a living proof that theory of hierarchy of needs is bs.
- jshevek 7y agoLike so many ideas that persist, the "strong" form is wrong, and the "weak" form is useful. The parent's point stands.
- asdfman123 7y agoCan you explain what you mean a little more?
- bb88 7y agoTo me, what's interesting is that parasites cause complex interactions in animals. There's a parasite that apparently cures adult onset asthma, e.g. So I think that while the theory would be hard to prove, the power of parasites causing complex physiological changes should not be ignored.
- 7y ago
- failrate 7y agoAnd heavy stimulant use.
- jariel 7y agoWhile this is all very interesting, there's a pretty deeply embedded bias on display here. "authoritarian governance is defined by highly concentrated power structures that repress dissent and emphasize submission to authority, social conformity, and hostility towards outgroups" ... is a very problematic way of articulating this - to the point of promoting ignorance, because it's frankly how someone with a Liberal Democratic mindset would describe the system, but not others. I would argue that it's not objective because it may not capture the essence of such systems, rather, it just highlights the 'downsides' as seen from the other side. Others might describe systems as possibly more collective or communitarian wherein legitimate central authorities have considerably better ability to manage affairs, particularly wherein such controls can have a material effect, i.e. 'pandemic', 'war' and maybe even things like infrastructure or other national challenges. What people in 'liberal democracy' might see as 'individual choice', others might see as 'selfish, self-interested' possibly 'greedy' behaviour, actions that show little regard for others, only the self. The natural result of such behaviours might be 'inability to respond in a coherent manner to collective problems'. Of course, where there is centralised power, there's an opportunity for it to be corrupt wherein you might have arbitrary and bad acting here and there, but I don't think to describe a system by its downsides is right. This is especially important because the correlation may not be with authoritarianism as described, but possibly with group unity, collectivism or something else. Edit: I should add, systems with strong 'central control' that some might describe as 'authoritarian' like Singapore, South Korea etc., have tamed and controlled Coronavirus and have exemplary responses. Their economies are not collapsing, they are in school, they are not dying en masse. Meanwhile, 'Liberal Democracies' economies are collapsing, facing massive casualties, dying in hordes. Imagine how stupid we must look to them? They literally showed us 'how to do it' but we're either too self-focused or possibly 'don't understand' how they are organized.
- ccleve 7y agoI think it's beyond reasonable dispute that freedom and democracy work better than authoritarianism on pretty much every dimension. If there's one thing that both right and left agree on, it's this.
- 7y ago
- golf3 7y agoI don't think psychology is trustworthy in this area after the "authoritarian parenting" fiasco.
- golemotron 7y agoCan you say more about this? Google isn't helping me.
- lukifer 7y agoI find it curious that in our current political climate / party system, liberals seem to be more okay with mandatory lockdown procedures, whereas conservatives are pushing back. The latter may be partially due to prior ideological commitments [0], but it's also somewhat counter-intuitive considering the known correlation between authoritarianism and germaphobia. It may be that our two-party dynamic, being focused primarily around left vs. right, largely ignores the authoritarian/libertarian axis of the political compass [1], meaning both parties have authoritarian wings internally. In times of stress/shock, real and/or perceived, it seems that each political tribe is willing to cede power to its authoritarians, based on its values: currently, the left does so for health and the environment, and the right for border security and violence from the "other". And of course, these values can shift based on political winds and alliances of convenience; I'm watching HBO's "The Plot Against America", and from a modern perspective, it's strange to see the FDR economic progressives be the hawks, while the (original) America First-ers are the doves. (While I lean libertarian on the political compass, I'm not a-priori judging all authoritarianism to be evil; there are arguably times such as a pandemic or a world war where some amount may be necessary.) [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/opinion/coronavirus-trump-response.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/opinion/coronavirus-trump... [1] https://www.politicalcompass.org/ https://www.politicalcompass.org/
- jshevek 7y agoI agree with your post, and I've marveled at various perceived hypocrisies on both sides. I acknowledge that in some cases there is no actual hypocrisy, just nuanced views that don't fit a simple mold. But I also believe that partisanship for the sake of partisanship is more important to many people on both sides than any kind of deeper ideological consistency or integrity.
- thedance 7y agoMerely exercising state powers is not authoritarianism. There are other necessary aspects that must exist. If a popularly-elected government orders a curfew that is not necessarily authoritarianism.
- 7y ago
- buboard 7y agodoes it also show that authoritarianism predicts parasite prevalence?
- DenisM 7y agoHow about hidden variables? var allFactor = @[poverty, authoritarianism, bad_health]; foreach(var factor in allFactor) { var otherFactors = allFactor.arrayByRemoving(theFactor); print($"{factor} predicts {otherFactors}"); } }
- conjectures 7y agoThis is junk. Possibly even a case study exemplar of spurious correlations. Take a small set of units (high false positive rate, inter alia). Take some vaguely relevant sounding metrics (entry point for p-hacking). Does a bunch of regressions. Here's the next paper from the group: Distance from equator is predictive of authoritarianism. The more constant daily cycle causes a yearning for rigid routines, predisposing populations to authoritarian rule. If you think I'm merely taking the piss, is it more or less plausible than the proposed causal mechanism here: "Because many disease-causing parasites are invisible, and their actions mysterious, disease control has historically depended substantially on adherence to ritualized behavioral practices that reduced infection risk [9]." Or maybe it's because we've already seen the data our whole lives, know which countries are authoritarian and can select any variable which separates democracies from authoritarian countries and bang, you've got p < 0.05.
- jhanschoo 7y agoLooks like the measures for authoritarianism are taken from various indices for present-day countries. I wonder how this would hold up if we ask historians to rank historical civilizations by "authoritarianism" and then see how this holds up when extrapolated there.
- sm0ss117 7y agoThis study gets absolutely demolished by the fact that all the major old world democracies were trade/citizen empires in the tropics and sub-tropics; Athens, Rome, Carthage, the Malaccan states, Phoenician states, Swahili city states, etc. While Northern Europe and China were the kinds of totalitarian states that the DPRK would envy.
- netcan 7y agoWhatever the specific case here, I think we're hitting some sort of epistemological point with after-the-fact data analysis. Pseudoscience, basically. I realise that the term is inflammatory but ultimately it comes down to some fundamentals. There's a reason why science as a philosophy places so much value on experimentation that makes predictions and tests them. Testability is a fundamental. Untestable theories are not just wrong, they're nonsensical to science. Take Ostrom's "Simulation hypothesis." Is it pseudoscientific? Depends. Is it testable? Is a simulated universe different in a testable way? A theoretically testable simulation hypothesis makes predictions. One that isn't, doesn't. A simulation which is 100% unknowable cannot be a scientific theory. This doesn't strictly mean that it isn't true, it just means we can't gain scientific knowledge of it. If it's masquerading as a scientific theory, then it is pseudoscience. On the "softer" level, there's a reason why science as a cultural, intellectual institution places so much value on eliminating observer effects. Scientists own bias has always been a major detriment to science. Often in the history of science, generations have had to die off before bias can be shed and science advanced in some area. Basically and practically, the "double blind" designs of experiments are the heart of this. People's objectivity is not to be trusted, not even scientists, not even a little. Economics, sociology and such have shifted from one flavour of pseudoscience to another. Back in Popper's day, they would create big untestable "theories" that explained everything and nothing. Today, they make micro-theories after they analyze the data. I think this may be peaking though. The way machines do "data analysis" is starting to shift the way we think on the margins. Machines make predictions, but not theories. They don't care which way causality runs.
- eth0up 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22583594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22583594 Dupe: 17 days ago
- GLGirty 7y agoI read the title and assumed they were talking about the existence of a parasitic socio-economic class. Seems plausible... I stopped reading when I realized they meant microbiology.