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I’m similar. It’s a good question. I think it’s because there’s a pervasive underlying presupposition that conservatives are less intelligent or at least less e

I’m similar. It’s a good question. I think it’s because there’s a pervasive underlying presupposition that conservatives are less intelligent or at least less educated than liberals, so maybe you subconsciously want to be associated with the smart, scientific group and disassociated from the uneducated, anti science group? I suspect that’s part of it in my case. Also, in my personal experience, if you want to avoid negative consequences, you’re better off keeping conservative opinions to yourself. The same is not true of progressive opinions.

thu2111 6y ago
Thomas Sowell's "Conflict of Visions" theory might provide better explanations. In effect, people with more left/liberal views tend to emphasise the importance of speech, ideas, things that seem expert or scientific. People with more conservative views in contrast emphasise practical experience over ideas, common sense / simple explanations over complex / expert explanations, and tend to consider speech not particularly powerful at changing minds or spreading ideas. The above explanation is not judgemental. There are times when complex, expert arguments are correct. There are also times when people obfuscate hidden agendas behind clever sounding language. How powerful speech is at spreading ideas is a purely intuitive judgement, it's not easy to measure. If you believe that expressing your opinion isn't particularly impactful on the world, that people who use complicated statistical methods aren't automatically trustworthy and might be obfuscating things with maths, that academic/intellectual types who talk a lot aren't really valuable to society, then automatically you'd find participating in a poll unappealing. In contrast, if you believe speech/expressing opinions is an extremely powerful way to change the world, that experts who use maths are inherently worth supporting, that academics/intellectuals are amongst the best of us, then talking to a pollster might seem like a pretty important and virtuous way to spend your time. The above explanation is invariant to cancel culture, sneering attitudes towards conservatives etc.

thu2111 6y ago

Thomas Sowell's "Conflict of Visions" theory might provide better explanations. In effect, people with more left/liberal views tend to emphasise the importance of speech, ideas, things that seem expert or scientific. People with more conservative views in contrast emphasise practical experience over ideas, common sense / simple explanations over complex / expert explanations, and tend to consider speech not particularly powerful at changing minds or spreading ideas. The above explanation is not judgemental. There are times when complex, expert arguments are correct. There are also times when people obfuscate hidden agendas behind clever sounding language. How powerful speech is at spreading ideas is a purely intuitive judgement, it's not easy to measure. If you believe that expressing your opinion isn't particularly impactful on the world, that people who use complicated statistical methods aren't automatically trustworthy and might be obfuscating things with maths, that academic/intellectual types who talk a lot aren't really valuable to society, then automatically you'd find participating in a poll unappealing. In contrast, if you believe speech/expressing opinions is an extremely powerful way to change the world, that experts who use maths are inherently worth supporting, that academics/intellectuals are amongst the best of us, then talking to a pollster might seem like a pretty important and virtuous way to spend your time. The above explanation is invariant to cancel culture, sneering attitudes towards conservatives etc.