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This Machine Can Tell Whether You're Liberal or Conservative
- peterkelly 12y agoBut what if I take the results this machine gives, and then immediately start supporting candidates at the opposite end of the spectrum?
- sunir 12y agoI don't claim this view of the world is true, but the analogies they might make is that would be same as 1. Learning to use your righthand dominantly as a lefthanded person. 2. Pretending you were heteronormal when you were actually queer Both examples have been commonly seen in the world. That is you can use your executive function to override (m)any of your intrinsic personality traits, but physiologically you remain either gay, lefthanded, or liberal/conservative.
- tormeh 12y agoUm... Then you'll vote for a party you don't agree with. Your point was?
- peterkelly 12y agoIt was an attempted joke referencing the halting problem. Never mind ;)
- caidan 12y agoThat picture at the top is horrifying. Looks like she is undergoing the Ludovico technique http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjAxODIxMDQwNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTA0MTk4Mw@@._V1_SX640_SY720_.jpg http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjAxODIxMDQwNl5BMl5Ban...
- stackcollision 12y agoHow could they do that to Ludwig Van!?
- bradjohnson 12y agoBoth pictures are pretty horrifying
- patrickmay 12y agoLeft/right or liberal/conservative are false dichotomies, at least in U.S. politics. Both major parties are willing to use coercion to achieve their goals, and they don't even differ very much in what those goals are. The real divide is between authoritarians and anti-authoritarians. It would be interesting to see a similar study (or the results of this study re-analyzed) with liberal/conservative replaced with authoritarian/live-and-let-live.
- aut0mat0n1c 12y agoCouldn't agree more. The classic 'false dilemma'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
- cwaniak 12y agoRight. Like abortion. Or death penalty. Or gun ownership. Or taxes. All false dilemmas, right? Both Democrats and Republicans want (obviously!) the same policies for the problems pointed above. Or not really?
- eli_gottlieb 12y agoNo, the real divide is not between libertarians and "statists". You are simply projecting a complicated, multidimensional space down onto a single axis and then twisting it to make your ideology sound right-by-default. For one thing, property is theft ;-).
- ChrisNorstrom 12y agoI disagree. I find that Conservatives generally "conserve" a society's traditions, culture, religion, and way of life while Liberals "liberate" a society from it's traditions, culture, religion, and way of life. When taken to an extreme Conservatives can accidentally stagnate a society by holding it back from ideas that further it (see: conservative southern states, Islamic extremist countries), while Liberals can accidentally destroy a society altogether by giving it away in pieces (see: Israel, liberal immigration policies, Islamification of Europe). They're both extremes on a spectrum. One prevents new ideas that a society wants, the other forces new ideas that a society isn't ready for.
- wreegab 12y agoI questioned that a population can be categorized in only two sets. It's unfortunate that a lot of people buy into this, and end up trying to be as faithful to one of the label as they can, just like a fan will dedicate himself/herself to a specific sport team for no good reason really than just picking a side and sticking to it.
- gnaritas 12y ago> I questioned that a population can be categorized in only two sets. Bald, Not Bald. Q.E.D.
- jerf 12y agoMore generally, it seems the more we look into the seemingly-simple emotion of disgust, the more complicated it gets. While I hate to just drop a Wikipedia page in a comment link, it seems to be a pretty good starting point on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgust It's fascinating stuff. The other nice thing about this article is that it seems to refrain from judgments, which is a problem this general field has had. First, study scientifically. Then, if necessary, judge unscientifically as needed. (No sarcasm. A judgment here is necessarily by definition unscientific, but that doesn't make it wrong... just unscientific, and don't forget it. Unscientific is not a synonym of "wrong" any more than scientific is a synonym of "correct".) However I think that when you study the differences carefully, and with an open mind, it becomes much more difficult to say that one side is right and one side is wrong on the question of "the proper level of disgust". Disgust is a blunt instrument, like any other emotional reaction, and turning something so broad and vague "up" or "down" inevitably results in errors either way. This is especially true when you remember that not all humans live in the same situations... for a middle-class American living in a safe neighborhood, excessive paranoia about out-groups is probably unreasonable, but for someone living in a tribal area, insufficient paranoia about out-groups may very well get you killed.
- a8da6b0c91d 12y agoDisgust is only one of the relevant psychometric dimensions in Jonathan Haidt's model, which is where this bit comes from. In a nutshell, Haidt found that liberals reason about moral problems almost exclusively through the lens of fairness, while Consevatives use a larger "moral toolbox." http://www.moralfoundations.org/ http://www.moralfoundations.org/ One of the more interesting observations out of Haidt's work is that conservatives can reliably articulate the ideas of liberals as a liberal would. But the inverse is not true. Liberals have difficulty emulating perspectives that include concepts such as the divine.
- saraid216 12y ago> One of the more interesting observations out of Haidt's work is that conservatives can reliably articulate the ideas of liberals as a liberal would. But the inverse is not true. Liberals have difficulty emulating perspectives that include concepts such as the divine. In the interest of not setting off a flame war, I'm going to point out that this phenomenon can be explained in at least two directions (the obvious one and the reverse) and leave it at that.
- rubyn00bie 12y agoI always thought it was pretty easy to tell being human.... One's an asshole, and one's not! zing Update after downvotes: apparently no one reading this has a sense of humor, liberal or conservative.
- unclebucknasty 12y ago>apparently no one reading this has a sense of humor Of course, the other possibility is that they do.
- vilhelm_s 12y agoThe Last Psychiatrist wrote some interesting commentary about the Science paper that this article mentions. "[T]he actual finding isn't that conservatives are fearful; it's that liberals seem not to exhibit much response to scary photos. But it's actually a little worse than that." (http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2008/09/either_conservatives_are_cowar.html http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2008/09/either_conservatives_...)
- gknoy 12y agoNote for the squeamish: There's a photo of one of the fear-inducing (kinda) pictures near the bottom of the blog post. I would like to have some brain bleach for the memory of that picture. Logically, it shouldn't be scary. I'm pretty sure it's photoshopped... and yet part of me wants to squirm away from even looking at it in the peripheral vision. Ew ew ew.
- JonnieCache 12y agoBy not describing the content of the picture you're just encouraging people to go and look at it :)
- devindotcom 12y agoCan confirm this. Went to link and scrolled all the way down. it's not too bad.
- zhemao 12y agoMaybe I'm just a psychopath, but after reading your comment, reading through the article, and getting to the picture at the end, I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it. It just looks incredibly fake, like something you'd see in a terrible 50s monster movie.
- ScottBurson 12y agoBrain bleach, really? I think the spider is quite beautiful. I must be a psychopath :-)
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- JoshTriplett 12y agoIt's dangerous to take a result like this and speculate on reasons, without developing proof that supports those reasons. The research mentioned in the article measured one particular trait which seems to be correlated with expressed political views, and provides the evidence for that (eye-tracking data); however, the article goes on to propose reasons for that trait and correlation, without justifying the reasons with any evidence. Perhaps the underlying research gives reasons, or perhaps it doesn't, but either way the article seems irresponsible to report those reasons without supporting evidence. This article also assumes a single axis, single-variable political spectrum from liberal to conservative, which is an absurdly simplistic view. The one thing that does seem notable in the article is the conclusion, though. Put that together with Duverger's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law), which explains why we have two political parties in the first place, and perhaps the article's research explains where we got the rather odd party division we have, rather than a more useful one. I dislike the conclusion that this might make compromise easier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation), but perhaps if we can recognize the current liberal/conservative distinction (as expressed in politics today) as a difference that has little to do with useful political views, perhaps we can talk less about the hot-button items that currently make up news and campaigns, and start getting issues that matter into the political spectrum.
- gboudrias 12y agoFrom the outside, it has looked for a long time as if avoiding issues that matter is the whole point of your political system. No offense, we (Canada) are not much better, but your problems in that regard seem more dire.
- humanrebar 12y agoJust because there isn't a consensus doesn't mean that issues are avoided. Many questions do not have answers that two-thirds of the country can agree on. For small questions, perhaps that's harmful. However, for large questions, it's definitely a feature of the system that the electorate is forced to deliberate until wider agreement is reached. Are there issue in particular that you think are important yet avoided?
- dghf 12y agoThis sounds a lot like Robert Shea's & Robert Anton Wilson's division of humanity into neophiles and neophobes in the Illuminatus! trilogy.
- a8da6b0c91d 12y agoSome other features that can help classify a liberal: Weaker upper and lower body strength. Weaker immune system, lower T-cell counts. Weaker ability to detect odors and tastes like burning smoke and acrid compounds.
- jksmith 12y agoNot to mention excellent fashion sense. Conservatives are so Carharrt.
- jksmith 12y agoFinally, I've been taken seriously on this board.
- iamthepieman 12y agohttp://www.businessinsider.com/study-strength-politics-conservatives-liberals-2013-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/study-strength-politics-conse...
- thrillgore 12y agoI'm wondering if you're being legitimate and informative, or just trolling.
- MrBuddyCasino 12y agoSounds interesting - but please, provide sources for such bold statements or expect to get downvoted.
- gadders 12y agoThat article wears its heart on its sleeve a bit, doesn't it? "This is why Conservatives believe all those weird things!"
- luma 12y agoThe article is from Mother Jones, and they don't really attempt to hide their own agenda as a rule.
- nateabele 12y agoAs with most other articles about politics, it's easy to miss the forest through the trees. There's one most important, indisputable point: that we can generally be divided into two groups politically, and those divisions go well beyond opinions developed over time. How you classify these groups (liberal vs. conservative, individualist vs. collectivist, voluntaryist vs. statist -- I tend to use the language of i vs. c) doesn't really matter. The two groups exist and are verifiably distinguishable. The important part (and I say this as a libertarian) is that both groups are necessary to the health of a functioning society. It is both useful and necessary for (I'm generalizing here) one group to focus on individualistic pursuits while the other focuses on the well-being of the collective at large -- and we probably would have a healthy, functioning society if each side could appreciate the other's differences of perspective. Instead, both sides are mutually antagonistic, and exploited by the political class, which almost always acts in its own exclusive interest.
- unclebucknasty 12y ago>we probably would have a healthy, functioning society if each side could appreciate the other's differences of perspective. But, what this article/study suggests is that those differences are hard-wired and almost visceral. This would explain why it is so difficult for each side to appreciate the other's perspective, as well as why it's so easy for the political class to exploit both.