Political views 'hard-wired' into your brain

Catatonic

Nine Lives
The proposed relationship does have the "right" feel to it.

Most successful business people tend to be more conservative and most successful business people tend to carefully analyze and take actions with a lower probability of failure.
It was also interesting that the researchers think the more conservative people were that way based on experience of what works and what does not.
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
The proposed relationship does have the "right" feel to it.

Most successful business people tend to be more conservative and most successful business people tend to carefully analyze and take actions with a lower probability of failure.
Actually many of the most successful business have been launched by people willing to take risks and try new ideas. Fred S, for example.

It was also interesting that the researchers think the more conservative people were that way based on experience of what works and what does not.
Nice try, but we both know that's not even close to what it said.
 

klein

Für Meno :)
I think it is within interpretation of the contract ... I mean article.

Yeah, an article from a British Tabloid ! They are the funniest or worst, or whatever in the world.
Well, I guess the National Enquirer is right behind those.
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
Yeah, an article from a British Tabloid ! They are the funniest or worst, or whatever in the world.
Well, I guess the National Enquirer is right behind those.

Slipping a little there Klein ... everyone knows anything from the USA is the worst.
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
I think it is within interpretation of the contract ... I mean article.
No, it's not. What the researchers said was that they didn't know:
"However as they were all adults it was hard to say whether their brains had been born that way or had developed through experience."
That's one of the reasons I thought the article was interesting, but not more than that. I certainly wouldn't call it conclusive.
 

bbsam

Moderator
Staff member
What I read seemed to be that conservatives are more "fear based". The Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming and Obama's an Islamo-facist plant coming to take your guns away! Actually, he's the spawn of Satan which is why he has no birth certificate.:happy-very:
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
No, it's not. What the researchers said was that they didn't know:
"However as they were all adults it was hard to say whether their brains had been born that way or had developed through experience."
That's one of the reasons I thought the article was interesting, but not more than that. I certainly wouldn't call it conclusive.
Neither would I but I couldn't resist.

What I read seemed to be that conservatives are more "fear based". The Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming and Obama's an Islamo-facist plant coming to take your guns away! Actually, he's the spawn of Satan which is why he has no birth certificate.:happy-very:
And don't forget the Liberal's common refrains:
1) They're going to take your Social Security away from you.
2) The Tea Party people are violent and un-American

Please help bbsam understand how Liberals are the one's usually spouting fear-based invectives ( not tehat Conseervatives don't also).
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
You guys are completely missing the most earthshaking information that will cause a serious rethinking across the board. And here it is.

Prof Rees and his team, who carried out the research for the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, looked at the brain make up of the Labour MP Stephen Pound and Alan Duncan, the Conservative Minister of State for International Development using a scanner.

They studied 2 members of gov't and found brains in both!

OMF'ingG!

If they actually have brains, we should all have fear as this means they are vastly more dangerous than we ever thought!

All joking aside, this is an interesting exercise but the sampling is vastly limited IMO to draw any absolutes one way or the other. Both so-called liberals and conservatives can be driven by fear, risk averse or even at times throw caution to the wind. Both liberals and conservatives for example use fear based politics during election cycles and voters on both sides react accordingly to this stimuli but as so often is the case, the true facts behind the fear driven propaganda are a whole other matter.

What I'd like to see these researchers do now is to seek out some remote tribal society that is not so driven by man created psychological propaganda and man created liberal/conservative constructs and see what they find there. If they find it then, I'd say there's merit to continue but if they find nothing at all and further studies show the same results in so-called organized, civilized soceities, then our brains are evolving to environmental conditions rather than just being in it's natural state.

There is a risk averse and throwing caution to the wind make up in people and at this point I'm not willing to ascribe a political belief one way or the other on it. Besides, from a left/right perspective, the right in our present day is considered the side of politics who want to vastly limit gov't but then if this is always so true, then explain a true champion of the left like Kirkpatrick Sale who advocates nullification and succession from the Federal State? What about Pat Bucannan who has been solidly against the Iraq war and hasn't bought everything the fear mongers preach about muslims? Explain Ron Paul? Explain Glenn Greenwald or feminist Naomi Wolfe whose catching hell for talking with and talking positive about some folks in the tea party movement?

Politicans don't always believe the fear they preach but instead it's just a mechanism they use to get elected, stay elected and for otherwise purely political ends. And they all do it, every one of them. Humanbeings across the board focus vastly more on negatives than positives, we seem wired that way IMO. Study people outside this false stimuli of politicized and propagandized society and then let's talk again when those results are in!

jmo
 
Both parties use fear based rhetoric to sway people to their way of thinking.
A lot of the things that we associate with both conservatism and liberalism are from years of fighting back and forth, each trying to out do the other in demeaning the other side. We tend to develop, what we call, typical traits everyone and everything.
With 90 or so people scanned and questioned, I would say this "study" is nothing more than a weak attempt at 15 minutes of fame. I wonder how many UK tax payer dollars was wasted on this crap?
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
Both parties use fear based rhetoric to sway people to their way of thinking.
A lot of the things that we associate with both conservatism and liberalism are from years of fighting back and forth, each trying to out do the other in demeaning the other side. We tend to develop, what we call, typical traits everyone and everything.
With 90 or so people scanned and questioned, I would say this "study" is nothing more than a weak attempt at 15 minutes of fame. I wonder how many UK tax payer dollars was wasted on this crap?

Good points especially about possible taxpayer waste although I didn't see anything to suggest that but you never know either!
 

curiousbrain

Well-Known Member
Referenced article about the "liberal gene"; a somewhat larger sample size, although not concrete by any stretch.

Scientists say they've found the 'liberal gene'

Research into this sort of thing is provocative, to say the least. If gerrymandering upsets the modern, astute voter, perhaps in twenty or so years it will be obsolete - instead, the party in power (whomever it is - conservative or liberal) will come up with new ideas like allowing babies to vote based on their presumed political ideology; or, allowing prisoners a "proxy" vote based on a brain scan of some sort? Or, new ways to attack your opponents politically? Could be any number of things.

Indeed, interesting.

Sampling of some other reading:
Political-Genetic Theory Is Studied
Political Preference Is Half Genetic
Are Politics Genetic? The New Science of Political Physiology
 
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diesel96

Well-Known Member
If not most, but many people will automatically believe anything that supports their existing prejudices. Reasonable people, when corrected, will weigh the new information against their existing beliefs and reassess their beliefs, which is a continuous process. Unreasonable people will automatically rail against the new information and will defend their existing beliefs no matter what new information is presented. They prefer illusion over reality because the illusion is often more exciting than reality.
 

bbsam

Moderator
Staff member
Neither would I but I couldn't resist.


And don't forget the Liberal's common refrains:
1) They're going to take your Social Security away from you.
2) The Tea Party people are violent and un-American

Please help bbsam understand how Liberals are the one's usually spouting fear-based invectives ( not tehat Conseervatives don't also).
Now Hoax, I was simply exemplifying the point made in the article. Personally I think it's a bunch of hooey. I guess taken to it's furthest extreme conservatives could find themselves branded with a verifiable mental disease but it's all to silly too me.
 

Babagounj

Strength through joy
I suggest we repeat this study using 2 of our own members , tieguy and klein
I know in one we will find an exactly example of a proper mind and it's questionable what's in the other.
 

hubrat

Squeaky Wheel
If not most, but many people will automatically believe anything that supports their existing prejudices. Reasonable people, when corrected, will weigh the new information against their existing beliefs and reassess their beliefs, which is a continuous process. Unreasonable people will automatically rail against the new information and will defend their existing beliefs no matter what new information is presented. They prefer illusion over reality because the illusion is often more exciting than reality.

Right on.

Intellectually and emotionally well-developed people realize that fluidity is needed when deciding one's political opinions.

People who hang out on the far left and far right tend to have closed minds. Closed minds learn nothing new. If they're not learning something about themselves, others, and the world around them they are stagnant.

My hunch is it's more developmental.

Strict conservatives, especially religious ones, are very fearful. This fear drives their attempt to control their environment.

Arguing will never change someone's political views. They don't need to be changed, and can't be by outside forces.

Differences are necessary. So is respect, patience, and tolerance.

If you think u r right and the other guy is wrong, be responsible and know that one extreme is no better than the other. Everybody experiences the world differently and tends to react accordingly.

One side is no better than the other. One side is not smarter than the other. It's a developmental process which is affected by countless variables.

Our goal should be to grow together.
IMO.
 
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