[boriscleto]

Study: Conservatism Is Lack of Complexity In Political Brain | Crooks and Liars

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

We think that compassion and empathy are a fundamental part of liberal values, and we note at times that it takes being in that specific situation for conservatives to grasp why, for example, liberals support universal healthcare for all. There are many studies that address that take on things, but this study is specifically addressing whether or not having low-effort thinking will produce conservative thinking initially, and they showed that it does.

That would fall under blaming the person versus the situation. In some instances, it takes higher level effort thinking (correctional thinking) to consider the situational explanation. An example is considering why someone might be on government assistance. Conservative thinking will blame the person, liberal thinking will correct that initial impulse with a situation-based explanation. “Skitka and her colleagues (Skitka et al., 2002; Study 4) analyzed interviews conducted for the 1987 National Election Studies and found that liberals were more than twice as likely as conservatives to correct an initial “person” attribution with a “situation” explanation in response to a question about government assistance. These correlational findings suggest that some instances of ideology may result from correction processes, overriding and adjusting initial conservative responses. Our experimental studies provide evidence of causal direction.”

Whether that low-effort thinking comes from being busy, overwhelmed, or inebriated, the study shows that under conditions of what we could call cognitive impairment or limited time resulting in low-effort thinking, people are more conservative politically.

As for those centrists (or, come election time, undecided voters), your suspicions appear to be correct. “People with strong political views—left or right—show more cognitive ability than broadly defined centrists.” (Kemmelmeier, 2008)

[seacapt]

Please explain to me the intelligence of making simple workable solutions more complex.
BTW the young gentlemen in the vid don't impress me as being overburdened with practical knowledge, especially hoodie due.

[normhead]

I'm not sure you meant to but I think you're providing an example, of what they are talking about.

SInce this statement is so short, I can probably do it justice. Longer diatribes are so full of layers that it just takes too much time to break them down, and after all, I'm not being paid to do this.. but here goes.

Start with "Please explain", you're not really asking for an explanation, your mind is made up, and quite honestly you probably don't care what anybody thinks, the only reason you want an explanation is so you can argue with it, or ridicule it. You make clear in the opening two words that you find the argument incomprehensible. The problem is, we get the feeling that even if we do explain you won't be able to understand the explanation in any type of positive way. The question is posutaled from the position of you know, we don't and we have nothing to teach you, so what you're really saying is "you can explain all you want but I won't listen.'

But let's assume I'm wrong in my interpretation, assume that what you really want is an explanation of something you don't understand and would like to know about. and go on from there.

"The intelligence". How does one explain "the intelligence"? How exactly does one do that? I assume you mean "why is it intelligent?" Ok, I can go with that.

"making simple workable solutions"

This phrase is so filled with ambiguity, the assumptions are regrettable in terms of answering the question. The first assumption is that the only solutions worth talking about are simple ones. Most of societies problems are complex. The simple ones were solved a long time ago. SO right off the bat you've limited yourself to the stone age. We no longer live in the age of "Kill a Wooley Mammoth at the beginning of winter, make sure he gets frozen solid, keep the fire going and we all eat all winter." That's a simple problem with a simple solution. We simply don't face those kinds of solutions today.

The next problem is the word "more".

The implication is that there is a simple workable solution (wait until the ground freezes then kill a Wooly Mammoth and keep the fire going.) that will work. But wait, Wooly Mammoths are extinct, we need a better solution. This is more complex than we thought. We may have to invent farms, refrigerators, maybe even electricity. What worked 10 years ago may not work now. The whole problem may have to be broken down into parts.."how do we grow food, how do we store food, and how we prepare food that may have to be stored in a way where it isn't very palatable. The problem is, the solution is complex. It's solvable, but it can't be solved by looking for something to replace the Wooly Mammoth. Yet it is speculated that Neanderthals died out and humans survived because exactly that issue. Humans were able to adapt to no Wooly Mammoth, neanderthals were not.

But I digress. To get back to the original question. we need to alter it. To paraphrase Mozart, the solution to a problem has to be exactly as complex as it needs to be. No more , no less. I could just as easily ask, "Please explain to me the intelligence of making simple un-workable solutions that are less complex than they need to be." Much easier to answer. They won't be effective.

Warning, another digression coming. Back in psychology class, it was noted that many intelligence studies noted that intelligent people think faster than un-intelligent people. So when you have an un-intelligent person he may grasp at what he sees as a simple solution to a problem and go with it. A more intelligent may see five or six solutions to the same problem. He will then find a way to test the various solutions to see which will be the most effective in solving the problem. The solution, the most effective one may be one that a less intelligent person never even thought of. Thus the "lock target and go" approach probably won't be the best solution, or it may create other problems worse than the one it displaced.

Lets not make light of this approach however. When I worked in my trade, I learned from guys , who learned form guys. There was a way to do everything to get a piece of furniture made. You might think of a new way, but because of the tradition of hundreds of years or cabinet makers who went before you, it was very likely any original thought you had your self was likely to be a dead end. I'm not saying traditional values are worthless. I'm just saying they aren't always appropriate. And the more society changes the less appropriate they are.

This is all clouded by the additional problem of accumulated knowledge. There are traditional ways of doing things... taught to us by mentors and elders that some follow. At some point way back down the line there was a smart person who figured this out. But it was a method you didn't have to be smart to follow. You just had to be smart enough to follow the guy who figured it out. So there is this sort of residual knowledge just floating around. You don't have to be the smart guy as long as you follow to the letter what the smart guy did and make it work for you. So you can make a lot of money just by being smart enough, or lucky enough to adopt a winning formula. It's not all about intelligence. Even a dumb guy can come up with a winning formula. He may only consider one possibility, but he can luck out, and it could be the winning possibility.

Now getting back to the Neanderthal thing. All humans who aren't African have some Neanderthal blood. Europeans all have around 5-6% Neanderthal DNA. Neanderthals developed in Europe not Africa so African populations never came in contact with them. I'm currently entertaining the notion that this whole conservative thing is somehow connected those Neanderthal genes. The human way was to adapt to whatever circumstances came their way. IN fact the human brain is shaped largely by it's environment. Compared to Neanderthal brains they are an open book. Neanderthal brains were much more instinctive. I'd go so far as to predict that there are certain Neanderthal genes that can predict whether one is conservative or progressive. This is eluded too in the above video where the speakers discuss liberals and conservatives actually thinking differently.

So this is where we end up. Listen up, all you psychology grad students out there. Here's subject matter for your thesis. I smell a Nobel prize for the guy who shows the link between being conservative and the amount of active Neanderthal DNA in their genome.

I guess I could have just said "What a stupid question?" but that would have just proved I have a little bit of Neanderthal DNA myself. The liberal way is, gee, how many ways can I answer this, knowing full well that you don't give a s@#t.

[kswier]

I think oversimplification is more a part of the political process than it is a function of a political party. As long as we get our news in 20 second soundbites we will oversimplify problems.

I do not believe there is no one step process for fixing all our problems. If there was, we would not have any problems.

[Nesster]

This sort of thing is hateful and demeaning, and is a cause of the simmering resentment on the right against smug intellectual liberals. How do we liberals like it when the right 'proves' us stupid, inept, and out of touch? How do we feel when 'they' 'hate' Obama? (And we 'hate' Bush?)

That said the questions involved between 'initial/person' vs 'situation' thinking are also skewed. For example, I will much more likely go with some barely examined gut reasoning when confronted with things I don't know much about, and yet be capable of nuanced, multi layered thinking about things I know and care about. Ask most artists or small business owners about the details of running a multinational corporation, and you get gut answers. But ask the CEO of a multi national about problems the artist or small business owner faces, and chances are you also get gut answers.

[D0n]

there's something to using the simpler solutions....
on the one hand people that spend too much time with thier noses in books aren't the handiest people to have a round when there is hard work to be done...
and on the other hand... and then there's nothing smart about the guy who thinks he needs to spend $5000.00 to build a better mousetrap..even if it does have bluetooth.

lazy assed, over thinking, arrogant cuk-soccers aren't the best people to trust with your money or government.

[seacapt]

Norm , the only way I can answer is this. There are both good and bad aspects of both new and old ways. Wisdom is knowing which method works best for a given situation. To simply abandon the old for the new foolish.
Let me use a wood working analogy to illustrate. If I wanted to join 2 boards which is better , to use a bisquit joiner or to cut and glue a scarf joint? Correct answer- it depends on the application. I'm not a cabinet maker but have build a wooden boat or two. Personally I for the most part prefer to use traditional techniques and tools but supliment them with the new.I also realize a wise craftsman will admit error and learn from mistakes.
In modern fiberglass boat building I can assure you that some of the most "inovative" factories today are building some of the biggest pieces of crap on the water.
This whole conversation reminds me of an old Ziggy Marley tune

You Tube

You Tube

[normhead]

I'm with you there capt... the difficulty in life as I see it is, to know when to stick to the tried and true and when you have to strike out on a new course. If things are working there's nothing the matter with being conservative. If things aren't working you might want to try something radical. Although for that football is probably a better analogy than wood working. (My shop making traditional pine furniture bought a biscuit joiner, it wasn't much use to us. If you have proper clamping and production jigs they are un-necessary. They are often very handy for the handyman though. They were a solution without a problem for us.)

On the subject of whether this is a valid area of research. If it helps you understand things then knowledge is good. Not to increase smugness because we've all known smart people who weren't worth dime to anyone. My 190 IQ classmate from high school went through life as a postal worker. He was smart, but undirected. So smart isn't everything. Sometimes smart people just study everything forever and come up with nothing.

So to me saying they are more intelligent to me is not the same as saying they are more effective or in anyway better as a person. I've met way too many smart people who all they were good at was talking to themselves.

Every teacher knows, top of the class is smart kids who bust their ass. And after that everyone of us would have a not as smart kid busting their but and working to full potential, than a bunch of smart lazy -asses just going for a pass and generally causing trouble. You can try and tell me it's not the same way after they graduate, but I won't be buying it.

[jeffkrol]

Poster boys............

Rand Paul defends Grover Norquist, anti-tax increase pledge - Kevin Cirilli - POLITICO.com

I’m still perplexed by this whole idea that a fiscal cliff occurs when you sequester or cut federal spending,” he said. “I thought that was a good thing, I thought we needed to cut more spending. I don’t even understand why cutting spending or sequestering spending is a fiscal cliff.”

Paul said last week he was interested in a 2016 presidential run.

Poor Grover Norquist. In recent interviews he pleads that all he's trying to do is keep politicians honest. Talk about cleaning the stables, but he's willing to sacrifice; Grover is the man for this job. When questioned about why he is relentlessly enforcing his no-tax pledge, he replied that all he is doing is making sure that politicians keep their word. When they signed on they made a promise -- not to him but to the voters. He just wants to make sure they don't deceive constituents. Is that so bad?

Yes it is. In fact, it's very bad. It hobbles the United States and keeps it from being a great nation. But I should calm down. Blind devotion to the pledge really has only one little flaw. It doesn't recognize that we are not stuck in time, that the world changes, and that we must respond to these shifts.

Robert Slayton: Grover Norquist and World War II

[GeneV]

I also think that it depends upon what you call "conservative." That term (like the term "liberal") changes with the person using it or claiming it for themselves.

[boriscleto]

Poster boys............

Rand Paul defends Grover Norquist, anti-tax increase pledge - Kevin Cirilli - POLITICO.com



Paul said last week he was interested in a 2016 presidential run.



Robert Slayton: Grover Norquist and World War II

The Republicans have become a party built around an Anti-Tax pledge written by a 14 year old.

TheDailyEdge OECD warns that Republicans will cause global depression unless they abandon pledge invented by Grover Norquist while masturbating at age 14

[Ratmagiclady]

Norm , the only way I can answer is this. There are both good and bad aspects of both new and old ways. Wisdom is knowing which method works best for a given situation. To simply abandon the old for the new foolish.
Let me use a wood working analogy to illustrate. If I wanted to join 2 boards which is better , to use a bisquit joiner or to cut and glue a scarf joint? Correct answer- it depends on the application. I'm not a cabinet maker but have build a wooden boat or two. Personally I for the most part prefer to use traditional techniques and tools but supliment them with the new.I also realize a wise craftsman will admit error and learn from mistakes.
In modern fiberglass boat building I can assure you that some of the most "inovative" factories today are building some of the biggest pieces of crap on the water.

Well, a lot of 'modern' things aren't *designed* to be better: they're 'designed' to be more *profitable.* Big difference.

But, interestingly, you don't have to look around too many of my posts about photography, etc, to realize this is one place where ol' RML is *rather conservative indeed:* Tools and machines and stuff like that. (We seem to have that in common, both of us shooting Canon F-1s and all. ) Not that I'm not also fascinated by new ideas and machines and can recognize when something new actually works better, whether I actually want it or not.

And, actually, what used to be the best way to do something in woodworking for instance, isn't just 'tried and true therefore better' cause we might like the idea: actually those old ways are also products of old *limitations* in materials and technologies and other stuff like that.

(There's also the fact that having largely lacked access to a nice biscuit joiner, well, you've got to emply other means anyway. )


But interestingly, the 'conservative mindset' has become one where any deviation from "More profit=better" is considered some 'commie librul notion' ...ie, the outsiders competing, etc.



(As for previous talk about 'Neanderthal genes making people dumber,' (as in 'more primitive/instinctive=dumber,) ...I don't think so, actually. I think that's a pile of prejudices to be making assumptions about: also if you're theorizing from relative brain structures, there's a big problem: namely, that whatever those Neanderthal genes do, they *don't* seem to express in the brain structures of modern humans on that kind of macro scale. )




When it comes to physical practicalities, though, perhaps that's a different sort of 'conservatism.'

[Just1MoreDave]

Let me use a wood working analogy to illustrate. If I wanted to join 2 boards which is better , to use a bisquit joiner or to cut and glue a scarf joint? Correct answer- it depends on the application.

I know this is not relevant but my only scarf joint has at least one biscuit in it. It was not well-planned. I cut the scarf with a circular saw.


Just to show I can do a liitle better:

[wildman]

I think the Left-Right split may be more determined by basic personality differences than anything else.

For the sake of this post let's call it the Uncertainty-Certainty continuum.

On one side there are folks that are comfortable with the idea that human affairs - policy, economics, morality, hell maybe even the basic makeup of the universe is open-ended and a work in progress. They are comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.

This sums up this viewpoint well:

"Sometimes there ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer."
Gertrude Stein

On the other side are those that take a much more mechanistic and deterministic world view. That there is a right and wrong way for most everything and that not only is there a right and wrong way but that there is, often, only one right way. And this "right" way lies outside of subjective individual human experience but rather, like a law of physics, is intrinsic to the makeup of the universe and lies outside mere ordinary human experience waiting to be discovered. For these folks the idea that human life and values may be ultimately uncertain and ambiguous is not just wrong but a sin in the literal theological sense.

The point is that, to a great extent, this is not a free choice but a basic predisposition determined by our innate personality.

Of course this is a gross oversimplification but you get the idea.

In the interest of full disclosure I have to admit being, clearly, on the uncertainty side of this theoretical spectrum.

Just thought I would throw this out to be grist for the mill.

[Nesster]

I will admit this: I prefer being in the echo chamber. That is, rants that conflict with my politics and philosophy annoy and scare. But well reasoned, defensible, and evidence based articles? I am frustrated and rarely read these all the way through. I used to, I was a Forbes subscriber for two decades. But no longer.

I do get tired and annoyed at the wack rants that come from my side as well. This I suppose marks me as 'moderate'?

Has it really come to this in America: serious political thought, being difficult, is either drowned out, or ignored (by the general public, i.e. people like me), and seen as being a 'centrist moderate' position as compared to the slogan-rant-talking point approach? And is political 'thought leadership' really 85% marketing, branding, and slogan creation?