Study shows conservatism = fear in the brain

...you don't think that, if certain political positions spawn primarily from a physiological defect that causes an overabundance of fear rather than any sort of rational thought process, this is a problem?So, you;re perfectly fine with major political policy decisions being made based on an admittedly emotional basis of fear rather than pragmatic, realistic policies driven by accurate information and rational thinking?I mean, it's entirely possible that I'm misunderstanding you, CS, what with your verbose contribution to the discussion of two fucking words.But personally, if it is true that a specific set of political positions are closely correlated to an overabundance of fear caused by a brain abnormality, I'd be a little disturbed.I'd be a lot more disturbed by people who think that's just dandy.

This is a joke article, right? I would hope so, because this "study" is easy to poke holes in as a test for veracity.

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"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

I'm not sure what you're talking about... What is the "physiological defect"? Where's the indication that the political positions are spawning from it? How do you know the fear is an overabundance? I'm sure there's been worse bases for those decisions... Been happenin' for a long time and will be for a while.Not a big deal, really, but I'm not sure I'm "perfectly fine" with it. Well, it was a reply to an OP with zero fucking words from the author...I was trying to find out if there was any point to be made, but Taz was just trolling so fuck 'em. Meh, the left has been doing whatever it can to vilify the right for so long that their findings aren't alarming anymore.You've simply made a mile out of this inch that you've been given.You've taken a correlation between political views and the sizes of parts of the brain and concluded that "certain political positions spawn primarily from a physiological defect that causes an overabundance of fear".Whoopty-fuckin'-do

That you would actually entertain this as serious is the most disturbing. It'd be like saying, "according to the data, since liberals have little sense of fear, this explains why they blow through money like a coke whore without giving any regard to the economy."I don't know, does that strike you as a legitimate conclusion, or is that a predetermined and biased conclusion? Not to mention unnecessarily offensive.If I were a betting man, I would say the results say more about the researchers than it does about the test subjects. Upwards of 80% of the US military is comprised of politically right-leaning troops who go off in to the throes of battle every day. Do roadside bombs and a daily dodging of bullets smack of cowardice to you?The bottom line is this study is a joke, or at the very least, the article concerning it is.It doesn't say a word about how they detected fear or how they arrived to such lofty conclusions. And as pointed out by xongsmith, the control was very weak and it dripped of confirmation bias.And how would they judge me as a social liberal, but fiscal conservative? Does that mean I'm halfway less fearful than a neo-con.It's a joke... I can't believe anyone is entertaining such piss-poor research.

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"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

Care to provide a source?

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

It's an estimation based on observation. The government cannot legally gather information like that.

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"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

You pulled it out of your ass.I know a number of military people. Some active duty, some reserve and Nat Guard, some retired. So based on my observation about 1/2 are politically right-leaning.You do know there are sources other than the government for information.Lets see

quote:

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An exclusive survey of some 1,800 active-duty troops shows the percentage of self-identified Republicans has decreased by one-third since 2004, from 60 percent to 41 percent, while the percentage of self-identified independents has nearly doubled to 32 percent during the same period.

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Navy Times

quote:

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These Military Times survey results show that support for the Republican Party among senior members of the Army, the group most likely to identify as Republican, declined significantly between 2004 and 2006 before leveling off at about 49% in 2007.

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SourceI realize that support for republican party is not a direct correlation with right leaning, but it is a pretty good indicator. Even if we allowed that to skew results 50%, you would still be woefully short of 80%.Our personal experiences rarely represent the reality.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

The Good Doctor asks: Confirmation bias to me, before I look at any dictionary of these sorts of terms (because that would be Cheating!):The tendency to view data supporting your initial opinion with more confidence and to find more fault in the integrity of data not supporting your initial opinion, even to the point of discounting it entirely at times, while overlooking similar faults with what you perceive as supporting data.Is this a test? Just as I was fairly sure to myself when I posted #2 of this thread that I was on the right track, and thus buried in a cloud of confirmation bias there, so it is here as well!

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

No, it means you're creative with your political views. Just because you now feel it's ok for gays to marry, doesn't make you a social liberal. From what I've read from you, there isn't much that is "liberal" about you. No, but shooting civilians does.- Oni

Obama is a pragmatist. Do you really see him as a liberal ideologue?

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

I don't see it as a problem with a solution - unless you propose to correct conservatives' brain defects with drugs or surgery.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

It started out as a joke. But after brain scanning 90 people, they noticed that there was a pattern. I'm sure someone somewhere will pick this up and do a serious study. After all, the correlation is too indicative for us to dismiss.

Wasn't it the Russians who, back in the bad old days, locked up and drugged many who opposed them on the basis of their "mental illness?"What is it with liberals and other totalitarians who can't stand any form of disagreement with their positions? They start by classifying disagreement as hate speech, but how long will it be before this article, done in jest, is actually tried for real?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Because a lot of these arguments aren't just simple disagreements. They're obviously wrong. They are so obviously wrong that we begin to wonder if there's anything mentally wrong with those who actually put forth these crackpot arguments.You've been on evcforum long enough to know what I mean.

You demonstrate my point so very clearly.Thank you!