Sounds about right. Those who easily handle and even embrace change vs those who want things to never change. And with the rate of change in everything around us increasing daily, sounds like for the US to continue, conservatives must decline in power and numbers while those who can easily adapt to change (liberals) must take over and increase. If not, we are in for a downward slide into oblivion since the changes that are happening in the world won’t stop for the conservatives.
Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain
Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.
In a simple experiment reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.
Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.
Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a “flip-flopper” for changing his mind about the conflict.
Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.
In other words, being a ‘flip-flopper’ is a good thing. Means flexibility in dealing with complex issues as situations change requiring new thinking and action. Rather than ‘stay the course.’ Sounds like an interesting way to examine Presidential candidates.
it is with great regret and unfathomable sadness that I must agree with post #24 and only that post.
Yeah, by the same theory diversity is supposed to mean a stronger community, but it hasn’t and doesn’t. The true definition:
Liberal = controlling, perverted, stingy / backstabbing, crooked, doublespeak, brainwashed, uneducated, dependent, without any morals ( ie, self control for you less educated), cowards.
Conservative/Nationalist = independent, educated / informed, honest, open minded but aware of their interest, loyal, with a moral center, born with a backbone.
Do you see a trend? Everything the little Commie / NAZI don’t want to see the Masses, the proletariat, exhibit.
#60 – It need to be stated specifically. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this blog, it’s the fact that you can’t take anything for granted. I don’t now how many times I’ve said something that contained an assumption that was so intuitively obvious it didn’t need mentioning — until I saw some of the responses coming back.
Actually for a real world example, how many laws are out there banning smoking on private property right now. Quite a few, last time I looked.
24–Sorry to be late to the party. Had to build another computer after a bad bios flash. === Doing something I’m not comfortable with, being very liberal of me??
“I think” just about any subject can be dissected by finding polarities, dualities, extremes, contrasts in the subject matter–and of course for each of these, the “hard” part is defining the middle or boundary.
So, human behavior can be described in many dualities. Liberal/Conservative, Adventurous/Cautious, Challenging/Submissive and so forth which is basically what the study did==lets find a bunch of polarities and group them.
I will guess that this complex behavior has several genetic components–not a single one. Many processes in the body are composed of a primary reaction that is moderated by an antagonistic reaction–so, I would always start with two flags.
The subject reminds me though of an article claiming that “drunks” created civilization. Seems drunks welcome a challenge. Two guys at the mouth of the cave, one drunk, one sober. Here comes the sabretooth. The sober one soberly retreats to the back of the cave. The drunk grabs his club and runs after the cat.
Yeap==I think most of most things is genetically based. Really foolish of the thumpers to claim “things” are a choice, as if I still have a choice over who I am?? Its all genetics. PROOF–I do things a certain way and cantaloupes don’t. Only difference between us is genes.
Is there anywhere left on the internet where you can go without getting politics involved? Seriously, I don’t go to tech sites to get people’s views on politics.
#58 – I’m well aware that idiots like John Edwards, Algore, John Kerry and retards like Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore and pure evil like Hillary don’t represent mainstream “liberals”. But it’s still funny.
Comment by iGlobalWarmer (YOY) — 9/10/2007 @ 3:47 pm
Edwards, Gore, and Kerry are not idiots, but just a few examples of America’s current crop of the best and the brightest. Sheehan is a compassionate and conscientious mother who’s son was sacrificed in Iraq, and to belittle her is petty and cruel.
And surprise… I actually know Micheal Moore… And I know that he is exceedingly bright, and that your condemnation of him is about ideological difference and not any credible accounting of his actual intellectual ability.
As for Hillary Clinton… Well… She’s a Republican who also happens to support Universal Health Care.
With the exception of Bush himself, I don’t paint the right as idiots because they aren’t idiots. I just don’t agree with them. And that’s true for you of the left. They are neither stupid or evil. You just don’t agree with them, and it might be nice if we all decided to admit that once in a while…
Now as for Bush, I don’t condemn him as a moron because of ideological differences… Rather, after a decade of hearing him speak and looking at his decisions, I simply cannot come to any other conclusion other than that he must be a sub-100. There is simply no rational explanation for him coming off so often and so completely as an idiot other than him actually being an idiot.
In American politics, Bush (and maybe Ted Stevens) is the exception, rather than the rule.
#65 – iGW,
Anti-smoking laws do not limit smoking in people’s homes. They limit them in public places. Employees deserve a smoke free environment so that they do not need to be subjected to cancer and heart disease in order to make a living. Do you disagree with requirements for a safe workplace?
Funny. I never thought of that as a liberal, conservative, or other partisan issue. In fact, for most of my opinions, I do not consult the handbook of partisanism. I just make up my mind about them.
So, I guess now that I’m thinking about it safe workplace laws are a liberal issue. Thanks for giving me one more reason to be proud to be a liberal. I don’t think people should have to get sick to make a living.
Hey, conservatives out there, do you really think people should have to work in environments that make them sick? If not, are you now ashamed of the conservative label because apparently, according to iGlobalWarmer, conservatives believe making employees sick is OK?
A restaurant is not necessarily a public place. Many are privately owned. Any restaurant may refuse service to anyone. No one is forced to eat there or work there.
Even more specifically there is a movement to try and ban smoking in cars and private homes: http://tinyurl.com/vncfn. Their reasoning is to take a hazardous substance out of the home to save the kiddies. At the same time, we have the liberals trying to mandate that we use CFLs to light our homes. Well, if you have kids in your home you’re quire likely to end up with a broken bulb and according to the EPA, broken CFLs are a health hazard and need special handling: http://tinyurl.com/2elryb. Sounds kind of hypocritical to me.
Hey, liberals out there, do you really think people should have to live in environments that make them sick? If not, are you now ashamed of the liberal label because apparently, according to Misanthropic Scott, liberals believe making children ( to combat Global Warming) sick is OK?
#70 – Edwards, Gore, and Kerry are shining examples of elitism and hypocracy.
I sympathize with Sheehan’s grief, but like Gore’s failed coup attempt has done to him, her grief has unhinged her. Her own son, could he come back from the grave would probably disown her if not kick her in the ass. That being said I would laugh hysterically if she were to beat Pelosi when she runs against her.
Hillary is and evil power monger.
Moore may actually be bright be he has absolutely no integrity or ethics and is also a hypocrite. “Documenatarian” my ass. Just thinking about Mr. Moore is an effective laxative.
#70 – M Scott
“Anti-smoking laws do not limit smoking in people’s homes. They limit them in public places. Employees deserve a smoke free environment so that they do not need to be subjected to cancer and heart disease in order to make a living. Do you disagree with requirements for a safe workplace?”
But that’s simply untrue. A public place is common areas, such as parks roads, government structures, etc. Places that all citizens are entitled to use.
Businesses owned by individuals are not public places, except by the sufferance of who the parties who own them. You have no intrinsic right to come into my restaurant or store. It is MY PRIVATE PROPERTY. And YOU RETAIN THE OPTION OF WHETHER YOU CHOOSE TO STAY OR GO. You are NOT COMPELLED to be there. NO ONE is COMPELLED TO WORK THERE.
City Hall belongs to all of us. The Capitol. The buses. The parks. NOT private businesses. It’s MY place. How dare YOU presume you have the right to dictate how I choose to run MY BUSINESS, which I BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. If I choose to permit MY GUESTS to engage in a legal activity at their personal discretion, such as smoking tobacco, it IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS. Freedom dictates that you are FREE TO EXPRESS YOUR DISAGREEMENT BY NOT PATRONIZING MY BUSINESS. If you feel that breathing tobacco smoke is unhealthy for YOU, then you are ENTIRELY FREE to WORK ELSEWHERE. You do NOT have a right to a job at MY business. I am free to hire you or not hire you. You, in turn, are free to choose to accept the job on the terms offered – or decline.
What is so difficult to understand about that?
#70 and #71….
Second hand smoke issues are a total tangent for another time… But whatever bonehead is trying to get me to believe that second hand smoke is more dangerous than the smoke that the smoker inhales is an idiot. Second hand smoke is the bullshit issue of our time and people who bitch about being allergic to smoke are whiney bitches.
That said, I don’t really care about smoking laws. I quit. It ain’t my problem anymore. And smoking is just a method of suicide that takes many years to take effect. I’m all for protecting liberty, but if you can’t do without a cigarette for the time it takes to eat a meal, then you have bigger problems than having your “civil rights” violated.
All that said…
“Liberals” don’t want to prevent smoking in homes and cares. Warmer, your link isn’t to a liberal group, it’s to a pushy, zealous special interest group. Those people are busybodies and crybabies.
It is interesting, however, that you accuse liberals of using children… (Won’t somebody think of the children?) to push this anti-smoking agenda… Conservatives love invoking children when they get on one of their anti-porn, anti-music, anti-literature, anti-cinema kicks…
Both sides do it, and it is always a specious and hallow argument in every case.
Well taken, OFTLO…
#68 – You’re absolutely correct about abuses of eminent domain. Smoking was the the more subtle case of invasion of private property I could think of, which is why that was my example.
Another example of danger to private property is excessive taxation. We may disagree on where the point is, but there is a point where continued taxation becomes simply taking someone private property to give to someone else.
All of these simply illustrate my initial point of wanting to specifically include respect for private property in a definition of “real” conservative/liberal/American. You can’t take for granted that everyone would assume it.
#74 – You’re correct that both sides do it. Our discussion has illustrated that both sides do it – not just one.
Personally whenever I see someone doing something “for the kids” I get queasy – no matter what the issue or who’s saying it. Everyone has now beaten that one to death.
Ok, I read all the posts (as of 1pm my time) and pretty much equal parts of y’all agree there are similar pros and cons to each so-called party or philosophy of choice but, most of you come off as little better than cheer leaders for your own particular brand and that’s the big problem. Question : Which party plays the differences for the divisive effect and which is a stronger advocate for unity ? I suppose this one has as much an answer as which belief works best for this country but, it is this answer I’ll be looking for when I vote..how ’bout y’all ?!?
And…on further impulse.. iGW and OFTLO make excellent points for their particular brands but, I like OFTLO a bit better as he doesn’t resort to name calling as part of his particular justifications. It’s kinda like people who use profanity instead of perfectly acceptable nouns/verbs et al..to dramatise their points..ain’t needed and looks stoopid doin’ it. Imo.
#67: There is some tech covered on DU, but this isn’t a “tech site.” Never has been, never will be.
Oh, and one more. This one’s really worth a read. It’s much more interesting than the dull as dishwater ones above, which I merely skimmed.
http://tinyurl.com/ytcm5p
#80 – me,
Perhaps the way to deal with the safety in the workplace issue as well as the private property issue is to require that restaurants that are large enough to require employees be smoke free while allowing restaurants that are so small as to have only the owner employed be smoke full.
#78 – “perfectly acceptable nouns/verbs et al..to dramatise their points”. Profanity is usually an adjective ;-). I’m not going back and read everything in this thread, but I don’t remember using profanity. Name calling on the other hand…. allows me to describe my feelings toward certain public figures in a compact and more accurate way than 50 paragraphs of loathing.
Also, I very rarely call anyone here a name, public figures on the other hand – well that’s part of being a public figure.
#67 – DU is a playground where a bunch of yucks go at each other with virtual SuperSoakers.
#77 – most of you come off as little better than cheer leaders for your own particular brand and that’s the big problem.
Well… Why is that bad… I’m a partisan. Of course I support my party.
#78 – I like OFTLO a bit better as he doesn’t resort to name calling as part of his particular justifications.
That’s just today. I’m usually more caustic 🙂
Virtual SuperSoakers! Good one, iGW! Excellent visual.
#80 – M Scott
“However, the point about smoking in restaurants is that it forces employees of the restaurant to inhale the smoke. Unless you are going to claim that there is an abundance of jobs and that no one is forced to work for a company that allows smoking, smoking in the workplace, restaurant or office, does force non-smokers to inhale smoke to get a job.”
Wrong. The employees are there 100% voluntarily, no matter how you may want to muddy the waters.
As far as non-smoking establishments, I contend that the rush to foreclose on the freedom of business owners – in the name of the greater good, an excuse used by religious and political ideologues since time immemorial to impose their way of life on others who disagree – that rush to placate the Health Nazis preëmpted the natural arrival on the scene of establishments that are smoke-free by fiat of their proprietors. The anti-capitalist sentiments of the PC junk-science ideologues are the true motive force behind this. They would rather government force others to live the way that they, in their self-imagined infinite wisdom, have decided that everyone should live, than allow people to make their own choices.
In this, PCers (with their roots being in doctrinaire Marxism) are really little different from religious fundies. Their methods dictate that the rights of others be overridden – because they have decided that those others are obviously wrong!
All the complaints about liberalism, just as with conservatism, stem from the ridiculous extremes to which the ideologues of either side will go and do go.
The extremists left AND right poison the debate by polarizing every issue, promoting childish and irrational black-and-white thinking, thereby making it even more difficult for parties to the debate to find – or even seek – common ground.
Every one of you who flatly demonizes the “other”, liberal OR conservative, is guilty of visiting the sins of the extremist few on all. It’s a sleazy trick practiced by amoral and / or desparate politicians to appeal to the simpletons who refuse to look past the partisan soundbites and dumbed-down schoolyards namecalling.
…or maybe not. Maybe it’s all good. Who knows?
#86 – …or maybe not. Maybe it’s all good. Who knows?
Well it all really depends on whether or not my point of view prevails when the decision that ends the debate gets made, now doesn’t it 🙂
Generally, I don’t have any beef with what you are saying despite straying into that Ayn Rand area of thinking where the sentiment is so defiantly anti-Marxist that is attacks everyone who even looks like they once read a Marxist pamphlet.
But I do take exemption to this…. “The employees are there 100% voluntarily, ”
I suppose they are in a sense, but the reality is that to live in the United States, you must work. This isn’t an option. You have to have a job or you will suffer a miserable existence of abject poverty, and poverty, my friend, is ultimately more fatal than a wealthy or even moderate income.
Sure, that waitress could choose to work elsewhere, IF they place she chooses to work also chooses to hire her, which they are under no obligation to do…
But all this aside, what bugs me is that these people we are talking about work. Instead of living on welfare, they work. And when they complain about a working condition (ie: smoking) they are told by some, “you don’t have to work there, quit if you don’t like it.”
You know and I know that if they listen to this message from a segment of society, and actually quit, they are simply going to be subjected to ridicule for not working.
Seriously. Lets cut these people a break. We don’t all get to be astronauts. That doesn’t mean the non-astronauts don’t deserve to be treated with some dignity and respect too.
But that’s just me. I tend to be compassionate. It’s what separates liberals from the pack 🙂
#87 – OFTLO,
Well put.
#86 – Lauren,
The fact of the matter is though that the business owners were screaming ’cause they thought it was going to hurt their business. They completely shut up about it when they realized they were getting more business than ever ’cause, oh yeah, people can taste and enjoy their food when there’s no smoke in the air. Duh!!
What does it matter anyway?
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/dc 😉
Cheers
What is in a label? Jefferson described himself as a “liberal”, which he also described as advocating the greatest liberty for the individual. Today that would more accurately describe a “conservative”. Today a liberal advocates ever more government programs that oppress the individual’s rights. Some examples:
Higher taxes-liberal
Racial preferences(affirmative action)-liberal
Confiscate private property-liberal
More bureaucratic regulation-liberal
Surrender to Islamofascists-liberal
Wow, this is the kind of person who is “2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy”! What a crock! No doubt this was just another bullshit “study” by another academic idiot elitist liberal who robbed the taxpayer thru a government “grant”.
#90 Jack,
This is probably what most liberals in the U.S. mean by liberal. It’s a fair match for me, though labels never match 100%.
http://tinyurl.com/2zo2wc
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
Here have fun.
Find out what you TEND to be, IF you answer Truthfully…
Hey, this study was based on looking at SEVEN conservatives, the highest of which rated a 3.
This blog is given by the good note of liberals. This blog says that the conservative is not the antonym of liberal.
Thanks for sharing your comments.