this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
300 points (98.4% liked)

politics

19241 readers
2772 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I wonder if the brains of conservatives are structurally different from everyone else's. Like I get that boomers have their lead poisoning, but younger cons are just as terrible and just as stupid while growing up with better education and endless info against their values.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

They have higher fear and disgust reactions. That's why they sound fearful and disgusted at nonthreatening things.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There might be "better education", but you also have to remember that we have much worse socialization today. There's no sense of community anymore, no natural places to go to meet people, families are smaller, it's much easier to pick up and move somewhere else ending up in an unfamiliar environment with no friends, and so on and so on.

If you have bad socialisation, you end up with bad social skills, so you end up being rejected everywhere you go, so you end up wanting to control people so they have to stay with you, so you don't end up alone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's a million people who grew up in the same environments who didn't to turn out to be misogynistic racist bigots though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Being the first and second child within one family is oftentimes a greater "environmental" difference than being the first child in one family vs the first child in another family. Or getting into one school class with lots of assholes who become friends, versus getting into another class with lots of very nice people who become friends.

What I want to say with this is, even within a unit that we usually call "same environment", the environmental differences can be massive.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Yes. Lack of emotional intelligence, lack of cognitive intelligence (unless they're grifting), and a willingness to engage in sociopathic behavior. You should absolutely be able to see structural differences in people that willfully engage in conservatism.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I would suppose the brain, like a muscle, can be trained to be stronger (more computing power) and simultaneously can wither if neglected. Rather than the brain structure being an innate political preference indicator from birth it is (attempted to be) nurtured into a culturally efficient information processing organ. Which is why the battle lines in children's education around set conservative orthodoxies (such as religions) vs critical thinking, or obedience/conformity vs self actualisation, or hierarchical society vs egalitarianism are so heated. It is a battle for the soul of the country. Which, of course is continued throughout the rest of your life too overtly through partisan messaging and covertly through message format/style.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I think part of it may be that, but there's definitely big money behind pushing and disseminating these beliefs. You've got foreign government-funded groups whose whole purpose is to push these talking points out to large swaths of the US population, to create conflict, on both the Left and the Right. Our own corporate elite has been doing this to the US population for years via our tv and news media, but now with the internet and social media, world governments are getting in on the act and everyone is trying to push us one way or the other.