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On Gay Marriage

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

– I’ve been blessed during most of my adult life in having gay friends. Their strong presence in my life has helped to desensitize me to that nascent homophobia that was an inevitable part of my growing up in a blue-collar neighborhood in the 50’s and 60’s.

– Their attractions towards members of their own sex and their practices in the bedroom may be different than mine, but I simply don’t care. They respect my practices and feelings just as I do theirs. How else in an enlightened world should it be?

– Some of us (both gays and straights) have discussed this topic a lot in recent weeks with a special emphasis on California’s recent vote on Proposition 8.

– Undeniably, prejudices still run deep here in our American society. But, progress is being made – albeit, over decades. Women’s rights have improved much as has racial equality though there is still a ways to go on both. But, thus far, gay rights have been trailing behind.

– These situations are generally deplored in polite civic conversations and essays but silently condoned in far too many private hearts. I, for one, think we should each speak our minds on these things publicly and let those who are timid and on the fence, as to what they believe, see that there are many of us willing to speak up.

– As a white heterosexual male, I don’t, as they say, have a dog in this fight. But that’s all the more reason to speak up. We should not, in good conscious, leave the work of struggling for social improvement to those who are oppressed.

– So, dear readers, be clear then. I support full equality for women, all racial groups and for gays. It may not be the world we live in today, God help us, but it is what the better world of the future should look like.

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Our Mutual Joy

– from Newsweek Magazine – Dec 6, 2008

Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture. But what the Bible teaches about love argues for the other side.

Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. “It is better to marry than to burn with passion,” says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.

The battle over gay marriage has been waged for more than a decade, but within the last six months—since California legalized gay marriage and then, with a ballot initiative in November, amended its Constitution to prohibit it—the debate has grown into a full-scale war, with religious-rhetoric slinging to match. Not since 1860, when the country’s pulpits were full of preachers pronouncing on slavery, pro and con, has one of our basic social (and economic) institutions been so subject to biblical scrutiny. But whereas in the Civil War the traditionalists had their James Henley Thornwell—and the advocates for change, their Henry Ward Beecher—this time the sides are unevenly matched. All the religious rhetoric, it seems, has been on the side of the gay-marriage opponents, who use Scripture as the foundation for their objections.

The argument goes something like this statement, which the Rev. Richard A. Hunter, a United Methodist minister, gave to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in June: “The Bible and Jesus define marriage as between one man and one woman. The church cannot condone or bless same-sex marriages because this stands in opposition to Scripture and our tradition.”

To which there are two obvious responses: First, while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman. And second, as the examples above illustrate, no sensible modern person wants marriage—theirs or anyone else’s —to look in its particulars anything like what the Bible describes. “Marriage” in America refers to two separate things, a religious institution and a civil one, though it is most often enacted as a messy conflation of the two. As a civil institution, marriage offers practical benefits to both partners: contractual rights having to do with taxes; insurance; the care and custody of children; visitation rights; and inheritance. As a religious institution, marriage offers something else: a commitment of both partners before God to love, honor and cherish each other—in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer—in accordance with God’s will. In a religious marriage, two people promise to take care of each other, profoundly, the way they believe God cares for them. Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history. In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should.

More… ➡

– Research thanks to John P.

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Posted in Human Rights, Mental Irrationality, Philosophical, Religion - The Wrong Way | 1 Comment »

The Crisis & What to Do About It

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008

George Soros– About two years ago, I read The Age of Fallibility by George Soros ➡ & ➡ and I was very impressed.  He has long had an alternative and persuasive view of how markets work.   Either he’s been very lucky, or there’s a lot of truth to his analysis.   The man has become a billionaire by walking his own talk.

– I, like many of you, have read endless ‘explanations’ of what’s gone wrong with the U.S. and the world’s financial markets.   Some have been plausible, some silly and some impenetrable.  But none has impressed me more than what follows here.

– Here’s George Soro’s  explanation of what’s happened and what should be done about it.   I’ve got two specific quibbles about it, which I will leave to the end of this post.  But, overall, it is the best thing I’ve seen on the ongoing financial crisis.

– Enjoy.

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1.

The salient feature of the current financial crisis is that it was not caused by some external shock like OPEC raising the price of oil or a particular country or financial institution defaulting. The crisis was generated by the financial system itself. This fact—that the defect was inherent in the system —contradicts the prevailing theory, which holds that financial markets tend toward equilibrium and that deviations from the equilibrium either occur in a random manner or are caused by some sudden external event to which markets have difficulty adjusting. The severity and amplitude of the crisis provides convincing evidence that there is something fundamentally wrong with this prevailing theory and with the approach to market regulation that has gone with it. To understand what has happened, and what should be done to avoid such a catastrophic crisis in the future, will require a new way of thinking about how markets work.

Consider how the crisis has unfolded over the past eighteen months. The proximate cause is to be found in the housing bubble or more exactly in the excesses of the subprime mortgage market. The longer a double-digit rise in house prices lasted, the more lax the lending practices became. In the end, people could borrow 100 percent of inflated house prices with no money down. Insiders referred to subprime loans as ninja loans—no income, no job, no questions asked.

The excesses became evident after house prices peaked in 2006 and subprime mortgage lenders began declaring bankruptcy around March 2007. The problems reached crisis proportions in August 2007. The Federal Reserve and other financial authorities had believed that the subprime crisis was an isolated phenomenon that might cause losses of around $100 billion. Instead, the crisis spread with amazing rapidity to other markets. Some highly leveraged hedge funds collapsed and some lightly regulated financial institutions, notably the largest mortgage originator in the US, Countrywide Financial, had to be acquired by other institutions in order to survive.

Confidence in the creditworthiness of many financial institutions was shaken and interbank lending was disrupted. In quick succession, a variety of esoteric credit markets—ranging from collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) to auction-rated municipal bonds—broke down one after another. After periods of relative calm and partial recovery, crisis episodes recurred in January 2008, precipitated by a rogue trader at Société Générale; in March, associated with the demise of Bear Stearns; and then in July, when IndyMac Bank, the largest savings bank in the Los Angeles area, went into receivership, becoming the fourth-largest bank failure in US history. The deepest fall of all came in September, caused by the disorderly bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in which holders of commercial paper—for example, short-term, unsecured promissory notes—issued by Lehman lost their money.

Then the inconceivable occurred: the financial system actually melted down. A large money market fund that had invested in commercial paper issued by Lehman Brothers “broke the buck,” i.e., its asset value fell below the dollar amount deposited, breaking an implicit promise that deposits in such funds are totally safe and liquid. This started a run on money market funds and the funds stopped buying commercial paper. Since they were the largest buyers, the commercial paper market ceased to function. The issuers of commercial paper were forced to draw down their credit lines, bringing interbank lending to a standstill. Credit spreads—i.e., the risk premium over and above the riskless rate of interest—widened to unprecedented levels and eventually the stock market was also overwhelmed by panic. All this happened in the space of a week.

– More… ➡

 – Research credit – my apologies.   One of my friends sent me this and I’ve managed to forget who it was.

– Quibble #1:  The old saw that for a carpenter, the answer  to every problem involves a hammer comes to mind when you read Soros.   Oh, his analysis is penetrating and relevant, no doubt.  He see everything through a financial lens which is particularly appropriate when he’s discussing the current crisis. But, I know from reading The Age of Fallibility, in which he discusses larger issues like history, politics and the environment, that he sees all of these, as well, through that same lens.   That it is a lens he wields well, is not in doubt.   That it is the best lens through which to analyze everything is.

Quibble #2:  In his piece, above, he discusses the need for a new type of regulation to prevent bubbles.  What he doesn’t address is that if part of the world’s financial markets implement such regulation and others do not, then there will be an incentive for those willing and wanting to take more risk in hopes of larger profits to migrate towards the less regulated markets.   This seems to me, inevitable.   And, as it progresses, the regulated markets will have to respond by lessening regulation if they want to stay competitive.   And the entire cycle will begin again with everyone racing down the same slippery slope.   A functional global agreement on regulation could prevent this and provide a fair and level playing field for all.   But the human urge to push to the front of the line and cheat in various ways will, forever, be a challenge even if such a global and functional agreement can be reached – and I’m not at all sure that it can.

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Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, Mental Irrationality, The Perfect Storm | 3 Comments »

Unknown “Structures” Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

– I love this stuff.   I love stories that point up how little we really know about this existence.  

This new story is a classic.

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Something may be out there. Way out there.

On the outskirts of creation, unknown, unseen “structures” are tugging on our universe like cosmic magnets, a controversial new study says.

The big riddleEverything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour—a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow.

The presence of the extra-universal matter suggests that our universe is part of something bigger—a multiverse—and that whatever is out there is very different from the universe we know, according to study leader Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

The theory could rewrite the laws of physics. Current models say the known, or visible, universe—which extends as far as light could have traveled since the big bang—is essentially the same as the rest of space-time (the three dimensions of space plus time).

Picturing Dark Flow

Dark flow was named in a nod to dark energy and dark matter—two other unexplained astrophysical phenomena.

The newfound flow cannot be explained by, and is not directly related to, the expansion of the universe, though the researchers believe the two types of movement are happening at the same time.

In an attempt to simplify the mind-bending concept, Kashlinsky says to picture yourself floating in the middle of a vast ocean. As far as the eye can see, the ocean is smooth and the same in every direction, just as most astronomers believe the universe is. You would think that beyond the horizon, therefore, nothing is different.

“But then you discover a faint but coherent flow in your ocean,” Kashlinsky said. “You would deduce that the entire cosmos is not exactly like what you can see within your own horizon.”

There must be an out-of-sight mountain river or ravine pushing or pulling the water. Or in the cosmological case, Kashlinsky speculates that “this motion is caused by structures well beyond the current cosmological horizon, which is more than 14 billion light-years away.”

More… ➡

Posted in Science | No Comments »

Half the Sky: How China’s Gender Imbalance Threatens Its Future

Friday, November 14th, 2008

– Just read an excellent article written by Mara Hvistendahl for The Virginia Quarterly Review.  

– It is all about the gender imbalance that is currently so endemic in China and many of the Asian countries.   In some places, the gender ratio has gotten to 153 males to 100 females and the consequences down the road of such imbalances are serious.   I highly recommend this article.

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When Wu Pingzhang took his wife to Nanjing so she might give him a boy, things were looking up. Development had finally trickled down to Suining, his forgotten corner of China. Landlocked and four hours from the nearest major city, in the hardscrabble Huai Valley, Suining was once the second poorest county in Jiangsu province. Now, farmers were finding work in Shanghai and the wealthy cities around it—constructing skyscrapers, laboring in China’s overnight factories, changing the diapers of nouveau riche babies. They were sending back money en masse, thousands of wire transfers all directed to Suining’s Agricultural Bank, and returning home with bags of cash. Once back, they bought apartments in new buildings and furnished them with appliances they had little experience operating. As an air conditioner repairman with two cell phones he kept on day and night, Wu Pingzhang was among the first to profit.

Liu Mei, his wife, was renowned for her cooking, and as his wallet swelled so did their bellies. By the time her belly grew for a different reason, Wu Pingzhang had enough money to rent a spacious room in town, away from his ancestral village, in a cluster of slapdash cement-block buildings, above a portrait studio called Flying on the Wind. To brighten the room, the studio lent him an airbrushed canvas backdrop—a floor-to-ceiling vista of clean white windows opening onto a glittering blue sky—and he arranged his own appliances, bought from customers secondhand, in front of the backdrop like a set in a play: a Wanbao refrigerator, a Midea microwave, a PANDA color television. The centerpiece was an upright air conditioner that stretched from the cement floor to near the ceiling. Wu even had enough to afford a frivolous indulgence, a collection of Cultural Revolution-era Mao pins he kept sheathed in a red velour case. He felt entitled to an heir.

More… ➡

– Hat tip to CFR.Org for alerting me to this article

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Posted in CrashBlogging, Culture - How not to do it, Human Rights, Mental Irrationality, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Kirby on gay marriage: It’s official – I don’t care

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

– Ha, this is an excerpt from the October 26th, 2008, piece by The Salt Lake Tribune’s columnist, Robert Kirby. 

– Funny stuff indeed, since he’s writing from the heart of Mormon country and they, in their Christian purity, have declared gay marriage to be anathema.  

– Go Kirby!    Maybe you’ll wake them up (though I doubt it).

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

A couple of years ago, I wrote a column in which I announced my official position on gay marriage. Basically, I don’t care.

Not only do I not care if gays get married, it is none of my business. As a flaming heterosexual, it’s a full-time job for me just to keep my thoughts clean in church. I don’t have the energy to fret about somebody else’s libido.

The column must have resurfaced on the Internet. I’m getting mail again telling me what a failure I am as a Mormon because I’m not solidly behind Proposition 8. As I understand it, the California ballot item would prevent the domestication of homosexuals. Or something like that.

[snip – here were a number of appeals for him to change his mind]

Hard as it is to counter such brilliant logic, my position hasn’t changed. The only serious concern I have about gays getting married is that they’ll register someplace pricey.

The church is serious about the sanctity of marriage. I get that. But aren’t more potentially “dangerous” marriages already being performed out there?

For example, I hear in church all the time about marriage being ordained of God. But I also hear about how the glory of God is intelligence.

Shouldn’t it be against the law for stupid people to get married? What’s more harmful to society – two well-dressed men getting married and settling down, or two idiots tying the knot and cranking out any number of additional idiots?

You should have to pass a harder test to get married than the one we currently have. Essentially, there are but two questions: “How old are you?” and “Is that your sister?” Hell, you could pass this test just by guessing. 

More… ➡

– research thanks to PHK

Posted in Mental Irrationality, Personal, Philosophical | 1 Comment »

Does Your Personality Influence Who You Vote For?

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Does your personality influence who you vote for? The short answer is yes, according to John Mayer, professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire. As Americans go to the polls in record numbers to vote for the next U.S. president, some voters will crave social stability and others will crave social change. Liberals and conservatives divide according to these personality preferences.

“Our votes are an expression not only of which candidates are best – the Republicans, Democrats, or those candidates of another party – but also of our own way of perceiving and thinking about the world and what is good or bad about it. Our personal perceptions and thoughts in this area (and others) have been shaped over time within our personalities,” Mayer says.

Personality is interior and private, with no direct access to the outside world (everything is filtered through the senses: one’s eyes, ears, touch, etc.). For that reason, each person creates a mental world that represents the real one to a greater or lesser degree. Mental models guide each person and how he or she perceives the world, including those social features he or she they prefers or abhors.

Certain personality characteristics generally influence whether a person is a liberal or a conservative.

Liberals:

  • View social inequities and preferred groups as unjust and requiring reform.
  • Prefer atheists, tattoos, foreign films and poetry.
  • Endorse gay unions, welfare, universal health care, feminism and environmentalism.
  • Exhibit creativity, which entails the capacity to see solutions to problems, and empathy toward others.
  • Tolerate complexity and ambiguity.
  • Are influenced by their work as judges, social workers, professors and other careers for which an appreciation of opposing points of view is required.

Conservatives:

  • Willing to defend current social inequities and preferred groups as justifiable or necessary.
  • Prefer prayer, religious people and SUVs.
  • Endorse the U.S. government, the military, the state they live in, big corporations and most Americans.
  • Are more likely to be a first-born, who identify more with their parents, predisposing them to a greater investment in authority and a preference for conservatism.
  • Have a fear of death, reflecting an enhanced need for security.
  • Are conscientious – the ability to exert personal self-control to the effect of meeting one’s own and others’ demands, and maintaining personal coherence.
  • Need simplicity, clarity and certainty

More… ➡

Posted in Mental Irrationality, Politics | No Comments »

Economics – a science?

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

– The New York Times Magazine has an interview with James K. Galbraith that makes for interesting reading for anyone suffering under the illusion that Economics is a science.  This is no surprise to me – I’ve doubted its status as a science for years.

– – – – –   – – – – –   – – – – –

The Populist

Do you find it odd that so few economists foresaw the current credit disaster? Some did. The person with the most serious claim for seeing it coming is Dean Baker, the Washington economist. I saw it coming in general terms.

But there are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and you’re saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis? Ten or 12 would be closer than two or three.

What does that say about the field of economics, which claims to be a science? It’s an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession. There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless.

You’re referring to the Washington-based conservative philosophy that rejects government regulation in favor of free-market worship? Reagan’s economists worshiped the market, but Bush didn’t worship the market. Bush simply turned over regulatory authority to his friends. It enabled all the shady operators and card sharks in the system to come to dominate how we finance.

More… ➡

– Hat Tip to the Resilience Science Blog

– This article is from the NY Times and they insist that folks have an ID and a PW in order to read their stuff. You can get these for free just by signing up. However, a friend of mine suggests the website bugmenot.com :arrow: as an alternative to having to do these annoying sign ups. Check it out. Thx Bruce S. for the tip.

Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, Science, The Perfect Storm | 2 Comments »

Coffee Shop Wisdom

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Pontification CentralI have coffee most mornings at the local Starbucks.

What the folks that I sit with have in common, mostly, is motorcycles.   But there’s a lot of political discussion goes on as well.

Most of these guys are a good deal more conservative than I am (I’m a liberal, if you didn’t know).   Many of them are, in fact, distressed that Obama is about to assume the presidency of the U.S.

Sometimes, our conversations can get pretty heavy and heated.  But, for the most part, people are respectful and receptive of each other’s points of view.   The operative principle seems to be, “If you give me a good listen, then I’ll listen to your lame theory too.”

One of the things I most like about such free-ranging discussions is that they can often cut to the heart of the matter rather than getting deeply tangled up in peripheral intellectual issues.

For instance, the other day, I got a long E-mail from a fellow who was attempting to dissect what had happened with the current economic melt-down and the banks and who fault it was.   It went on at great length but then there was one sentence that cut through all the rest like a laser and, for me, it was the only thing of real value in the entire analysis.   He said, “But ultimately, the villain is whoever was responsible for regulating the industry.”

We got to this point over coffee today.   We’re not brain surgeons and rocket scientists.  We’re a nurseryman, a retired executive, an electric meter man, a real estate agent, a policeman and who ever else happens to drift by and decides to sit in.

The fear was expressed that with an Obama administration, we’d soon find ourselves with too much regulation and control in our lives.

On the other hand, I pointed out, it was the lack of regulation that been growing since the Reagan / Thatcher years that finally got us into this mess we’re in now where greed ran away with common sense (and our money).

One of my conservative friends replied, “Yes, but as soon as you have regulation, it begins to grow likes weeds and soon everything is overrun and stifled.”

I agreed – that did always seem to happen.  But, the problem, thus far in history has been, that when it comes to regulation, we’ve always been in feast or famine mode;  Either far too little or far too much.  “How about some moderation?“, I suggested.

We know that wealth, new products, creativity and innovation spring from the promise of making profits.   This is what drives corporations, businesses and all forms of private enterprise.   It is, indeed, the goose that lays the Golden Eggs – so it is not in our best interest to regulate it into submission and tax it to death.

But, it does need some level of regulation.   Without regulation, the urge to seek profit will eventually always run us into difficulties just like it is now.   The trick is to apply just the minimum of regulation to prevent businesses from taking actions that are not in the long-term public good.  But, beyond that, stay the hell out of their way.   “Yes, for example, we need wood products“, I said, “but woods products from renewable resources is one thing – cutting down our last forests is quite another.“  Without regulation, the profit seekers cannot make these discriminations.Lack of regulation

A look around the table showed that this seemed like a reasonable idea.   “If it could be done.“, one said, “If you could keep those that like to add ‘just one more rule or regulation‘ at bay and if you could work out how to deflect every large multinational corporation who would love to ‘fiddle’ the rules and infiltrate the process for their own advantage.   Because the truth would be that even if you could get such a thing setup and running well, over time there would be endless forces around that would try to subvert it to their own aims; be they power or profit.”

The conversation turned then to what Obama might do once he’s in office.  Even the most conservative of my coffee buddies now basically concedes that, with out some major October Surprise, Obama’s going to be our next president.Oh Yeah, Right!

Someone said, “He’ll have a lot of power if the House and Senate also return Democratic majorities.”   Someone else said, “No, he won’t.   There are a lot of constraints on a president’s power that even the president himself doesn’t learn about until he gets into office and all the ‘secrets‘ are revealed to him and he finds out how things really work inside.”

This led to discussions of ‘Shadow Governments‘ and J. Edgar Hoover‘s vast powers over four or five presidencies and to why the Kennedys were assassinated.  They were, perhaps, assassinated because they were too independent, had too much money and had snagged the highest offices in the land without being beholden to the real powers behind the throne in this country?   The Kennedys had tried to do an end-around on the real power brokers and were shown the door to eternity for their efforts.

The conversation continued to wander.  It was suggested that both candidates are saying they will work to “Rebuild America“.

I scoffed.   “It’s too late.   Someone (with regulation) should have protected our manufacturing base and our hi-tech industries from the multinational corporations and the Globalization folks a long time ago.   They’ve already had their way with us.   In the search for bigger profits, they’ve shipped our manufacturing and hi-tech jobs overseas.   All of that was good for them and their shareholders and a lot of folks in the orient have also gotten wealthier as our American wealth has gushed over to them – but it hasn’t left us better off as a nation, an economy or as a people.”

I continued on the attack, “Everyone is worried that Obama is going to ‘distribute the wealth‘.   Get a grip folks – it’s already been distributed and it wasn’t by the socialistic programs of the Democrats.  It was distributed by Globalization and multinationals drinking from the rivers of money flowing from the U.S. to the new hi-tech centers in India and the new manufacturing plants in China.  The very rivers they helped setup for their own profits.   So, when folks talk, on either side, about rebuilding America, just what do they imagine they will rebuild it from?   Out manufacturing’s gone overseas, our hi-tech has gone overseas.   We’re just a cardboard store-front nation kiting checks that we call our National Debt and drowning here in cheap Wal-Mart plastic goods from China and hoping that they won’t send us any food with melamine in it.”

Well, comes the rejoinder, “It’ll only be worse under an Obama administration.   They’ll tax whatever incomes we still have and give it to the poor folks who didn’t have enough grit to get off their asses and go to work.  I still say there will be too much regulation under Obama.   I drove my Suburban in for Coffee today – too much rain for the motorcycle.  Soon I won’t be able to drive it without the police will stop me and say I’m illegal because I don’t have six people in it and I’m wasting precious gasoline.”

It was time to go to work, so we all got up to go off to our various destinations agreeing that it is all a major mess and that the politicians on all sides are lying about themselves and each other and they they aren’t going to be able to do even a tenth of all the stuff they are claiming they can do to fix it all.

And that’s today’s report from Starbucks – where the coffee is NOT Fair Trade Coffee – but, we won’t go there, eh?

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Posted in Capitalism & Corporations, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, Mental Irrationality, Personal, Politics, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | 3 Comments »

Political views ‘all in the mind’

Saturday, September 20th, 2008

Scientists studying voters in the US say our political views may be an integral part of our physical makeup.

Their research, published in the journal Science, indicates that people who are sensitive to fear or threat are likely to support a right wing agenda.

Those who perceived less danger in a series of images and sounds were more inclined to support liberal policies.

The authors believe their findings may help to explain why voters’ minds are so hard to change.

In the study, conducted in Nebraska, 46 volunteers were first asked about their political views on issues ranging from foreign aid and the Iraq war to capital punishment and patriotism.

Those with strong opinions were invited to take part in the second part of the experiment, which involved recording their physiological responses to a series of images and sounds.

The images included pictures of a frightened man with a large spider on his face and an open wound with maggots in it. The subjects were also startled with loud noises on occasion.

Conducting experiments

By measuring the electrical conductance of the volunteers’ skin and their blink responses, the scientists were able to work out the degree of fear they were experiencing – how sensitive they were to the images and sounds.

They found that subjects who were more easily startled tended to have political views that would be classified as more right wing, being more in favour of capital punishment and higher defence spending, but opposed to abortion rights.

More… ➡

Posted in CrashBlogging, Fundamentalism, Mental Irrationality, Science, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

To Trust or Not to Trust: Ask Oxytocin

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

When someone betrays us, how does the brain deal with it? A hormone associated with social attachment gives us clues.

The development of trust is an essential social tool, allowing people to form productive and meaningful relationships, both at a professional and personal level. Bonds of trust are also extremely fragile, however and a single act of betrayal—such as a marital affair—can instantly erase years of trustworthy behavior. The consequences of such breaches in confidence can be disastrous, and not only for a relationship. People who have been betrayed in the past will sometimes start avoiding future social interactions, which is a potential precursor to social phobia. In light of these connections, recent research has attempted to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying trust behavior. This is the goal of an exciting new study by neuroscientist Thomas Baumgartner and colleagues at the University of Zurich in Switzerland that combines different disciplines (economics and neuroscience) and methodologies (neuroimaging and neuropharmacology) to investigate how the brain adapts to breaches of trust.

The Chemistry of Trust
To study social interactions, economists, and more recently neuroscientists, take advantage of a simple game played between two people called the “trust game.” (For more on greed and altruism, see this.)  In a typical trust game, an investor (Player 1) is faced with a decision to keep a sum of money (say, $10) or share it with a trustee (Player 2).  If shared, the investment is tripled ($30) and the trustee now faces the decision to repay the trust by sending back a larger amount of the initial investment (for example, $15 for each participant) or to defect and violate trust by keeping the money. In this game, the investor is therefore left with an important social dilemma: to trust or not to trust. Although it is more profitable to trust, doing so leaves the investor at risk of betrayal.

More… ➡

Posted in Mental Irrationality, Science | No Comments »

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