Red Brains vs. Blue Brains? 1665
eLoco writes "From the NYTimes (reg. req.): The Political Brain -- "Why do Republicans and Democrats differ so emphatically? Perhaps it's all in the head." Researchers from UCLA have seem to have found that liberals have, on average, a more active amygdala than conservatives. According to the article, studies of stroke victims "have persuasively shown that the amygdala plays a key role in the creation of emotions like fear or empathy." So is this scientific "proof" that liberals tend to be more compassionate but also more cowardly? [DISCLAIMER: this is not a troll; I am a liberal]. Regardless, this seems to have implications for more than just politics. Favorite quote: "Perhaps we form political affiliations by semiconsciously detecting commonalities with other people, commonalities that ultimately reflect a shared pattern of brain function.""
useful fact (Score:2, Interesting)
This explains why liberals play emotions like fear (Score:1, Interesting)
Note I am a cold heartless Libertarian that thinks most of the liberals of the world should follow the same rules as a wildlife park when it comes to handouts. DO NOT FEED the Animals lest you make the become dependant.
sort of ironic actually (Score:1, Interesting)
Geographic Distribution (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it is the lifestyle of where you live that governs the formation of the brain.
Look at this county map. [mob-rule.com] Here is a equally hi correlation to rurality=convervativeness.
Maybe conservatives are inbred, not born? (Laugh, it's a joke, not a troll.)
Two-party brain duopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not insulting anyone (Score:3, Interesting)
Praire Home Companion (Score:3, Interesting)
Reminds me of an episode I heard several months ago... Garrison Keillor was discussing his recent on-show conversion to become a Republican. (roughly paraphrased he said) "Back when I was a democrat and would say something political, I would get letters from Republicans telling me exactly how I was wrong and exactly what they thought of me. Now that I've switched parties, I now get 'hurt' letters from Democrats who are 'hurt' and 'saddened' by my new points of view. I can deal with 'hurt' letters!"
(apologies for without a doubt mangling his hilarious speech)
Amygdala is much more complex than that (Score:3, Interesting)
The amygdala than this. It is responsible for love, hate, fear (all sorts of phobias), tastes, etc... We must understand that we do not control our emotions, as much as we would like to think that we do. Intelligence and reason are always at the service of emotion. In other words, the amydala is the real boss of our brains.
A "more active amygdala" can be good or bad or noth. It may mean that one is more compassionate or more hateful. It may mean that one is very creative or a complete nut. Artists, in general, have amore active amygdala. This probably is the reason that hollywood is liberal and artistically talented at the same time.
I changed sides (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Jesus H Christ (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Brain differences? (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't laugh -- some Berkeley researchers were claiming that [berkeley.edu] last year. This is a potentially interesting line of study in psychology but it's handled by people with such outrageous bias (and worse, complete obliviousness to their biases) that almost everything they generate is garbage.
False Dichotomy (Score:1, Interesting)
I think alot of non-americans are baffled by the this false dichotomy and phony choice which americans are offered. Like most sane people, the bush administration and its actions disgusts me and if i was an american I would vote democratic just to get that administration out, but if you speak to democrats in the states, there is this sense that the democrats represent a moral, leftist mandate, which is laughable. For an accessible discussion, you can just read the chapter on the moral bankruptcy of the clinton in "stupid, white men" for a start. Certainly fellow skull&bones scoiety member kerry is not a liberal in any real sense. Anyone not form the states would cast the democrats as a center-right party.
Maybe this isn't the right forum for this kind of discussion, but it's something that's pissing me off. Especially when this pseudo-scientific crap is used in conjunction with the (mostly) false democratic dialogue.
This isn't a troll. And I don't think canada is much better. It's just that we don't have the same sense of liberal righteousness here and I don't mean the Liberal party, which are moral ly equivalent to the democrats (with a bit more canadian leftishness)
Re:Amygdala is much more complex than that (Score:4, Interesting)
How do we know that emotional people don't have a more active amygdala because they don't control their emotions as much? How do we know that people who have a less active amygdala aren't simply controlling their emotions better?
are chemical imbalances a sympton of depression, or a cause?
it seems like a lot of brain stuff is chicken and egg like that, but this is probably a very stupid post
Re:None of this applies to Bush (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010622.html [straightdope.com]
Summary: Bush scored a 1206 on his SAT, which scores to a modern era equivalent of 1280, which puts him in the 88 percentile, or about 10 times as smart as the average Slashdot smartass.
Re:Geographic Distribution (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. there has to be something more to it than that. As proof, why isn't Cincinnati (southwest Ohio) or Columbus (central ohio) shaded blue? Also, just because the map is shaded blue or red does not mean that everyone in that color votes Democratic (blue) or Republican (red).
I bet you will find plenty of Republicans in any city as well as plenty of Democrates in the rural areas.
Re:Jesus H Christ (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine didn't realize he was gay until he'd already slept with several men, and he lost his virginity originally to a girl.
This isn't as straightforward as you might want to believe.
Re:Jesus H Christ (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Jesus H Christ (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, many people -- some of them scientists, some sci-fi authors and yet others something inbetween -- have actually claimed that if we ever managed to build an AI, there could be a great danger of it becoming schizoprenic due to all those forces having influence on it. Just as a 'uman would if it wasn't so ignorant of most of the stuff surrounding him (indeed, ignorance is bliss).
Re:All the studies show (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The bravery of liberals (Score:1, Interesting)
Tony
I was conservative, and am now a radical liberal (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically, my entire adult life, up into my 40s, I was conservative. I came from a quite conservative west texas ranching family. However, even though I have always been a very avid reader, I had not really been directly exposed to deliberately and overtly leftist writings until I got on the Internet in the mid 90s. And I really got into the Internet and computers once I was exposed to them (even picked up a second degree, a BS in Comp Sci).
So for the last 8 years or so, I gradually became more and more exposed to direct contact with leftist thought--but only through the Net. I basically rejected leftism, however, but really out of habit. By 2001 or so, I still had not really taken the time to really delve into the deep background and rationale of leftism.
However, my acceptance of radical life extensionism (cryonics, etc), and my acceptance of atheism made me ready to accept a radical change in worldview, I suspect.
Also, the events of 9-11 and its aftermath, and the Iraq war and the media propaganda drive associated with it made me much more aware of just what was going on, with respect to media manipulation. I had come across the ideas of Noam Chomsky in about 1989, but had rejected them--although I had been exposed to them only second hand, through an establishment filter.
These prior events set me up for a move to leftism. THat, and my research into a possible move to another country. I quit my W-2 job last year and went contract. And when contract work died down, I had time to do even more research.
By late last year, I was a confirmed leftist. And I will never look back.
THere is an old saying that a husband will not leave a wife unless he has someone else already waiting for him to make him a comfortable home. In other words, even if his current wife has some real problems, he will not take action unless he can walk right into a better situation.
THe Net offers a leftist community, one that was not possible in meatspace USA, outside of certain locations. With a community of leftists ready to accept strayers from the establishment pack, I think more and more will go Left. Join us!
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:All the studies show (Score:3, Interesting)
Today though Social Security goes a long way to preventing that sort of thing from happening. Now the large portion of homeless here in California are the mentally ill. During Ronald Reagan's time as Governor of California he closed down all of the Asylums and just dumped the crazies out into the streets. We've been living with that here in California ever since. It's just typical right-wing nut behaviour though. "Screw everybody who isn't me."
Re:The bravery of liberals (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, here's the point: Republicans have commandeered fear. They use fear to lead the people. By this study, it explains the support they gained from the left - the right already supported them, through their cowboy-style, their social/religious conservatism, and the tax cuts. By cultivating fear, they can lead people who normally would vote on the left (for compassion) out of the fear they feel that something bad could happen (fuschia alert).
I keep reading posts on many forums where they say things like "I would vote against Bush, but I'm just not sure that Kerry would really protect America". To me, that sounds less like sensible, enlightened caution and more like visceral fear of being blown up.
The biggest factor in determining your politics... (Score:2, Interesting)
Viewed from Europe... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm french, and you U.S.A. citizens wouldn't believe how different a far left representative (say Lutte Ouvrière, very far left of the communist party) and a far right representative (say Front National, just a little bit left from Adolf H.) are.
Much like the distance between New-York and Washington (Democrats vs Republicans) compared to the distance between Earth and the Sun (LO vs FN).
From this side of the Atlantic Ocean, political life in the U.S.A. seems very strange indeed
Who's to say it doesn't go the other direction? (Score:4, Interesting)
We do lots of other things that cause chemical changes in our body, lifestyles that cause certain substances to be more or less abundant in our bodies. Are our brains off limits to such things?
This may be a stupid theory, I don't know; but it seems to me that it would be VERY difficult to establish any causality either way.
Mod parent up (Score:5, Interesting)
Newberg has a book out entitled "Why God Won't Go Away." I haven't read it, but I did have the pleasure of seeing him give a seminar at my school last year. There's also a documentary that's being screened called "What the Bleep Do We Know." It's kind of a "Sophie's World" docu/fiction hybrid, but it has interviews with mystics and neuroscientists and philosophers detailing modern ideas about the mind. Again, I haven't seen it (hasn't shown in South Carolina...go figure) but it sounds really interesting.
Re:Geographic Distribution (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the reasons why we find liberals in the cties, is because they want "free" services. This in turn creates higher taxes, which helps to polarize the parties.
There is nothing wrong with having your cost-of-living being paied by your taxes, however it just doesn't scale for rural people. Free bus serivce interests no one when everyone is miles apart. So why should the rural people have to pay for city folks' busses when they never use them?
As for your Ohio cities, I'd look into the history and reason for being for those cities. I also look into the economics of the area too. Being from Baltimore, I don't know much about Ohio.
Re:Jesus H Christ (Score:3, Interesting)
So, a decade ago?
"Now everything is a malady, issue and disease."
Which is a hell of a cycle when you consider that 'fat, drunk and gay' only just slid out of the DSM for personality disorders.
On the other hand, there is a fashion for victimhood that pisses me off. What happened to simply getting on with things?
What about temperment? (Score:4, Interesting)
In the old Kiersey temperment sorter, there are four traits that determine temperment, (Extrovert/Introvert, Sense/Intuition, Thinker/Feeler, Percieving/Judging). Our political parties divide mostly along the Thinker/Feeler line. conservatives are the "thinkers", liberals are the "feelers".
Don't believe me? The best evidence of this is the types of insults one side hurls at the other. Traditionally, conservatives have called liberals foolish, softies, bleeding-hearts, etc. while liberals have called conservatives mean, insensitive, cruel, etc.
Also look at the ways each side tries to win over people. Conservatives tend to use logical arguments. (Note: An argument can be logical and still be utter nonsense. I am making no statement as to the validity of their arguments.) Liberals tend to use emotional appeals.
Possibly. (Score:5, Interesting)
But he wasn't talking about biology as being the determining factor on behaviour.
He was all about conditioning. If you raise a child in a specific manner, the adult will behave in a specific manner. Unless their environment changes (environment meaning just about anything, not just the weather).
He said that behaviour is physiological responses to external stimuli.
And contrary to what people may read on the 'web, his daughter did not commit suicide.
Re:Jesus H Christ (Score:3, Interesting)
Won't happen. As far as we know, there are very few (if any) genetically-determined behaviors. Almost all of them require some kind of trigger, or outside stimulus.
The real question is whether or not we can invent our own stimulus.
Re:Jesus H Christ (Score:2, Interesting)
Whatever kind of sex you want to have, as long as everyone is a willing participant...
Whatever religion you want to worship, as long as you don't force your religion on those not willing...
Whatever you want to say in public... like calling gay people "homosexuals", or calling black people "black", or calling American indians "indians"... or wearing a cross or star of David around your neck... or a public showing of the nativity at Christmas, or singing Christmas carols in public...
There is no right to not be offended... there is a right to free expression...
And let's hope Alaska legalizes marijuana and sets some precedent. If we apply the same rules as alcohol, I don't understand the argument against it...
Go metric already! (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do Americans think the Soviet flag was red?
This will end up with the wrong country being invaded some day. Change while it's not too late!!
Re:Jesus H Christ (Score:2, Interesting)
Using similar genetic logic to gp poster (IANAG) - consider the generational effects of the prejudice against homosexuality coupled with the marriage+kids reward cycle. If there is a "gay" gene, the obligatory culture of hetero pairing combined with the demonization of homosexual tendencies may actually be enabling the spread of such a gene, where before it may have been somewhat more limited. Extreme oppression may have caused very gay people to become breeders, where otherwise they would not have.
Re:The bravery of liberals (Score:5, Interesting)
That sort of depends on who decides on the true meaning of the word 'tyranny', and to what extent you're willing to try 'peaceful means'.
Personally I've always believed that there is no point where you can justify the murder of another human being on such wishy-washy subjective justifications, which is one of the reasons why governments tend not to place overall control in the hands of one individual.
"Because I believe there may come a time where I need to defend my ideals with violence."
And this is different to white supremicists, how? Because you're in the majority?
"In no religious or political tradition is the forceful opposition of tyranny considered a sin or a crime."
Yeah, governments don't like to bite the sociological hand that feeds considering that most have come from armed uprising in the first place, but you're wrong in terms of the Roman Catholic church mandating excommunication in the case of resistence to papal bulls. Nice rhetoric, though.
"The liberals who founded America did so by violently opposing British tyranny"
*cough* Native Americans *cough*
I also have a problem with this depiction of 'British Tyranny' which does appear to be the revisionist line of history, particularly as it would have never become what it did without the help of our ancestral enemies, the French.
"empathy towards who?"
Empathy is not conditional and represents the ability to empathise or put yourself in the place of other people.
"I, like Christ Jesus, will agitate for a change in this situation until my dying day."
You should read the bible without the bits by Paul. Paul was the agitator (and a Roman citizen), whereas Jesus was more interested in people themselves. Incidentally, it's why Jesus' brother, James, was written out of the new testament. He was more a follower of the path of poverty while Paul was working on his Roman franchise. The parables were basically stories intended to make the world a better place by taking on the stories, so don't agitate, just help.
"I hope it does not come to that, but if it will, I will not run from it."
That's a fairly grandiose statement that doesn't have any basis in fact. For a start, you have a militant bearing which indicates that you have a viewpoint of the world 'as it should be', an idealism I share, but I'd never try to achieve it through the spilling of blood, because at the point where you start killing, you've lost any shred of humanity that gives you the ability to empathise.
Incidentally, it's a damn site more brave to stand up for ideals unarmed. Most people forget this.
Re:I was conservative, and am now a radical libera (Score:3, Interesting)
Liberal: OMGWTF! the whole world is full of conservatisim and the media is a conservative propaganda whore
Conservative: Lord save me. The world is full of liberal baby killing sinners and the media is fueling the fire! FOX news is the only balanced source of news in the whole world!
The reality of the situation is that both sides are just about on equal ground. Things are slightly skewed towards the conservative right now because our president is a staunch conservative. As the election gets closer, the population is beginning to re-evaluate their views and things are balancing out even a little more. FOXnews even ran a story with a slightly liberal slant the other day. I don't remember what it was, but I do remember it left me just slightly dumbfounded.
Me? I guess I would be tagged as a liberal if it came down to it. I'm not proud of it, but there really isn't anywhere else to go if you don't accept the current wave of morality that's sweeping the nation.
Re:Nature vs. Nurture relate to Free Will (Score:3, Interesting)
A current modern day example might be the way conservatives vs. liberals think in regards to the insurgents in Iraq. The conservatives will automatically think, "They are attacking our soldiers! And disruptin' our brave leader Bush's plan for giving Iraq democracy! They are bad for killing American soldiers!" meanwhile, liberals are thinking in terms of the Iraqi perspective, "they are attacking American soldiers because they feel as though they've been invaded, and in their minds they are freedom fighters fighting off invaders attempting to steal their country's natural resources. Not to mention we may have killed members of their family during the invasion. Our soldiers should never have been put there in the first place by the vietnam dodging coward that occupies the White house."
Who's right? Both sides actually. In this case it is a matter of perspective and from which side you look at the events.
No, FARMERS are Republicans (Score:4, Interesting)
Why? Farm subsidies. The Republicans are VERY big on keeping farmers and their farms in business(to get their votes, of course), and keeping the ridiculous pork-barrel subsidies going for as long as possible. Farmers are a HUGE constituency for the Republicans. Many, MANY farmers rely on those subsidies.
Moral Politics (Score:1, Interesting)
As I said, in broad strokes it appears so simple and obvious, but in the details, it is really impressive.
It's all about emotions with most people anyway (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see it that way. (Score:5, Interesting)
But I'm pro-gun. And I favour a strong military (but I oppose "Star Wars" because I don't think it is necessary now nor do I believe that it would work even if it was necessary). I also believe in more State's rights and a reduced federal government.
"Conservatives tend to believe that people behave in the way they do as a result of something about them in particular - their nature."
I also believe that. But I also believe that the way they were raised affects their choices. Someone who craves power can go into politics or religion or financials or just be an abusive husband.
"Some people are just good and some people are just bad."
Good and bad are personal evaluations. Saddam is "bad" but the US government thought Saddam was "good" when he was fighting Iran.
Personally, I thought one tin-pot dictator was fighting a authoratarian theocracy and I didn't see any "good" in either side.
"Liberals, on the other hand, see everyone as more or less products of our environment - the way we are nurtured."
But our environments do shape the choices we have. It takes someone with a LOT of self-focus to overcome the obstacles of his environment.
So, someone with a lot of character (an internal trait) can overcome his environment, but most people do not have that and become products of their environment.
"To illustrate my point, consider gun control."
I'm completely in favour of the 2nd Amendment.
-but-
I'm also in favour of a waiting period. I don't want someone buying a gun because he just found out his wife is cheating on him. I'm also in favour of registering guns which includes ballistics. A bullet pulled from a murder victim should be traced back to the gun that fired it and the person who purchased it.
I believe that 99%+ of the people who own guns are responsible gun owners and no threat to themselves or society.
But I also believe that a responsible gun owner would register his weapons, properly secure them and immediately report any that were stolen. This is his responsibility to society. When you exercise certain rights, you take on certain responsibilities.
So, is that "Conservative" or "Liberal"?
"Poverty is another example of the difference."
Easily answered by my previous statement about character and environment. Those with weak to average character will end up as products of their environment. Those with strong character will overcome those obstacles.
Now, take Enron and such. Crime does not depend upon poverty.
"How does this tie into free will? Conservatives make no effort or attempt to explain why bad people are bad. They just are."
Which is why I am not a Conservative.
"Liberals, on the other hand, attempt to explain bad behavior. They say it's a result of our upbringing or our environment. By attempting to explain it, they don't leave a lot of room for free will to say that the people made the choice to be bad."
I believe that people do make their own choice.
Here's an example: Exercise.
Everyone (Conservatives and Liberals) knows that you should exercise. Yet not many people do. Is that because they are "bad" people who have chosen not to exercise? Or is it because the parents didn't love them enough?
I believe that it is because most people do not have the character to force themselves to do what they know is good for them and would rather take the easy way.
As in the exercise example, so as in Life.
This is quite intresting.. (Score:1, Interesting)
In europe where the left-right scale is to the left if the US political scale, have communists/socialists even more active amygdalas than the american democrats (or the average european vs. the average american for that matter), or is it simply that (generally) the person that becomes democrat in the american society becomes a socialist in the european society?
Also I am wondering if the correlation can be on the otherway? That your political views (results of how you are raised, what you read, what you think, your experiences in life, etc) shapes your brains and if you "go left" your amygdala gets more active?
Re:Wow.... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not about creating a permanent underclass or some other conservative propaganda. It's about how some people a few centuries back fucked up really badly and were extremely unjust, and we're still trying to fix the mess from back then.
Many of us _are_ descendents of those people. It doesn't make it our personal responsbility, because, a child should not be held accountable for his/her parents' crimes, but, it does make it a responsibility of our society. Of course, I don't think the government should be big enough to run its own welfare program, but I think there ought to be a few non-profit organizations doing these and getting free access to private and government resources beacuse of it.
"Helping yourself" my ass. Saddam Hussein and Usama bin Laden both help themselves to what they want. Not to suddenly start trolling, but, is helping yourself and turning a blind eye to everybody else really the best thing you can do for society? If you are truly *helping yourself*, you realize that you are a member of society, and it affects you. Ignoring problems is only going to perpetuate your daily headaches. When there are inner city teenagers (I'm not implying that these are only black people, mind you; there are plenty of white, Indian, Native American, Hispanic, and micro-Asian people who need help!) working at McDonald's who don't give you correct change because they don't have basic math skills, *That Affects You*.
I don't like the liberalist propaganda I hear about how the government needs to be very big and intrusive in order to take care of its citizens. I can take care of myself; I don't really need to be watched, except for the occasional helpful police officer (but in some parts of the country, helpful and peace-promoting ones can be hard to find; but I digress) to make sure I don't get too pissed off and do anything stupid and nobody else does anything really desperate or violent with me as a target. But, on the other hand, I can't take the stuck-up attitude pervading the conservative propaganda. If the stuck-up republicans (which is actually *not* the majority of republicans, but they do seem to be the ones that open their mouths the most) shelled out the money to make most college education free, society would get a lot better very quickly. Some people with money do create scholarships and foundations to aid education (for example, this is the only context where I actually take a liking to Bill Gates! Not sure what his affiliation may or may not be, though), but, more ought to, rather than complain how much they're getting taxed.
Hoping I don't get modded down for getting too political on
The Dawn of the US (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you mean for that to include the ones blowing up Iraqi police stations without any apparent regard for Iraqi civilians nearby? Even if you regard anybody presently in the Iraqi police as a traitor or whatever (which is tendentious at best), it's hard to make that argument about random civilians who happen to be walking past a police station at the wrong moment. The guys doing that stuff haven't won too many points with the Iraqi people.
Meanwhile, al-Sadr appears to have been involved in the killing of a rival Shi'ite cleric a year or two ago. More power for him, you see.
The folks fighting the US in Iraq are not monolithic. They are not necessarily idealized comic-book heroes. They do not enjoy the unambiguous support of all sensible Iraqi patriots. You'll notice that Sistani, who frankly loathes the US, is not backing al-Sadr.
And for both you and the guy with the "dawn of the US" comment above, do you make a distinction between the American Revolution and the Russian one, the French one, or the Chinese one? Howzabout Pol Pot, are you a big Pol Pot fan? Yeah? Glad to hear it!
There are good revolutions and bad ones. I understand that you think the presence or absence of mass murder is just a sort of irrelevant technicality, but the people who get killed may actually have the gall to disagree! Bottom line: Much of the resistance in Iraq nowadays is coming from the Islamist perspective, where the solution to every problem is seen as... more Islam! And killing people. Like the Left in the West, Islamists tend to regard killing as an inherent good, regardless of who gets killed or why (if the "good guys" get killed, that's an excuse to kill more "bad guys" (civilians, mostly)). Islam can be, and often has been, the basis of functional civil institutions on a large scale, but that's not the same brand of Islam. Anglicanism is the basis for functional civil institutions; Christian Identity is not and cannot be. There is a difference between sane Islam and insane Islam just as there is between sane Christianity and insane Christianity. The Islam of al Qaeda and friends is not the Islam of the Golden Age, which for its time was tolerant, cosmopolitan, and reasonable. Nor is it the original Islam of Mohammed, which was a bit rough around the edges, but which was focussed on building, not on destroying. If Mohammed had been a mere xenophobic thug like these folks, he would not be remembered. The irony, of course, is that those Good Old Days are precisely what the Islamists think they're going to restore.
I wish we weren't in Iraq. I don't think we're fixing anything there any more than al-Sadr ever will. But let's not pretend that the resistance folks you admire in Iraq are ever going to generate anything but more bloody chaos.
correlation (Score:2, Interesting)
Not unlike those who do a lot of walking develop their leg muscles.
Actually, no, it doesn't prove that. It's as just as plausible an inference from the correlation claimed as the other way around, is all.
The interesting thing is that the other way around is almost invariably the first and often the only inference made, when correlations like this are found. "Gotta be the genes". Genes cause CNS diferences which cause behavior, is the knee-jerk reaction.
In fact it's just as plausible that something that happened after conception changed behavior which changed CNS. And the evidence here does not favor one inference over the other.
But this is contradictory (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Jesus H Christ (Score:3, Interesting)
When the technology becomes available, and it will, and even just a few people overcome it, and change their biology.... what will that mean that they choose to change it?
OK, by these statements the biology is the causal agent for the initial behavior and the motive to change it. I see no choosing here. Take for example someone who has a big ugly nose. I think that we are in agreement that a person did not "choose" to have the gene or their parents in order to obtain this big ugly nose. Also, I believe that we are in agreement that the "decision" that the nose is big and ugly is entirely based upon the environment by visually comparing their nose to other people's noses. If the person were to "choose" to change this big ugly nose, that "decision" would be entirely based upon biology (the biology of others as well as the problematic nose owners).
The only people who want freewill to not exist, are those who lust after the technique to impose theirs over your own.
I believe that everyone feels more comfortable with the notion of having free will, and we play the game of life as if free will exists, but there is no data supporting the notion of free will. None. In fact, your previous statement does not make sense. Why would an individual that does not "want freewill to exist" impose something that they do not believe in on someone else? Read "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" by BF Skinner. He does not believe in free will, nor does he try to impose this on someone else. He is merely stating observations based upon a lifetime of observing the behavior of animals (including humans).
I don't remember if it was Epstein, a student of Skinner, who wrote the cartoon I'm about to describe, or if it was just in Epstein's book, but there was a cartoon that shows a scientist hovering over a rat in a skinner box (a box that has a leaver that drops food when the rat pushes the leaver). The rat is thinking "Hey, I have just operationally conditioned this scientist to give me food every time I press this leaver!"
Actually, your statement "The only people who want freewill to not exist, are those who lust after the technique to impose theirs over your own." Can be rewritten as:
The only people who want freewill to exist, are those who lust after the technique to impose theirs over your own.
Which is probably more accurate.
Re:I used to be like you (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a vague idea bouncing around in my skull about a Standard Dystopian Future, where so much of the human genome is patented that prospective parents must purchase a licence to combine their owned genes from a government agency formed to distribute the fees to all the patent holders. This, of course, would rely on an extension of patent terms, but since copyright terms are extended on a regular basis, I'm sure some enterprising IP lawyer is preparing the arguments to support legislation extending the terms of other types of IP protection.
"People would never accept it" is a dangerous assumption, especially in hierarchical societies where authorities of various sorts can wield undue influence through the exercise of power. China during the Cultural Revolution might be a good example, where the situation only changed when control of the state system switched from one set of oligarchs to another group who decided to stop the disasters. In a hierarchical society, such as most on Earth, few people would dare consider taking actions that oppose the will of the leaders, who are now often seen as those chosen by the will of the majority--itself a dangerous concept.
Any scriptwriters out there want to help develop a concept?
Re:Nothing shocking about it. (Score:2, Interesting)
Claiming that liberals are irrationally ruled by fear has no more basis than claiming all conservatives are irrationally ruled by greed or rage.
Always be wary of someone who opens up an opinionated post pointing out how "well reasoned" it is.
Re:I used to be like you (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, this may be off-topic, but I'm inclined to rant about this sort of thing. My general (paranoid) theory is this: Politicians are trying to trap you. It's basic psychology. When somebody tells you to "choose option A", there's some chance you will and some chance you won't choose option A. But if someone says, "you get to choose, do you want option A or option B?" people will fall into choosing between the two, and only a small percentage will look for the unspoken option C. People will tend to automatically accept the limitation of options.
So, we have a bunch of people in power, ultimately they're trivially different, and they say, "Let's pretend we're two different options. Let's pretend we're ultimately the only two options." People are given a choice between A and B, right and left, democrat and republican. I bet most people think there's only right, left, and somewhere in between. Very few really consider the other dimensions of the issues, just left and right.
So I don't think you can't make up your mind (your mind sounds made up). I don't think you're somewhere in-between right and left, but more likely you, as many people, some without even knowing it, are aligned in a whole different direction. The reason they want you to think that you need to be either a Republican or a Democrat is, either way, they win. It's the people in power pulling a fast one to stay in power, pretending that they're in a fight with each other, when neither side wants to change the system that preserves their place, where they are, in power.
Sorry for the rant.
Re:Or, if you're a conservative... (Score:1, Interesting)
How many times have I heard this from a liberal? "I used to be hardline conservative but now I'm gay and loving it." Heh.
I think its funny that the liberals all label fox news as a conservative news outlet, even though there are plenty of liberal views on fox news. I watch the today show most mornings, and I always have to watch Katie Couric send some subliminal message to America. It's a morning show, not a liberal rally. Greta Van Sustren is a liberal, so is Alan Colmes, and whos that guy with the mustache? Heraldo. He's definately a liberal. And they're respectable liberals. They have respectable viewpoints, not like PETA liberals. I feel sorry for the PETA liberals now. They are losing all of their democratic party support.
I actually had a 4th grade school teacher that told the class on numerous occasions that being gay is normal and a bunch of other leftist type stuff, but the thing that really got to me is when she would make me sit in the hall and tear up my pictures when she caught me drawing guns and tanks in my free time!!! On halloween she made me take off my army helmet with the ace of spade taped to it, but she let the dude dressed as an old woman wear his purple hat!!!
Re:Not true (Score:4, Interesting)
Er, no. Iran is bankrolling a hefty chunk of the insurgency, including Sadr. The Iranian dictatorship is terrified that if the fledgling Iraqi democracy succeeds it'll give their people all sorts of bright ideas, or at least speed up the near-inevitable demise if the dictatorship. (Iran is where the Soviet Union was in the late 1980's.)
Syria's chipping in for the same reasons but to a much lesser extent (purely due to their limited resources).
No, we're not going to invade Iran, mostly because the Iranian dissidents (unlike the Iraqi dissidents) don't want us to. But we ought to be doing a helluva lot more to help those dissidents.
See the Iraq the Model [blogspot.com] blog.
Re:Not true (Score:3, Interesting)
I really can't see the basis for this claim. Vietnam is the huge issue it is because both candidates have major issues with their Vietnam service that speaks volumes on their character. Kerry deserves some credit for serving in Vietnam while the Bush family used their connections to let George W. duck it. Both candidates have endorsed invading Iraq, the only policy difference they have was the HOWTO. If Kerry was an opponent of the War in Iraq maybe your case would have flown but he isn't.
As for Vietnam says about George's character there were something like 500 candidates for a small number of slots in the Texas Air National Guard with a small number of slots open, like 5. Back then the Guard was the way to escape combat duty, not like it is today under Bush where it is really a back door draft in to combat.
There was a qualifying test, George apparently flunked it. He should have been disqualified but family friends got him in over MANY better qualified candidates. After squandering a million training him to fly he unilaterally left Texas without approval and later refused a flight physical in Alabama when drug testing was instituted. He was fond of Cocaine at the time, and was grounded as a result. He should have been thrown out of the Guard and remanded to the regular Army but again family connections saved him and his Guard file was mysteriously purged of all this embarrassment later. Amazingly with the fixation on Kerry's record lately this still gets very little media play. There is a commercial out about it finally but you still see the ads slamming Kerry 90% of the time.
But in fairness Kerry's record is more than a little suspect and reflects badly on his character too. It REALLY looks like he was trying to rack up medals he didn't deserve so:
A. He could get out of Vietnam when he had 3 purple hearts
B. He would have medals he could milk later in life when he ran for office, he was planning a political career then and racking up a chest full of medals is a classic scheme by future politicians to help insure future electability and he was obviously milking it to the hilt at the convention.
If he had character he would have declined purple hearts for superficial wounds at a minimum. Of course he probably wanted to get out because he saw what kind of atrocity Vietnam was. Those Swifts boats were frequently in free fire zones which meant they could shoot anyone they saw which often meant innocent civilians.
"Anyway, fear is fueled by isolation, compasion is fueled by interaction, which helps with empathy. That's why rural places trend towards conservative and urban areas trend towards liberal."
Thats a pretty bold leap in to oversimplification. I can do it to. People who live in rural areas tend to be self sufficient, and want to sink or swim on their own merits. They prefer to work with their family and neighbors to succeed on their own. They crave for and strive to keep government out of their lives (farm subsidies being the extreme contradiction).
People in cities tend to be heavily socialized out of necessity. They are being constantly subjected to rules and regulations that keep people from stepping on each other which is the nature of high density living. They are much more amenable to government intervention in their lives or they wouldn't be living in densely socialized cities.
Politics (Score:3, Interesting)
And Democrats have commandeered victims. They tell all the black folks, and any other identifiable minority folks, to vote Democrat because they are all poor victims.
And Democrats have commandeered fear too. They tell people to vote for Democrats because Republicans aren't sufficiently anti-gun, and they imply that if you vote Republican you might die due to a lack of "gun control". They tell everyone to vote Democrat because the Republicans want to take lunch away from starving school children, they want to throw feeble old people out into the streets to die, they want to take away all funding for AIDS research so an epidemic could kill everyone, etc.
Also, I am dismayed by how the Democrats are the party of attacking their opponents. Republicans aren't just less effective leaders, they are bad people who want to do evil things and must be stopped!!!
Disclaimer: I am a libertarian, which means both Republicans and Democrats hate my politics. I think the Second Amendment actually means what it says, so the Democrats don't like me. I think the government should stay the heck away from victimless crimes and stay out of people's bedrooms, so the Republicans don't like me. I think the schools should be run by local school boards, not the Federal government, so neither side likes me.
In practice I tend to vote Republican because I dislike the Democrat candidate more than the Republican candidate. Our government is already too big, and the Democrats want to make it bigger; at least some of the Republicans sometimes resist making it bigger (although their record is far from perfect). Actually, I'll vote Libertarian for any candidate who has even a slender chance to win, and sometimes I'll vote Libertarian even if there is no possible chance.
I wonder what that brain scan thingy would make of me.
steveha
Re:Nothing shocking about it. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a matter of intentions. People intended to kill the kids at Columbine, terrorists intended to kill people on 9/11. Car accidents are just that, accidents.
I don't fear the terrorists, and I don't think most people do; I fear dumb, 16 year old drivers a lot, lot more. However, the 16 year old drivers aren't trying to be bad drivers, they just are and always will be. We won't get rid of them. I feel like we *can* get rid of hostile regimes, men who do bad things to good people (and please, no rhetoric about Bush being a "bad man" doing "bad things" to whomever). You can vote for whom you like on 11/2, but don't think that everyone voting for Bush is terrified...some of us just think he's doing a good job.
--trb
Works well for Churchill's UPPER class milieu (Score:3, Interesting)
"It was Winston Churchill, and he said that if you are under 30 and not liberal, you've no heart, and if you're over 30 and not conservative, you've no brain."
And of course Churchill was born to the manor, silver spoon, blue blood, born rich, etc. And that statement of his was perfectly logical for those of his cohort, his rich upper class brethren and kin. They often are liberal while young, at college, etc. But when older, they rediscover where their own best interests lie. Their hearts harden. They run for office/sit for Parliament, etc., and make sure the unwashed working class masses cannot get their paws on the upper class wealth. THey do have a brain, and so they become conservative.
But for the rest of us, the unwashed working class masses, that saying should, in a sense, be inverted, or at least, by the time we get old, we should be liberal. Or at least, we should be, unless we get rich (by definition a minority).
Florida Bright Futures (Score:3, Interesting)
And EVERYONE was disadvantaged when they came here. Georgia used to be an English penal (prison) colony, with WHITE prisoners, and, like Australia, turned out just fine.
Re:Geographic Distribution (Score:5, Interesting)
What's kinda funny is that city-liberals often don't really understand this. People in rural and conservative areas watch movies and TV, and they see city-life. They get their daily dose of liberal slant, and they can compare it to their conservative slant and that of their neighbors. People in the big city, however, watch their own liberally-slanted media, generated by there generally liberal neighbors, and think that, since they aren't seeing other points of view, there are none. However, the key is that they aren't watching movies and TV made in bum-f*ck nowhere. They aren't getting the other side, and so they are sincerely astonished when the whole country doesn't agree with what they thought was the only way of looking at things.
I suspect some of the difference between urban/rural areas and their liberal/conservative slant comes from the fact that city living is, by nature, more socialistic. You rely much more on public transporation and city services and street-sweepers and whatever else. Living in New York, for example, things like the subway and rent-control are just necessary facts of life, like the sun and the moon (and the ever-present pink glow in the sky at midnight). The municipal influence is tangible, lubricating your interaction with all the other people you're packed in with, and staving off chaos. With the comforting goverment, omnipresent already, you think, "Couldn't the government just take care of this other thing, too?"
In the country, you don't generally feel a government unless you go looking for it. It feels much more like you're on-your-own, except maybe for neighbors and such (which feel like neighbors and not cityscape). Whenever the government does play a role in your life, it's usually annoying and intrusive. It's paying taxes and needing to get permits and such. You don't necessarily feel like there are police roaming the streets, and the boundaries of life are more well-defined, so shot-gunning anyone who dares to come up on your property unannounced makes a certain amount of sense. You know you're going to have to do for yourself, because no government is going to patrol the wide-open empty spaces "just in case", and so you'll often find yourself wondering, "why do we need so much government, anyway?"
Anyway, it's a theory.
Re:Nothing shocking about it. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's because you're hearing what you want to hear and not what I'm trying to say.
People who do bad things on purpose should be stopped. That's what we've set up punishments like the death penalty for. People who accidentally hurt others are punished, but not as severely. If they did something they knew would allow them to hurt someone (driving drunk, for instance) the punishment goes up. Once asbestos was proven to cause cancer, companies stopped installing it or were hit with huge fines.
Terrorists harm intentionally, their punishment should be the move severe. Countries that harbor/aid terrorists should, and will, face the same consequence.
--trb
Re:Viewed from Europe... (Score:1, Interesting)
Kerry: 92%
Bush: 8%
Re:Wow.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a black african who grew up middle class at home and I now work in hi-tech (software engineer) in the Boston area. I have faced discrimination in the past but as one climbs the social/financial ladder its effects become less pervasive (but still as painful). However, every once in a while its pervasiveness becomes apparent. My girlfriend and I were recently looking for an apartment and since I was the one who had a lot of free time we had a number of interesting experiences
1. Spoke to a realtor and when we showed up the first thing out of his mouth was that we should look for low income housing (huh?)
2. Had a realtor I spoke to (people sometimes mistake my accent for British or something) and made an appointment to see quite a few apartments. Spoke to him multiple times (called him from work and he stated he had quite a few places to show us). When I showed up he suddenly got this look when he saw me. First words out of his mouth were "So, do you work?" (this after I had spoken to him by calling him from work and stating that I would be leaving work early to meet him. He them claimed that he really had nothing to show us and hurriedly left (this one I shall be reporting to the BHA)
Had realtors just yank my chain, treat me rudely etc. I got to the point where I would joke with my girlfriend (who is white) that maybe she should do all the looking and booking and then I would show up at the end.
We eventually gave up and decided to do Craigs List and only do for rent by owner, since by doing this we were dealing with young enlightened people, we had much better luck .
On the whole my experiences with realtors is very disheartening. Now, I have only had to deal with this (and the occasional N word yelled, treated suspiciously by policeand people etc) for only a few years and also not during my formative years. If I had to deal with this all my life I can tell you I would be a very different person.
As far as affirmative action goes, I whole heartedly support it. I know that I have benefited from it (I know jobs that I would have never gotten even to the initial interview unless the companies involved were not afraid of not looking as if they were following certain mandates. Also for the longest time when job hunting I would make sure that my first few interviews were over the phone (but then again, a study done last year in the Boston and Philadelphia area found that job applicants with black sounding names were called back 50% less than job applicants with white sounding names (this after controlling for education).
As far as the black intelligence argument that is used as an explanation all I can say is give me a break!. I remember that in the Bell Curve it was stated that the average I.Q of Africans was something like 75 or 80 (borderline retarded). The fact tha such a book could be greeted with anything but scorn says everything you need to know about race relations in the U.S
Re:Why are Universities predominantly liberal? (Score:3, Interesting)
I would add to this the idea that liberals seem to be less likely to take economic risks. This may indeed be rooted in that whole fear thing related to in the article. Given this premise, liberals would be more likely to stay in the educational system, sacrificing wealth for stability/modicum of happiness. Economic risk takers would take the chance and venture out into entrepreneurial world...and leave a safe but less lucrative environment.
Re:Not true (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you honestly think we'd be in Iraq right now if John Kerry were president the last 3.5 years instead of W?
The accusations that Kerry was trying to get out of service contradicts his actions up to that point. He volunteered for the Navy. He volunteered for Swift Boat duty. Now he has some master plan to get out of Vietnam? On it's face this idea seems absurd. Even Howell, the guy who claims Kerry had this master plan cannot provide any evidence. Chris Matthews asked him directly if he had any evidence of John Kerry's "master plan", if John Kerry had ever mentioned it or anyone else had. Howell had no factual reason for his claims. The majority of the vets attacking Kerry never achieved higher rank than Kerry, meanwhile there are numerous vets, including Admiral Peaks (fmr Chairman of the Joint Cheifs) who are defending Kerry. Also Bill Rood, the only other Swift Boat capt. still alive from the ones with Kerry when he got the Silver Star, defended Kerry's record in the Sunday Chicago Tribune with a first person account. Who cares if Kerry accepted medals for wounds that weren't "really bad"? I'd take em too, it means more pay when you get out. He should only have declined them if he had not deserved them, what credible evidence is there that he didn't? Doesn't it go against his other actions of volunteering? Did a taste of Swift Boat action really change the mind of a man who "...came under rocket and automatic weapons fire from Viet Cong forces and
I just don't see the evidence for that.
I realize I was oversimplifying the second point. It's obviously a matter of how you define compassionate behavior and what not. While I agree with your last statement, I think that this idea that the government is some seperate entity is wrong. We are the government. When "the government" is doing something you don't like, it's your fellow citizens doing something you don't like. This is why law is based on definition of rights and not morality, my fellow citizen has no right to tell me how to lead my life unless I'm violating their rights. In high density areas, increased interaction leads to a greater understanding of each others rights and greater pressure on the need to define them. It's not a matter of allowing government intervention, it's a matter of having a larger number of "non-aggression pacts" with each other in order to get along in closer proximity. One could also argue that lower population density means a lower demand on resources, which makes self-reliance as an act of personal responsibility more inflated in rural areas compared to urban areas. In other words, it takes more work to survive city life successfully and independently than to do so in a rural area.
Not to mention the flow of tax dollars is from blue states to red states. Considering that urban dwellers are subsidizing rural dwellers' choice of lifestyle, I don't see how they can sit around and crow about self-reliance and not needing government.
Re:You don't really *have* a left in America (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean that America does not have a left party (the spectrum of political opinion and thought in America is very broad.) That is true, but by European standards, America does not really have a right party either. The US parties are both "conservative" in the sense that their priority is to protect vested financial interests, but they are not right-wing in the sense that successful parties in Norway and Italy are, for example.
It also used to be true that the Democrats and Republicans were barely distinguishable; if the two parties were the basis of a linear space, any dispassionate observer from Mars would purse his lips and say that they were in desperate need of a Givens rotation to preserve numerical stability. Pity poor America, which is obliged to express the entire gamut of its hopes and aspirations via these inadequate instruments.
The situation has changed recently, because the current adminstration, while similar in policy to its opponents, is profoundly different in its philosophical basis. That is essentially because they are not conservative at all; they are neo-conservative, and neo-conservatives are the opposite of conservative: they are radical, wanting to change everything.
Re:Discrimination is discrimination (Score:3, Interesting)
> even though I'm white, I was given no property, and no special birthright
You were brought up in a household who, by your race, has an average income of 40,577, compared to 25,050 for your average african american household (1997) (go ahead, start a college fund on an income like that! And don't resort to the "special case" line of argument). Odds are 23% for each of your parents having attended college, compared to 11% for each african american parent. I could go on - want me to?
You most definitely had a statistical birthright.
> Today, it is illegal to discriminate against anyone in hiring
Despite the fact that the most important aspects of affirmative action are educational, not in the job market, you completely misunderstand quotas. Affirmative action works by determining what percentage of qualified women and minorities are available to a company, and then setting a goal for hiring that percentage. For example, suppose a minority makes up 30 percent of the local population, but only 15 percent are qualified for the company's jobs. The goal for the company is 15 percent, not 30 percent. And if the company doesn't get 15%? Fines, right? Nope; the quota gets reset for the next year, and the year after... etc. A company is only at risk if there is a clear policy of blatant discrimination against clearly qualified minorities - for example, if they hired just 5% consistantly each year.
I suggest you look at some studies done on whether quotas are keeping qualified whites from jobs. For example, A. R. Pratkanis & M. E. Turner, The proactive removal of discriminatory barriers: Affirmative action as effective help (1995). Reverse discrimination? In 1995 (the only year I have numbers for offhand), the US Dept. of Labor had about 3,000 reverse discrimination cases filed; less than 100 actually involved reverse discrimination, and in only 6 could the claims be substantiated.
You're one to talk about myths.
Re:Not true (Score:1, Interesting)
See: MDMA (ecstasy)
The usual false binary (Score:3, Interesting)
As if genuine political belief fell into two simple, easily identified categories of "Liberal" and "Conservative".
Do Libertarians no longer exist in the US today?
Anarchists?
Socialists?
Greens?
Etc. etc.
I usually find that studies of human biology underpinning human behavior say far more about the prejudices of the scientists conducting the research, than about any underlying scientific observations they might be "discovering".
And the rigidly dualist categorization of ideology into center-right and far-right creeps into so much of daily life in the US, where you are continually required to choose ideological Coke or ideological Pepsi. Water is not on the menu.
Re:Wow.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2, Interesting)
As far as cognitive abilities, there is no conclusive evidence that black people (or any race) is any different from any other race. Things like SAT scores and IQ scores cannot be used because there are so many factors that can affect these scores that they are useless in any kind of genetic study. All we can get from them is a conclusion like, "Asians typically score higher on SAT tests than black people." You can't really make much more of an inference from that.
Re:But is this Discrimination? (Score:3, Interesting)
> There are plenty of examples in history of poor uneducated people teaching themselvs and going somewhere.
Will you people *ever* stop taking refuge in special cases, and focus on the general case?
> as bad or worse than anything done to the blacks since slavery
Once again, you add in an incredibly restrictive condition - "since slavery". persecution of Europe's Jews (as well as middle eastern and african Jews) varied in intensity notably throughout time and place (in some cases as bad as the inquisition, in others even preferential treatment, but usually slightly negative as a whole).
> Where are the wealthy black buisnessmen, the black scientists and engineers?
You know that they exist. My energy bill goes to a company whose CEO is black (Alliant). They're just not particularly common. Does the black population as a whole at present (only 50 years after the end of segregation) have as high of a percent of scholars and high level businessmen as American jews, commonly descended from the wealther and more educated of European jews? Of course not. How do they compare to the world's Jewish populations as whole (despite just coming out of segregation following slavery), which includes the slavic jews who weren't able to emigrate, for example? Harder to say.
> They are no longer black by culture
You should tell that to a black man I know around here. He's headed several law deparments at different schools, and recently defeated an ordinance that the city passed to target his hobby of car collecting (he keeps the cars in his front yard, and they didn't like it). He was a devout MLK follower, and is involved in all sorts of black advocacy organizations. They are anything but "white by culture" in really any respect. I find this pretty typical, actually.
> you wanted them to be based
I didn't describe how I *wanted* quotas. I described how they are, and how they have always been. You, like most people, have a horribly distorted version of how they work.
There is no such thing as "race" (Score:1, Interesting)
How about we decide race based on worth ethic? People who work hard are of a completely seperate race from people who don't? In this case we have people who work hard who come from every skin color as well intelligence from every skin color. I've gone to college and when I was there I've met people from every possible race combination and every one of them had above average intelligence.
Race is cultural not genetic, if you want people to have a work ethic you have to teach them to have one. Perhaps this should be taught in school to children at a younger age instead of hoping the parents come from a cultural backround thats achievement based instead of tribal.
George Bush is of the lazy tribal race yet hes president of the USA so lets please stop with the cultural bias and racism. If you truely believe that intelligence is genetic then you also believe most of the people in the south including Mr.Bush have the bad genes.
The highest IQ's come from Asia but this does not really say that Asian's as a race are "better" than another race. Instead of comparing races lets compare individuals. When you compare races it does make you seem racist.
Re:Jesus H Christ (Score:3, Interesting)
What about this model; Free will is a gradient. It's more difficult to hold your hand on a hot stove than on a cool one. You have less free will in the first scenario. It's harder not to eat the cheetos when you're hungry. You have free will, but less of it because you're acting under a strong compulsion which is designed to manipulte your free will. Such compulsions can be addressed, physically or psychologically (including the threat of punishment).
In regards to the prisoner scenario, punishment is still justified if it prevents the behavior. The problem is that in America, the reform aspect of our criminal justice system is just about gone. It's mostly punative. We don't make criminals productive members of our society. We just try to make sure they don't profit from their crimes.
responding to environment (Score:2, Interesting)