I didn't know it is a myth that people become more conservative with age...

[Moonbeam]

Was this or has this been posted?: It comes as a surprise to me. People generally become more liberal as they age.

This is just great great news and makes me feel there is hope for the world yet. Conservative thinking is a form of ego sickness in my opinion.

http://www.livescience.com/2360-busting-myth-people-turn-liberal-age.html

 

[MixMasterTang]

As people get older they finally realize BS like trickle down economics do not actually work.

 

[agent00f]

The misconception is usually due to seeing more conservative old people and more liberal young people. This observation is only correct when those terms are used in a relative sense. The same liberal youth of today, even without changing their views on specific issues, are the conservative of tomorrow because the times are a changing and the youth of tomorrow are even more liberal.

 

[dank69]

This is rooted in the myth that conservatives have a monopoly on common sense. What they actually have a monopoly on is not willing to look beyond the sound bites.

 

[realibrad]

This is rooted in the myth that conservatives have a monopoly on common sense. What they actually have a monopoly on is not willing to look beyond the sound bites.

If that is true, then explain Bernie Bros.

 

[Moonbeam]

This is rooted in the myth that conservatives have a monopoly on common sense. What they actually have a monopoly on is not willing to look beyond the sound bites.

I am not personally happy with terms like willingness. I like to know why things are as they are, in this case why are some people willing to believe. In short, I believe that willingness is rests on a motivation, a need to believe. But that just takes us to the problem of understanding why we have needs. What we really need are things like food clothing air water, a reasonable atmospheric temperature, etc, true needs. So what on earth could be a need to believe. What aspect of survival is being served. Surely not physical life so it has to be a need that is no exactly real but perceived, created. I believe, therefore that the need is of the ego, a need for self affirmation, a need that makes one feel good rather than bad, a need that arises out of our predicament of duality, the experience of pleasure and pain. We experience this want as need. I suggest that the need to believe is a need to identify with what brings pleasure and to avoid feelings of pain, to see one's self as a good person rather than as somebody who is bad. But that raises the question as to how we came by such a need, and to that I would suggest the answer is past experience, that we have all been made to feel bad, to hate something about ourselves, to have been told early on in our lives that we will only get love if we conform to some moral standard at which we had previously failed. Having been told that our natural wants were punishable and evil, we but into a conformist plan to be and to identify with the good our guardians believe in. In this way we acquire the need to conform, to live by unnatural standards, to hate our natural state and to worship some external ideal. We become divided and at war with ourselves, always careful to keep out of consciousness our desire to return to who we were really meant to be. We try to fill our emptiness with something we were told is a good external. But that can never fill our need so we remain always needy. What we seek, I think, and can't ever allow ourselves to know, is out true selves, a self we were taught is filthy but isn't.

 

[Moonbeam]

If that is true, then explain Bernie Bros.

Bernie Bros is just another manifestation of an externalized good, as empty as all the rest. But ask yourself is a world in which wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small percentage of people, can that be a good place for mass psychological evolution. One must eat before one can worry about becoming enlightened. You are what you eat, they say.....a product of the environment, and surely one environment can be more or less healthy than another. Even a sun flower knows to turn its face to the sun.

 

[dank69]

If that is true, then explain Bernie Bros.

Which aspects, specifically?

 

[cbrunny]

not panel data, fyi.

 

[realibrad]

Which aspects, specifically?

Much like Trump, Bernie had ideas that sounded good to his base, but had no way of following through. Bernie's popularity was built around telling people what they wanted to hear. I would argue that Bernie is probably a better person than Hillary and by far better than Trump, but his popularity was built around telling people what they wanted to hear.

 

[agent00f]

I am not personally happy with terms like willingness. I like to know why things are as they are, in this case why are some people willing to believe. In short, I believe that willingness is rests on a motivation, a need to believe. But that just takes us to the problem of understanding why we have needs. What we really need are things like food clothing air water, a reasonable atmospheric temperature, etc, true needs. So what on earth could be a need to believe. What aspect of survival is being served. Surely not physical life so it has to be a need that is no exactly real but perceived, created. I believe, therefore that the need is of the ego, a need for self affirmation, a need that makes one feel good rather than bad, a need that arises out of our predicament of duality, the experience of pleasure and pain. We experience this want as need. I suggest that the need to believe is a need to identify with what brings pleasure and to avoid feelings of pain, to see one's self as a good person rather than as somebody who is bad. But that raises the question as to how we came by such a need, and to that I would suggest the answer is past experience, that we have all been made to feel bad, to hate something about ourselves, to have been told early on in our lives that we will only get love if we conform to some moral standard at which we had previously failed. Having been told that our natural wants were punishable and evil, we but into a conformist plan to be and to identify with the good our guardians believe in. In this way we acquire the need to conform, to live by unnatural standards, to hate our natural state and to worship some external ideal. We become divided and at war with ourselves, always careful to keep out of consciousness our desire to return to who we were really meant to be. We try to fill our emptiness with something we were told is a good external. But that can never fill our need so we remain always needy. What we seek, I think, and can't ever allow ourselves to know, is out true selves, a self we were taught is filthy but isn't.

If you've ever seen a nature documentary then it's clear that there's little natural goodness. However humans have a social need (or evolutionary advantage to the more technically astute) to convince others that we're "good" so that they might treat us advantageously. Thus ingrained in that language facility is the inherent faculty to rationalize our personal goodness.

It might also be the case that we have ingrained insecurities to motivate us (again, evolutionary benefit) to fit in and such. Maximizing feeling of pleasure or reducing pain is simply that evolutionary mechanism to push us in directions that served our predecessors well.

 

[IronWing]

Nothing like signing up for Medicare to change your world view.

 

[agent00f]

Much like Trump, Bernie had ideas that sounded good to his base, but had no way of following through. Bernie's popularity was built around telling people what they wanted to hear. I would argue that Bernie is probably a better person than Hillary and by far better than Trump, but his popularity was built around telling people what they wanted to hear.

Social democracy is a reality in europe but in all fairness that's fictional la-la land like a time portal to the 50's.

 

[realibrad]

Social democracy is a reality in europe but in all fairness that's fictional la-la land like a time portal to the 50's.

Hey good to hear from you agent.

What would Europe having social democracy mean anything in relation to Bernie having little to no plan to enact his stated policies?

 

[agent00f]

Hey good to hear from you agent.

What would Europe having social democracy mean anything in relation to Bernie having little to no plan to enact his stated policies?

I'm simply stating that such policies are already enacted, albeit in a place far away that you've yet to ask your professors about.

 

[Smoblikat]

Was this or has this been posted?: It comes as a surprise to me. People generally become more liberal as they age.

This is just great great news and makes me feel there is hope for the world yet. Conservative thinking is a form of ego sickness in my opinion.

http://www.livescience.com/2360-busting-myth-people-turn-liberal-age.html

I always liked this quote.

 

[realibrad]

I'm simply stating that such policies are already enacted, albeit in a place far away that you've yet to ask your professors about.

And China already has a wall. What is your point?

 

[dank69]

Much like Trump, Bernie had ideas that sounded good to his base, but had no way of following through. Bernie's popularity was built around telling people what they wanted to hear. I would argue that Bernie is probably a better person than Hillary and by far better than Trump, but his popularity was built around telling people what they wanted to hear.

The Bernie Bros that refuse to look beyond sound bites don't really qualify as progressives IMO. Being a progressive, to me anyway, is about using evidence to figure out how to advance the human race.

 

[agent00f]

And China already has a wall. What is your point?

Becoming more like europe is dissimilar to becoming like the 50's.

The Bernie Bros that refuse to look beyond sound bites don't really qualify as progressives IMO. Being a progressive, to me anyway, is about using evidence to figure out how to advance the human race.

The bernie bros were supposedly supportive of free college and 15 min wage, really pie in sky fantasy.

 

[realibrad]

The Bernie Bros that refuse to look beyond sound bites don't really qualify as progressives IMO. Being a progressive, to me anyway, is about using evidence to figure out how to advance the human race.

Agreed, but if that is the case, then how many supporting Trump are actual conservatives? I would not consider Trump a conservative. My point was that you will see both parties pander by saying things that sound good to their base. Bernie got a lot of votes.

 

[realibrad]

Becoming more like europe is dissimilar to becoming more like the 50's.

What does that have to do with anything we were talking about? I said that Bernie Bros liked Bernie because he made claims without any path for making it happen. You come back with, "but Europe has it". By that logic, the US building a wall will do wonders to keep out invading Mongols.

Bernie supporters liked Bernie for the things he said, even though he had no Plan to pay for it. That is why so many supporting Hillary called him out on it. One such person was Spy, who is very much not a conservative.

 

[agent00f]

What does that have to do with anything we were talking about? I said that Bernie Bros liked Bernie because he made claims without any path for making it happen. You come back with, "but Europe has it". By that logic, the US building a wall will do wonders to keep out invading Mongols.

Bernie supporters liked Bernie for the things he said, even though he had no Plan to pay for it. That is why so many supporting Hillary called him out on it. One such person was Spy, who is very much not a conservative.

Just because you don't know how the europeans do it doesn't mean it's la la land magic. More generally that applies to all things you don't know.

 

[dank69]

Agreed, but if that is the case, then how many supporting Trump are actual conservatives? I would not consider Trump a conservative. My point was that you will see both parties pander by saying things that sound good to their base. Bernie got a lot of votes.

Right, but I am talking about the willingness to look beyond the sound bites. Tons of people on both sides are too lazy to look beyond them, but IMO only one side deliberately avoids doing so. How often do you see liberals posting up memes that have been debunked on Snopes compared to conservatives? You'd think that the 50th time I posted up a Snopes link debunking some shit my mother posted on Facebook she would think to at least try checking Snopes before posting the next one. Nope. And the responses to the Snopes links I provide? "Well, it doesn't matter because..." or "Yeah, but this other unrelated thing..."

 

[MongGrel]

Nothing like signing up for Medicare to change your world view.

That seems to happen to a lot of people.

Most older people I know have mellowed out over time if they are educated to any degree.

 

[Moonbeam]

Much like Trump, Bernie had ideas that sounded good to his base, but had no way of following through. Bernie's popularity was built around telling people what they wanted to hear. I would argue that Bernie is probably a better person than Hillary and by far better than Trump, but his popularity was built around telling people what they wanted to hear.

Perhaps you see what you want to see and don't see what you are motivated not to see. For example, I think Bernie explained his plan perfectly and in all the detains one could need, that he couldn't do anything without the support of the people in revolution. His plan as I say it was to describe the reality we live in and to state the only way to change it was from the ground up, that only a revolution could change anything. I see him seeing his job as calling the people to do that. As an intellectual with a great grasp of minutia and little facility to gestalt the big picture, I can understand why you would think some sort of detailed plan was needed. But the only thing in my big picture analysis that can save us is insistent voter demand. We will awaken or stay asleep. You advocate, in my opinion, for narcolepsy. You seek some sort of order in a world that requires a black swan event.


To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

He who sleeps on the road loses either his hat or his head. A saying