Why it's in the conservative interest to be as degenerate as possible

[agent00f]

To understand this how this works we start by taking a step back to understand BothSides equally bad. This is the fair and balanced argument that the world is simple & homogeneous, where if one party has some attribute it must be similarly present in all others.

This is the rhetoric promoted towards "independents", who are constantly complimented to the degree by which they act "above the fray" by reflexively parroting BothSides whenever any sign of degenerate behavior arises. This observation is hardly controversial given how often we see it on display, with the "independent" in question reliably boasting of their load-balanced criticism, fully internalizing what's basically fox news propaganda.

With that mind, it's simply an evolutionary/self-interested advantage to behave as badly as possible, to automatically paint the opposition just as poorly per these intermediaries. For example, it really doesn't matter at all that Trumpsters lie about everything, which has long been self-evident, as long as said independents reflexively believe all the media or libtard sjw's are just as bad or close enough.

In perspective it's actually a pretty interesting ecosystem, with conservatism carving out a clever parasitic symbiotic relationship with some portion of the american middle. Certainly worthy of remark if american politics were a nature documentary.

 

[Moonbeam]

It's an interesting position to take, one that I see, as you suggest, demonstrated in this forum all the time. What interests me is in what universe it would actually be true, a valid logical insight. First off, there would have to be some sort of moral scale to which we could measure and determine the relative moral strengths and values of two different political positions, some moral compass by which an unbiased and genuinely moral mind might be able to tell what is truly moral and what is not because, as I am sure you know, everybody believes that whatever position they hold is the best moral position to have. Surely those who believe that the other side is immoral and thereby excuse their own moral failings as being no worse than the opposition, feel morally justified thereby in doing so. So if your argument is accurate, this must be a morally inferior position that that two wrongs do make a right. Either two wrongs do not make a right, or they do.

So there is either a true standard of morality or every moral position is relative. And if there is a true standard of morality by which by which the phenomenon of false equivalency is to be seen for what it really iis, a morally repugnant denial of moral reality, how are those who do not have the moral compass to see that going to be persuaded of its reality?

If there is a moral truth those who know it will know it and those who do not know it will not be able to know it when they see it.

It is very interesting as you say to understand the natural world but when we look at it we make the assumption or at least I do, that what we are seeing is reality, that what we seek is understanding and whatever advantage such understanding may be gained.

But when we look at the moral landscape of human life, there we might wish to seek some way to improve it.

It seems to me that you always tend to point to game theory as suggesting that selfish behavior is a winning strategy to be countered by punishment for its employment and that this is the moral strategy that is the proper moral strategy to take to counter. I keep suggesting to you that if you understood why a social animal like human beings that evolved and successfully competed in the world via a capacity to coordinate and cooperate as a group and that might therefore evolve some genetic tendency to reject selfish behavior should still exhibit anti-social, which might naturally be defined as immoral behaviors, should develop them anyway, I would suggest we might want to know the mechanism by which this might happen.

The answer I would offer is all that I have described under the phenomenon of self-hate, the development of language and the capacity of words to link behaviors with negative feelings in ways that do not actually exist..

Man is what he was created as, as some suggest, in the image of God, and from which a natural moral compass would be readily available to those who know their own true nature, or man is what he was told to be as a child, a conformer to some imaginary standard of moral behavior like the belief that two wrongs make a right.

I simply suggest that it is 'beating' that causes immoral behavior and the inclination to imagine that more beating will improve it. I simply suggest that it is silly to adopt the philosophy that the beatings will continue until morality improves as the only answer. I don't reject that approach, but I see it's dangers when it is the only tool in one's box.

 

[JSt0rm]

fear makes them act that way.

 

[superstition]

it's simply an evolutionary/self-interested advantage to behave as badly as possible

If that were the case then almost the only people around would act that way or want to.

People learn to behave well and to behave badly. Helen Keller was a wild feral child. She became a model citizen with education. Had she been taught to behave badly she likely would have.

Individual personality matters, of course, too. Keller was bright and wanted to learn. Regardless, evolution isn't what made her a wild child.

The Stanford Prison Experiment, the Bobo Doll, Blue Eyes Brown Eyes, and Milgram all seem relevant here — as does the bystander effect research.

There is some research, as far as I know, that does correlate fear-based politics with conservatives' personalities. I don't know how accurate it is but the hypothesis is that conservative people are more dominated by fear.

Personally, I think the conservative/liberal dichotomy is highly suspicious in the first place — since both are, objectively, irrational biases. Objective truth does not have a conservative or liberal side. Programming people to see the world via this dichotomy turns politics into a game of football, dividing and distracting so the masses can be duped into not seeing the real game (finance) happening.

There is also the old belief that, in American politics, going negative is always necessary and always works. Trump seems to be the poster for that. I'm not sure how evolutionary that is versus a reflection of our society.

 

[senseamp]

Conservatism on the economic side is about getting majority of people to vote against their own self interests. You have to throw a lot of dust up in the air to get them to do so on a consistent basis. Hence the never ending crises, wars, social issues, etc.

 

[agent00f]

If that were the case then almost the only people around would act that way or want to.

People learn to behave well and to behave badly. Helen Keller was a wild feral child. She became a model citizen with education. Had she been taught to behave badly she likely would have.

Individual personality matters, of course, too. Keller was bright and wanted to learn. Regardless, evolution isn't what made her a wild child.

The Stanford Prison Experiment, the Bobo Doll, Blue Eyes Brown Eyes, and Milgram all seem relevant here — as does the bystander effect research.

There is some research, as far as I know, that does correlate fear-based politics with conservatives' personalities. I don't know how accurate it is but the hypothesis is that conservative people are more dominated by fear.

Personally, I think the conservative/liberal dichotomy is highly suspicious in the first place — since both are, objectively, irrational biases. Objective truth does not have a conservative or liberal side. Programming people to see the world via this dichotomy turns politics into a game of football, dividing and distracting so the masses can be duped into not seeing the real game (finance) happening.

There is also the old belief that, in American politics, going negative is always necessary and always works. Trump seems to be the poster for that. I'm not sure how evolutionary that is versus a reflection of our society.

By evolution here I don't mean literal genetics but the general contemporary concept of self-selective/perpetuating behaviors, so identified because they select and spread just like genes. In the case, due to the environmental happenstance/pressure of BothSides, conservatives who act badly (in and of itself) are better able to inflict harm on adversaries through that mirroring intermediary. And if this benefit outweighs whatever negative consequences of said bad behavior, and we know there are basically none since it's ideology obligated to stay the course and protect its own, then the trait survives and even thrives.

The reward/punishments are simply different for ideologies that stem from the enlightenment.

For folks interested in the science/math of this sort of thing, there was an interesting paper recently that studied some interesting nuances of the related prisoner's dilemma: http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13800, were folks who defaulted to cooperation despite personal disadvantage (the "nice" one) played a key role in stabilizing the system. In fact a key insight is they themselves tended to fend better than they would otherwise in the degenerate case (ie without niceness), even if they performed below average in the good case they helped realize. This wouldn't be unlike the role of some centrists in bimodal political systems.

 

[agent00f]

Conservatism on the economic side is about getting majority of people to vote against their own self interests. You have to throw a lot of dust up in the air to get them to do so on a consistent basis. Hence the never ending crises, wars, social issues, etc.

I think that in historical perspective there used to be in harsher and less enlightened times greater benefits to conservative thinking. Eg a crop failure could mean the end so risk aversion was a greater benefit.

This isn't really the case anymore in the first world given agricultural advances, and we've also come to understand how economic and social systems works (ie science) to the extend that it's possible to model/predict how those things will go given one change or another. What's lacking atm is a broader societal motivation to move forward with this modernity and have the conversations that actually matter, aka have some bearing on the future.

 

[emperus]

To understand this how this works we start by taking a step back to understand BothSides equally bad. This is the fair and balanced argument that the world is simple & homogeneous, where if one party has some attribute it must be similarly present in all others.

This is the rhetoric promoted towards "independents", who are constantly complimented to the degree by which they act "above the fray" by reflexively parroting BothSides whenever any sign of degenerate behavior arises. This observation is hardly controversial given how often we see it on display, with the "independent" in question reliably boasting of their load-balanced criticism, fully internalizing what's basically fox news propaganda.

With that mind, it's simply an evolutionary/self-interested advantage to behave as badly as possible, to automatically paint the opposition just as poorly per these intermediaries. For example, it really doesn't matter at all that Trumpsters lie about everything, which has long been self-evident, as long as said independents reflexively believe all the media or libtard sjw's are just as bad or close enough.

In perspective it's actually a pretty interesting ecosystem, with conservatism carving out a clever parasitic symbiotic relationship with some portion of the american middle. Certainly worthy of remark if american politics were a nature documentary.

Good analysis.

 

[momeNt]

I live in a mostly liberal neighborhood and I'm the kind of person that when its rainy or very cold at the grocery store parking lot. I always will return my cart to the stall, yet on those days I see people brazenly leave carts outside so the workers have to do extra work to collect all the carts. And I'm the constitutional conservative / borderline anarchist?

People sometimes vote a certain way to actually relieve their consciousness of what horrible people they ACTUALLY are. I don't believe politics is a true indicator of personality. I'm sure in some instances it can be, but a lot of times it is not how people actually behave in their own ecosystem.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I live in a mostly liberal neighborhood and I'm the kind of person that when its rainy or very cold at the grocery store parking lot. I always will return my cart to the stall, yet on those days I see people brazenly leave carts outside so the workers have to do extra work to collect all the carts. And I'm the constitutional conservative / borderline anarchist?

People sometimes vote a certain way to actually relieve their consciousness of what horrible people they ACTUALLY are. I don't believe politics is a true indicator of personality. I'm sure in some instances it can be, but a lot of times it is not how people actually behave in their own ecosystem.

Not taking a cart to the stall in the rain does not make you a horrible person (speaking as someone who pushed carts). It really just doesn't matter that much. A guilt-based voting populace seems to have a lot of holes in it as well. I agree that politics isn't necessarily an indicator of personality (though for some it is), there's just too many variables for it to be about any one thing.

Hell, my mom didn't vote for Obama because he thought he was the anti-christ (legitimately). That kind of reasoning is so wildly outside of normal modeling, it's hard to pin down how it affects voting.

 

[momeNt]

Not taking a cart to the stall in the rain does not make you a horrible person (speaking as someone who pushed carts). It really just doesn't matter that much. A guilt-based voting populace seems to have a lot of holes in it as well. I agree that politics isn't necessarily an indicator of personality (though for some it is), there's just too many variables for it to be about any one thing.

Hell, my mom didn't vote for Obama because he thought he was the anti-christ (legitimately). That kind of reasoning is so wildly outside of normal modeling, it's hard to pin down how it affects voting.

Leaving a cart approximately 50-100 feet away from a stall, propped up on a curb, or sometimes just between stalls, which can cause property damage, to me personally makes you a lazy and inconsiderate person. Unless you are old or otherwise have health problems, if you are able, i think it is the decent thing to do.

This thread is basically about mental diarrhea so I figured I would dump something that irks me. Another grocery store thing that I absolute hate, people leaving refrigerated items in non-refrigerated areas because they decided they no longer want it. Or if somebody walked in with a starbucks or some other drink, and they leave it empty in the shelves. Complete disregard for store inventory, general cleanliness, and very lazy, as there are garbage cans all over the place now that disinfectant wipes and food snack trials come with a garbage can.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Leaving a cart approximately 50-100 feet away from a stall, propped up on a curb, or sometimes just between stalls, which can cause property damage, to me personally makes you a lazy and inconsiderate person. Unless you are old or otherwise have health problems, if you are able, i think it is the decent thing to do.

This thread is basically about mental diarrhea so I figured I would dump something that irks me. Another grocery store thing that I absolute hate, people leaving refrigerated items in non-refrigerated areas because they decided they no longer want it. Or if somebody walked in with a starbucks or some other drink, and they leave it empty in the shelves. Complete disregard for store inventory, general cleanliness, and very lazy, as there are garbage cans all over the place now that disinfectant wipes and food snack trials come with a garbage can.

It might make you lazy, but it's not inconsiderate if you ensure it won't go anywhere (still my opinion). I've seen some asshats just leave it propped behind a car on their bumper though, that's unacceptable. I still don't think it has a damned thing to do with voting, unless the laziness translates to not doing research or w/e for a given candidate (I just vote D/R!).

Re: your last point, do you clean it up? Or leave it there?

 

[momeNt]

It might make you lazy, but it's not inconsiderate if you ensure it won't go anywhere (still my opinion). I've seen some asshats just leave it propped behind a car on their bumper though, that's unacceptable. I still don't think it has a damned thing to do with voting, unless the laziness translates to not doing research or w/e for a given candidate (I just vote D/R!).

Re: your last point, do you clean it up? Or leave it there?

No I don't clean it up. I just don't contribute to the mess. Same with dog shit, I pick up my own but not anybody else's. https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics...id=1486739827&sr=8-1&keywords=basics+dog+bags

This is too cheap to not purchase so if your local park or apartment complex is out of bags you have no excuse to not have a bag to be able to pick it up.

My point is that behavior probably doesn't translate into voting habits. I think people are mostly themselves in their immediate atmosphere, not when they are debating policy on things they have such an enormously small impact on. Judging people by how they vote, or how they argue about politics does not tell you what kind of person they are. So the pretense of the OP is false.

 

[IronWing]

It's an interesting position to take, one that I see, as you suggest, demonstrated in this forum all the time. What interests me is in what universe it would actually be true, a valid logical insight. First off, there would have to be some sort of moral scale to which we could measure and determine the relative moral strengths and values of two different political positions, some moral compass by which an unbiased and genuinely moral mind might be able to tell what is truly moral and what is not because, as I am sure you know, everybody believes that whatever position they hold is the best moral position to have. Surely those who believe that the other side is immoral and thereby excuse their own moral failings as being no worse than the opposition, feel morally justified thereby in doing so. So if your argument is accurate, this must be a morally inferior position that that two wrongs do make a right. Either two wrongs do not make a right, or they do.

So there is either a true standard of morality or every moral position is relative. And if there is a true standard of morality by which by which the phenomenon of false equivalency is to be seen for what it really iis, a morally repugnant denial of moral reality, how are those who do not have the moral compass to see that going to be persuaded of its reality?

If there is a moral truth those who know it will know it and those who do not know it will not be able to know it when they see it.

It is very interesting as you say to understand the natural world but when we look at it we make the assumption or at least I do, that what we are seeing is reality, that what we seek is understanding and whatever advantage such understanding may be gained.

But when we look at the moral landscape of human life, there we might wish to seek some way to improve it.

It seems to me that you always tend to point to game theory as suggesting that selfish behavior is a winning strategy to be countered by punishment for its employment and that this is the moral strategy that is the proper moral strategy to take to counter. I keep suggesting to you that if you understood why a social animal like human beings that evolved and successfully competed in the world via a capacity to coordinate and cooperate as a group and that might therefore evolve some genetic tendency to reject selfish behavior should still exhibit anti-social, which might naturally be defined as immoral behaviors, should develop them anyway, I would suggest we might want to know the mechanism by which this might happen.

The answer I would offer is all that I have described under the phenomenon of self-hate, the development of language and the capacity of words to link behaviors with negative feelings in ways that do not actually exist..

Man is what he was created as, as some suggest, in the image of God, and from which a natural moral compass would be readily available to those who know their own true nature, or man is what he was told to be as a child, a conformer to some imaginary standard of moral behavior like the belief that two wrongs make a right.

I simply suggest that it is 'beating' that causes immoral behavior and the inclination to imagine that more beating will improve it. I simply suggest that it is silly to adopt the philosophy that the beatings will continue until morality improves as the only answer. I don't reject that approach, but I see it's dangers when it is the only tool in one's box.

I disagree. Excluding psychopaths, people have moral codes and each person's moral code is absolute. The desire for an objective, standard moral code is an expression of one's confusion and frustration as to how another's moral code could be different from one's own.

If we say, "two wrongs make a right" we are acknowledging that the wrong on our part is a moral failing that we are choosing to carry out in the face of our moral code. The need to rationalize the choice reveals that our moral code is still functioning even if we choose to not live up to it.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

No I don't clean it up. I just don't contribute to the mess. Same with dog shit, I pick up my own but not anybody else's. https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics...id=1486739827&sr=8-1&keywords=basics+dog+bags

This is too cheap to not purchase so if your local park or apartment complex is out of bags you have no excuse to not have a bag to be able to pick it up.

My point is that behavior probably doesn't translate into voting habits. I think people are mostly themselves in their immediate atmosphere, not when they are debating policy on things they have such an enormously small impact on. Judging people by how they vote, or how they argue about politics does not tell you what kind of person they are. So the pretense of the OP is false.

So it's not okay to make a mess, but it's okay to not clean it up? Does this translate to your own voting habits/acceptance of candidates?

Ironically, you're actually proving the OPs point, by looking down upon those who do x, without seeking to remediate x, OP's point being 'as long as they're worse than me, what i'm doing is okay'.

 

[Jaskalas]

disagree. Excluding psychopaths, people have moral codes and each person's moral code is absolute.

I believe those moral codes are shaped by life experiences. Thus it is not absolute. What reason do you have to believe otherwise?

 

[Jaskalas]

In perspective it's actually a pretty interesting ecosystem, with conservatism carving out a clever parasitic symbiotic relationship with some portion of the american middle.

Politics being the team sport that it is, independents would simply be folks who are sick of both sides. Who see failings in both, and who have not been moved towards making a choice. If Trump and company really become as degenerate as possible, independents will have to make that choice against them.

Your argument makes no sense. There are lines in American society and they CAN be crossed. It's not in the Republican's interests to cross those lines and have a large segment of the population previously apathetic suddenly decide to disown them in revolt. Take repealing ACA for example. That is going to move voters, and it simply cannot go in Republican's favor.

 

[momeNt]

So it's not okay to make a mess, but it's okay to not clean it up? Does this translate to your own voting habits/acceptance of candidates?

Ironically, you're actually proving the OPs point, by looking down upon those who do x, without seeking to remediate x, OP's point being 'as long as they're worse than me, what i'm doing is okay'.

His point is to paint the opposition as poorly, even if it isn't true, you cannot say that between two people, one who leaves and doesn't leave garbage everywhere, that both are equal, or really more to his point, that the person who doesn't leave garbage everywhere is worse, yet argues the garbage leaver is just as bad. So I don't see how this example proves his point.

I think his point is probably more to the actual politicians, the republican obstructionism and stuff like that. I am not sure how it can correlate to conservatives in general as a people. I think if you are talking about actual people and not politicians, a better judge of is not their politics, but how they actually behave and impact the world around them. Which maybe isn't even the topic of discussion.

As for how I voted, didn't vote for Presidency, voted down the NRA guidelines for my candidates where possible (not an NRA member though), and for the judges, I just went with bar association recommendations and if they were tied, read closer about the two. I voted with a mail in ballot so I could sit on my computer doing the research.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I believe those moral codes are shaped by life experiences. Thus it is not absolute. What reason do you have to believe otherwise?

Morals are also very much a human construct, and flexible. Most people will have a very different moral code when it comes to friends/family/tribe than when it comes to strangers.

 

[IronWing]

I believe those moral codes are shaped by life experiences. Thus it is not absolute. What reason do you have to believe otherwise?

If one's moral code is not absolute, then it is not a moral code. If one can say, "this is wrong, unless I fell like doing it" then the person has no moral reservation about doing what ever it is or they do understand that it is absolutely wrong but do it anyway. Note that absolute is an entirely different beast than objective. Declaring the existence of an objective or universal, natural moral code would be a faith exercise.

 

[MajinCry]

If one's moral code is not absolute, then it is not a moral code. If one can say, "this is wrong, unless I fell like doing it" then the person has no moral reservation about doing what ever it is or they do understand that it is absolutely wrong but do it anyway. Note that absolute is an entirely different beast than objective. Declaring the existence of an objective or universal, natural moral code would be a faith exercise.

That's the key. Objective morality is thinking out, step by step, the harm caused by an act. Absolute morality is whatever the state/deity will let go unpunished.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

His point is to paint the opposition as poorly, even if it isn't true, you cannot say that between two people, one who leaves and doesn't leave garbage everywhere, that both are equal, or really more to his point, that the person who doesn't leave garbage everywhere is worse, yet argues the garbage leaver is just as bad. So I don't see how this example proves his point.

I think his point is probably more to the actual politicians, the republican obstructionism and stuff like that. I am not sure how it can correlate to conservatives in general as a people. I think if you are talking about actual people and not politicians, a better judge of is not their politics, but how they actually behave and impact the world around them. Which maybe isn't even the topic of discussion.

As for how I voted, didn't vote for Presidency, voted down the NRA guidelines for my candidates where possible (not an NRA member though), and for the judges, I just went with bar association recommendations and if they were tied, read closer about the two. I voted with a mail in ballot so I could sit on my computer doing the research.

My point was more that between subject_a who leaves garbage around, and subject_b who leaves garbage where it is, while decrying subject_a, it's hard to pick the better person. One can argue plenty about which is worse, but neither is *good*. This is sort of the problem with our current election system, it's turned into which is worse for the country, instead of which is good for the country. Just don't vote for the worse and hope everything works out until next election cycle (where nothing will change).

 

[momeNt]

My point was more that between subject_a who leaves garbage around, and subject_b who leaves garbage where it is, while decrying subject_a, it's hard to pick the better person. One can argue plenty about which is worse, but neither is *good*. This is sort of the problem with our current election system, it's turned into which is worse for the country, instead of which is good for the country. Just don't vote for the worse and hope everything works out until next election cycle (where nothing will change).

Should be more

subject_a who leaves garbage around and leaves garbage where it is, and subject_b who leaves garbage where it is

Evildoers are not JUST AS BAD as bystanders, to use OPs own words.

I haven't seen anybody actually leave garbage, so maybe if I do, I need to take a stand to not be a bystander to the action. I am okay with being a bystander to the result (the garbage on the shelf). Watch for me in the news in a local hero type story.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

If one's moral code is not absolute, then it is not a moral code. If one can say, "this is wrong, unless I fell like doing it" then the person has no moral reservation about doing what ever it is or they do understand that it is absolutely wrong but do it anyway. Note that absolute is an entirely different beast than objective. Declaring the existence of an objective or universal, natural moral code would be a faith exercise.

I would posit that the number of morals which are absolute are so small, that it would probably constitute the objective/natural moral code. All others are perceived morals that would fall apart when faced with a true challenge to them (kill, lie, steal).

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Should be more

subject_a who leaves garbage around and leaves garbage where it is, and subject_b who leaves garbage where it is

Evildoers are not JUST AS BAD as bystanders, to use OPs own words.

I haven't seen anybody actually leave garbage, so maybe if I do, I need to take a stand to not be a bystander to the action. I am okay with being a bystander to the result (the garbage on the shelf). Watch for me in the news in a local hero type story.

Err you stated that you left the garbage as-is. That's not being a bystander, that's contributing (leaving it where it is as opposed to performing an action that could change things). A bystander to the result is the one on seeing a story about garbage on the shelf on the news (unable to do anything about it).

Please note i'm not ranking either one on the badness scale because it's a waste of time and effort. Neither is *helping* the situation though.