Some people vote based on their brain , some on how they feel.

One thing I've noticed from listening to Britain only talk radio LBC is that not only do you get angry people ringing up but they actually think being angry is a virtue. Everyone gets angry but only stupid or weak people act while they are angry

To me if I'm angry that means I'm no longer thinking and basically shouldn't do anything important until I've calmed down. One thing I've heard at work is that I have no concept of 'right and wrong' and to be honest they are right. I don't think right or wrong is that important what is important is having a functioning society.

Is taking drugs right or wrong?, couldn't give a shit, does legalising drugs mean I will be safer that I care about it.
Is it right or wrong that some people abuse the benefit system, couldn't give a shit am I safer if we give these people money.
Is euthanasia right or wrong, again couldn't give a shit, am I likely to better or worse of it ifs legalised

Fallible wrote:I've no doubt that people think it's important that others (criminals) get what they deserve, since many of them are forever ranting on about it. To be honest I don't even see many people trying to justify that desire through arguments that it leads to less crime.

I do. I don't see them justifying their desire for revenge. What I see them justifying is their opinions, saying that they will reduce crime whereas there is evidence that the reason they hold them is not a desire to reduce crime but a desire for revenge. That's a bit different. Saying "it will reduce crime" sounds nicer than "I just hate this," so people say it when it isn't their real reason.

Or, at least, that's why I'm saying. You may disagree if you like.

So when someone comes out with a more admittedly visceral justification, on the one hand, I'm not fond of visceral justification, but on the other hand, I find it a bit refreshing. Let that be out in the open instead of hidden behind an alibi.

If someone just "wants the scum gone," as you say it, I find it better if they admit it instead of hide behind a lot of nonsense justifications.

It is possible that there is a political difference (though maybe not). In any event, in the US there were tons of conservatives with calculated justifications, and they worked for quite a while and caused some bad bipartisan acts to happen because they seemed reasonable. What is happening in conservatism now reveals that a lot of people who talked a reasonable-sounding talk, such as George Will, are becoming uncovered as having the basest of motivations. This is important information for evaluating what they say.

To be honest I'm much less interested in whether people are saying things I'd rather hear and much more interested in looking at whatever it is they're saying and tackling that.

That's your decision. I don't share it, for a particular reason. I'm going to talk about American politics, but I think it likely that it's universal. Still, I'll use Republican and Democrat as placeholders.

In poll after poll, Americans are consistently shown to be overwhelmingly in favor of the kind of policies that Democrats as opposed to Republicans want. Yet Democrats keep losing, and Republicans keep winning, far out of proportion. It is so out of proportion that it swamps logical explanations such as gerrymandering. Something is going on.

The linguist and cognitive scientist George Lakoff argues, in my mind importantly and cogently, that the reason for this is that Democrats are stupid and Republicans are smart about human psychology in an important way. He's spent a lot of effort over the past few years trying to wake Democrats up and listen to his ideas, without much success, which lack of success can also handily be attributed to what he is trying to say (if anyone would listen).

The specific stupidity is this. Democrats tend to believe Cartesian/Enlightenment models of how humans think. That is, that there is a reasoning engine that is the same in everybody, and if you present the facts, then everyone will draw the same conclusions. Democratic political strategy involves trying to present the facts an hoping that people will be persuaded. It doesn't work, and Democrats lose elections that they shouldn't.

Simply put, Descartes was wrong.

Republicans, however, operate under a much more sophisticated model of psychology, one that is consistent with Cognitive Science, involving framing, metaphorical thought, and categorization (including radial categories, which are interesting), based on a Hebbian model of learning making heavy use of repetition and emotional reinforcement. This isn't Enlightenment. It started in the 1940s and 1950s, through the linguistics wars of the 1980s, and up to today. In the history of Republican thought, some awareness is evident in the Powell memo from 1970 or thereabouts. It was used masterfully with Reagan, resulting in the fact that many people who disagreed with Reagan's policies trusted him and voted for him, because of the psychological manipulation. It was massive in the 2000 election. Republicans may be wrong about everything that is good for the country, or nearly so, but they know something important about how to win elections and get their policies in place anyway. It's so masterful that it works splendidly on Democrats, such as Clinton, an otherwise pretty good President but was persuaded not to oppose some disastrous legislation, and very obviously on Obama, who wasted a lot of time thinking he could negotiate.

Republicans may have had more of a folk than a scientific understanding, because of their greater experience with religion and military training, but it is far, far more consistent with the much more scientific ideas that Cognitive Science is discovering. This folk understanding also has an edge, because it can get closer to the truth than a superficial scientific understanding that seeks to explain everything in terms of reason and logic (which I also criticize a lot on this forum). However, we're getting much, much better with Cognitive Science. Only in the past decade or so have we come to understand the first bottom-to-top thread in human psychology, and I'd like to do something with it.

It's not been my experience that people are reluctant to talk about retributive justice, quite the opposite in fact - they like to talk about it a lot (take Anders Brevik as an example. Here and elsewhere there was no dearth of people wanting to complain about how he didn't have it bad enough in prison).

Sure. And if you want to take that at face value and just say "Aha!" I can't stop you. I go to a different level and try to look at just how, when this happens, it is used to persuade people (dishonestly) for the purpose of trying to figure out how to deal with it and make things different. This requires not taking things at face value.

So I would look at just how aggravation and contempt toward Breivik, juxtaposed against the alternate view that whatever Norway does, it's civilized, and see just how this works with actual meat brains as opposed to Cartesian ideals actually to form opinion. (This sometimes involves stirring the pot to see what happens, on fora like this one, which I do a lot. Believe me, I do not really care much what people think of me, but I do care how people function, because it affects my life.)

You are perfectly welcome to be completely uninterested in that. Most US Democrats are also uninterested. I am pretty much convinced that this is the reason, for example, that this is the reason why we might lose not only abortion but all other forms of contraception in large portions of the country, or why there is so much wealth inequality, and why the economy sucks, and why people are depressed and hopeless, and why there is so much homophobia and even more biphobia and transphobia.

Ultimately, I'm just going to say that I do not like these things and let it go at that. I am not going to give reasons or justifications or whatever, because that way lies bullshit. I would, on the other hand, talk anybody's ear off about the science involved, Chuck Fillmore and Elanor Roche and Jerome Feldman and all those fantastic people. I just haven't met anybody who wants to have a discussion about that. So I do my own thing and see what people's reactions are and try to learn something.

I could instead think simply and just get angry at Republicans, but that doesn't make me as happy as thinking about it.

epepke wrote:

Fallible wrote:I've no doubt that people think it's important that others (criminals) get what they deserve, since many of them are forever ranting on about it. To be honest I don't even see many people trying to justify that desire through arguments that it leads to less crime.

I do. I don't see them justifying their desire for revenge. What I see them justifying is their opinions, saying that they will reduce crime whereas there is evidence that the reason they hold them is not a desire to reduce crime but a desire for revenge. That's a bit different.

I don't see that. I see people aplenty voicing their desire to see criminals get punished because it's what they deserve, and they seem to really believe that's important, without apparently giving any thought to the fact that that in itself is an appeasing justification for their feelings.

Saying "it will reduce crime" sounds nicer than "I just hate this," so people say it when it isn't their real reason.

Or, at least, that's why I'm saying. You may disagree if you like.

Lol, thanks. No, this is just it - I don't think people do justify their feelings by trying to say it will reduce crime. They justify their feelings by saying the naughty people deserve things. They don't simply say 'I just hate this', they say 'I hate this, they deserve to be punished'. What they mean is 'I hate this and therefore they deserve to be punished'. You are talking about a different thing - what politicians tell people with regard to retributive justice. Of course it sounds better for a politician to be ostensibly operating from a position of reason rather than emotion (while also giving the impression of acknowledging and being in tune with people's feelings, obviously). I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about ordinary people, such as the person who in this thread spoke about criminals getting what they deserve - that's why I commented in the first place, because the poster, not a politician as far as I know but an ordinary person, appealed to the notion of just desserts.

So when someone comes out with a more admittedly visceral justification, on the one hand, I'm not fond of visceral justification, but on the other hand, I find it a bit refreshing. Let that be out in the open instead of hidden behind an alibi.

It's still hidden behind an alibi - that of people getting what they 'deserve'. They feel the need for people to be punished, the visceral part. In order to justify their lust for pain and unpleasantness to be inflicted, they say it's what they deserve for being naughty - that's the alibi. However I don't think they're often aware of this - I don't think they examine it that closely.

If someone just "wants the scum gone," as you say it, I find it better if they admit it instead of hide behind a lot of nonsense justifications.

But this too is based on bullshit reasoning like they deserve to be gone and that people who be very naughty aren't human any more so they don't have a right to life and we can kill them. It's not refreshing, it's straight-up stupid.

It is possible that there is a political difference (though maybe not). In any event, in the US there were tons of conservatives with calculated justifications, and they worked for quite a while and caused some bad bipartisan acts to happen because they seemed reasonable. What is happening in conservatism now reveals that a lot of people who talked a reasonable-sounding talk, such as George Will, are becoming uncovered as having the basest of motivations. This is important information for evaluating what they say.

But I'm not talking about politicians. I'm talking about the view that criminals should get what they 'deserve', based on personal feelings, not on any line they've been thrown by people seeking to govern. I'd say vengeance based thinking infested people way before politicians harnessed it for their own benefit.

To be honest I'm much less interested in whether people are saying things I'd rather hear and much more interested in looking at whatever it is they're saying and tackling that.

That's your decision. I don't share it, for a particular reason. I'm going to talk about American politics, but I think it likely that it's universal. Still, I'll use Republican and Democrat as placeholders.[snip]

I'm not talking about politics, certainly not American politics. When I refer to 'people', I'm talking about people in general.

It's not been my experience that people are reluctant to talk about retributive justice, quite the opposite in fact - they like to talk about it a lot (take Anders Brevik as an example. Here and elsewhere there was no dearth of people wanting to complain about how he didn't have it bad enough in prison).

Sure. And if you want to take that at face value and just say "Aha!" I can't stop you.

I'm not sure what this means. I merely observed that they're not reluctant to talk about it. I don't have to take what they say at face value in order to notice them saying it.

I go to a different level and try to look at just how, when this happens, it is used to persuade people (dishonestly) for the purpose of trying to figure out how to deal with it and make things different. This requires not taking things at face value.

It was you who said he finds it refreshing when people just say it like it is, meaning presumably that you take that at face value because they're not hiding behind 'illogical justifications'. I'm not saying I never ponder things further, you're just making one of those big leaps again which I've witnessed previously and assuming things not in evidence.

So I would look at just how aggravation and contempt toward Breivik, juxtaposed against the alternate view that whatever Norway does, it's civilized, and see just how this works with actual meat brains as opposed to Cartesian ideals actually to form opinion. (This sometimes involves stirring the pot to see what happens, on fora like this one, which I do a lot. Believe me, I do not really care much what people think of me, but I do care how people function, because it affects my life.)

Pff. Yeah, OK. Well me, I'm not overly interested in excuses and also don't care that you don't care what people think of you. However you probably should care about repeatedly breaking the inflammatory posting rule if you enjoy engaging in forum discussions at all. Or maybe not, folks seem to be getting away with all manner of shit around here lately.

You are perfectly welcome to be completely uninterested in that. Most US Democrats are also uninterested. I am pretty much convinced that this is the reason, for example, that this is the reason why we might lose not only abortion but all other forms of contraception in large portions of the country, or why there is so much wealth inequality, and why the economy sucks, and why people are depressed and hopeless, and why there is so much homophobia and even more biphobia and transphobia.

I haven't said I'm not interested in those things, I said I don't care whether someone is just laying down their honest personal feelings or using silly justifications to make themselves feel better - it doesn't make any difference in the end, because the justifications are so flimsy that they're the work of moments to unravel.

Ultimately, I'm just going to say that I do not like these things and let it go at that. I am not going to give reasons or justifications or whatever, because that way lies bullshit. I would, on the other hand, talk anybody's ear off about the science involved, Chuck Fillmore and Elanor Roche and Jerome Feldman and all those fantastic people. I just haven't met anybody who wants to have a discussion about that. So I do my own thing and see what people's reactions are and try to learn something.

I could instead think simply and just get angry at Republicans, but that doesn't make me as happy as thinking about it.

OK then.