Here’s an article about a mildly interesting finding that low-information voters are more likely than others to vote for the best-looking candidate: Face Value: Looks of Political Candidates Are Key Factor Influencing Low-Information Voters. In more blunt terms, these low-information voters can be described as willfully ignorant and morally irresponsible. I’ll make an impolite request … [Read more…]
We’re flooded with information on the bad things which can happen to the brain and with some advice, or at least implied advice, on how to avoid many of them. For example, we Americans are obsessed with sports in which violence has become the main point of it all. We also send a significant percentage … [Read more…]
The so-called World War I, was actually the beginning of a war not yet over in this year of 2011, though now consisting of the hugely expensive American military bumbling about in a number of countries as our political leaders dance and speak their chosen roles of blood-soaked buffoons. That first phase of the ongoing … [Read more…]
Let me propose a new definition of a liberal: A liberal is one who values will greatly and thus is inclined to exaggerate his power over the thing-like world, over his own nature and the nature of other human beings, over a merely factual world, and — maybe — over truths. This seems strange in … [Read more…]
Are conspiracies self-organizing, at least in part? In general: yes. There is no centrally-controlled conspiracy run by Satanic servants or omnipotent bureaucrats. There are networks of those who inherited wealth and power and those networks are sometimes refreshed by new blood of the ambitious and talented. There are also tightly organized operations with a specific … [Read more…]
I’ve just finished reading Norman F. Cantor’s Medieval History: The Life and Death of a Civilization and the ending pages on the decay of the High Middle Ages brought a few ideas into focus. He spoke of the destruction of the Thomistic “cathedral” of thought by the Franciscan radicals, perhaps outright heretics, led by Duns … [Read more…]
I shudder a bit at the results of the study discussed in Breaking Rules Makes You Seem Powerful. We learn: What happens when people interact with a rule breaker? Van Kleef and colleagues had people come to the lab, and interact with a rule follower and a rule breaker. The rule follower was polite and … [Read more…]
This article, Poorer Reading Skills Following Changed Computer Habits of Children, discusses a study in which the reading abilities of children have deteriorated since 1970 in two countries in which children use computers more often in school and outside of school. That is, reading ability “has fallen rapidly since 1991 in both the US and … [Read more…]
In this article, Steady Relationships Reduce Amphetamine’s Rewarding Effects, Animal Study Suggests, we learn: Long-term relationships make the commonly abused drug amphetamine less appealing, according to a new animal study in the June 1 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest that social bonds formed during adulthood lead to changes in the brain … [Read more…]
This is a very important line of thought and research which underlies this short article: The Ties That Bind: Grandparents and Their Grandchildren. Knowing that research in traditional societies in the undeveloped world had shown that children’s health and longevity were improved greatly when they were under the care or supplemental care of grandparents — … [Read more…]