So let me get this straight about the MSM

[Moonbeam]

agent00f: For the life of me I can't find the particularly persuasive paper by a linguist I read many years ago, but there's some evidence he's not the only one who thinks this: https://www.edge.org/conversation/hugo_mercier-the-argumentative-theory, and the first paper linked within is not bad either.

M: Yes, Haight is one who has stated this conformational bias is more typical of conservatives than liberals. But in my opinion the theory falls short. Conformational bias is all well and good but in my opinion it is just a label slapped on a symptom. OK so people look for arguments that support what they believe, even when what they believe is not true. That's nice to know and using the term is a handy way to point out what you're trying to say, but the real question, in my opinion, is why do we look for information that supports our view. Why do we have such a bias. What is the motivation. I believe the answer lies in the notion of ego and what I mean by that word.
As I see it we are emotionally attached have ego investment in arguments that we believe in, in the garbage we were programmed with as children, the lies we had to buy into to be loved as good children, despite the fact that none of it ever worked. We were taught to conform or die, be punished, suffer pain, the withholding of love, you get the idea, unless we espoused whatever fictional group identity we were supposed to belong to. We were made to feel that our natural being state, our urges desires needs made of bad and evil. The substitute truths we were force fed turned us into good people. The ego is the delusional state that defines what is good and the loss of which would tumble us into hell. We are terrified of being real, terrified of remembering what we went through.

That false ego is what we protect and will not let go of, why we need to believe in an altered false reality. Even science itself will not tough this. They poke at it abstractly and at a distance with theories never knowing the truth of what they themselves feel, not knowing that in the darkness they probe is a truth they would experience terror if revealed emotionally.

a: affirms that they rationalize more in this moment in time as a result of tech/social/econ happenstance. It's not hard to see that absent this progress the same people wouldn't need to rationalize as much, and instead it would be the dreamers who would have to use their innate human mental facilities just mentioned to rationalize their vision of the future.

M: Bubbles exist for a long time only in a quiet medium.

a: It makes sense to me that that the gene poll or expression thereof evolved some proportion more attached to tradition and some with an eye for what might be coming, since a mix would improve survival of a group. It just so happens that our present circumstances is unlike the environment where that mix evolved, and the former is more an evolutionary dead end so to speak.

M: My theory is that it depends on the damage done to the real self, how bad the concentration camp was, and whether we got Stockholm or not as a result, whether we got allegiance to the perps or the victims.

a: I agree it's possible that this distinction is in part due to environment expression/pressure, given it hasn't been long since abandoning tradition was common within a lifetime, so the conservatives today unfortunate had formative years before the paradigm shift; hopefully that's the case because then it becomes a problem that solves itself.

M: I guess it's clear I'm on a different track.

a: That's more or less it. In this case you seem fond of some cultural ideal in straightforward honesty, and become disgusted by deviation from it. I really have no idea if any of the discomfort you've mentioned stem from these sort of judgements, but since they're culturally acquired they're also malleable. To be clear, you don't have to like or even be indifferent to politics, just understand and accept it for what it is.

a: Not my thing actually, politics, that is. I believe that politics is an outward attempt to create a world where our trauma never comes to the surface, be it social welfare of pogroms against the 'other' evil. I believe the better the environment is for healthy emotional development, the better chance people have to avoid catastrophic disaster, but for me, the only revolution that matters in the one that must be waged within. Only you can change. One can't change other people. That is up to them.

 

[Jaskalas]

Having a horse in the race is different than controlling the race, wouldn't you say?

Do you believe money matters in politics? Why does it?
Because with media, the power to broadcast a narrative. Either to lift up a candidate or to attack an opponent.
Increasingly, with each election, it appears that our entertainment media is far removed from journalism and is instead pushing advocacy.

 

[dank69]

Do you believe money matters in politics? Why does it?
Because with media, the power to broadcast a narrative. Either to lift up a candidate or to attack an opponent.
Increasingly, with each election, it appears that our entertainment media is far removed from journalism and is instead pushing advocacy.

Can you give an example of an article that "advocates" for Clinton? Not a blog or editorial, I'd like to see an example of an article that should be neutral that you consider to be biased for Hillary.

 

[Jhhnn]

Can you give an example of an article that "advocates" for Clinton? Not a blog or editorial, I'd like to see an example of an article that should be neutral that you consider to be biased for Hillary.

It's all in the attitude & the perspective. Any article that doesn't paint Hillary as the Devil Incarnate is obviously biased. It's the end product of truthiness, of something being true just because they believe it.

 

[VRAMdemon]

There's an entire industry of right/left-wing radio, television, and websites that provides that misinformation. They hustle a quick buck by appealing the worst instincts and cognitive flaws human beings are susceptible to.

With the advent of the internet, chat rooms and trolling as a full-contact sport, it's easy for these people to get sealed-off from reality in echo chambers.

And filter bubbles. A filter bubble is a result of a personalized search in which a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user (such as location, past click behavior and search history). As a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. The choices made by the algorithms are not transparent. Prime examples are Google Personalized Search results and Facebook's personalized news stream.

We're really testing the limits of whether a democracy can function without an informed electorate.

 

[agent00f]

agent00f: For the life of me I can't find the particularly persuasive paper by a linguist I read many years ago, but there's some evidence he's not the only one who thinks this: https://www.edge.org/conversation/hugo_mercier-the-argumentative-theory, and the first paper linked within is not bad either.

M: Yes, Haight is one who has stated this conformational bias is more typical of conservatives than liberals. But in my opinion the theory falls short. Conformational bias is all well and good but in my opinion it is just a label slapped on a symptom. OK so people look for arguments that support what they believe, even when what they believe is not true. That's nice to know and using the term is a handy way to point out what you're trying to say, but the real question, in my opinion, is why do we look for information that supports our view. Why do we have such a bias. What is the motivation. I believe the answer lies in the notion of ego and what I mean by that word.
As I see it we are emotionally attached have ego investment in arguments that we believe in, in the garbage we were programmed with as children, the lies we had to buy into to be loved as good children, despite the fact that none of it ever worked. We were taught to conform or die, be punished, suffer pain, the withholding of love, you get the idea, unless we espoused whatever fictional group identity we were supposed to belong to. We were made to feel that our natural being state, our urges desires needs made of bad and evil. The substitute truths we were force fed turned us into good people. The ego is the delusional state that defines what is good and the loss of which would tumble us into hell. We are terrified of being real, terrified of remembering what we went through.

That false ego is what we protect and will not let go of, why we need to believe in an altered false reality. Even science itself will not tough this. They poke at it abstractly and at a distance with theories never knowing the truth of what they themselves feel, not knowing that in the darkness they probe is a truth they would experience terror if revealed emotionally.

There's a much simpler explanation for why we argue for what we want to be true: people any good at it out-survive those who don't. Consider that for most of human existence it didn't matter whether you can figure out the chemistry of salts or whatever, ie the truth-seeking people used to suppose the intellect was created for, if I can convince some other yahoos you were the devil witch incarnate and needed to be shut up for good. This is the IMO rather convincing argumentative theory of language/reason.

Consider also that many animals have "feelings", sad or happiness in pets is evident enough, which they pursue with the same vigor. But humans are unique in our sophisticated ability to manipulate those feelings of others for social gain. Eg. if I'm angry at the "devil witch incarnate" you should be too.

The evolutionary/environmental forces which resulted in modern humans leaves a mind which may or may not be ideally suited for the new civilizations created by the same.

a: affirms that they rationalize more in this moment in time as a result of tech/social/econ happenstance. It's not hard to see that absent this progress the same people wouldn't need to rationalize as much, and instead it would be the dreamers who would have to use their innate human mental facilities just mentioned to rationalize their vision of the future.

M: Bubbles exist for a long time only in a quiet medium.

a: It makes sense to me that that the gene poll or expression thereof evolved some proportion more attached to tradition and some with an eye for what might be coming, since a mix would improve survival of a group. It just so happens that our present circumstances is unlike the environment where that mix evolved, and the former is more an evolutionary dead end so to speak.

M: My theory is that it depends on the damage done to the real self, how bad the concentration camp was, and whether we got Stockholm or not as a result, whether we got allegiance to the perps or the victims.

Seems to me we're marked by our flexibility in allegiance depending on self-interest and a convincing argument/rationalization.

a: I agree it's possible that this distinction is in part due to environment expression/pressure, given it hasn't been long since abandoning tradition was common within a lifetime, so the conservatives today unfortunate had formative years before the paradigm shift; hopefully that's the case because then it becomes a problem that solves itself.

M: I guess it's clear I'm on a different track.

a: That's more or less it. In this case you seem fond of some cultural ideal in straightforward honesty, and become disgusted by deviation from it. I really have no idea if any of the discomfort you've mentioned stem from these sort of judgements, but since they're culturally acquired they're also malleable. To be clear, you don't have to like or even be indifferent to politics, just understand and accept it for what it is.

a: Not my thing actually, politics, that is. I believe that politics is an outward attempt to create a world where our trauma never comes to the surface, be it social welfare of pogroms against the 'other' evil. I believe the better the environment is for healthy emotional development, the better chance people have to avoid catastrophic disaster, but for me, the only revolution that matters in the one that must be waged within. Only you can change. One can't change other people. That is up to them.

Politics and such competitions in general is basically conflicts of this ability in action, you vs me in who we can influence/gain allegiance. It might no longer be a fight for survival per se, but gets dirty & "disgusting" all the same against a backdrop of high minded ideals proposed by people who would deny our basic nature.

 

[agent00f]

It's all in the attitude & the perspective. Any article that doesn't paint Hillary as the Devil Incarnate is obviously biased. It's the end product of truthiness, of something being true just because they believe it.

Mildly amusing I wrote the post above before reading this one, but the independent devil incarnate memes in either rather reinforce each other.

 

[Moonbeam]

agent00f: There's a much simpler explanation for why we argue for what we want to be true: people any good at it out-survive those who don't. Consider that for most of human existence it didn't matter whether you can figure out the chemistry of salts or whatever, ie the truth-seeking people used to suppose the intellect was created for, if I can convince some other yahoos you were the devil witch incarnate and needed to be shut up for good. This is the IMO rather convincing argumentative theory of language/reason.

M: That is not a more basic point of view because it does not explain why we want this or that to be true. I suggest you are just describing the symptoms, the surface facts with no explanation as to why they are facts. You leave out motivation. The why we do what we do. Why do we fear the devil. The devil does not exist. We were programmed by associating ideas with pain, by torturing with language before we could reason with any sophistication.

a: Consider also that many animals have "feelings", sad or happiness in pets is evident enough, which they pursue with the same vigor. But humans are unique in our sophisticated ability to manipulate those feelings of others for social gain. Eg. if I'm angry at the "devil witch incarnate" you should be too.

M: All you can do to change an animal's mind is to condition its responses with real physical pleasure or pain. You can't delude it by manipulation with language. It lives in the real world, not as a battery in the Matrix.

a: The evolutionary/environmental forces which resulted in modern humans leaves a mind which may or may not be ideally suited for the new civilizations created by the same.

M: The evolution of language with its ability to abstract and allow us to think divided us against ourselves by allowing us to self hate. We ate of the tree of knowledge and fell from grace of our former unified state and it happens to every child who learns language.

a: Seems to me we're marked by our flexibility in allegiance depending on self-interest and a convincing argument/rationalization.

M: Yes, that is the surface reality.

a: Politics and such competitions in general is basically conflicts of this ability in action, you vs me in who we can influence/gain allegiance. It might no longer be a fight for survival per se, but gets dirty & "disgusting" all the same against a backdrop of high minded ideals proposed by people who would deny our basic nature.

M: The problem that I see with this allegiance theory is that it is evolutionarily self extinguishing. The capacity to resist persuasion is the same capacity to spot manipulation. Always, it seems to me, that if humans evolved in competing societies, it will not be the society with the best bull shitters or bull shit detectors, but the society organized by having been persuaded to follow the best plan. That would imply to me that the best plan would be one true to our nature. What is our true nature?

 

[Knowing]

We're really testing the limits of whether a democracy can function without an informed electorate.

What if instead of a democracy, we had a republic where the power to declare war was vested exclusively in the legislature and our president couldn't just decide to kill innocent people and doctors without even being invited by the native government?

 

[agent00f]

agent00f: There's a much simpler explanation for why we argue for what we want to be true: people any good at it out-survive those who don't. Consider that for most of human existence it didn't matter whether you can figure out the chemistry of salts or whatever, ie the truth-seeking people used to suppose the intellect was created for, if I can convince some other yahoos you were the devil witch incarnate and needed to be shut up for good. This is the IMO rather convincing argumentative theory of language/reason.

M: That is not a more basic point of view because it does not explain why we want this or that to be true. I suggest you are just describing the symptoms, the surface facts with no explanation as to why they are facts. You leave out motivation. The why we do what we do. Why do we fear the devil. The devil does not exist. We were programmed by associating ideas with pain, by torturing with language before we could reason with any sophistication.

The most basic view of material things in the universe are the physical mechanics of how they work. Evolutionary selective pressure/filtering is how living things came to be. Seems rather matter of fact that more persuasive people simply survived longer to reproduce.

In contrast the why we ask of that is our own anthropomorphic need to see everything in our image. It's likely related to the evolved beneficial ability to conjure causal relationships in the everyday world, eg. numerous theories of how the sun and moon worked before modern tools, almost always involving human features instead of actual astronomy. Consider also the trouble we have understanding things on non-everyday scales even with the best possible tools, eg relativity/QM. Those fields are likely akin to complex processes in the mind similarly not conducive to simple/intuitive theory, in large part because our brains are evidently rather terrible outside everyday practice. The mental abilities we possess are rather suited to survival in the past, and what other creative imaginations they bring appear a happenstantial side-effect.

a: Consider also that many animals have "feelings", sad or happiness in pets is evident enough, which they pursue with the same vigor. But humans are unique in our sophisticated ability to manipulate those feelings of others for social gain. Eg. if I'm angry at the "devil witch incarnate" you should be too.

M: All you can do to change an animal's mind is to condition its responses with real physical pleasure or pain. You can't delude it by manipulation with language. It lives in the real world, not as a battery in the Matrix.

Sure, the ability to be manipulated by language/"reason" to all pull in the same direction is co-dependent with the ability to manipulate. It's a win-win situation for the victors/survivors that the dumb & manipulated follow the lead of the smarter manipulators.

a: The evolutionary/environmental forces which resulted in modern humans leaves a mind which may or may not be ideally suited for the new civilizations created by the same.

M: The evolution of language with its ability to abstract and allow us to think divided us against ourselves by allowing us to self hate. We ate of the tree of knowledge and fell from grace of our former unified state and it happens to every child who learns language.

To re-iterate, there's no "purpose" or "meaning" to evolution, and the need to attribute any to a mechanical process is a byproduct of some mental process that was beneficial to the survival of some species on some insignificant planet. What is the deeper "purpose" of a deskfan, or a rock? And what is the purpose of finding that answer other than some trivial feeling of personal fulfillment for some member of that species. Perhaps this is the ego you're looking for.

a: Seems to me we're marked by our flexibility in allegiance depending on self-interest and a convincing argument/rationalization.

M: Yes, that is the surface reality.

Yet that surface reality is what brought us here. The deeper meaning you're looking for in the DNA of the brain is the same "meaning" as the DNA of the appendix & such. Maybe useful or insightful far as knowledge goes, but of no great significance in the greater scheme other than the same gratification that perhaps "motivated" some ancestor to "know" fire in greater depth and survive better.

a: Politics and such competitions in general is basically conflicts of this ability in action, you vs me in who we can influence/gain allegiance. It might no longer be a fight for survival per se, but gets dirty & "disgusting" all the same against a backdrop of high minded ideals proposed by people who would deny our basic nature.

M: The problem that I see with this allegiance theory is that it is evolutionarily self extinguishing. The capacity to resist persuasion is the same capacity to spot manipulation. Always, it seems to me, that if humans evolved in competing societies, it will not be the society with the best bull shitters or bull shit detectors, but the society organized by having been persuaded to follow the best plan. That would imply to me that the best plan would be one true to our nature. What is our true nature?

Manipulation and persuasion here are synonyms, as you can see by replacing one with the other above.

Also ponder the meta-conversation here. What does it matter that either one of us convinced the other of something over the internet? There's certainly no great survival-prize for our efforts. So what the hell are all these people here doing other than following their instincts to persuade, cultivated by evolutionary biology.

 

[Moonbeam]

What if instead of a democracy, we had a republic where the power to declare war was vested exclusively in the legislature and our president couldn't just decide to kill innocent people and doctors without even being invited by the native government?

I like it. I think it's a great idea to tell our enemies that we won't respond to a nuclear attack until congress wipes off the isotope dust and assembles to vote to respond.

 

[Knowing]

I like it. I think it's a great idea to tell our enemies that we won't respond to a nuclear attack until congress wipes off the isotope dust and assembles to vote to respond.

I didn't know that doctors without borders nuked us...or anyone else for that matter.

 

[alien42]

When are they gonna report on the Clinton foundation transferring $1.8B from JP Morgan Chase, to a bank in Qatar?

I don't know if it's true

and there in lies the root of your problems.

 

[ivwshane]

and there in lies the root of your problems.

Are you seriously expecting him to do his own homework and actually look into these claims he doesn't know if they are true or not? Lol surely you jest!

 

[alien42]

Are you seriously expecting him to do his own homework and actually look into these claims he doesn't know if they are true or not? Lol surely you jest!

that isn't the part that scares me, it's the desire for potentially false information from the media, purely for the purpose of making the other side look bad, truth be damned.

let's just call it the Faux News effect.

 

[Moonbeam]

agent00f: The most basic view of material things in the universe are the physical mechanics of how they work. Evolutionary selective pressure/filtering is how living things came to be. Seems rather matter of fact that more persuasive people simply survived longer to reproduce.

M: No, a group that survives the best is one in which the ability of individual members to persuade does not exceed the capacity of other members not to be persuaded by the dangerous delusions of one member that could result in extinction. Among social organism that depends on the group to survive, the group with the best survival strategy will be the one that passes its genes. This will be a combination of the ability to cooperate via argument to come up with the best strategy plan and that plan will be a be one with group validation.

a: In contrast the why we ask of that is our own anthropomorphic need to see everything in our image. It's likely related to the evolved beneficial ability to conjure causal relationships in the everyday world, eg. numerous theories of how the sun and moon worked before modern tools, almost always involving human features instead of actual astronomy. Consider also the trouble we have understanding things on non-everyday scales even with the best possible tools, eg relativity/QM. Those fields are likely akin to complex processes in the mind similarly not conducive to simple/intuitive theory, in large part because our brains are evidently rather terrible outside everyday practice. The mental abilities we possess are rather suited to survival in the past, and what other creative imaginations they bring appear a happenstantial side-effect.

M: Jesus, I'm not going to bother with this. It just doesn't have anything to do with the 'why' I'm talking about. The mental capacities we have, the questions of how and why, lead to the theory of relativity, so counterintuitive from what the world appears to be as to be almost unbelievable. But there it is.


a: Sure, the ability to be manipulated by language/"reason" to all pull in the same direction is co-dependent with the ability to manipulate. It's a win-win situation for the victors/survivors that the dumb & manipulated follow the lead of the smarter manipulators.

M: I just covered why this isn't right. A skilled manipulator with a stupid notion of reality will lead stupid people who fall for it to extinction.

a: To re-iterate, there's no "purpose" or "meaning" to evolution, and the need to attribute any to a mechanical process is a byproduct of some mental process that was beneficial to the survival of some species on some insignificant planet. What is the deeper "purpose" of a deskfan, or a rock? And what is the purpose of finding that answer other than some trivial feeling of personal fulfillment for some member of that species. Perhaps this is the ego you're looking for.

M: As far as I can tell you seem to be manipulating what makes evolutionary sense more than I am. There is no purpose to evolution in the sense there is no special sacred organism that there was some intelligent plan to be, but evolution obeys natural laws. It follows its wherefores and whys. We have a capacity to consciously repress pain including how worthless we were told we are. Repressed pain is the source of unconscious motivation and that is why we rationalize away data that would lead us back to that pain. It is also why we are almost impossible to fix. We avoid the facts that could save us.

a: Yet that surface reality is what brought us here. The deeper meaning you're looking for in the DNA of the brain is the same "meaning" as the DNA of the appendix & such. Maybe useful or insightful far as knowledge goes, but of no great significance in the greater scheme other than the same gratification that perhaps "motivated" some ancestor to "know" fire in greater depth and survive better.

M: The only DNA involved would be our capacity to be hurt by words.

a: Manipulation and persuasion here are synonyms, as you can see by replacing one with the other above.

M: I used manipulation to imply an attempt to sucker somebody to believe an argument presented for selfish reasons and persuasion to help others to see some greater truth.

a: Also ponder the meta-conversation here. What does it matter that either one of us convinced the other of something over the internet? There's certainly no great survival-prize for our efforts. So what the hell are all these people here doing other than following their instincts to persuade, cultivated by evolutionary biology.

M: Every once in a while I mention that I vow to save all sentient beings. I glimpsed paradise long ago and the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw has lasted the rest of my life. My aim isn't to convince you but to show you what I believe. Its the showing I care about. What you do with it is your business. If you feel a need to argue with what I have said further, you are free to do so.

 

[agent00f]

agent00f: The most basic view of material things in the universe are the physical mechanics of how they work. Evolutionary selective pressure/filtering is how living things came to be. Seems rather matter of fact that more persuasive people simply survived longer to reproduce.

M: No, a group that survives the best is one in which the ability of individual members to persuade does not exceed the capacity of other members not to be persuaded by the dangerous delusions of one member that could result in extinction. Among social organism that depends on the group to survive, the group with the best survival strategy will be the one that passes its genes. This will be a combination of the ability to cooperate via argument to come up with the best strategy plan and that plan will be a be one with group validation.

Sure, the point of argument theory is that the power of persuasion (incl the other side of the equation) is what drove the adoption of sophisticated language/reason.

a: In contrast the why we ask of that is our own anthropomorphic need to see everything in our image. It's likely related to the evolved beneficial ability to conjure causal relationships in the everyday world, eg. numerous theories of how the sun and moon worked before modern tools, almost always involving human features instead of actual astronomy. Consider also the trouble we have understanding things on non-everyday scales even with the best possible tools, eg relativity/QM. Those fields are likely akin to complex processes in the mind similarly not conducive to simple/intuitive theory, in large part because our brains are evidently rather terrible outside everyday practice. The mental abilities we possess are rather suited to survival in the past, and what other creative imaginations they bring appear a happenstantial side-effect.

M: Jesus, I'm not going to bother with this. It just doesn't have anything to do with the 'why' I'm talking about. The mental capacities we have, the questions of how and why, lead to the theory of relativity, so counterintuitive from what the world appears to be as to be almost unbelievable. But there it is.

Relativity & such discovery are again merely side-effects of causal curiosity, unless you believe somehow humans were designed/evolve for that purpose. The same way that fingers can use keyboards or whatever (and not chips), even though they hardly evolved for it.

The point here is that we're evidently terrible at figuring anything uncommon to everyday reality, which is rather convincing evidence that we have no real special powers outside of that's useful for everyday life.

a: Sure, the ability to be manipulated by language/"reason" to all pull in the same direction is co-dependent with the ability to manipulate. It's a win-win situation for the victors/survivors that the dumb & manipulated follow the lead of the smarter manipulators.

M: I just covered why this isn't right. A skilled manipulator with a stupid notion of reality will lead stupid people who fall for it to extinction.

Then those stupid groups died out and got replaced with by definition less stupid ones per evolutionary process. What remains today are people generally less stupid than those which went extinct millennia ago. Of course what qualifies as stupid might change with times, eg nukes, etc.

a: To re-iterate, there's no "purpose" or "meaning" to evolution, and the need to attribute any to a mechanical process is a byproduct of some mental process that was beneficial to the survival of some species on some insignificant planet. What is the deeper "purpose" of a deskfan, or a rock? And what is the purpose of finding that answer other than some trivial feeling of personal fulfillment for some member of that species. Perhaps this is the ego you're looking for.

M: As far as I can tell you seem to be manipulating what makes evolutionary sense more than I am. There is no purpose to evolution in the sense there is no special sacred organism that there was some intelligent plan to be, but evolution obeys natural laws. It follows its wherefores and whys. We have a capacity to consciously repress pain including how worthless we were told we are. Repressed pain is the source of unconscious motivation and that is why we rationalize away data that would lead us back to that pain. It is also why we are almost impossible to fix. We avoid the facts that could save us.

Pain is a signal for some reaction to remove/alter its source, and nothing unusual in the short brutal life of animals. It's only in the cushy first world that we wonder why it cannot be absolutely resolved. In any case the body/mind naturally seems to attenuate pain with time if nothing can be done about it, like the bum knee which remains bothersome but you or anything animal gets used to, especially if there's some greater priority afoot.

As to facts, some elements of western culture for various historical reasons accentuate their importance. There's no natural reason for facts to be important per se before relatively modern times.

a: Yet that surface reality is what brought us here. The deeper meaning you're looking for in the DNA of the brain is the same "meaning" as the DNA of the appendix & such. Maybe useful or insightful far as knowledge goes, but of no great significance in the greater scheme other than the same gratification that perhaps "motivated" some ancestor to "know" fire in greater depth and survive better.

M: The only DNA involved would be our capacity to be hurt by words.

"Hurt" is a feeling just like any psychochemical reaction somehow encoding in the DNA and brought out through interaction with the physical world. We simply have no clue how it works mechanically due to the immense complexity of the system, even though some try using oversimplified concepts just like our ancestors did with the sun and moon before more advanced tools.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

When this whole election process started, the press was bashed because they were giving Trump too much free publicity as they reporting on every word that he said and ran with those stories over democratic party and/or other republicans. In essence, the press was blamed for getting Trump the nomination.

Yes. They were blamed by Liberals.

Now the press is being bashed as bias because they are reporting every word that Trump has said (past and present) and being accused or running a smear campaign against him and (prematurely) being blamed for Trump losing the election.

Yes, they are being blamed for that by Conservatives.

Liberals and Conservatives rarely share a common interpretation of reality.

 

[agent00f]

Yes. They were blamed by Liberals.

Yes, they are being blamed for that by Conservatives.

Liberals and Conservatives rarely share a common interpretation of reality.

The press naturally covers outrageous things that attracts eyeballs. Outrageous acts sometimes absorbs an audience, eg. republican primary voters in this case, or that jackass show, and repulses others, eg general electorate.

 

[Moonbeam]

agent00f: Sure, the point of argument theory is that the power of persuasion (incl the other side of the equation) is what drove the adoption of sophisticated language/reason.

M: I would think that the evolution of sophisticated language was more driven by its capacity to pass experience from one generation to the next without having to learn everything afresh each new generation.


a: Relativity & such discovery are again merely side-effects of causal curiosity, unless you believe somehow humans were designed/evolve for that purpose. The same way that fingers can use keyboards or whatever (and not chips), even though they hardly evolved for it.

M: I assume that causal curiosity means curiosity about causes, why things are as they are.....? Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back. I think that is pretty much the why of curiosity. It is a net plus for survival. It causes learning and I believe it is innate.

a: The point here is that we're evidently terrible at figuring anything uncommon to everyday reality, which is rather convincing evidence that we have no real special powers outside of that's useful for everyday life.

M: I don't agree with that point nor do I think the earlier thought points to the latter. I would say we are poor at real risk assessment due to being easily manipulated by fear so I would say we are deficient in powers that are very useful for everyday life.

a: Then those stupid groups died out and got replaced with by definition less stupid ones per evolutionary process. What remains today are people generally less stupid than those which went extinct millennia ago. Of course what qualifies as stupid might change with times, eg nukes, etc.

M: Yes but that didn't happen because of greater capacity to manipulate but by the functioning of the synergy provided by better ideas [persuasions] verified and supported by the group. One hand has to wash the other. It isn't the degree of persuasion or the lack of vulnerable to being manipulated that matters but how well a group follows a plan that has adaptive value over the plans of another group. And those plans are cultural and technical innovations that in my opinion are the result of our capacity to mirror and manipulate reality in our head, to experience insights, visions, and possibilities like dreams. We only use language to express them and make them concrete later after we've seen. The scientific method is one way we persuade each other that something works as claimed. Boyles law, for example, describes why gases act as they do. Once you understand that heat causes molecules to move with greater energy, you can see the whole thing in your head


a: Pain is a signal for some reaction to remove/alter its source, and nothing unusual in the short brutal life of animals. It's only in the cushy first world that we wonder why it cannot be absolutely resolved. In any case the body/mind naturally seems to attenuate pain with time if nothing can be done about it, like the bum knee which remains bothersome but you or anything animal gets used to, especially if there's some greater priority afoot.

M: This has nothing to do with repressed memory. The theory of repressed memory in not a theory to those who remember.

a: to facts, some elements of western culture for various historical reasons accentuate their importance. There's no natural reason for facts to be important per se before relatively modern times.

M: For millions of years in our evolution it was important that our ancestors knew the fact that a leopard will eat you. I do not understand what possible definition of facts you are using to validate your claim.



"Hurt" is a feeling just like any psychochemical reaction somehow encoding in the DNA and brought out through interaction with the physical world. We simply have no clue how it works mechanically due to the immense complexity of the system, even though some try using oversimplified concepts just like our ancestors did with the sun and moon before more advanced tools.[/QUOTE]

 

[agent00f]

agent00f: Sure, the point of argument theory is that the power of persuasion (incl the other side of the equation) is what drove the adoption of sophisticated language/reason.

M: I would think that the evolution of sophisticated language was more driven by its capacity to pass experience from one generation to the next without having to learn everything afresh each new generation.

Yet only a portion of everyday speech has to do with simply conveying information; consider what we're doing here.

a: Relativity & such discovery are again merely side-effects of causal curiosity, unless you believe somehow humans were designed/evolve for that purpose. The same way that fingers can use keyboards or whatever (and not chips), even though they hardly evolved for it.

M: I assume that causal curiosity means curiosity about causes, why things are as they are.....? Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back. I think that is pretty much the why of curiosity. It is a net plus for survival. It causes learning and I believe it is innate.

The anthropomorphic causes we naturally come up with are not very sound, esp provided some sophisticated knowledge of the world. This demonstrates the point that any such sophisticated knowledge only a tiny fraction of the population happened onto was not inherent to the underlying process, but rather only byproduct of a process developed for other purposes, as is commonly the case in evolution.

a: The point here is that we're evidently terrible at figuring anything uncommon to everyday reality, which is rather convincing evidence that we have no real special powers outside of that's useful for everyday life.

M: I don't agree with that point nor do I think the earlier thought points to the latter. I would say we are poor at real risk assessment due to being easily manipulated by fear so I would say we are deficient in powers that are very useful for everyday life.

No, humans are very well adapted for everyday life, esp that on the east african plain or close enough around the planet, as evidenced by squeezing out competitors in a very competitive environment.

It might be the case that feelings of fear and such are less accurate than a full flotilla of modern analytical tools & knowledge base or some fanciful ideal, but they're certainly better than anything else seen in nature heretofore.

a: Then those stupid groups died out and got replaced with by definition less stupid ones per evolutionary process. What remains today are people generally less stupid than those which went extinct millennia ago. Of course what qualifies as stupid might change with times, eg nukes, etc.

M: Yes but that didn't happen because of greater capacity to manipulate but by the functioning of the synergy provided by better ideas [persuasions] verified and supported by the group. One hand has to wash the other. It isn't the degree of persuasion or the lack of vulnerable to being manipulated that matters but how well a group follows a plan that has adaptive value over the plans of another group.

It's rather evident there's great strength in numbers, particularly with the level of technology existed for nearly all of human evolution. A leader of 500 eager followers will simply beat one with 10.

And those plans are cultural and technical innovations that in my opinion are the result of our capacity to mirror and manipulate reality in our head, to experience insights, visions, and possibilities like dreams. We only use language to express them and make them concrete later after we've seen. The scientific method is one way we persuade each other that something works as claimed. Boyles law, for example, describes why gases act as they do. Once you understand that heat causes molecules to move with greater energy, you can see the whole thing in your head

Language is so inherent to reasoning & rationalizing & persuasion that they might as well be synonyms. Of course the mind/brain might have other portions related to spacial awareness & such, but there is no human rationalization/persuasion without language & vice versa.

a: Pain is a signal for some reaction to remove/alter its source, and nothing unusual in the short brutal life of animals. It's only in the cushy first world that we wonder why it cannot be absolutely resolved. In any case the body/mind naturally seems to attenuate pain with time if nothing can be done about it, like the bum knee which remains bothersome but you or anything animal gets used to, especially if there's some greater priority afoot.

M: This has nothing to do with repressed memory. The theory of repressed memory in not a theory to those who remember.

Your claim was our unique ability to repress pain, mine was that deprioritization of pains seems a natural evolutionary advantage for all species that can experience it. It certainly doesn't mean what causes the pain is gone, just that if you can live with it there are potentially more important things to mind in a world full of dangers.

There's also no reason to believe what is repressed is necessarily great insight only waiting to be freed. Consider the possibility that the journey undertaken (presumably by yourself) to discover whatever it is that's found was itself the discovery, instead of what's supposed to be at the end of the rainbow.

a: to facts, some elements of western culture for various historical reasons accentuate their importance. There's no natural reason for facts to be important per se before relatively modern times.

M: For millions of years in our evolution it was important that our ancestors knew the fact that a leopard will eat you. I do not understand what possible definition of facts you are using to validate your claim.

What separates us from the leopards was the first guy to figure out how to convince others to join together to overcome the leopards of the world, in spite of the "fact" that a leopard will eat you. We've since paved that path over to the degree that it's far more important to success in life to go along to get alone than any sort of fact finding mission.

 

[lopri]

Basically, you have fox/breitbart/talk radio crap on the right, and then everyone else on the left. How far left depends on the outlet, from far left insanity like slate, huffpo or salon to just normal leftist drivel like CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS etc etc.

Another factor that is getting bigger and bigger is that many / most people now get their "news" and commentary from social media. All the major social media outlets -- facebook, twitter, google etc are all obvious major supporters of the dems, and they do everything they can to push the lefties, from messing with newsfeeds, trending items, shadow banning or outright banning people based on political views, censoring topics etc etc etc. It's not a type of evil conspiracy where they all sit in a room and decide to do something, but rather that they support one political ideology and use their media platform to support it. No conspiracy needed, just the facts.

Thanks for the reply. Do ABC, CBS, and NBC have liberal bent? I do not get news from them so I had no idea. I thought they were generally report things dryly and dispassionately.

I do not know if you can blame online outlets for liberal bias, when it is easy to create one for yourself and therefore there are so many of them, from the left to the right. (BTW I have to disagree with your designation of "Far Left" on Slate, Huffingtonpost, or even Salon. You should take a look at The Nation, Jacobin instead.) As to the social media, do you have any proof that anyone who is not violating code of conduct (you know, the things that you agree with when you sign on) are penalized? I assume they have to cover their asses against prospective lawsuits (e.g harassment).

Edit: WRT CNN - I thought they had the best Trump defenders? Granted the allegation about Donna Brazile's conduct is jarring (CNN should get rid of her if it turns out to be true), but she is but one individual who is there as a Clinton Supporter.

 

[OverVolt]

"Anti-bigotry is the real bigotry."

Because what the democrats are doing now is helping race relations? I actually live in a multi-cultural area and tensions have been doing nothing but rising. Anyone who actually lives near any of these areas can tell you that. There is a change in the air. Good job dude, you can tweet about it from your 87% white gated community or whatever and feel good about yourself while skimming cnn to see which city burns next.

We can keep a running list if you'd like.

Milwaukee
Baltimore
Charlotte
Ferguson

You think its funny or some shit but those cities will be economically devastated.

 

[MongGrel]

Because what the democrats are doing now is helping race relations? I actually live in a multi-cultural area and tensions have been doing nothing but rising. Anyone who actually lives near any of these areas can tell you that. There is a change in the air. Good job dude, you can tweet about it from your 87% white gated community or whatever and feel good about yourself while skimming cnn to see which city burns next.

We can keep a running list if you'd like.

Milwaukee
Baltimore
Charlotte
Ferguson

You think its funny or some shit but those cities will be economically devastated.

I do not even know wtf you are thinking half the time to be honest.

You seem to have some weird vacillating mind.

Maybe should nail down what you actually support someday.

 

[Jhhnn]

I do not even know wtf you are thinking half the time to be honest.

You seem to have some weird vacillating mind.

Maybe should nail down what you actually support someday.

He's fear mongering. Better buy more guns & stock up on ammo.