DAMN!!! Just got back from work and spent the night listening to a workmate giving me the lowdown on DS9 S4-7
FANTASTIC!!!
Spoiler:
FANTASTIC!!!
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You have been misslead[SPOILERS]Odo never got married. The rest is true excepet the Dominion didn't occupy DS9 for half a season. It was the first six episodes of a certain.Originally posted by radiosgalore View PostOriginally posted by aretood2Comment
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"We're grown-ups now and it's our turn to decide what that means." - xkcd
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I seriously doubt most liberals truly believe that there is a vast right-wing conspiracy. IMO it's just silly hatred for one another that makes liberals and conservatives spout off stuff at one another. The media fuels "stinking thinking" like this, so it gets played up more than it should. Democrats and Republicans alike accuse each other of ridiculous conspiracies because they want to win no matter how much BS they have to shovel.Originally posted by Rac80 View PostLOL, I just remembered hillary's whining that the problems bill had (aka monica) were caused by a "vast right wing conspiracy"! As a psychology major, I find it quite interesting recently that the APA (american Psychological Association) has decided that believing in conspiracy theories is a part of some OCDs (obsessive-compulsive disorders) and can be treated with meds! Wonder if hillary has new meds
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That bumper sticker is as funny as the Monica Lewinsky's ex-Boyfriend for President 2008 bumper sticker I got. Funny stuff!.Originally posted by Rac80
There are quite a few conservative/Republicans here in the Golden State and the number is continiously growing. Unfortunetly there are also quite a few RhINO's (Republican's In Name Only) that live and vote in California.Originally posted by jelgate View PostComment
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You would be surprised at what some liberals beleive.... that has been a challenge for me in college these past few years... too many young heads "full of mush" who really don't understand the world. I have met college students and professors who truly beleive in a right wing conspiracy, others who beleive that the CIA started the crack epidemic in south central LA (well representative maxine waters of california beleives that too-- has said it on the floor of the house). It is scary how well our colleges are indoctrinating the students. Being older has given me an advantage though. Having "been there and done that" and witnessed so much modern history has enabled me to dispell some very wrong facts in textbooks (is anyone else here old enough to remember "the misery index" from the carter year? I had a textbook call it the "discomfort index"... no one ever called it that on the evening news!) Some of my professors have had to admit that their view of history is simply wrong (especially when i am older than the profs too)Originally posted by the Fifth Race View PostI seriously doubt most liberals truly believe that there is a vast right-wing conspiracy. IMO it's just silly hatred for one another that makes liberals and conservatives spout off stuff at one another. The media fuels "stinking thinking" like this, so it gets played up more than it should. Democrats and Republicans alike accuse each other of ridiculous conspiracies because they want to win no matter how much BS they have to shovel.
That bumper sticker is as funny as the Monica Lewinsky's ex-Boyfriend for President 2008 bumper sticker I got. Funny stuff!.
There are quite a few conservative/Republicans here in the Golden State and the number is continiously growing. Unfortunetly there are also quite a few RhINO's (Republican's In Name Only) that live and vote in California.
methinks the RhINOs are going to force mccain on the party.... but I still won't vote for him!!!Comment
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Its fun telling lies about your politicail beliefs so you can pass a classOriginally posted by aretood2Comment
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I mentioned on earlier post how a 10th grade English teacher I had brain-washed me and most of our class into republican/Reagan hating, anti-nuke protesting automatons. I really had no idea what Democrats and Republicans represented at my age, so I could'nt form any kind of educated opinion on what my beliefs would represent. I do believe that the US Press is slanted towards liberalism (a lot of independant groups have proved this to be true), I also believe that there are far to many left-wing teachers and professors that try to steer there students towards liberalism.Originally posted by Rac80 View Post
NOTHING trumps Wisdom and life experience when it comes to forming political beliefs. Most people when they get older and start making money they tend to become conservatives, I am in that category.Originally posted by Rac80
What I remember about the Jimmy Carter administration was ... failed Iran hostage rescue, soaring inflation, ultra-liberal policies, peanut farming and Billy Beer. I have read a couple different lists that have Carter as one of the worst rated American Presidents ever.Comment
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hold on as sec. Forgive me if i'm out of order here but polotics is a load of crap IMHO. The Thread topic however is much more interesting. Should have season 5 within 24 hours and then spend most of saturday watching back to back :-DComment
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This is true, but the reason you are insinuating is not the main reason why it happens. I've divided this into sections for easy reading. The first 2 sections are setup, and the 3rd one is an example. The last section is the only really important one, and I repeat myself there a bit. So you can skip the first 3 unless you really want to tear apart what I said.Originally posted by Starbase View Post
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There are a few stages that people go through in their lives:
Believing what their parents/teachers/religiousleaders tell them. Many people eventually grow out of this, but a surprising number of people stay like this for their entire lives, never progressing to stage 2. I call such people "nutjobs". They can be of any political or religious persuasion.
Forming their own opinions, sometimes based on fact, sometimes not. People tend to be rather fluid in this stage of their lives. Anyone who makes it this far invariably goes on to stage 3.
Solidifying their opinions. People eventually form solid opinions on many subjects. After a person holds an opinion for a while, that opinion rarely changes, even when additional evidence comes into play (*cough*oldpeople*cough*). "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."
I didn't put down any ages because everyone is different. But in the end it tends to be young people who are the deepest in stage one, and old people who are the deepest in stage 3.
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When people are in stage two they invariably form their opinions based on both their interaction with their peers and the information they absorb from various sources (in other words "they experience life, and make judgment calls"). What this means is that while individual opinions may vary, people that are of the same age tend to have similar opinions, because the same overarching world events have happened to them. They will have experience recessions at the same time in their lives, they will have been the same age while watching various world leaders do their thing (good or bad), and they'll have witnessed the same natural disasters through Mass Media.
Of course, there are major differences in each person, and some will lean in one direction while others will lean in another direction, all based on their own, personal experiences. They will have similar opinions, but that doesn't mean they won't have opposite opinions. It just means their opinions will be based on the same events, and they will be structured in the same way.
As time goes on and those people age, several things happen to them. First off, humans have something called "perception bias". This worms its way into many areas of our lives. It means we tend to remember what we wish to remember, and see things how we wish to see them. In this specific case it means that most people like to remember good things and forget the bad things. That's only natural. As time goes on people tend to forget bad events more and more, and remember only the good times (note that this doesn't hold true for traumatic experiences, only for everyday things. Any type of stressful experience, good or bad, will stay with you forever).
There is one other effect to consider: over time, human culture changes. It goes up and down and sideways, and it doesn't necessarily progress, but it changes. Children will slowly move away from their parents opinions (usually, as noted it point number 1) and form their own view on what the world is like. To a parent this seems strange, because the parent has already decided that their world view is Correct, with a capital C. But they usually live with it and shrug their shoulders. The average human generation is 20 to 30 years apart now (use to be much shorter), so it is entirely possible for 60 year old grandparent to see their grandchild start to move away from the position of their parent. This seems even weirder to the grandparent, because from their point of view their grandchild is deviating from the already deviant position of their child.
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All three of these effects feed on each other. "Crazy youngsters! Always going around and doing crazy stuff! Why, when I was their age, things were right I tells ya! We did things good back then! I remember. We didn't drive to school, we walked! Uphill, both ways! Through ten feet of snow! Barefoot! And we were dressed in rags! And we thought it was the best thing ever! None of this laziness we see today!"
(I'll note that it is entirely possible to walk somewhere "uphill, both ways", as long as you ignore the other side of that statement "downhill, both ways". Downhill was always the scary part for me.)
This is an extreme example, but I'm using it for the sake of ease of use, and because has always been part of common culture to chuckle at old people who say things like this. Just look at that statement, and then look at the three effects listed above.
First, that old person is solidified in their views. They aren't going to change their opinion at this stage. They've decided that young people are slothful, and anything they see reinforces that opinion, and evidence to the contrary is ignored. Who cares that back in the day their own school was only 1km away, while their grandchild's school is 15km away, across 5 freeways on the other side of an industrial park. Laziness! Plain and simple! They should walk like we did!
Then the perception bias kicks in. We LIKED walking to school! We wouldn't have drove even if we could! Snow was fun! Cold was fun! Playing with ragdolls was fun! Being poor was fun! Losing that toe to frostbite because they didn't have winter boots? ... I don't seem to remember that... I don't think I ever had a toe there... Having mother miscarry because they couldn't get to a doctor in time after she had complications because they didn't have a car? ... Don't really remember that either, to be honest... 30% of the population dying before they hit 25 due to simple bacterial infections because anti-biotics hadn't been invented yet? Bah! Those things will kill you you know!
And, of course, culture changes. Technology changes. Clothes change. But none of this is taken into consideration. Because of Perception Bias everything was better in the past, and therefore everything that exists now is at best adequate, and at worst new, confusing, and not worth looking at.
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But what does all this have to do with conservatism? Well, at its heart, the conservative stance is that "tradition is good, and new ideas are destroying everything that we have built up!" I'm not saying that is all there is to the conservative viewpoint. In fact, I doubt that any conservative actually thinks that way on a daily basis, or perhaps ever. But that is the root of the philosophy. In the same way, the core of the liberal philosophy is the opposite "tradition is bad, and new ideas must destroy what we have built up, because they'll lead to things that are even betterer!" (Both viewpoints are rather naive from my point of view, which is why I'm a straight centrist.)
But when you look at the core of conservatism and liberalism, what you see is that the definition of what is CURRENTLY conservative or liberal is in constant flux, even though the definition of each philosophy stays the same. As a young person ages, their liberal viewpoints will harden into what they consider "Fact", but at the same time, new people will be born who will view the world in an entirely different way. The old liberal viewpoints will be slowly displaced (because liberal naively means "new and even betterer!", and what is new changes over time), and the kiddies will slowly start to refer to those old liberal viewpoints as traditional (conservative).
So even though the view point of a person has already solidified and doesn't usually change much after they reach a certain age, as time passes they will steadily become more and more conservative from the point of view of society. Viewpoints that were once liberal slowly move into the conservative category over time, and the people who hold to those viewpoints get dragged along with the opinions they hold.
Disclaimer: This is a very simplified view of the process of conservatization, and it doesn't account for person tragedies or revelations anything like that that may cause major swings in any individual person. This is intended to explain society-wide shifts in viewpoints based on age and cultural change over time, not individual viewpoints.Comment
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It just occured to me that that entire 1500 word thing could have been simplfied down into the last paragraph without losing anything:
Well... that was a waste of half an hour...even though the view point of a person has already solidified and doesn't usually change much after they reach a certain age, as time passes they will steadily become more and more conservative from the point of view of society. Viewpoints that were once liberal slowly move into the conservative category over time, and the people who hold to those viewpoints get dragged along with the opinions they hold.Comment
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LOL to be so young! I may be "old people" but I got shoes older than youOriginally posted by gopher65 View Post
I have always been a conservative even though those around me were liberals (call it a desire to be contrary) Drives my family nutso! I do agree that what is liberal and conservative is often in flux, and changes from time to time, but within myself, my core values have always been the same. I call myself a fiscal conservative and a sort of social conservative. I have a social view (ie sex ed in schools) that make most full conservatives shudder.
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Interesting read, brother gopher! At the moment I can't imagine ever reaching stage 3, and I sure hope it isn't inevitable. Sounds scary
And I disagree, much would have been lost if I'd only read that last paragraph. No wasted half hours
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As an interesting side note; I tend to want to remember bad things more than good things. Whenever I think of a past good thing I get kinda sad because it's gone. Remembering bad things makes me like the present and look forward to the future.
"We're grown-ups now and it's our turn to decide what that means." - xkcd
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That was an interesting read brother gopher. Not only do we become more conservative with age for all the above stated reasons, but we also become more conservative because in this wonderful and crazy time in history we live in, life ain't easy. So inevitably, and IMHO, the conservative side of brain takes over your reasoning.Originally posted by gopher65 View PostComment
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And, in addition to that, ageing causes interesting changes in brain chemistry over time (that I in no way understand. I don't like chemistry and I hate biology. Put the two together and I'm lost. I'm more of a physics kinda guyOriginally posted by the Fifth Race View Post
). Reasoning centres shift a little bit, and cause things like this (that's also part of the reason why people become locked in their ways over time).
On a somewhat related note, I recently read an article that said that people become naturally more suggestible as they age in a linear manner. The article said that this is one of the reasons why it is easier to con the oldest of the old out of their money (vacuum cleaner salesmen, timeshares, Nigerian scam, etc all target ancient people). Previously it had been assumed that this was entirely due to older people not being familiar with changing technology and slang.
It's interesting because I've noted this very thing in my parents as they've got older. They're only early 50's now, but they are already more suggestible than they were 15 years ago.Comment
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