Random Thoughts XIV: Pizza, Pomegranate Juice, and Shreddies

[amadeus]

Just saw a Twitter user with the flags of the UK, Russia and Israel in his username.

Someone should make some sort of a record of these flag combinations

well this turned out to be hideous

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I don't know if this is just me, or something about pop culture today.

So many movies and TV shows from past decades are readily available via DVD and streaming services now that it's no longer a case of "you had to be there" to be able to pinpoint the decade.

Take Dallas, for instance. I've seen every episode of the first series (never saw any of the reboot). In 1979 it seemed glamorous, but as the years went by and the show expanded and had better and more expensive production values, that original Ewing Oil office seemed so tiny and drab. And then the mid-'80s came along with women having Big Hair and Sue Ellen wore Gigantic Shoulder Pads That Inspired The Fashion Sense Of The Entire Romulan Empire... yikes.

Some shows age better than others. A couple of months ago I watched an episode of the original Hawaii-5-0 series. The only thing that made it strange to me (other than the cars) was that some characters were smoking. You don't see much of that now, at least not on network TV.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Smoking is all the rage on most of the shows I watch.

 

[Hygro]

On a highly abstracted level, I think leftwing people are willing to accept what they don't like to get what they do, whereas rightwing people are those who are ready to give up what they like to prevent what they don't like.

Spoiler a brief trot int the weeds :

So the coalitions divide based on the "50%" that really don't want one or more things that the other "50%" do or accept. And then the math is less straightforward but still conceptually similar, like, maybe 10% really really don't like what only 15% do want, (with the other 75% not caring). But that 15% is agreeing to give the rest of the "pro" side their support, so the pro side endorses it, and the 10% hates it so will join the "anti" side their coalition, and for whatever reason, these people can't be rearranged in the current moment, until new things to support and oppose emerge or opinions change for whatever reason.

 

[EgonSpengler]

On a highly abstracted level, I think leftwing people are willing to accept what they don't like to get what they do, whereas rightwing people are those who are ready to give up what they like to prevent what they don't like.

Spoiler a brief trot int the weeds :

So the coalitions divide based on the "50%" that really don't want one or more things that the other "50%" do or accept. And then the math is less straightforward but still conceptually similar, like, maybe 10% really really don't like what only 15% do want, (with the other 75% not caring). But that 15% is agreeing to give the rest of the "pro" side their support, so the pro side endorses it, and the 10% hates it so will join the "anti" side their coalition, and for whatever reason, these people can't be rearranged in the current moment, until new things to support and oppose emerge or opinions change for whatever reason.

I like the hypothesis. If you decide to put it to some kind of test, I'd be curious to see what you find.

Here's an interesting Scientific American article that similarly tries to understand the American Left & Right on something more fundamental than just our present policies or our positions on current events & 'hot' topics, which of course shift and become inconsistent:

Conservative and Liberal Brains Might Have Some Real Differences

Scanners try to watch the red-blue divide play out underneath the skull

www.scientificamerican.com

On the whole, the research shows, conservatives desire security, predictability and authority more than liberals do, and liberals are more comfortable with novelty, nuance and complexity.

While these findings are remarkably consistent, they are probabilities, not certainties—meaning there is plenty of individual variability.

This part was interesting:

The volume of gray matter, or neural cell bodies, making up the anterior cingulate cortex, an area that helps detect errors and resolve conflicts, tends to be larger in liberals. And the amygdala, which is important for regulating emotions and evaluating threats, is larger in conservatives.

Just as most of us like to think we are good-hearted human beings, people generally prefer to believe that the society they live in is desirable, fair and legitimate. “Even if society isn’t perfect, and there are things to be criticized about it, there is a preference to think that you live in a good society,” Nam says. When that preference is particularly strong, she adds, “that can lead to things like simply rationalizing or accepting long-standing inequalities or injustices.” Psychologists call the cognitive process that lets us do so “system justification.”

Nam and her colleagues[...] found that the volume of gray matter in the amygdala is linked to the tendency to perceive the social system as legitimate and desirable.

And the Pew Research Center tried to break down the American Left & Right into different subgroups:

Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology

Pew Research Center’s political typology provides a roadmap to today’s fractured political landscape. It segments the public into nine distinct groups, based on an analysis of their attitudes and values.

www.pewresearch.org

 

[Samson]

This part was interesting:

It is certainly interesting, but I am not convinced they demonstrate an "arrow" for this effect. I think it could be interpreted as system justification causes cell body growth in the amygdala as well as the opposite.

It is not like the effect is massive (two separate studies of the same thing, all the datapoints are here):

 

[EgonSpengler]

It is certainly interesting, but I am not convinced they demonstrate an "arrow" for this effect. I think it could be interpreted as system justification causes cell body growth in the amygdala as well as the opposite.

Well, they don't try to.

There is also an unresolved chicken-and-egg problem: Do brains start out processing the world differently or do they become increasingly different as our politics evolve?

And of course it may not be one or the other, it could be a cyclical relationship. Perhaps our brains start out leaning one way, but then their development (and iirc our brains do continue developing, for something like the first 20-25 years of our lives) is influenced by environmental factors. In terms of both nature-v-nurture and cause-v-correlation, the answer could be 'both.' Whether it's a 'vicious' or a 'virtuous' cycle I suppose is in the eye of the beholder.

It is not like the effect is massive (two separate studies of the same thing, all the datapoints are here):

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Here's a random thought: Mint-flavored Aero bars are delicious!

 

[Arakhor]

I've always liked mint chocolate, yes.

 

[Takhisis]

Is mint chocolate a trick designed to make its consumers assuage their guilt about not brushing their teeth or something?

 

[Synobun]

Brushing teeth? What's that?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Mint and chocolate actually do go together pretty well. I bought what I thought was some peppermint bark because I like that as a treat for Christmas. I didn't look closely enough at the package to notice that it had chocolate too. Initially, I thought, "Shucks, I didn't get what I wanted." But then when I was eating them, I liked them just fine. Sharpness of mint, mellowness of chocolate.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Don't know about Aero, but we have wafer-thin 'After Eight's here, and they're simply divine.

Pity they're so expensive

 

[Gori the Grey]

York Peppermint Patties, too.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Mint and chocolate actually do go together pretty well. I bought what I thought was some peppermint bark because I like that as a treat for Christmas. I didn't look closely enough at the package to notice that it had chocolate too. Initially, I thought, "Shucks, I didn't get what I wanted." But then when I was eating them, I liked them just fine. Sharpness of mint, mellowness of chocolate.

I've liked mint chocolate ever since the first time I had a Laura Secord French Mint chocolate bar. Sadly, they don't make those anymore.

Don't know about Aero, but we have wafer-thin 'After Eight's here, and they're simply divine.

Pity they're so expensive

We have After Eight in Canada as well, and they are insanely expensive.

 

[Synobun]

I've never actually had mint chocolate, despite how prolific it is. If a store has a different flavour, it's probably mint. And yet.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I've never actually had mint chocolate, despite how prolific it is. If a store has a different flavour, it's probably mint. And yet.

You're missing something wonderful.

 

[amadeus]

Atheists that are all up in my business about religion being illogical, you know what, you should worship the sun. You know it’s there, you can see it, and if that thing craps out on us then we’re all gonna be in trouble.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Atheists that are all up in my business about religion being illogical, you know what, you should worship the sun. You know it’s there, you can see it, and if that thing craps out on us then we’re all gonna be in trouble.

 

[amadeus]

that guy is huge