>> ^Throbbin:

As one who studies and will one day practice Political Science, I'm offended. I can tell you about the conditions and prerequesites for the development of democratic institutions with the same certainty that a biologist can tell you about the conditions and prerequesites for bacterial growth to take place.


i studied political science and practiced law.
one is not a science, and the other has nothing to do with justice

Thanks for the promote.
In reply to this comment by legacy0100:
I love it! *promote Evolutionary Social Science!

I love it! *promote Evolutionary Social Science!

It's been a bit of a social science experiment.

For decades now the west has been telling it's children that they are all special and unique precious flowers. Their self esteem has been stroked and coddled. They've been protected from anything in their life ever being "hard".

Now there is a huge number of depressed, disenchanted youth all expecting to be ceo', celebrities and sport stars and unwilling to put in a hard days work and start at the bottom.

@enoch & @IAmTheBlurr: Spiral dynamics is not for everyone... and there is very little empiricism to back it up because the bases upon which the different levels are concerned have not been qualitatively elucidated sufficiently enough to study them, to say nothing of the scientific method, itself, as being contingent upon certain assumptions within a given level of consciousness and not others.

However, if you were to adopt the philosopher, Hans Vaihinger's postulate of "As If," you may find a utility of the theoretical orientation which extends beyond its empirical accuracy. That is to say, "So what if it's bullshit, so long as it's useful?" This goes for many of the theories that are widely used in the social sciences, including Abe Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" among others.

That said, we should note that none of this "spiral dynamics" theory is very original. The concept of the "evolution of consciousness" is itself the basis of much of early Vedas in Hinduism which are nearly 5 thousand of years old.. However, the theory has become more codified in the 20th century by mystics and scholars such as Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Clare Graves, Edward Haskell, Arthur Young, Erich Jantsch, Jean Gebser, and, most recently, by Ken Wilber.

Of these, I'd have to say the following books are worth reading:

Aurobindo's The Life Divine & Synthesis of Yoga
de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man
Gebser's The Ever-Present Origin
Wilber's Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

(partly because I haven't read the others' works)

Scientists "generally" don't want to trouble themselves with the social sciences as many of them are either socially awkward and cannot relate to the average human, or they simply see things on a grander scale than our petty human problems.

That's what I would think, anyway...

Funny that you should tell KnivesOut to educate himself and refer him to a link to wikipedia when in a previous comment you said "quoting from the liberally biased wikipedia doesn't help your case.". So are you suggesting that a liberal bias only helps your case and not anybody else's? It's also funny that you should be telling people to educate themselves about NLP when in your comment on your video you call NLP " the mind control technique of NLP, which is nero logistical programming". Seriously, NERO LOGISTICAL???? I give up, for me that pretty much somes up your intellectual investment in this thread.

PS: To quote wikipedia "NLP has been largely ignored by conventional social science in part due to a lack of professional credibility and insufficient empirical evidence to substantiate its effectiveness,[14][15] and is characterized by its critics, mainly psychologists, as a fringe psychotherapy or as having pseudoscientific characteristics, disputing its title, concepts, and terminology".>> ^shinyblurry:

medicare is unconstitutional, humanists have conspired to replace creation with evolution (i have 100 quotes from secular humanists proving this), this world will end climate change or not, and all sin leads to death
in any case, NLP isnt something the AAPS came up with..why dont you read a little bit about it and educate yourself
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming
a lot of famous "magicians" use it in their acts..for example, when they go up to someone and say a bunch of nonsense words and phrases in rapid succession and the subject collapses like a switch was flipped..thats NLP
>> ^KnivesOut:
Some of the other lies published by the Association of American Physicians:

• that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are unconstitutional


• that "humanists" have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution


• that human activity has not contributed to climate change, and that global warming will be beneficial and thus not a cause for concern


• that HIV does not cause AIDS


• that the "gay male lifestyle" shortens life expectancy by 20 years.

---
I can only work with proven results, not what others want things to be or theorize is possible. Obamanomics has failed to deliver prosperity, and this may be because increasing prosperity is not what it's designed to do. It could be working beautifully if its goal is to increase dependency on government and curtail American influence worldwide.

REAL American unemployment is currently 18%, not the BS that D.C. is spouting. 2 to 3% more wouldn't even register with the crew in D.C.
---

You cannot 'prove' anything in a social science. What you can do is historically look at past crises and see what worked and what didn't.

Financial crises historically have high levels of unemployment following them. This is because as in this case for the US, consumers have overspent and must spend years rebuilding their savings levels. As they rebuild them, demand is low, the demand for employees is low, and there is relatively higher unemployment.

This is historically accurate for Latin America's debt crisis in 1982, the 1990 asset bubble bust in Japan and so far entirely consistent for the financial crisis in the US.

The way you label fiscal stimulus as Obamanomics leads me to believe you think that his policies are idiosynchractic and unique. They are not. Virtually every country in the world hit by the global financial crisis has enacted the same combination of direct spending, lower taxes and looser monetary policy. You would be well advised to be aware of this.

Also, despite what you may claim, the fact that unemployment is high and has risen under Obama is not evidence that his policies have not worked. In fact again there is historical evidence to suggest the US has fared better than other countries. See the first graph below:

http://www.economist.com/node/17041738

Unemployment is measured by virtually all countries as the number of unemployed out of the proportion actively seeking work. Yes, this is not an accurate measure when previous employees have been discouraged from looking for work and have dropped out, but it is consistent with most measures used internationally.

---
Though the government obviously denies it, the origins of this financial crisis were largely the fault of government policies and meddling.

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot."

----Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Secretary of the Treasury

Keynesian economic theory does not work. It mistakes action for results. Despite enormous spending (which began as Bush was sunsetting) Obamanomics hasn't created any jobs, unless you count the temporary kick of the useless Census.

The American people have the wealth and are indeed holding onto it. There are 2 trillion dollars in assets waiting to rejoin the economy. So why don't people jump in again?

No sane business is going to invest heavily or hire workers with our leftists in power, threatening to tax everything in sight and "punish" profits. This current govt--even with the coming Republicans in January--also offers no stability or confidence, and I don't expect this to change anytime soon.

The current US Secretary of the Treasury is a tax cheat, and well before they installed the SOB they knew he was a tax cheat. Does it get any more obvious the lack of integrity and disdain for the public harbored by the crew in DC.
---

I agree that the financial crisis has much to do with government meddling. Policymakers in the US have historically encouraged the quintessential notion of homeownership frivolously and irresponsibly. At the other end equally though, predatory lending exacerbated the issue. Left to their own devices, banks knew full well that they could generate huge returns by lending, and then selling off those financial assets to wipe themselves clean of risk. They also knew that if worst came to worst, the government would bail them out as they were too integral to the functioning of the world economy. Both less intervention and more regulation was necessary to prevent what happened.

Either of these 2 factors in and of itself would have led to a crisis sooner than later, would you not agree?

I can't take a quote seriously that skips over text 3 times in 4 lines. For all you know, the original intent has been completely manipulated. For all you know (based on previous experience) this wasn't even SAID by who it's claimed to have been said by.

Besides, there is no evidence there. It is someone's opinion, without any facts, without any figures. Nothing to substantiate what is being said. I genuinely hope you don't rely on people's pure opinions as gospel and factcheck what you read.

Again, you are simply wrong the stimulus has not created jobs. It has created both permanent jobs by giving subsidies to industries, and temporary jobs to prevent skills loss from unemployed workers:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-08-30-stimulus30_CV_N.htm

Read the title of the article above.

Frankly, how is it POSSIBLE that you think it hasn't created any jobs? Where do you think the money goes? Do you think it's laundered into people's bank accounts and shipped overseas? How can you possibly think that a stimulus has not created any jobs? That the only jobs it has created are for the census is a typical right wing talking point from what I hear. Again, I implore you to consult some less idealogical sources without absolutist views.

Not to go on a tangent here, but how often have these sources you rely on information for actually lauded something that Obama has done? Do you really think it is possible that Obama has done nothing good, or let alone nothing that ideologically they would agree on? Take for example the increased drone strikes in Pakistan, relative to even Bush. This seems like a clear cut policy that right wing pundits and blogs would laud. Why is there no one mentioning this?

Or do you think that possibly, just possibly, they have an agenda or an absolutist view with which they perceive the Democrats and the left-wing that blinds them to anything that doesn't conform to their predisposed views that Democrats = bad?

Why would you want to emulate and follow the opinions of someone who cannot look at things at face value?

For your comment on why investors are not investing, they are not investing because of the debt which will worsen if taxes fall - this is historically proven as fact. But let's say for argument that taxes were drastically reduced. Demand is still low in the US though. People are still rebuilding their balance sheets. What will the multinational and wealthy corporations do with this excess revenue?

They will invest it overseas in developing markets with high growth rates. Lower taxes will be paying for growth in foreign countries. Since the money will be invested elsewhere, even less of it will be reaped back in tax revenue. Growth overseas will be rising while the US is falling further and further into debt default.

I am curious where exactly you don't agree with this logic.

I have nothing cogent to say against your notion that Democrats want to punish profits.

It does not make sense.

The buy-up of bank and auto industry stocks is being relinquished. Citibank recently bought back some of these shares, and the government made a profit. The auto industry is making a profit. There is simply no evidence that Obama wants to nationalize anything. There is no public option. The independent review committee to trim Medicare will MINIMIZE government involvement, something the right quite hypocritically, is against.

How is it not obvious that punishing profits would be bad politics? How is it not obvious that doing this would not win votes? Where is your evidence that he intends to do this? The health care plan is deficit neutral. Financial reform will reduce risk.

Will taxes have to rise? Sure, because without that, the budget will never return to neutral. This is fact. Cutting social policies by that much is not feasible. Why do you blame Obama for this and not Bush who allowed this to fester during prolonged periods of economic growth? Would you rather the problem fester while taxes are kept low and imperil the whole economy in the process? There are only those two options.

Also, I think I laid out, what is a pretty simple and logical explaining of fiscal policy, and why it works.

Where do you disagree with it?

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Well, like you or anyone else, I'm just as likely to vote to stop the other side as promote my own. Where you live, govt is seen as a benevolent force for good. And as you can probably attest, you pay through the nose for the government services provided.

Individual > State = America

State > Individual = everywhere else

If the Republicans don't repeal or de-fund obamacare they are finished.
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The funny this is, if I were making the same as I am not in the US, I would be paying nearly the same in taxes.

I'm a recent university grad and make 60K/year.

I pay 15% between 6-35k, and 30% between 35-60k. (4350 + 7500 = $11850)

The US income brackets are very similar.

For me they would be, 10% between 0 - $8375, 15% between $8376 - $34,000 and 25% between $34,000 - $60,000. (838 + 3844 + 6500 = 11182)

So let's see. I'm paying roughly $700 more (a bit more actually, say $1000 for argument considering the exchange rate of 0.95, but close enough) for free universal access to hospital treatment and subsidized out of hospital expenses; for generous unemployment benefits if I ever lose my job. For university cost assistance, despite the fact that I could easily pay off my university debt if I lived at home with minimal expenses in one year (It's ~25k from 5 years of study with nothing paid back yet). I hear that in the US for Ivy league schools it can be 20-30K US A YEAR. I mean that last point alone MORE THAN makes up for the difference. Frankly any of those do by themselves. I also have great job prospects being in an economy that never officially went into recession (only one quarter of negative growth) with a private sector one lined up for next year.

To sum up, I'm actually paying only 1.7% more in taxes for a WHOLE HEAP of benefits.

How is that a bad deal?

Incidentally much of our (Australia's) economic success can be attributed to good bank regulation than anything else. If you are curious I can elaborate on this.

>> ^ajkido:

>> ^Trancecoach:
The behavioral conditioning research undercuts the scientific method and does not take into account the phenomenological experiences of either the research subject or the researcher. This speaker really needs to read more Merleau-Ponty, so his critical thought does not get stuck in the 1960s.

He should read a book from the 40s so that his mind wouldn't be stuck in the 60s?


If you read the book, you'd understand. Most of the social sciences haven't caught up to what this book was laying out in the 40s.

Interesting comments.

There was a recent study that concluded the female relatives of male homosexuals produce more offspring... so the idea is that these genes generally produce more offspring, but in rare circumstances produce much less offspring (because the person is homosexual).

That being said, there are also non-genetic biological forces at work in at least some forms of homosexuality. There was a study that concluded higher levels of stress hormones in the womb during certain periods of the fetus' neural development feminize certain parts of its brain.

So something can be largely biologically determined, even if it's not largely genetically determined.

>> ^highdileeho:

@ yogi, I don't have an answer, it would be arrogant to assume anyone does. I believe that the 'homosexual=genetic" idea has no real scientific basis YET. I don't think that it isn't true, or that it's a big consiparcy. I just think that without empirical evidence, people should not just accept this theory. Based on the evidence that supports the theory of genetics=homosexuality, it can simply be refuted with this theory. If homosexuality is genetic, why is it that these genes are not only being passed on, but that these genes seem to be increasing? Logic tells me that if your homosexual, then you are removing yourself from the gene pool, with a few exceptions like the douche in this story. Certianly over thousands of years we would likely see at least a reduction of this charctaristic. We can see a dying off of the red haired and left handed gene, but not the homosexual one? My point is that there isn't enough information to support one argument or the other, and we shouldn't be quick to accept either as being true or false without further scientific understanding. And yes, I have read the studies that suggest the genetic argument, but they are using social sciences as the basis for their research (hair whorlds and left handedness) and not the more scientificlly sound, human genome as evidence.
The woman was right, the language and intent of this law holds negative connotations and assumes that homosexuality is something to be cured, it is shamefull.

@ yogi, I don't have an answer, it would be arrogant to assume anyone does. I believe that the 'homosexual=genetic" idea has no real scientific basis YET. I don't think that it isn't true, or that it's a big consiparcy. I just think that without empirical evidence, people should not just accept this theory. Based on the evidence that supports the theory of genetics=homosexuality, it can simply be refuted with this theory. If homosexuality is genetic, why is it that these genes are not only being passed on, but that these genes seem to be increasing? Logic tells me that if your homosexual, then you are removing yourself from the gene pool, with a few exceptions like the douche in this story. Certianly over thousands of years we would likely see at least a reduction of this charctaristic. We can see a dying off of the red haired and left handed gene, but not the homosexual one? My point is that there isn't enough information to support one argument or the other, and we shouldn't be quick to accept either as being true or false without further scientific understanding. And yes, I have read the studies that suggest the genetic argument, but they are using social sciences as the basis for their research (hair whorlds and left handedness) and not the more scientificlly sound, human genome as evidence.

The woman was right, the language and intent of this law holds negative connotations and assumes that homosexuality is something to be cured, it is shamefull.

I was taught a word in grade eleven social sciences.. Ethnocentricity. I do belive it partakes in this subject.

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own. The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to their own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with concern to language, behavior, customs, and religion. These ethnic distinctions and sub-divisions serve to define each ethnicity's unique cultural identity.

Exactly, it's a social science, which should be treated entirely separately from traditional science which can perform experiments that isolate factors and not just rely on historical data. This doesn't change the fact that we're undoubtedly better off with economic theories than we are without them.

The trouble occurs when people who use them are not apprehensive enough of their limitations, specifically that they don't have the same rigorous backing of proper scientific theories. The assumption of perfect markets (perfect information, no barriers to entry, no anti-competitive power) is simply that, it will never exist in real life, people should treat it as such. That doesn't make the notion of the invisible hand any less valid in the vast majority of cases, as it can be readily demonstrated to occur in virtually every free market industry. Unlike traditional sciences though, there are clearly occasional exceptions or hiccups brought about by the assumptions the idea underpins and they should always be kept in mind.

I understand all that, really I do. It's precisely -why- I don't consider the social sciences to -be- sciences. They're studies, philosophies, schools of thought, just like Aristotle's version of physics. But they simply don't meet the some of the most basic requirements (repeatable experimental tests of hypotheses) to be science. Now, many of these schools -could- run such experiments, but in most cases I don't see how you can do so in an ethical fashion and get meaningful results. Maybe in a hundred years or so, they'll have worked around these limitations, but not today.

I find it amusing that if you ask six economists/psychologists/sociologists for specific predictions about a specific situation, you're most likely going to get seven different answers.

@Stormsinger, it's a social science, which means that ultimately you have a very severe limitation -- you can't really run experiments.

We can't roll the clock back, put strong banking regulations in place in the US, and then see whether that would have helped.

Instead you have to look at how different economies reacted to similar issues, and try to draw conclusions by way of comparison, like Krugman does in this article where he compares the US, Ireland, and Canada during the current crisis.

You also have to look at historical situations (lots of people talking about the Great Depression and how studying that can inform what we do now).