Why does the state even manage marriage? If the argument that it is moral tyranny to disallow people of same sexes to be married, then it should be the same moral tyranny to say that people whom are married are entitled to a greater cut of government subsidy. It would be the government endorsing marriage over other types of relationships, which would be moral oppression against those individuals. Let people enter into their own types of relationships, we don't need state management of it please.

52% ≠ "will of the people".

>> ^chilaxe:

52% ≠ "will of the people".


Last couple of presidents don't satisfy that condition either then. Don't get me wrong, this is a horrible law, but your example is perfect for the effects of the tyranny of the majority

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Last couple of presidents don't satisfy that condition either then.>
Isn't that the entire problem with politics? Politics seems to be just two permanently incompatible neurogenetic clusters taking turns dominating each other.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Your example is perfect for the effects of the tyranny of the majority
I'm not sure what you mean by this part. I was arguing against tyranny of the majority.

Right, I was agreeing with you. I guess my phrasing is crapola though. My grasp of English is that of a child's.

>> ^chilaxe:

Isn't that the entire problem with politics? Politics seems to be just two permanently incompatible neurogenetic clusters taking turns dominating each other.

Wow, that's going a lot further than the usual "tyranny of the majority" argument. If I'm unpacking that sentence correctly, you're saying:

• Right and left political views are the result of physical neurological arrangements
  
• Right and left neurological arrangements are genetic
  
• Right and left can't live together under one polity
  
• Our government gives unchecked power to the party with 50% + 1 support (domination)
  

@NetRunner


•"Right and left neurological arrangements are genetic"

-This doesn't really seem that controversial anymore.
-http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/11/02/born_to_party/
-In our 2nd to last conversation, you seemed to be using genetics as an argument for income redistibution. (We can't expect people asking for our money to stop drinking, drug-use, laziness, irrationalism, and sports-watching and start reading and being economically savvy because of their genetics.)


•"Right and left can't live together under one polity"

-We can be sure the Right and Left will always hate each other and seek to dominate each other, but that doesn't mean a single polity isn't viable.


•"Our government gives unchecked power to the party with 50% + 1 support (domination)"

-The party which is out of power tends to behave pretty upset, regularly comparing the party in power to fascists, so "domination" seems within the acceptal range of descriptors.
-They would tend to prefer unchecked political power, rather than the kinds of compromises that characterize things like the handling of Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and the recent healthcare bill, but the political parties always have to compromise in the end.
-(And they scream bloody murder about it.)

@chilaxe actually in our other conversation I was saying that very little about people's ability to make money is a result of choice, and therefore rigid adherence to markets and property are largely unethical since they punish and reward people for things that are largely outside their control.

In this case, I'm mostly just objecting to the idea that it's genetic. My own experience has already made me think that liberals and conservatives actually think differently in very fundamental ways, I just thought that it's deeply-ingrained behaviors they learned in childhood, and any physiological differences were a result of the well-worn pathways built in people's brains.

If research is showing that it is indeed genetic, then we are probably stuck with politics much like what we have now.

As for the other parts, it sounds like you were just using hyperbole and didn't actually mean we're "permanently incompatible" and "taking turns dominating each other" after all.

@NetRunner


"deeply-ingrained behaviors they learned in childhood"

Let's speculate... would I be a progressive if I was raised in your family, and would you be a capital-generating scientific rationalist if you were raised in my family? We can actually answer that, because my parents and siblings were in fact liberal, and my instincts were aligned against their instincts since my earliest memories. That's to my benefit, since my instincts are orders of magnitude more useful in the world than their instincts, but that's not really just.


"If research is showing that it is indeed genetic, then we are probably stuck with politics much like what we have now."

Liberals oppose genetics because it's immutable, and they oppose reprogenetics because it has to do with genetics, which they oppose. Fast forward to the 2030s and liberalism has done a 180 after opposing genetics for 100 years, because they've realized advancing everybody's biology is the only way to create genuine human equality instead of pretend human equality.

That's great news. It means we have a choice.

>> ^chilaxe:

Let's speculate... would I be a progressive if I was raised in your family, and would you be a capital-generating scientific rationalist if you were raised in my family? We can actually answer that, because my parents and siblings were in fact liberal, and my instincts were aligned against their instincts since my earliest memories. That's to my benefit, since my instincts are orders of magnitude more useful in the world than their instincts, but that's not really just.

I could just as easily hold that situation up as proof that it's not genetic, either. Of course, the right answer to that is that both genetics and learned behaviors are more complex than "traits in the parent appear in the children".

>> ^chilaxe:
Liberals oppose genetics because it's immutable, and they oppose reprogenetics because it has to do with genetics, which they oppose. Fast forward to the 2030s and liberalism has done a 180 after opposing genetics for 100 years, because they've realized advancing everybody's biology is the only way to create genuine human equality instead of pretend human equality.
That's great news. It means we have a choice.


You may need to elaborate on the "liberals oppose genetics" comment -- we like research into genetics, and I haven't really heard any serious discussion of reprogenetics in liberal circles.

Human genetic engineering is gonna be a big political shitstorm. My own prediction is that liberals are going to come down on the stance that all US citizens should be provided subsidized reprogentic services, to try to make sure all men are still being created equally. I fully expect conservatives to have their usual coalition -- the free marketeers will object to having an advantage of wealth lessened by "socialism", and the theocons will want it banned outright (but will never quite succeed in getting it, just like bans on abortion or contraception).

@NetRunner: "to try to make sure all men are still being created equally."

"Still?" Don't you mean 'for the first time since the start of civilization?'

"All men are created equal" means equality under the law, not that humans are even remotely equal in abilities and cognitive complexity.


Re: reprogenetics:
It's essentially the same as the term 'genetic engineering,' which liberal circles talk about frequently, generally being highly opposed to human genetic engineering and anything else "unnatural."


Re: "You may need to elaborate on the "liberals oppose genetics" comment -- we like research into genetics"

Liberalism in the 1970s-1990s used to argue IQ etc. had "no genetic basis --not that IQ means anything." Now the anti- human sciences marxist academics who led liberal thought, like Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin, are too old or have passed away, so the liberal position seems to have migrated from 0%-5% genetic basis to 50% genetic basis, which is the number I noticed liberal Malcolm Gladwell gave in Outliers. The most recent American Psychological Association consensus statement that I'm aware of gives the number at 75%, so Gladwell's still probably being a little hopeful, but 50% is accurate enough.

However, it's still very common to see liberals claiming human behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology, or human intelligence research are meaningless or simply have too high a "yuck factor" to allow for open discussion. That's particularly true if you're dealing with the more interesting areas, which are taboo for liberals:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03gene.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html

>> ^chilaxe:

@NetRunner: "to try to make sure all men are still being created equally."
"Still?" Don't you mean 'for the first time since the start of civilization?'
"All men are created equal" means equality under the law, not that humans are even remotely equal in abilities and cognitive complexity.

Good points, but I was more making an allusion to the Declaration than actually meaning to invoke the original. All I meant was that our position will likely be one of trying to keep the income disparity between the different classes from turning the rich and poor into effectively different species.

Right now, genetics makes a difference, but the range of human ability is pretty narrow compared to what will be possible with genetic engineering.

>> ^chilaxe:
Re: reprogenetics:
It's essentially the same as the term 'genetic engineering,' which liberal circles talk about frequently, generally being highly opposed to human genetic engineering and anything else "unnatural."
I'm more than a little plugged into what liberal circles talk about, and fears of human genetic engineering really never comes up. If it does, it's usually in the context of bashing right-wing fundamentalists who want to ban stem cell research.

Genemod food comes up a lot, but most of that is driven by deep mistrust of corporations doing things to boost profit without concern for long term public health risks, coupled with the whole natural/organic/pure/clean food thing so many liberals are in to.

I suppose the other big topic is the idea of companies being able to patent genetic codes. Liberals don't like that, but it's usually focused on corporations overstepping their bounds (e.g. patenting the DNA of people without their consent) than some general desire to prevent corporations from being able to patent genetic intellectual property they legitimately develop.

>> ^chilaxe:
Re: "You may need to elaborate on the "liberals oppose genetics" comment -- we like research into genetics"
Liberalism in the 1970s-1990s used to argue IQ etc. had "no genetic basis --not that IQ means anything."

[snip]

However, it's still very common to see liberals claiming human behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology, or human intelligence research are meaningless or simply have too high a "yuck factor" to allow for open discussion. That's particularly true if you're dealing with the more interesting areas, which are taboo for liberals:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03gene.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html


I can't speak for all liberals on this one, but I don't see those kinds of subjects as being taboo. I guess what I do think is taboo is for someone to use studies like that to turn around and make the case that society should become less egalitarian because of it.

@NetRunner

Well put.

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