Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.
Jonathan Haidt studies how — and why — we evolved to be moral. By understanding more about our moral roots, his hope is that we can learn to be civil and open-minded. His new book is “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson speaks on Newt’s plan for a moon base.
Dr. Tyson brings reality to the discussion again. You can’t say “Government is too big” in one sentence, and then say “we’re gonna build a moon base” in the next. Every major expansion into a new frontier in history has been a government funded project.
It's Official: Obama Has Embraced Occupy Wall Street
Oh boy.
White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe embraced the Occupy Wall Street protests on behalf of President Barack Obama in an interview with Good Morning America on Tuesday.
“The protests you’re seeing are the same conversations people are having in living rooms and kitchens all across America,” Plouffe told George Stephanopoulos. “People are very frustrated by an economy that does not reward hard work and responsibility, where Wall Street and Main Street don’t seem to play by the same set of rules. The question is, on Wall Street reform, which the president passed, for instance most of the Republicans in Congress and I believe all the Republicans on the stage tonight in New Hampshire, they want to unwind Wall Street reform.”
“If you’re concerned about Wall Street and our financial system, the president is standing on the side of consumers and the middle class and a lot of these Republicans are basically saying, you know what, let’s go back to the same policies that led us to the great recession in the first place,” he added.
Here we go!
Tevatron shuttered after 27 years due to lack of funding
Formerly the world’s most powerful particle accelerator (before CERN, of course), the Tevatron at Fermilab in Chicago was responsible for discovering the top quark, among other contributions to particle physics. According to scientists at Tevatron, the group was closing in on the elusive Higgs boson, an undiscovered particle tying the Standard Model of particle physics together. Friday marked the last time the particle beams would be turned on at the facility, due to a decision by the federal government to cease funding the lab. The annual budget of the Tevatron? $35 million.
Just for reference, $35 million would fund the Afghanistan war for 144 minutes.
“You show me somebody who falls in love with Jesus, and I’ll show you a person who won’t be a problem to society.”
A small, southern Alabama town called Bay Minette is giving non-violent offenders a choice: Go to jail or go to church. Civil liberties activists say this program violates the Constitution by essentially forcing people to attend church. Local preachers argue that it’s not coercive, just effective.
…and here’s your problem. This is what people think God is. “Church” is not a magic room that makes things magically better. “Jesus” is not a genie. He’s not even described as such in the books. God is love. Show the love. Be the love. Otherwise, do your fricken JOB, warden.
If the Bay Minette churches were doing their job, you’d see a decrease in non-violent crime in the first place. Real talk. Either your God created the Universe, or he’s The Great Gazoo. Which is it? Churches and pseudo-Christians need to stop waiting for people to come to them and get to WORK. Your book says GO INTO THE WORLD. What part of the game is THIS?
A record-high 81% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country is being governed. Prior to 2008, the survey’s highest “dissatisfied” result was 66% in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard M. Nixon’s presidency. You know something’s wrong with your approval rating when Watergate’s considered the “good old days.”
Overlay this data with unemployment figures, per household incomes, and things like, oh, “WAR”, and this becomes a LOT easier to read.
Generally speaking, people don’t mind management when they have what they want. Six figure incomes based on no-doc loans? No problem! Multimillion dollar rounds of funding for half-baked website ideas? Great!
Economic collapse = the party’s over. For everyone. And so since SOMEBODY has to take the blame, we’ll blame…Wall Street! Let’s GET ‘EM! No? They lost jobs too? Hm. Then who? Oh yeeeeah. the GOVERNMENT!
When they are forced to do what they need, they hate management.
Fareed Zakaria just discovered the Pirate Party, which actually put up a very good showing in the recent German elections.
Its members are tech-savvy youngsters who wear hooded sweatshirts, throw cool parties and play up their group’s name with pirate boats. But don’t let the cool facade fool you. They won 9 percent of the vote in Berlin’s parliamentary elections. That puts them well ahead of the laissez-faire Free Democratic Party, a long-established party and part of Angela Merkel’s established coalition.
The rise of the Pirate Party, which started in Sweden in 2006 and initially gained strength around The Pirate Bay’s legal troubles, is now a multi-country political empire. And when someone up-and-up on international affairs like Fareed Zakaria is fascinated in your story (over such boring things as Palestine formally submitting a UN bid), that’s good news. Folks like Zakaria give credence and credibility to the party’s work.
(via shortformblog)
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“I hear your mom was asking about evolution,” Perry said today. “That’s a theory that is out there — and it’s got some gaps in it.” Perry then told the boy: “In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution. I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.”
Yep, that’s how schools work. You tell kids some things that are true and some things that are made up and you trust that the children will be “smart enough” to figure it out. “America’s first three presidents were George Washington, John Adams and the Green Lantern. Good luck on your AP History test.”
We Are So Screwed, Tea Party Debate Edition
Applause lines:
- The uninsured should be left to die.
- Said uninsured parents should have daughters who die unnecessarily of cervical cancer.
- A Fed Chairman who tries to fulfill his mandate by reducing unemployment is guilty of treason.
Boo lines:
- Muslims are not collectively responsible for 9/11.
- The children of illegal immigrants should not be denied the chance to go to college.
- We should not pass an extraordinarily regressive tax cut.
These are the same people who scream the loudest about the US being a “Christian Nation” and yet they must’ve been asleep that day in church “love thy neighbor” was covered. I’ll also bet they’ll all stick their fingers in their ears and start in with “lalala I’m not listening” if someone tried to tell them the “forgive our debts” part of the Lord’s Prayer was historically a literal forgiveness of debt.
(Source: abbyjean)
The human cost of energy
Deadly accidents involving nuclear reactors, oil rigs and coal mines in recent months remind us that all forms of energy generation carry risks. In developed countries, coal is the most hazardous (bottom left), according to the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, which studied more than 1,800 accidents worldwide over nearly 30 years. For coal, mining tends to be the most dangerous step; for oil and gas, most accidents occur during distribution; and for nuclear, generating plants are on the hot seat (orange bars).
Developing nations tend to have higher fatality rates, experts say (although reporting is less comprehensive, so no numbers are shown). “Regulations may be less strict,” explains Peter Burgherr, head of technology assessment at the energy systems analysis laboratory at the institute. “Working conditions are also poorer,” and less mechanization means more people are doing manual labor in harm’s way.
The lion’s share of human costs, however, comes not from accidents but from pollution, which makes fossil fuels the most dangerous form of energy generation (below). As Burgherr notes, “People are often not aware of what is happening to them in daily life.”
NASA Wants $62B to Speed Development of Deep Space Exploration
From TalkingPointsMemo:
The agency has grand plans for future deep space exploration, and says it can even accelerate development of new, heavy-life spacecraft ahead of the early 2020s, but there’s a catch: It needs $65 billion, a nearly 80 percent increase over the current price tag, according to The Wall Street Journal, which has obtained a NASA budget analysis prepared for The White House.
Unsurprisingly, given the current fiscal climate, the White House isn’t especially keen about the idea.
Sigh.
More at the link.
now this is a campaign i can get behind. not just cuz it’s star trek related … no scratch that, because it is star trek related. the world as portrayed in the year 2100+ sounds amazing. i’m not just talking about the technological advances but their freaking politics too. that’s one of the main reasons why i like star trek so much; they really try to address the human philosophical problems in their episodes. so to see a country(/world) run under the “federation” with their “prime directive” being what it is? now that would be great. plus, who wouldn’t want a vulcan for president? come on, logic is in his blood; he’ll always make the (right?) logical decisions.
Truth is, though…Spock is already President of the United States. Spock was half human, so his emotional struggle defined him. Take a good listen to the President next time he speaks. He is logical, based on the circumstances he is currently in.
To Dodge Blame, Officials Have Incentive to Hype Disasters
I’m not in any way agreeing that this is what happened in the lead-up to Irene, because I actually think the coverage was appropriate, but it’s an interesting piece of psychology at work. People have a hard time reconciling the present with the past, and how they view disaster prep is no different:
So if you’re an elected public official, should you focus on truck bombs, which are more likely, or airline security, which makes the public more scared? Policymakers face a dilemma: They can keep people safe but risk making them angry, or keep them happy and risk making them unsafe.
Princeton University psychologist Alexander Todorov said the disconnect between how we say we want policymakers to behave and how we judge them stems from a psychological bias.
“We have known in psychology for many years something that is called hindsight bias,” Todorov said. “That looking back at the events that happened in the past, they look way more predictable than they actually were.”
Kunreuther said the hindsight bias allowed people to blame others for their own actions and inactions.
“The disconnect is that often before the event, people will say, ‘It’s not going to happen to me,’ ” said Kunreuther. “So they don’t pay attention themselves, by taking measures like purchasing insurance or making their house safer, but after the event there’s a feeling that someone should have helped us here, we have a reason to blame them.”
(via NPR)
(via jtotheizzoe)
Today’s single-serving Tumblr idea: Regrettable Tweets From John McCain.
(via brooklynmutt)
