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How can we predict if a position will be supported by the conservatives or the liberals? What is the common link between all the different liberal/conservative positions? How does supporting welfare tie in to opposing harsher drug laws? How does a stronger national defense relate to support of school vouchers? In this topic I will try to assert a single litmus test that can be used to determine if an idea is liberal or conservative. This will be coined the "Distorted Power Process Litmus Test". In addition, I will address some of the more popular litmus tests that have been used.

Distorted Power Process Litmus Tests

Humans have a natural desire to work towards a goal, and succeed through their efforts. In today's world, many of these goals - such as survival needs - are met without effort and provide little satisfaction. Other goals, like reproducing or making money are largely based on things like intelligence, things outside of the individual's control. Humans naturally want to undergo a satisfying power process that is tied to natural rewards, but are not allowed to do this in the context of modern society.

The key difference between Liberals and Conservatives is how they deal with the power process. Conservatives try to feel the power process vicariously by associating their own reproductive success with that of their society. They strongly support individual differences and their own inferiority because they see the superiority of others as adding to their own ego (since that ego is tied to the collective).

Conversely, Liberals delve into art and literature as a way of fulfilling the power process. Since there's no objective concept of good in the arts, the power process can be relieved. A person can succeed as an artist through pure effort, the same is not necessarily true of fields like engineering and math, where there are objective standards of success.

Liberals likewise try to oppose things like objective logic and science, since it supports the natural differences between human beings.

Here's how it stands on some big issues.

Vouchers: Liberals oppose them because they see it as alienating lower class persons, while conservatives support it since it allows those with the best genes to get ahead.

Taxes: Conservatives want to reduce taxes so that the most gifted individuals are free to succeed, while the least productive are free to fail.

Abortion: Liberals support it because they want every person to have the most pleasure, but conservatives oppose it because they see more people as benefiting society, and an objective value of human life as strengthening the human nationalist ideal. I'm not saying that the life/choice arguments are irrelevant, I'm just saying that most people take a stance on the issue before they understand any of the arguments or cases, almost instinctively.

Also, banning abortion allows the conservative to feel the power process, while legalizing abortion is passive and doesn't allow one to experience the power process as fully.

Military: Liberals oppose it because it costs money and doesn't provide anyone real pleasure. Conservatives support it because it allows them to fulfill the power process through the social system.

Drug Laws: Drugs make people less productive, and they don't contribute to society as a whole, so conservatives oppose them, while liberals see drugs as a personal way of fulfilling the power process.

Unless my reasoning is off somewhere, it seems like my litmus test is a pretty good way of differentiating between liberal and conservative ideas.

Liberals support more rapid change than conservatives

Than why did the conservatives support the war in Iraq? That was pretty rapid change. Why do liberals oppose nuclear power? Wouldn't its widespread adoption be change?

Not only does this definition fail on a large number of positions, it's also subjective. Take abortion. One could say that the Pro-Choice position is change because abortion was illegal in some areas before Roe vs. Wade. Conversely, one could say that the Pro-Life position supports change since US policy has been predominately Pro-Choice from Roe vs. Wade until today.

Liberals are cooperators and look out for others, conservatives are defectors and look out for themselves

This is an interesting case but it fails upon closer inspection. A cooperative strategy for some player is the strategy that is irrational for that player but benefits society as a whole. We can consider two players - the United States, and individuals within the US.

For the United States, it seems as though liberals are trying to maximize America's payoff matrix (non-interventionism), while conservatives are trying to reduce American's payoff matrix (Iraq War), although it's still questionable if that's irrational cooperation or just irrationality for the sake of irrationality.

Also, I should note that neither cooperation nor defection are objective and mutually exclusive. Consider that students working together to fail a test and lower the curve is an example of a Nash equilibrium. Doing bad on purpose would traditionally be considered a cooperative strategy, since it helps the other members of the class to do well. Conversely, doing well and breaking the curve would be considered defective since it

In other words, breaking the curve is rational for the individual, defective with respect to the class, and cooperative with respect to the school!

This litmus test fails on that basis alone.

Liberals support freedom and conservatives oppose it (or the opposite of that)

Liberals support more freedom on issues like drugs, speech, and religion - while conservatives support more freedom on issues like guns, education, or business. This fails as a litmus test.

At 4/18/08 08:36 PM, TheMason wrote:

And that is fair. Arts and homelife is fine. However, in the classroom environment they should be taught proper English and that the language of the street is the path away from success and leads only to the street.

So we agree. : )

At 4/18/08 06:47 PM, TheMason wrote:

You're right, being told this would be hurtful and uncomfortable. However, once I grew up and could not go to college and could only get a minimum wage job with little to no chance of significant advancement I think I'd be even more bitter. In fact I'd feel downright discriminated against and feel let down by my school system.

Yes, I should have made that more clear. They should definitely be learning proper English. But I still think that they should try to retain their old language and culture, if only through the arts and tradition.

But, by no means should they fail to speak the language of society.

My fear is that teachers will condition kids to . English teachers tend to be dogmatic that way.

So fuck cultural relativism. Would you stand by as a Muslim father killed his daughter for dating a non-Muslim...since that's their culture? Is the FLDS right in marrying off underage girls...since that's their religion? Of course not. So why are you (or people who agree with your line of reasoning) comfortable with keeping poor, inner-city black students from learning how to communicate in a way that will allow them to succeed...since that's their community's dialect?

I'm not supporting cultural relativism. By all means, ideas which are wrong or harmful should be brought down no matter what their cultural origin is. My point is that language is a pure property of culture - and no one language is really any better than another. It's just that there are powerful languages and rarer languages, and more powerful languages should be used to promote national unity. But with that said, there's a great deal of emotional baggage that comes with a unique regional dialect, and telling someone that they have to give it up entirely is almost like telling someone to give up their identity.

That seems subtly racist to me...

Meh, there's a fine line between trying to keep the past as heritage and trying to live in the past. Telling students to give up their old language is going to one extreme, forcing them to basically parts ways with their cultural heritage. The article doesn't imply that the English teacher did that, but my experience suggests that English teachers would do that if they had the power to do so. I've had tons of English teachers rant condescendingly about local dialects, and how languages can only decay over time. They also believe that Latin was in a state of basic purity and perfection. I guess they're young earth creationists than, since evolution would imply that language gets more sophisticated over time.

At 4/18/08 04:53 PM, BlueYoshi96 wrote: Every time I see these commercials I cringe in disgust or laugh at it when I'm stoned. It's pure propaganda like just stereotypes and crap man. I smoke weed every day, I love to play the guitar (even though I suck) I have a job, do or erm.. Did well in school. Like I see these kids sitting on the couch doing nothing in the commercials. When my buddies and I smoke a rillo or a few bowls we go out on adventures like, go to get some food, or walk around the city.

Yeah, the opposition to marijuana is baseless. But, fortunately, most students actually use science rather than propaganda to make decisions.

One time me and 5 dudes smoked a kush blunt in a golf course went to 4 different houses to get my buddy Michael laid...good times.

Umm. Thanks for sharing.

These above the influence commercials are just propaganda paid by the taxpayers wasting money. I went to their website and they try to attract kids to go their with good graphics and the like and then shove false statistics down their throat.

Yeah. They think that teenagers are stupid. We obviously know that excessive flashy graphics and slogans implies an attempt to compensate for a logically/scientifically weak argument.

Why don't they give the other side of the story?

Because that makes people think - and the goal of propaganda is to make people stop thinking.

If you're going to burn don't be a wateoid do something while you're high is what I say. I mean dude, heroin and crack is bad why don't they make commercials about that shit? Only weed, these people and their agendas "hey guys! Lets make a commercial about how weed is bad even though there are WAY worse other drugs and alcohol" makes me sick. What is you're opinions on this subject?

I think it ruins their credibility when they criticize weed - a little bit like the boy who cried wolf.

Sorry if this is kind of random this is my first post here and I'm stoned, and just wanted to see what my fellow Newgrounds people think about these. One in particular that pisses me off is when the dog talks to the girl and is like "you're not the same when you smoke" first off getting high does not make you think you're dog talk to you (joke) and not the same? They don't even delve into how she is, it's just "not the same" If they continued the conversation the dog would have probably "you're more fun to be around because you are happier and funny"

Yeah. One has to wonder why their commercials avoid any facts or logical arguments and instead rely upon unsupported presuppositions.

We need to have some big national weed debates where some scientists totally pwn the propaganda to death. That would be great.

Can you repost that with decent formatting?

I think that you guys are failing to see the student's perspective on this. Imagine if you lived in small American community in Britain, and were forced to give up your American form of speaking - also in this scenario there are no Americans outside of your community in Britain. If a teacher called you uneducated and threatened to fail you for speaking your community's dialect, wouldn't you feel

Their way of talking is just part of their history, culture, and identity. To tell them that their approach is "wrong", is ridiculous because it's just an aspect of their culture. Now, I'm not a total cultural relativist. Of course, some practices have an objective value outside of cultural perceptions, but language is not one of those practices. Language changes gradually as people move and combine different dialects - and it doesn't appear to have any substantive effect on the success of a society (although linguistic unity or lack thereof certainly does).

There's no right or wrong way of speaking. There's just a standard dialect and then splinter dialects. "Proper" English just started out as an "incorrect" type of German, but over time it become the standard. So, by all means, people who rant about the intrinsic superiority of "proper" English should really be ranting about the superiority of Latin, since all of the major European languages are just splinters off of that.

I once heard a really radical liberal say that in any situation, Republicans always defect while Democrats always cooperate. Not surprisingly, the guy didn't have a real math background and was naturally not getting the whole picture.

Basically he said that a Republican tries to invade other countries, they're using a strategy that increases their own fitness at the expense of others.

And at a first glance, that appears to make some inkling of sense. But in reality defining who is cooperating and who is defecting is very difficult. The only really good way to do it is to determine who is running the most irrational strategy and surviving, not who is running what we'd stereotypically think of as a "fight" strategy.

At 4/17/08 09:14 PM, Imperator wrote:

PLEASE. When was the last terror attack you heard BEFORE 9/11?
And for how long?

I can sell you an anti-bear rock too while we're at it. Does it work? Well, do you see any bears around?

That was an awesome Simpsons gag.

At 4/17/08 09:11 PM, SolInvictus wrote:

At 4/17/08 06:56 PM, Suaron wrote: their religion commands otherwise. An obediant Christian cannot do that. And I don't knw why they would anyway considering their child's salvation may be at stake.

its interesting how Christianity has changed over time with regards to ones decision about religion. originally baptism was only for adults who understood and truly believed what they were doing. of course that doesn't mean the children weren't brought up with Christian views and morals but its still different from being born and quickly baptised.

My understanding is that Baptism was only for adults in very early Christianity (i.e., pre-Catholic church), but then the Catholics started doing it to babies.

Then the protestant churches decided that although babies should be baptized (as a sort of salvation insurance policy), adults should redo baptism either literally or symbolically.

Traditionally the word Liberal means being in favor of drastic sweeping change and the word conservative means being in favor of slow and gradual change. But in today's world those meanings are completely irrelevant. Liberals will call an idea that involves slow and gradual change "liberal" if they think it gives them a political advantage.

Basically, liberals have a certain block of people who support them, and conservatives have a block of people who support them. Since politicians can't alienate their base, they choose their positions on issues in order to support their own voting blocks.

Liberals:

-Disadvantaged, those who needs services from a large government
-People who believe that equality supercedes meritocracy
-Secular groups

Conservatives:

-People who want lower taxes
-People who believe in meritocracy
-Engineers, chemists, developers (in my engineering class, everyone who I've talked to is a Ron Paul style Republican)

More philosophically, I tend to think that a conservative position is one that benefits society as a whole, while a liberal idea is one that serves to benefit an individual. Conservatives support drug laws because they see that pot and cocaine make people unproductive.

At 4/16/08 08:51 AM, Slizor wrote:

At 4/16/08 06:18 AM, Al6200 wrote:

At 4/15/08 11:01 PM, Grammer wrote:

As I stated in the thread in General forum before it died, it has been scientifically proven that violent media, including video games, increase aggressive tendencies.

You can't actually prove anything in science, hard proves are generally only reserved for mathematics.

If you want to go down this philosophical road....... "Proof" in Mathematics only works within the boundaries of the axioms that form the basis of the subject. It's a glorious mindfuck to think of these things. Mainly because people rarely look at them.

I agree, it's pretty freaky. But you do agree with my point that Grammar couldn't have "proven" it.

Moreover, Grammar's method of "proof" seems to be meaningless correlations along with appeals to authorities in order to establish a casual relationship.

At 4/16/08 09:51 PM, Christopherr wrote:

At 4/16/08 10:12 AM, EliteGamer wrote: You can't give your opinion on something you haven't tried yet. Get an abortion and then give your opinion.

I've never murdered someone, so therefore my opinion on murder is invalid.

I've never driven a race car, so therefore my opinion on the safety of race cars is invalid.

I've never committed an act of robbery, so therefore my opinion on robbery is invalid.

Am I doing it right?

You have to be drunk to know the chemical properties of alcohol.

Seriously, do people even think before they hit the post button (not you, EliteGamer) or do they just make a random accusation and assume it holds water?

We can use desalination plants. We don't really have a water shortage today, we have a fresh water shortage, and a salt water excess. So the real limiting factor is electricity production, which we know we can increase, so water availability isn't an insurmountable barrier to further population growth.

I said e^x not logarithmic.

Logarithmic would be P(T) = log(T), not P(T) = e^T

Also interesting, the log graph is just the e^x graph flipped over the line y = x.

Okay let me illustrate the point I just mentioned - that there isn't a definite explosion point.

The number of people born in a given year is proportional to the number of people around, so dp/dt = kP (in the absence of a limiting factor). Solving this differential equation (I won't go into the gory details) - we can say that P(T) = some constant * e^T

e ~= 2.71

The growth curve we're describing is exponential, in other words the population is P = e^T

the rate of change of P, denoted as P' = e^T

In other words, the rate of change of P is just some constant times P, and likewise the rate at which the rate of change of P changes is that same constant times P. There is no-explosion point. There is no time where it starts growing out of control. It's always doing that.

Below I have two pictures. The one on the left shows the e^x curve from 1-5, the other shows the e^x curve from 1-10. Both were scaled so that the highest value reached from 1-5 or 1-10 plugged into the e^x function was the highest y-value.

Both graphs look like an explosion - the one from 1-5 and the one from 1-10. Likewise, in medieval times, they'd too see their population as an "explosion" if they were able to plot it out.

If there's anything wrong with my method or conclusions don't hesitate to point it out.

What makes anyone think we're near the maximum? If you took the graph from say 0-1600, you'd still see an exploding curve...

At 4/15/08 11:01 PM, Grammer wrote:

As I stated in the thread in General forum before it died, it has been scientifically proven that violent media, including video games, increase aggressive tendencies.

You can't actually prove anything in science, hard proves are generally only reserved for mathematics.

At 4/15/08 08:33 PM, Christopherr wrote:

At 4/15/08 07:42 PM, Al6200 wrote: Is there any credible organization (i.e. not parody) that extends personhood to semen?

Ehhh, no. Even if you do ejaculate into vaginas all the time, you're killing most of the sperms anyways.

Yeah, you'd have to be pretty darn stupid to apply personhood to sperm.

My understanding of the scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the fetus should be granted personhood at some period before it is born.

It definitely should, because a fetus exhibits high levels of brain activity long before it is born.

Fetuses, although they are not connected to the mother's nervous system in any way, can exhibit movement. People write this off as reflex arc, which would explain the movement, but is improbable. The umbilical cord feeds and pumps blood, and that is all.

A fetus could have movement without being conscious. If you've ever crushed spiders in a tent (I'm not a monster, they're just really annoying) you'll notice that their legs will kick for even a minute after they're removed from the body. Clearly, a spiders cut off leg isn't conscious (it doesn't even have a brain), but it still can kick and jolt. More disturbing, the same thing would happen if you cut up a human.

The basis of fetal personhood isn't from kicking or jolts, it's from the study of brain structure and waves - both of which are present about midway through the first trimester.

At 4/14/08 11:03 PM, oligarch wrote:

The Special Forces aren't kidnapping the workers because the Iranian government has failed to pay them and the workers have kidnapped no one.

Oh - I see - my mistake. Sorry about that.

At 4/15/08 07:51 PM, Richboy6 wrote:

At 4/15/08 07:40 PM, Al6200 wrote: Do you have proof for any of your claims?

Like the Dopamine thing - what makes you think that boredness and dullness is caused by videogames? If that were true - wouldn't you expect people 20-30 years ago to be way more happy and lively than people today?

He didn't say that was the ONLY cause for boredness and dullness, he's just saying it can happen, which is probably true.

I never suggested that it was the only reason for boredness or dullness, I merely pointed out that if video games did indeed cause these features than we would expect to see them increase dramatically over the past 30 years as video games have reached the mainstream populace.

At 4/6/08 08:14 PM, Cuppa-LettuceNog wrote:

stuff

I have no legal background, nor do I really understand Tort reform - so I'm going to concede the argument to the you.

With that said, I was just trying to get out my feelings on the matter. I don't have the background to make an intelligent commentary on tort reform, legal policy, etc.

At 4/15/08 07:09 PM, alchemylord wrote: There are also some pro-lifers that feel any release of semen anywhere but a woman's vagina is considered an abortion so. So Even contraceptives wouldn't work.

Is there any credible organization (i.e. not parody) that extends personhood to semen?

My understanding of the scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the fetus should be granted personhood at some period before it is born.

Do you have proof for any of your claims?

Like the Dopamine thing - what makes you think that boredness and dullness is caused by videogames? If that were true - wouldn't you expect people 20-30 years ago to be way more happy and lively than people today?

At 4/15/08 05:30 PM, orn310 wrote:

At 4/14/08 10:19 PM, Al6200 wrote: Well, I wasn't using it for profit - so I could see you using it while citing me. On the contrary, if it was sponsored, than citing me would be insufficient since you'd be taking away my profit.

Well, what this bill would do is remove the site option, and makes it so that If I go down to a Copyright registration office I could register the work as my own, and that would be the end of that.

Yeah - I can see your point. Clearly there should be "default" ways of registering pieces of work, like by e-mailing them to yourself or uploading it to a system which keeps track of upload dates.

At 4/15/08 04:17 PM, Brick-top wrote: This thread isn't mainly about whether it's right or wrong. This is more about the people who argue about it.

Okay.

Pro-lifers
Pro-lifers say that's It's muder and no one has a right to take a life. Yet what about the 158,000 people that die everyday? 3000 people die just going to work, that's like a 9/11 attack on a daily basis. So where's your bleeding heart for them?

And this means we should just ignore a smaller number. If I stabbed you, and the judge said "Killing is wrong", would it make any sense for me to say "What about all the dying kids in Africa? Where's your bleeding heart for them?" Would that make any sense as a defense? Of course not.

I fail to see how elderly people dying everyday at all effects

There are thousands of Children that need are in orphanages and group homes that go on top of the enourmous death rate. Unless you start caring about the kids and people that are dying now you have no right to say anything.

Pro-choicers
Usually these people say that it's the womans choice to do whatever she wants with her body. So why will I get arrested if I fail to commit suicide or severe off my own arm? It's my body so I have the right do whatever I want with it, right? Going by this logic I have the right to tear chucks out of my own face and get away with it. I dont think the government will agree.

Right, but it's about her killing the fetus in her body - not her doing anything to her own body.

Basically look at this. There's nothing either of you can do.

Except increase the distribution of contraception and discourage abortion?

What can anyone do? Contraception. The more contraception the less abortions that will be performed and it's a win, win. The pro-choicers get their abotions, and the pro-lifers have less abortions and then we can live in bliss with safer sex.

Good point. I wish more Pro-Life people would agree with this position.

Now you can put down the toys, stop bickering and try to get something productive done instead of pissing and moaning at each other like children.

I agree 100%. Unfortunately abortion has become a wedge issue in American politics, not something that we work together to solve.

Now let's have unprotected sex with many different partners while taking nurotic drugs. YAY!

Protected.

Does register = patent? If I created something and sold it, I'd imagine I could still sue (or threaten to sue) a copier if I e-mailed the file to myself (some trace might exist, I'm not too internet savvy but I'm told that e-mails leave behind evidence) and then proceeded to use it for profit.

I could sue saying that they had cut into my profit margin.

At 4/14/08 06:15 PM, orn310 wrote: Ah... so it would be ok if I posted up your debugging tutorial as my own
(and yes I should of seperated that post into paragraphs...)

Well, I wasn't using it for profit - so I could see you using it while citing me. On the contrary, if it was sponsored, than citing me would be insufficient since you'd be taking away my profit.

At 4/14/08 06:55 PM, Elfer wrote:

At 4/14/08 06:19 PM, morefngdbs wrote: Part of the problem is we're using the wrong plants for fuel.
Corn isn't very efficient.
The sugar ethonal being produced in Brazil is much more efficient . Plus There are wild grasses that perform better.

The real issue is that the whole program is flawed. Research into biofuels is going in the wrong direction. Over the next 50-60 years, we should phase out nearly all of the internal combustion engines that we use.

Right, but we can't do that overnight - and certain vehicles like tanks and airplanes won't exactly be conducive to a battery-powered engines. I might be wrong - but I'd imagine that a jet fighter that runs on ethanol is much closer than a jet fighter that runs on a battery (I omitted fuel cells since they seem to be too volatile).

Growing a plant, extracting a carbohydrate from it, then blowing it up is a very clumsy and inefficient way of harnessing energy from the sun to do useful work.

But it's not so much about extracting energy, it's about storing it in a dense format. Oil isn't really so useful because of the amount of energy - it's useful because it's so concentrated and easy to use in combustion.

Besides, ethanol is carbon-neutral. The CO2 burned in combustion is brought out the atmosphere by the plant to begin with - as opposed to fossil fuel CO2 which has been trapped in the Earth for thousands of years.

At 4/14/08 08:50 PM, uhnoesanoob wrote:

At 4/14/08 08:00 PM, Dante-Son-Of-Sparda wrote: who cares the damn sand people deserve it

Yeah, how about you work for me for five months and instead of me paying you, I kidnap you?

You have that off. The special forces weren't paid by the government so they kidnapped random people. The government didn't kidnap the special forces as your analogy would suggest.

At 4/14/08 03:16 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: It is a truth that there has never been a non-Christian President of the United States, though this is not the case for "lower" positions such as the Senate or House.

I'm pretty sure that only one president wasn't protestant - Kennedy, who was Catholic. It's not like it's a big deal for Americans to choose a non-Christian president, we're much more closed than that, it's a big deal for us to elect a non-protestant president!

So yes, 100% have been Christians, nearly all of those have belonged to protestant denominations.

Would you ever consider voting for a candidate who was not Christian? Disregard whether the candidate is Jewish, Atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, or some other sect/religion.

Yes, I'd vote for an Atheist/Deist/Unitarian candidate.

I would vote for a Muslim or Buddhist candidate if they were simply born into a religious community with beliefs I oppose, but I wouldn't vote for them if they decided on their own to join a religion with absurd beliefs.

Is there something that makes a Christian candidate better than a non-Christian candidate.

I think that Americans are afraid of a "Manchurian Candidate" so to speak who will hijack American ideals and tradition with something foreign.

I personally feel that the United States is largely prejudiced against non-Christians in the presidential race perhaps on a level higher than that of race or gender.

I don't think modern America has a race/gender bias, although I think we still have a religious bias. But personally, I have a bias - religion for an adult is often a choice, not something one is born into. On the contrary, a person has no control over their race or gender.