Krugman being Krugman

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

"There's the great line, of course, about how his "lived experience" (see? I told you, he's doing empirical work!) confirms that motivated cognition "is not, in fact, symmetric between liberals and conservatives.

...

That Krugman is too thick to see that one can't infer anything about the quality of partisans' reasoning from the truth or falsity of their beliefs is ... another element of Krugman's proof that ideological reasoning is symmetric across right and left!"

Comments

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

GMOs
vaccinations

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Ye gods...the irony is, of course, that the "Liberals" are up in arms about collective things: vaccinations being about herd immunity, and GMO's being about feeding the herd.

Honestly... It is possible to be liberal, and conservative (both uncapitalised) at the same time. Change will come: preserve the best, maintain our cultural ties with the past, and accept that things can get better, and ought to.

To me it doesn't seem difficult. What is difficult is filtering the white noise of ideology that surrounds proper information.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Ye gods...the irony is, of course, that the "Liberals" are up in arms about collective things: vaccinations being about herd immunity, and GMO's being about feeding the herd.

Sure, but they're actually having issues with vaccines because they cause autism and GMOs because they're "frankenfoods" that poison our food supply. That's the problem.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Cause autism? Correlation and causation from you?
And a rational cost/benefit analysis of vaccination plays no part in the equation?

Frankenfoods, maybe...unproven as yet. Theorising ahead of our data. I may add that with the introduction of new vaccines or genetically modified crops I'm rather in favour of strict government oversight and legislation with companies having to demonstrate proper testing for such.

If it's new, make it jump through all the hoops first...and if it's really innovative, build new hoops for it to jump through. But at least give folk a chance to innovate and invent.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Cause autism? Correlation and causation from you?
And a rational cost/benefit analysis of vaccination plays no part in the equation?

That's literally what these loons believe, yes. And the anti-vax nonsense comes almost exclusively from the left.

Frankenfoods, maybe...unproven as yet.

No, no no no. The science is about as settled as it can get. The evidence is overwhelming at this point. GMO food is entirely safe.

You're kind of proving the point.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Name the congressman who supports antivax ala the way red team supports climate change denial. Shit, red teams congress people cant even decide if they evolved or not.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Hmm, if you were to cite Kucinich as a counter, you'd be right.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

"You're kind of proving the point."

Coming from the guy who frets about the "souls" of religious forced to pay for the sin of birth control, I think this was a low blow.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

He's advocating an unscientific point of view on a scientific issue.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Describe that POV again? There has to be oversight or else you cannot measure effects. He merely advocated for oversight.

Also, not all GMO's are inherently safe (http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/14/world/gene-engineered-anthrax-is-it-a-weapon.html).

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Again, I am completely unaware of a empirical source stating that "liberals" are more anti-vax than "conservatives." From what I've heard, conservative anti-vaxxers simply cite different reasoning for putting their own children and community in harm's way.

The science is about as settled as it can get. The evidence is overwhelming at this point. GMO food is entirely safe.

We've been down your denial road before, shaken out heads and turned back; but this is, once again, about the least nuanced "summation" of the issue that ignores very real objections.

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

I didn't say that liberals are more anti-vax. I was saying plenty of liberals are anti-vax, rabidly so. Hell there might be some rabid climate change deniers that are liberal but my impression not in any large percentage. Anti-vax appears to be a bipartisan thing with each side having slightly different reasons for being anti-vax. Conservative versus liberal: its about equal. But we do have them. That's the point.

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

and they are far more likely to be public about it. Fucking Huffington Post is anti-vax as is Bill Maher.

Huffington Post for gawds sake. In fact, HuffPo peddles a LOT of woo claptrap just as surely as Oprah and Dr Oz and Riki Lake do.

Now, which really known celebrity who is openly conservative promotes anti-vax? Cuz I can't think of any.

[goumindong.livejournal.com]

I am sorry what?

Here are the most recent articles on anti-vax from Huffpo.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/anti-vaccine-movement/

This is the most recent

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/24/anti-vaccine-movement-map_n_4654150.html

Either Huffpo rationally updated their information after being wrong or they're not ideological anti-vax.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

The science is about as settled as it can get. The evidence is overwhelming at this point. GMO food is entirely safe.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/14/us/genetic-engineering-of-crops-can-spread-allergies-study-shows.html (http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/14/us/genetic-engineering-of-crops-can-spread-allergies-study-shows.html)

Which is not quite the same as poisoning folk en masse, and the product never came to market, but this is one example why each GMO should be dealt with on a case by case basis.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Jeff's statement that "GMO food is entirely safe" is entirely unscientific. You can't just categorically conclude, based on evidence that's been done so far, that "GMO food is entirely safe"; all you can really say is that the kinds of GMO food that have been thoroughly tested to date have not been demonstrated to have materially significant deleterious effects on consumers. This might be suggestive that other forms of GMO food produced using the same alterations or methods would be similarly "safe," but it certainly does not show that any possible GMO food will prove to be just as "safe."

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I know...it's just more ideological white noise.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

No, it's merely the scientific consensus. I know the European Union is terrible on this issue.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

GMOs
vaccinations


Show me the congress critters who rally against these things?

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

your posit was "I have no idea why anyone would consider it impossible to be blinded by ideology."

then asked for the liberal analogue to climate change denial. I gave you answers. Vaccinations are still a states-rights issue so congress won't be debating that ever. GMOs are such a broad category, spanning several different departments of the government there hasn't been much opportunity for politicians to rally in either direction. They basically want to kick it down to the states so they won't have to deal with it. But the most recent effort does show a partisan divide:

Who voted which way in the latest GMO bill (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/23/1211190/-Which-Democrats-Just-Voted-Against-GMO-Labeling)

Interestingly, Elizabeth Warren voted against it.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

then asked for the liberal analogue to climate change denial. I gave you answers.


There isn't a significant section of congress who rally against vaccines like there is with climate change denying congressmen. There are some though:



The GMO vote went exactly as one would expect. Big biz won.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

There's no mainstream liberal movement against either. There's some personality cults that have got mainstream bogeyman status.

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

I think when Bill Maher and Huffington Post gives you airtime, we can pretty much say that's a mainstream movement.

Geeziz this is exactly what' i'm talking about; Liberals will NOT fucking admit that we can have nutjob assholes in our midst. You want to dismiss it as "not important" well fucking tell that to the parents of the kids who caught whooping cough in California. There were 9000 cases in 2010. Ten infants died.

What does it take?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Liberals will NOT fucking admit that we can have nutjob assholes in our midst.

We do. Our share of hotheads too. But we tend to not make them our leaders as has red team. We also seem to follow science a bit better, which means nutjobs eventually lose.

Who are the liberal analogue of these congressmen (http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-when-congressmen-deny-climate-change-and-evolution/)

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say that's a mainstream movement because they got airtime. Plenty of scary people get airtime and aren't mainstream movements.