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This study popped up on my reddit feed today, I thought it was particularly relevant to the what just happened in the SWOYM thread just now.

USC News: "When political beliefs are challenged, a person’s brain becomes active in areas that govern personal identity and emotional responses to threats, USC researchers find"
J. T. Kaplan et al., Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence. Scientific Reports (2016).

I was also reminded of Eliezer Yudkowsky's story, "A Fable of Science and Politics", as well as his follow-up blog post, "Politics is the Mind-Killer".

Thoughts?

I guess those billions of dollars in political ads spent every election year aren't doing much, then.

That's not surprising. We take politics far too personally. That's what happens when we make party ideals our own ideals as opposed to thinking for ourselves.

It's the same when it comes to religious beliefs.  People become almost primal when those beliefs are questioned to where it can become quite depressing to see.

Actually, it's also quite remarkable just to see how similar the reactions get in both scenarios.   I mean, when it comes to religious beliefs, sure one can argue that it's because it comes down to the core faith and the thought of being questioned on that specific topic.  People need belief in that higher power sometimes to give them hope in their own existence...so when that belief is questioned, people can turn downright nasty.

But to see that same nastiness come out when political beliefs are questioned...it's really quite curious.

I remember a study on brain activity related to religiosity.. when test subjects asked what God thought of a moral subject, the parts of their brain that they use to voice their own opinions lit up.

This study popped up on my reddit feed today, I thought it was particularly relevant to the what just happened in the SWOYM thread just now.

USC News: "When political beliefs are challenged, a person’s brain becomes active in areas that govern personal identity and emotional responses to threats, USC researchers find"
J. T. Kaplan et al., Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence. Scientific Reports (2016).

I was also reminded of Eliezer Yudkowsky's story, "A Fable of Science and Politics", as well as his follow-up blog post, "Politics is the Mind-Killer".

Thoughts?

I think politics make the human brain explode.