But moving along ..... this does seem like a good place to ask the question: What makes people vote republican? I do not pose this question in a topical "Dear god how could anyone want to risk giving Sarah Palin the nuclear codes?" kind of way - but in the more general sense as posed by the author at said link. See also an online book here. On the one hand, well, surely what makes people vote the way they do is as valid an area of social research as any other.... and, well, I tend to agree about the existence of people of a certain mindset to actively vote for parties who are demonstrably acting in manners contrary to said voter's interests and that there are substantial numbers of conservative voters that fall into this category. On the other hand, though ...... I get an uncomfortable feeling that someone approached a grants committee and said something like "basically, my research will be on how people who vote Tory suck more balls than Annabelle Chong - slip me some dough, brother". How would Today Tonight deal with this, I wonder? How do I feel about the fact that I just asked that question? It's a thorny one.
DISCUSS!
1Happy, Dave?
2Bean-counters are stealing our beans, if you will. My office mate and I have thoroughly scoped out the administration building to find out where they hide theirs (it being our solemn duty to return the favour) ... but thus far to no avail.
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6 comments:
I suggest setting up a paypal account specifically for donations for the poor Maths peoples coffee bean fund. Another option is to setup an wishlist.
These are my suggestions for such a wishlist:
- monkey picked tea
- vacuum sealed chamber for coffee beans
- A ceramic cup that looks like a paper cup you get with a fancy take-away coffee joint.
You could use the revenue from ads to fund your coffee needs.
Yeah.... I reckon this blog'd be good for revenue covering, oh I don't know, a cup a month or so.
Actually.... it goes by searches .... I wonder what I'd get? Hard-core porn, perhaps?
Happy, Dave?
I am.
Wealth correlates with Republican voting at an individual level, and wealth anti-correlates with Republican voting at state level.
It's a phenomenon called aggregation reversal, which happens when some variable gets socially learned or something like that. I never understood the paper explaining it.
I just finished reading Haidt's piece. It is well worth reading. While there's still an element of analysing people who vote Republican as one might analyse a grotesque-looking species of fish, it actually got quite reasonable by the end.
It was a zillion times better than the academic on the discussion page about it (which I haven't finished reading) who said that right-wing people are characterised by a refusal to admit they're wrong, even when confronted by masses of evidence that they're wrong.
Those stupid conservatives.
And some people wonder why 'elitist' is a term of disapproval.
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