Really good post. You left out “my” in front of “optimal”.
I wonder how long it will take before they can isolate this gene in utero …
can’t choose to abort that one…
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I married into a family of scientists, virtually all of them including extended relatives except my wife lol. She is a brilliant writer but does NOT have a scientific mind no matter how hard they tried to instill that in her. It’s not that she isn’t capable of it, she got better math scores on college exams than her research engineer brother, she just isn’t cut out that way.
Then overcome them now. 
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Exactly.
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When i was learning to pick juries we were taught to look for body signals and the way people acted even without them saying anything.
Physical “opennes” was a key factor. People who looked interested in the topic of helping someone overcome would relax both their facial features and their over all body language. They would also be the ones who awarded the most money.
Correlation is of course not always causation but i have had enough personal experiences in interacting with different political ideologies to say that i can see what the article is saying.
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You are absolutely correct and it’s unfortunate. It put several people on the defensive right off the bat.
I did… I read the article before commenting on it.
True, going back to what Haidt said, my experiences have shaped what I view as optimum results.
And yet you are still defensive.
Almost all of our social interactions are based on heuristics.
They aren’t always right… but they are usually good enough and that is why they survive.
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If you think that this is me defensive then… okay…
My man… not everything is an attack.
Great! And that is one of my issues with game theory. It requires a common optimum. Which doesn’t exist. It is even fluid in a single individual, as you so capably illustrated.
Without speaking to the genetic aspect of it, I will say the notion that being more open to novelty and the more social you are translates into a higher predisposition to being more liberal does resonate with my own experience. In grade school/high school I was shy and kept to a small circle of friends. At that time my political perspectives (as immature as they were then) mirrored that of my conservative parents. After leaving for university, I became more social and began to see the appeal to trying new things. Was that the sole reason why my political stance shifted to left of center as an adult? No, but I can see where it didn’t hurt. New and more experiences, new and more friends and social contacts means exposure to new and different perspectives and opinions. You start to realize there is more than one way of looking at the world, and there’s rarely only one right way to see and do things.
Now, is that nature or nurture? A little of both it would seem, like a lot of things that make us who we are. By way of contrast my older brother had the same parents and same upbringing, but he went to much more conservative schools and remained active in organized religion after leaving home. He is much more conservative than I am. Same genetic pool (expressed differently of course), much different experience. So I’d argue that environment plays as large a role or even larger role than genetics.
TL:DR; Interesting idea.
I didn’t say anything about an attack.
Why?
…
Great post, thanks!
Are there value judgments in there?
Because as stated.
They are good enough.
Sorry, how do you mean?
And on a side note, I’ve been meaning to mention this. I find it very disrespectful, condescending and off-putting. I’d appreciate it if you would not use it to address me.
