Science: About the origins of political beliefs

From time to time, the question arises about where a person's political beliefs come from. At the most basic human level there is nature (inheritance of genes) and nurture. Nurture refers to the environmental factors that influence a person's development after conception including things like upbringing, life experiences, family and social relationships and norms, culture, community, learning ability, sex, language, poverty, wealth, religion, education and epigenetics. Epigenetics refers to gene expression changes after an egg gets fertilized, e.g., exposure to lead, or PFAS or other toxic chemicals in the environment, especially effects on a fetus or young children.

Some years ago I came across two nature vs nurture estimates for the origin of personal politics. If I recall right, one estimate was that politics came about equally from nature and nurture. The other was that it was about 40% nature and 60% nurture. Being interested in this, I did some searching to see what the research says these days. 

Q: What are current estimates of the influence of nature (genes) compared to nurture on how people form their political beliefs or ideologies?

A: Genetic Influences: Twin studies found that genetic factors account for a substantial proportion of individual differences in political traits, with heritability estimates averaging around 0.50 (on a scale of 0-1). One study using data from the Minnesota Twin Study found that sociopolitical conservatism was 57% heritable for the overall population. For the most politically informed fifth of the public, the heritability of sociopolitical conservatism was estimated to be as high as 74%.

Environmental Influences: For the least politically informed half of the public, the heritability of sociopolitical conservatism was estimated to be only 29%, suggesting a stronger role for environmental influences.

Interaction of Genes and Environment: Political knowledge appears to facilitate or influence the expression of genetic predispositions in political attitudes.

The NYT wrote in 2022: In “The Law of Group Polarization,” Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School argues this about polarization: This general phenomenon — group polarization — has many implications for economic, political, and legal institutions. It helps to explain extremism, “radicalization,” cultural shifts, and the behavior of political parties and religious organizations; it is closely connected to current concerns about the consequences of the internet; it also helps account for feuds, ethnic antagonism, and tribalism.

A 2018 article commented:

What about political orientation? Left-leaning liberals estimated a greater genetic contribution to psychiatric disorders and sexual orientation compared with conservatives, while conservatives assumed a relatively greater contribution of genes to traits like intelligence and musical ability. This led to what the researchers called "a surprising sort of 'balancing out'," meaning that individuals' accuracy did not differ by political persuasion.

The researchers believe this pattern is consistent with the idea that moral judgments are central to the political split in the USA. Right-wing participants more strongly endorsed the idea that some people have more innate aptitude than others, while the left-wing participants more strongly endorsed the idea that many stigmatized traits are largely innate and should therefore be treated with fairness and compassion, not judgment. 

 

So there was no greater biological denialism or "blank slatism" by one political wing than the other, but rather a genetic cherry-picking to suit one's own world view.

A 2022 paper commented:

First, we find that religiosity’s role on political attitudes is more heritable than social. Second, religiosity accounts for more genetic influence on political attitudes than personality. When including religiosity, personality’s influence is greatly reduced. Our results suggest religion scholars and political psychologists are partially correct in their assessment of the “culture wars” – religiosity and ideology are closely linked, but their connection is grounded in genetic predispositions.

A 2024 research paper about the genetics of right wing authoritarianism commented:

Objective: Political attitudes are predicted by the key ideological variables of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), as well as some of the Big Five personality traits. Past research indicates that personality and ideological traits are correlated for genetic reasons.

Results: RWA and SDO exhibit very high genetic correlation (r=0.78) with each other and some genetic overlap with the personality traits of openness and agreeableness. Importantly, they share a larger genetic substrate with political attitudes (e.g., deporting an ethnic minority) than do Big Five personality traits, a relationship that persists even when controlling for the genetic foundations underlying personality traits. 

Conclusion: Our results suggest that the genetic foundations of ideological traits and political attitudes are largely non-overlapping with the genetic foundations of Big Five personality traits.[1]

In other words, two core ideological traits of RWA and SDO have a much higher genetic association with political policy attitudes than the Big Five personality traits. The covariation of such ideological traits with policy attitudes is best explained by genetic overlap, not common socialization or nurture. Contrary to key social and political psychology theories, the data here suggests that hierarchy-related traits might form a heritable genetic package for navigating intergroup struggles over territory and resources.

The research is sometimes hard to integrate into a simple left vs right framework. This 2023 paper argues that knowledge of basic science is more important in shaping attitudes toward at least a few issues of science such as global warming than partisan politics:

It is often assumed that a primary source of contention surrounding science is political and, therefore, that partisan disagreement drives attitudes about various science topics. Other models focus on the roles of basic science knowledge and cognitive sophistication, arguing that these facilitate pro-science beliefs. To test these competing accounts, we identified a range of controversial issues ostensibly subject to potential ideological disagreement and examined the relative roles of political ideology, science knowledge, and cognitive sophistication. Results show there was actually very little partisan disagreement on a wide range of nonetheless contentious scientific issues. We also found only weak evidence for identity-protective cognition; instead, reasoning ability was broadly associated with pro-science beliefs. Two experiments that focused specifically on anthropogenic climate change found that increasing political motivations did not increase polarization among individuals who are higher in cognitive sophistication, indicating that increasing political motivations may not have as straightforward of an impact in this context as often assumed. Finally, one’s level of basic science knowledge was the most consistent predictor of people’s beliefs about science across a wide range of issues. Results suggest that educators and policymakers should focus on increasing basic science literacy and critical thinking rather than the ideologies that purportedly divide people.

In conclusion, it seems that nature or genetics seems to be more important than nurture for some or most people who score high on social dominance and authoritarianism traits. But lack of knowledge (nurture) is also an important or dominant factor for at least some people with some political issues. As a species, humans doing politics appears to be non-trivially influenced by both nature and nurture.

Footnote:

1. The Big Five personality traits are on a spectrum, with individuals scoring anywhere along a continuum, allowing for a nuanced understanding of personality rather than a simplistic categorization:

Openness to Experience: This trait reflects how open-minded and willing an individual is to new experiences. High scorers tend to be imaginative, curious, and open to new ideas, while low scorers may prefer routine and familiarity.

Conscientiousness: This dimension indicates how organized, responsible, and goal-oriented a person is. Individuals high in conscientiousness are typically diligent, disciplined, and reliable, whereas those with lower scores may be more spontaneous and less structured.

Extraversion: Extraversion measures how outgoing and energetic a person is in social settings. High extraversion is associated with sociability, assertiveness, and a tendency to seek out social interactions, while low extraversion (or introversion) is linked to being reserved and needing solitude.

Agreeableness: This trait assesses how compassionate and cooperative an individual is towards others. High agreeableness is characterized by kindness, empathy, and a desire for social harmony, while low agreeableness may reflect competitiveness or a more critical nature.

Neuroticism: Neuroticism refers to emotional stability and the tendency to experience negative emotions. Individuals high in neuroticism may be more prone to anxiety, mood swings, and emotional instability, whereas those low in this trait are generally more calm and resilient under stress

Abortion news update; Recycling revisited; Mildly odd & interesting headlines, etc.

The WaPo reports about abortion battles in Missouri, where the state supreme court allowed a pro-abortion ballot measure to stay on the ballot. Anti-abortion authoritarians had challenged the measure claiming it was too ambiguous:

If approved by voters, the constitutional amendment would allow abortion until fetal viability. The state currently bans the procedure in nearly all cases.

Just several hours before ballots were to be finalized, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday afternoon that a measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution is specific enough to present to voters in November.

The decision came after a short but politically fraught morning hearing before all seven judges — four of them women, five of them appointees of Republican governors. Only days earlier, a lower-court judge had ruled the ballot measure invalid because it does not identify which laws it would repeal.

“By a majority vote of this Court, the circuit court’s judgment is reversed,” Chief Justice Mary R. Russell wrote.

The outcome means that Missouri will remain among more than half a dozen states with measures to protect abortion rights on their ballots this fall, including in presidential battleground states such as Arizona and Florida. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, every ballot measure that has sought to preserve or expand abortion access has passed in red and blue states alike. Measures that have sought to restrict access have failed, including in conservative Kansas.

This is an unexpected bit of good news. A majority of Republican judges allowing an anti-abortion a ballot measure to stay suggests that the Missouri court Republicans aren't MAGA judges. Instead they may be far better pro-rule of law conservatives. Two points:

• Authoritarians are shameless hypocrites, even when it endangers human life. The forced birth laws that many red states passed are intentionally ambiguous to create uncertainty among doctors and nurses about what procedures are legal and what aren't. That forces doctors to not treat patients in unclear situations, sometimes calling their lawyers before deciding if a treatment is legal or criminal. Here and in some other states with pro-abortion ballot measures, radical right authoritarians are whining about ambiguity in pro-abortion laws. Worse yet, arrogant authoritarian anti-abortion legislators reject complaints about ambiguity and say their laws are crystal clear, implying that the doctors and their lawyers are stupid. The insulting arrogance of the morally rotted anti-abortion authoritarians mindset is extremely insulting to say the least. 

• Although the situation is complicated and apparently fluid, poll data for 2019 indicated that there was majority public opinion in only four states favoring banning abortions in most or all situations, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, and Louisiana. Data from 2024 suggests that support for abortion rights are increasing nationwide. The increase in abortion rights support apparently started in response to the May 2022 leak of the Dobbs decision about a month before the USSC released the decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Missouri is not one of the states where majority public opinion favor a strict abortion ban. The point is this: Authoritarianism includes acting against majority public opinion when it suits authoritarians in power, which is what most red state forced birth laws do.

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The NYT reports about how some companies deal with their unrecyclable disposable plastic products -- they lie about it: The SEC said Keurig, in its financial filings, had claimed its pods could be “effectively recycled” but didn’t note that two big recycling companies wouldn’t accept them. Financial regulators on Tuesday charged Keurig Dr Pepper, the maker of popular K-Cup single-use coffee pods, with making inaccurate claims about the recyclability of the plastic pods. The fine, $1.5 million, is small for one of the world’s largest beverage companies. Keurig Dr Pepper has a market capitalization of more than $50 billion.

To recycle the pods, the foil at the top, the coffee grounds and paper filter all have to be removed and the plastic pod clean. Does anyone do that? Probably very few. 

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Elon Musk Breaks Debate Silence With Bizarre Offer to Impregnate Taylor Swift -- What a looney tune!

Trump Demands ABC Be Shut Down for Daring to Fact Check Debate -- What a looney tune!

Taylor Swift Brings 283 Million Fans to Razor-Thin 2024 Election -- Maybe that will help some

More than 337,000 people visit Taylor Swift's link to register to vote -- That could make a difference!

“Concepts of a Plan”: Trump Roasted for Having No Clue What He’s Doing -- DJT's plan to replace Obamacare is concepts of a plan, which is clear as mud

Megyn Kelly has a meltdown over Taylor Swift backing Harris–Walz -- Kelly falsely claimed a Minnesota law allows trans children to ‘chop off their body parts’ without parental consent -- The election seems to be heating up, while Faux News seems to be a bit overheated

Researchers say meeting your dog's gaze and petting them causes brains to synchronize | Additionally, dogs who had genetic mutations that cause them to have social impairment symptoms showed a loss of synchronization, as well as reduced attention during their interactions with humans

About the allegedly evil, socialist deep state

An extremely long WaPo article (not paywalled) (about 11,000 words) discusses the work of an obscure bureaucrat, Christopher Mark, working for the federal Department of Labor. Chris developed the math and statistical analysis to make roof collapses in coal mines less frequent. His work has saved thousands of lives. If this is too TL/DR for you, just scan some of it and the five points I make at the end.

The Canary

The organization, called the Partnership for Public Service, created the awards, called the Sammies, in 2002 to call out extraordinary deeds inside the federal government. Founded the year before by an entrepreneur named Samuel Heyman, it set out to attract talented and unusual people to the federal workforce. One big reason talented and unusual people did not gravitate to the government was that the government was often a miserable place for talented and unusual people to work. Civil servants who screwed up were dragged before Congress and into the news. Civil servants who did something great, no one said a word about. There was thus little incentive to do something great, and a lot of incentive to hide. The awards were meant to correct that problem. “There’s no culture of recognition in government,” said Max Stier, whom Heyman hired to run the Partnership. “We wanted to create a culture of recognition.”

Christopher Mark: Led the development of industry-wide standards and practices to prevent roof falls in underground mines, leading to the first year (2016) of no roof fall fatalities in the United States. A former coal miner. .... Mark was born in 1956, the eldest of three sons of a civil engineer named Robert Mark [an engineering professor at Princeton].

Coal mining had long been the most dangerous job in the United States. At the height of the Vietnam War, a coal miner was nearly as likely to be killed on the job as an American soldier in uniform was to die in combat, and far more likely to be injured. (And that didn’t include some massive number of deaths that would one day follow from black lung disease.) Up to that point in the 20th century, half of the coal miners who had died on the job — roughly 50,000 people — had been killed by falling roofs. In his classes at Penn State, Chris saw at least one reason for that: The coal mining industry had learned to see the problem as the cost of doing business.

His rock mechanics professor was a Polish aristocrat named Z.T. Bieniawski. .... [Bieniawski] was a fabulous professor — the sort of teacher who got you thinking even when he didn’t mean to. One day he lectured his students on the formulas used to design the pillars that supported the roofs of coal mines — which of course sounds like a topic to light a fire under no one. But it lit a fire under Chris. He’d experienced roof collapse. He knew that poorly designed pillars killed people. Now he learned that the formulas used to create them were all over the map. “A kid in class raised his hand,” said Chris. “He asked, ‘which of these formulas is the right one?’” As Bieniawski had created one of the formulas, the professor’s answer seemed almost modest. “You need to use your engineering judgment,” he replied. But that can’t be right, thought Chris. Each formula implied a different pillar design than the others. At most only one could be right. When wrong, coal miners died. Yet no one had figured out which formula was best or really even saw the problem. “I said, this is the place for me!” said Chris.

He graduated in 1981 without a clear idea of where to go next. He had a serious interest (mine safety) but no obvious place to express it. He worked for a spell with an engineering consulting firm in Chicago but found it dull and beside the point.

The body of a coal miner after 

a tunnel cave-in

Then Bieniawski called to say that he’d just received new funding for a PhD student. He wanted Chris to be that student. All Chris needed was a thesis topic. The coal mining industry soon supplied it. On Dec. 19, 1984, a roof collapsed inside the Wilberg Mine, just outside of Salt Lake City. The miners at Wilberg had been trying to break the world record for the most coal mined in a single day. Nine senior officials from the mine’s owner, Utah Power and Light, had entered the mine to witness history. Suddenly, a fire broke out in one of the two main tunnels. Before the executives or 18 working coal miners could escape, the roof in the second tunnel collapsed and blocked their exit. All 27 people wound up trapped inside an inferno. It would take a year to recover their bodies. And Christopher Mark thought: If they’d figured out the right formula for their pillars, they’d all still be alive.

“Pillar Design For Longwall Mining” would be the subject of his PhD thesis and the title of his first paper. Bad pillar design was killing longwall coal miners. It’s what killed 27 people in the Wilberg Mine. It had killed miners since longwall mining had been invented in the 1940s. It had also cost the coal industry money. .... “The same roof fall that can kill miners can also cost a lot of money,” Chris said. And yet even though the coal mine industry had a huge financial incentive to figure out how to solve the problem, it hadn’t solved it.

The powers obviously were only as helpful as the safety rules. And the safety rules had some problems. In the late 1960s, roughly 200 American coal miners were dying on the job every year. Half of those were killed by collapsing roofs, and roughly half of those were killed while following the existing safety rules.

No one ever told Chris to invent better rules. But before he even began to figure out better designs for coal mine pillars, he knew that was what he wanted to do: He wanted to keep miners safe. As he worked toward his PhD, he figured out that the only place to do it was inside the federal government. The coal mining companies had largely dodged their responsibility. Industry executives who visited Penn State made it clear to Chris that they viewed safety as a subject for wimps and losers. And no one coal mining company was likely to fund the research that would benefit all coal companies. Working on his thesis, right through the mid-1980s, Chris had offers to teach, but he knew no university could guarantee him access to the mines he wanted to study. “Plus, academia puts on a facade of being impartial but is in fact much more closely connected to industry than anything else,” he said. “In some ways it is an arm of industry.” He needed to find a job inside the federal government, with either the Mine Safety and Health Administration or the Bureau of Mines. The mine safety agency had been hit by the Reagan administration with a hiring freeze. But the Bureau of Mines, still largely owned by the industry, had some money and knew about his research. “I just kind of had an open door there,” said Chris. “I’m not actually sure who even hired me. I know I had one interview because I forgot a tie and had to stop off at Wal-Mart on the way to buy one.” It was now 1987. He was 31 years old, married and the father of a 1-year-old son.

He joined the bureau at its research facility outside of Pittsburgh. Upon arrival, he sensed a certain wariness from his new colleagues. No one else had a PhD. No one else had studied with the great Bieniawski. “They put me in a basement office that was way out of the way with a guy who was mentally unstable,” said Chris. “Whenever I’d get a phone call, he’d start making these funny sounds.” They also assigned him to the jobs no one else wanted — week-long trips to gather data from coal mines in Kentucky. None of it mattered; he was the least likely human being on the planet to put on airs, and what was pain to others was pleasure to him. He didn’t even much care that his phone calls triggered at the desk beside him the honks of a braying donkey. “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” said Chris. “The idea of being able to spend weeks studying these longwall mines was fantastic. And as soon as I got to the Bureau of Mines, I had no one to tell me what to do. I even made up my own title: Principal Roof Control Specialist.”

Every now and then, however, Chris’s work slipped into public view. His coal mine roof rating was used all over the world and, in his own narrow circles, he was well known. In 2016 — the first year in recorded history that zero underground coal miners were killed by falling roofs — Chris landed in a public spat. He’d seen an article by an economic historian about the history of roof bolts in the journal of Technology and Culture. The historian wanted to argue that roof bolts had taken 20 years to reduce fatality rates because it had taken 20 years for the coal mining industry to learn to use them. All by itself, the market had solved this worker safety problem! The government’s role, in his telling, was as a kind of gentle helpmate of industry. “It was kind of amazing,” said Chris. “What actually happened was the regulators were finally empowered to regulate. Regulators needed to be able to enforce. He elevated the role of technology. He minimized the role of regulators.”

To set the record straight — and maybe also to start a fight with an academic he was bound to win — Chris wrote a long and debate-ending letter to Technology and Culture. As it happened, he knew the journal well. His father had been its editor.

 

Chris Mark in an Alabama mine, next to a chunk of rock that fell into the walkway from a nine-foot-high sidewall because a bolt meant to hold it in place wasn't long enough

I asked Chris a question that plainly irritated him. .... “Is it normal for someone in your job to write academic history papers?” .... His papers — mostly nitty-gritty descriptions of his research inside coal mines — have made him, by a factor of two, the world’s most cited mining engineer. “I never wrote an academic paper,” he said, a bit sharply. “Not one. They’re technical papers.” He caught himself and explained that he saw himself not as an academic but a solver of practical problems. “I have an absolute allergy to academic elitism,” he said, but finally added. “No, it’s not normal.”

That is a small part of this fascinating article. The article goes on at great length about what Chris did. Because of his work, 2016 was the first year in American history that no coal miners died in roof collapse accidents. A few points are worth knowing:

• Before Chris, regardless of their contrary propaganda, mine companies did not care about safety, they cared about profit

• Federal regulatory agencies were captured and controlled by the mine industry

• Relevant parts of academia were captured and controlled by the mine industry

• Chris never considered himself to be an academic - he distrusted and hated academic elitism  - he saw himself as a problem-solving technician, not an academician 

• No matter how vehemently the American authoritarian radical right wealth and power movement denies it, work like what Chris has done is squarely targeted for extinction by Project 2025 -- DJT will fire people like Chris who cannot be bought off or otherwise corrupted -- Chris is part of the evil deep state that American authoritarians want to get rid of

The debate

The day after

My assessments was F for DJT (as expected, mostly lies, slanders and irrational crackpottery), D for the moderators (they let DJT interrupt, gave him significantly more time than Harris and they did not always fact check DJT's blatant lies) and C for Harris. The main MSNBC politics crew apparently would have given Harris and the moderators an A and DJT an F. Faux News (Hannity, JD Vance, JFK Jr would have given Harris and the "far left" moderators an F and DJT an A. Faux said Harris lied constantly, e.g., about fracking, confiscating guns and defunding the police.

Those assessments aside, what really mattered was the reaction of undecided voters. Some initial polling indicated that 63% said Harris won and 37% said DJT won. If that polling holds up in the next couple of weeks, then maybe my assessment was wrong, particularly about the effectiveness of Harris' performance. I tried to look at the debate from the point of view of an undecided voter, something I may do not understand very well. From there Harris looked mediocre to me. But maybe to others, she looked pretty good and/or DJT looked mostly like the radical freak liar he has been since 2016. 

NYT commentary: For two undecided voters: Bob and Sharon Reed, both 77-year-old retired teachers who live on a farm in central Pennsylvania, had high hopes for the debate between Ms. Harris and former President Donald Trump. They thought that they would come away with a candidate to support in November. But, Ms. Reed said, “It was all disappointing.” .... But not all voters, especially those undecided few who could sway the election, were effusive about the vice president’s performance.

WaPo reporting: Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) praised Trump’s debate performance in the spin room following it. But he also acknowledged some skill on Harris’s part. “What we learned tonight is that Kamala Harris is actually probably pretty good at needling people,” he said. .... [commentary like the following is what reflected my reactions in giving Harris a C] As the debate went on, Harris continued to do just that. She described herself as a “middle-class kid raised by a hardworking mother,” and as someone who, unlike Trump, knows “not everybody got handed $400 million on a silver platter and then filed bankruptcy six times.” And she repurposed Trump’s signature line from his signature show, “The Apprentice,” to rebut his repeated false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people,” she said. “So let’s be clear about that. And clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that.” [maybe that kind line by Harris was more effective than I initially thought]

A WaPo swing state poll: In the first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, The Washington Post tried something new: We asked a group of uncommitted, swing-state voters in real time about their reactions to Tuesday’s debate. They thought Harris performed better, regardless of how they plan to vote in November.

So again, my assessment of Harris' performance seems to have underestimated her.

The day of the debate

Continue this chat tomorrow.

At ~15 min: So far Harris is doing badly responding to DJT. DJT is flinging tons of lies and BS at her but she is having a hard time directly responding. She just can't get her footing. DJT is winning so far.

At ~20 min DJT spews horrific lies about abortion. Harris finally says DJT is telling lies. Finally. Harris finally attaches DJT with Project 2025. DJT responds with blatant lies about his policy and what "Americans wanted." DJT calls Harris a liar, then launches into another blast of lies. Harris' comeback is OK but not that impressive. She forgets that most Americans want a national law to protect abortion. DJT keeps saying (lying) Americans want to decide at the state level.

At ~26 min Harris talks about being a prosecutor and immigrants and drugs coming over the border. She argues that DJT killed the Republican border bill, but her attack is mediocre at best. DJT responds with blatant lies about Harris' rallies and his crowd sizes. He blamed Dems for the border mess, ignoring the fact that he killed the border bill. DJT says illegals are eating dogs and cats in Springfield OH, which is totally insane and not supported by facts. DJT says people say that on TV. Harris' response to that blast of lies and crackpottery is again mediocre at best -- she is off point. In response, DJT blithers about him firing people, but Biden didn't fire anyone and he lies about getting more votes than presidential candidate ever. DJT's lies are just overwhelming Harris.

At ~34 min DJT lies and says Harris is letting foreign criminals into the US and US crime is "through the roof." All lies. Now DJT is lying to one of the moderators, who are doing a piss poor job of calling out DJT's lies. Harris points out all of DJT's crimes. DJT responds he is winning in court and the lawsuits against him are all political and Biden-inspired and bogus. That's another blast of blatant lies. Harris hits back citing DJT's comments about cancelling the constitution. DJT interrupts and says he "took a bullet to the head" because of Harris and Biden.

At ~42 min DJT lies about his "many, many" billions of dollars he made. DJT accuses Harris of defund the police and DJT tells her to shut up, she shuts up. DJT lies about fracking and criminals, blaming Harris and Dems and lying about her policies and destroying America. DJT blithers about the size of solar farms, when they are tiny in terms of US land mass. DJT then lies about illegal immigrants killing people and not being prosecuted. DJT lies about Pelosi being responsible for the 1/6 coup attempt. Harris counters saying DJT fomented the 1/6 attack and he was impeached for it, but then she goes into Chrarlottesville and the 'fine people on each side' thing.

At this point, personal frustration with the weakness of Harris' responses is getting hard to contain. I hope I misread this, but DJT is clearly winning with blatant lies and slanders that Harris cannot effectively rebut. 

At ~51 min DJT denies losing the 2020 election and his prior comment "lost by a whisker" was sarcasm. Again, DJT just blasts out lies and nobody can counter him in this stupid ABC debate format. DJT is steamrolling both Harris and the moderators. Harris' response is mediocre at best. She just cannot land a solid punch. DJT hits back citing Hungary's dictator Viktor Orban as a smart leader who thinks the world wants DJT to be president because DJT is respected and feared. DJT attacks Harris' run in 2020.

At ~57 min the Israel mess is asked about. Harris responds, calls for ceasefire and a 2-state solution, but will always arm Israel -- rebuild Gaza. DJT responds saying the war would never have started if he was in office. Then DJT slanders Harris saying she hates Israel and the Arab populations too. He blames everything bad in the Middle East on Harris-Biden. Harris says she does not hate Israel and comments, including some comments about Ukraine and North Korea -- mediocre. Harris still does not have the guts to call DJT a dictator. DJT barges in and blithers lies about crime and the gross incompetence and weakness of Biden and the Dems.

At ~70 min DJT blithers about Ukraine -- claims the war will be settled before he is sworn into office if he is re-elected  because he knows how to get the job done. Harris can't respond because DJT  interrupts. Harris then gets a chance to respond and again her response seems to be too soft -- she gets into details and it just isn't working. Then, finally Harris starts to hits DJT harder. DJT responds with blither and a whopper lie that Harris was sent to negotiate with Putin and Zalenski about the Ukraine war. Harris calls that a lie, which is it.

The "moderators" keep letting DJT interrupt. 

I can't watch this any more. I'll pick this up here again tomorrow.

Consumer products update: About the FGC-9

The NYT reports about the FGC-9 semiautomatic gun (a pistol caliber carbine) that is in growing use by criminals, terrorists and freedom fighters worldwide. 

He’s Known as ‘Ivan the Troll.’ His 3D-Printed 

Guns Have Gone Viral

From his Illinois home, he champions guns for all. The Times confirmed his real name and linked the firearm he helped design to terrorists, drug dealers and freedom fighters in at least 15 countries

In the past three years, this model of homemade semiautomatic firearm, known as an FGC-9, has appeared in the hands of paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, rebels in Myanmar and neo-Nazis in Spain. In October, a British teenager will be sentenced for building an FGC-9 in one of the latest terrorism cases to involve the weapon.

An online group known as Deterrence Dispensed publishes free instructions on how to build the weapon, a manual that says people everywhere should stand armed and ready.

“We together can defeat for good the infringement that is taking place on our natural-born right to bear arms, defend ourselves and rise up against tyranny,” the document says.

The FGC-9, Fuck Gun Control 9 mm, is made by 3-D printers and its at-home manufacture is not regulated, probably because it is not regulatable. Governments would have to regulate 3-D printers or the materials used to make the gun, but neither is practical and thus not possible.

The NYT thinks the gun's design came from a gun nut in Illinois called Ivan the Troll. The FGC-9 has spread throughout the world. It can use Glock magazines or custom 3D-printed magazines.

FGC-9 body parts

not a stud muffin or hot chick

The fine consumer products website, 3D Gun Builder.com is all over this fine piece of machinery.

Discount product code: STAYFROSTY

Consider the near future, say ~2-3 years out in time. AI will be used to improve the design and lethality of 3D print-at-home guns. Presumably fully automatic AI-designed guns will pop up because of their highly desirable increased lethality. 

The semiautomatic nature of the FGC-9, along with its relatively low cost and ease of production, has raised concerns among law enforcement and policymakers about its potential for misuse. Yes indeed, there just might be a potential for misuse, e.g., mass slaughter of teachers, janitors, and school children.

Q: Is America's broken government** up to the task of dealing with the FGC-9 and home-made printed guns generally, or is this something that does not need to be dealt with because the free markets running wild and butt naked will take care of whatever problems might pop up (because free markets always solve all problems far, far better than any government ever could)?

** In particular, the mindlessly vehemently pro-gun GOP backed by gun lobby free speech (cash)

Regarding the disgruntled/confused radical right and the Golden Rule

Authoritarianism: the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom; lack of concern for the wishes or opinions of others, i.e., ignoring majority public opinion

The NYT reports (not paywalled) about two surprisingly large groups of grumpy/confused MAGA voters:

What Polls Say About a Key Group: 

Begrudging Trump Voters

The race for the White House couldn’t be much closer. With less than two months to go until Election Day, the latest New York Times/Siena College polling has Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in a campaign with no clear front-runner. Beyond the national numbers, there are key battleground state polls that suggest the same state of play, with Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump essentially evenly matched.

In a race this tight, even a seemingly small development could matter a lot. Swaying a few thousand voters in the right places could make all the difference. In a race with a large portion of voters saying they’ll never vote for Mr. Trump and a nearly-as-large portion saying they’ll never vote for Ms. Harris, the range of potential movement in the electorate is limited.

Love him or hate him, people already know how they feel about Mr. Trump. In the Times/Siena poll, only 9 percent of likely voters say they still need to learn more about him. [Only about 9%?? That’s freaking huge!] If you like him today, you’re almost certainly choosing him. However, there’s a small group I’ll call “begrudging Trump voters” — those who dislike him but plan to vote for him anyway. In the Times/Siena poll, about 7 percent of those who said they would vote for Mr. Trump fell into this category; he gets their votes even though they also say they think of him unfavorably.

These begrudging Trump voters are the most important audience for Ms. Harris to speak to when the candidates debate on Tuesday night. What does she need to do to sway them? I believe the key will be credibly conveying a sense of confident moderation, as a matter of both ideology and temperament.

About 9% still need to learn more about DJT. About 7% dislike him but will voted for him anyway, most presumably seeing DJT as the lesser of two evils. Given how close the election looks set to be, those are two huge groups of voters.

In my opinion, that says a lot about politics. It's not much different than what various groups of people say the bible says or Jesus said. Politics really is like religion in important ways.

It also says a lot about the staggering power of dark free speech. What about rhetoric from DJT, the GOP  and much, maybe most, of the MAGA rank and file? It clearly is far darker, far more disrespectful and far more explicitly threatening compared to Harris and Dem rhetoric. That is a fact, not an opinion.

At the recent Dem convention, both Barak Obama and Bill Clinton said that we need to apply the golden rule to our fellow voters. Give them respect, listen to their grievances and worries, and act in grace and good will with genuine empathy for their intense anger at and fear of political opposition, and their deep distrust of us in the opposition and our preferred political candidates. 

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I confess to a gush of emotional reactions to the reality of authoritarian radical right tactics like dark rhetoric juxtaposed with the much lighter rhetoric of the Dems and the left generally. The preferred DJT/GOP/MAGA policies among many or most on the radical right are openly bigoted (anti-LGBQT, etc.), in open denial of global warming, openly anti-democracy, openly anti-civil liberties, clearly deeply corrupt (anti-rule of law, pro-secrecy, etc.) and deeply authoritarian (a mix of autocratic, plutocratic and Christian theocratic). 

From what I can tell, the feelings, grievances and worries of most of the MAGA rank and file are significantly to mostly based on lies, slanders and flawed, crackpot conspiracy theories and/or reasoning. By contrast, most of the elites are not deceived like the rank and file. They know exactly what they are doing, killing democracy and civil liberties, and what they want, i.e., a lot more wealth and power. How can a person address a grievance that is based on a lie?

Barak and Bill want us go high and to apply the Golden Rule to people who support bigoted, radical right kleptocratic authoritarianism. Is that mostly a form of appeasement or mostly something else?

Can DJT or MAGA authoritarianism be appeased? Will applying the Golden Rule make a detectable difference? I do not know the answer (but have opinions) and cannot change anything. All I can do is watch how this plays out.

Does anyone sense a reality and/or logic disconnect between what Barak and Bill urge and the reality of MAGA? I think there is non-trivial disconnect. So, one final thought in the form of a Perplexity Q&A:

Q: In general, has it been possible to appease and blunt the forces of authoritarianism when they attack non-authoritarian regimes?

A: In general, appeasing or blunting authoritarian forces when they attack non-authoritarian regimes has not been an effective long-term strategy. There are several reasons for this:

Emboldening Authoritarian Aggression 

Attempts to appease authoritarian regimes often embolden them to become more aggressive rather than moderating their behavior. Authoritarian leaders tend to view concessions as signs of weakness that can be exploited further. This can lead to escalating demands and attacks on democratic institutions.

Undermining Democratic Norms
Making concessions to authoritarian forces often requires compromising core democratic principles and norms. This can weaken the foundations of democratic systems from within, playing into the authoritarian playbook of gradually eroding checks and balances.

Salami Tactics 

Modern authoritarian leaders often use "salami tactics," chipping away at democracy incrementally rather than through sudden takeovers. Appeasing individual actions fails to address this gradual erosion and can allow authoritarians to consolidate power over time.

Attacking Vulnerable Groups

Authoritarian regimes frequently scapegoat and attack vulnerable communities to sow division. Appeasing such attacks on minority groups contradicts core democratic values of equal rights and protections.

International Collaboration 

Authoritarian regimes increasingly collaborate to support each other and undermine democracy globally. Appeasing individual authoritarian actors fails to address this broader trend of authoritarian cooperation.

Enduring Impact 

Even if an individual authoritarian leader is appeased or removed from power, the institutional damage and ideological forces they unleashed can persist long after. This makes it difficult to fully blunt authoritarian forces through short-term concessions.

Rather than appeasement, effectively countering authoritarianism generally requires robustly defending democratic institutions, protecting civil liberties, addressing underlying societal grievances, and coordinating internationally to support democracy. While engagement and diplomacy have roles to play, history suggests that appeasing authoritarian aggression often leads to further democratic backsliding rather than moderating authoritarian behavior.