Ever noticed that people don't really answer your questions?

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I agree with you! In fact, adherence to social rules and social conventions is rigid behavior as well.

Now you're getting into some heavy and specific issues.

I admit that I agree with you that even if you asked your question my way you probably would not get very productive answers most of the time. Only "they are all brainwashed!" type stuff.

In fact you cannot get the answers you are looking for at all by doing the way you do it: by asking folks in a particular party why folks in their own party agree with them on issues. Its like asking a fish to step outside of water and objectively analyze the water they live in.

You have to study history to get the kind of outsiders view you seek.

People don't like saying they don't know (or don't have a clue).

Also, there are certain topics that I would steer well clear of as they ALWAYS cause problems:

Politics and Politicians
Religion and those who practice it in the public eye
Education System
Benefits / Wellfare State
Health Care System

I would never ask questions (or bring up the subjects) for the above with anyone outside of my own household.

All of those topics people can have very stong views and it can be a recipe for disaster if you start them off on them too.

I know an old woman who totally ignores politics, because of the way her father and uncles discussed it at home. I think a lot of families just avoid any contentious topics. Those are best discussed in groups self-selected for broad agreement, where details can be debated and opinion changed incrementally.

Well, in the examples I gave, people I talked to didn't avoid expressing their opinion. In fact they kept expressing it, on the stronger and stronger ways -- without answering my question. I tried to ask them a "neutral" question "why is there this particular correlation of opinions between parties" but they just assumed I side with the party opposite to theirs and started making stronger and stronger case in defense of their own party.

The question was ignoring obviouse fact that the parties are not for being against each other but to serve the common interests of their members. It's partly the same even if it comes to different parties. But because the differences are more important once you have to select one they started to discuss those. Guess there is no real alternative to Trump except you want somebody who lies even a lot more but less obviously and sells the rights of the people even faster to the one who pays most. Beside of this is the weather really great today.

The point is that I wasn't siding with the other party and they thought I was. That's why I said they ignored what I was actually saying.

If Democrats think I am a Republican and Republicans think I am Democrat they can't both be right. But that's the reaction I am getting.

You really ARE autistic! Lol! You have a lot to learn about human nature.

1) the whole point of political parties is for folks with common views to join together. So asking "why do you folks of your party X tend to have your same opinion Y?" comes off as kinda dumb.

2)If you point out inconsistencies (like you yourself talked about above)...like "if you Republicans are anti big government why do you all want anti gay laws and anti abortion laws, etc?" you should be aware that those are actually common Liberal Dem arguments used against Republican conservatives (and there are equivalent barbs used by GOPers against Dems). So you have to be aware that the GOPer you're talking too is NOT going to think "here is a neutral seeker of truth- so I will ponder the question and maybe give him a thought out neutral answer". They will think "this guys a liberal Dem trying to pick a fight with me, so I need to hit back even harder!! !!" The fault is yours for failing to anticipate that. Not with them.

This habit of yours ...of asking folks to dissect their own bodies for your enlightenment ...is something that you should JUST STOP DOING! you're going stumble into hornet's nests if you keep it up.

There are other ways of getting at the kinds of answers that you're looking for than to bother the natives with dumb questions.

It can happen quite a lot with Quora .People can be more obsessed with convincing you they have a 170+ IQ , than actually answering the question that was asked .

Oops - you are right. But may I'm sometimes even the same for not having to dissect the bodys my own.
Hey girls - how about to dissect your brains for me?

...guess I get no answer as well.

Then I guess the question is why are there only 2 main parties rather than a dozen (yes I am aware of third parties and I respect them for that -- but the question is why are they in a minority).

If there are n different issues, then there are 2^n combinations of opinions on those issues, so there should be 2^n parties. But if there are only 2 parties rather than 2^n, then this implies that opinions on different issues correlate with each other.

Some correlations make logical sense, while others don't. So the correlations that make logical sense explain why the number of parties is less than 2^n. But the correlations that don't make any sense imply that there should be more than just 2 parties. Hence my questions.



I realize that what you gave are just examples. But I guess in this particular case the specifics is important. The example of "why do republicans support small government yet oppose gay rights" IS a classic liberal argument. But the example of "what does global warming have to do with liberal policies" is not. I realize that -- in this particular thread -- I actually said the former, too. But I don't think I said it in the conversation about vaccines I mentioned earlier. In that particular conversation I asked "what if the government became anti-vaccine, would the Republicans and Democrats switch sides of vaccine issue". She said she didn't think so. And I asked "why not -- if you told me its connected to being pro-government or anti-government", and she couldn't really answer that.

By the way, going back to the argument "why do you Republicans oppose gay rights if you support small government", it is hypocritical to use that argument to support Democrat agenda. The person saying it "sound" like someone in favor of small government. But wait a second, the Democrats don't favor small government when it comes to issues like gun control. So why do they act like they do? Incidentally, there is another party that uses this same argument -- they are Libertarians -- but THEY use it in far more logical way: they attack both democrats AND republicans at the same time by making this type of argument. And I find it a lot more logially consistent. Now, I happen to disagree with Libertarians when it comes to gay issue and, especially, abortion (libertarians are pro-gay and pro-abortion) but I still respect them for being LOGICAL. They support both gun ownership and abortion because both are part of small government agenda. Thats logical. But Democrats and Republicans act "small government" in one of these two issues and "big government" in the other, which has no logical explanation beyond the herd mentality.

Last edited by QFT on 26 Apr 2020, 11:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

Rationalization is very common, and rationality very rare, but only the rational can even tell the difference.

That would make a good sig line. I’d use it, but I already have a good one.

Thanks
Everyone knows inventors are crazy.
Inventors know everyone is crazy.

I totally agree. I am firmly on the "inventors" side. I am a physicist and in physics I encounter the same thing: I am trying to revise physics, and nobody besides me seems to care while I think that other physicists are brainwashed. One good thing that distinguishes physics from politics is that in physics there are some offshots that are far from mainstream, and I tend to gravitate towards those. But I found a hard way that they aren't any better. Instead of blindly repeating the mainstream thinking, they blindly repeat the thinking of their specific research group. I actually decided to "hijack" one of those groups (namely, the causal set community) and introduce my own thinking. But they all ignore me.

^^ In design engineering, success or failure is barely affected by engineering excellence. Most of what we see is the work of people who are better at promotion than invention. Everyone wants to raise their own brainchild, not adopt. Once the enterprise gets going, the best salesmen are never found with the best product, because that presents no challenge for them. All my heroes advise getting a business partner who will help you focus on technical issues to reap the fruits. Edison started five companies, and lost them all through inattention.