[Winstonm]

Quote

A study published last month in Current Biology found that people who suffer from anxiety struggle to differentiate between neutral (or "safe") stimulus and those associated with threats. Essentially, that means that anxious people experience a behavioral phenomenon known as emotional over-generalization, failing to effectively differentiate emotional situations.

"We show that in patients with anxiety, emotional experience induces plasticity in brain circuits that lasts after the experience is over," Dr. Rony Paz, a study author and researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said in a press release. "Such plastic changes occur in primary circuits that later mediate the response to new stimuli, resulting in an inability to discriminate between the originally experienced stimulus and a new similar stimulus."

In other words, the brains of people with anxiety fail to adapt to changing situations as effectively as people with non-anxious brains. Once their brain determines a "route" of how to react to a stimulus, that is the route that it continues to take, regardless of changing conditions. Paz continued:

"Therefore, anxiety patients respond emotionally to such new stimuli as well, resulting in anxiety even in apparently irrelevant new situations. Importantly, they cannot control this, as it is a perceptual inability to discriminate."

I think when we take this finding and apply it to the authoritarian concept we might be getting closer to the answer of the Trump phenomenon. The authoritarian type person has been more deeply affected psychologically by terrorists' strikes and the anxious type has trouble distinguishing new possible threats from the old. Once the anxiety level is high, the authoritarian personality type looks to simple, strong messages from a seemingly strong-sounding leader willing to restore a sense of calm with his rhetoric.

Or so it seems.

[Elianna]

Nevermind, found one.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2016-May-25, 19:22, said:

I think when we take this finding and apply it to the authoritarian concept we might be getting closer to the answer of the Trump phenomenon. The authoritarian type person has been more deeply affected psychologically by terrorists' strikes and the anxious type has trouble distinguishing new possible threats from the old. Once the anxiety level is high, the authoritarian personality type looks to simple, strong messages from a seemingly strong-sounding leader willing to restore a sense of calm with his rhetoric.

Or so it seems.

You have written a lot about how to understand what is happening. Well, it is tough. But a few pages back I recommended an article for the Wash Post:


https://www.washingt...5f9a_story.html



I will quote parts.


Setser has kids and, for now, a job. Jennifer Bowers is his fiancee.

Quote

"What in the world is happening to this neighborhood?" Setser was saying now, waiting again for the school bus on his front porch. In the months since the announcement at UTEC, the steady march of anger and anxiety had been moving down his manufacturing line, part after part, shift after shift, and lately he had begun to notice things about Huntington that he had once overlooked. There were weeds creeping up around the neat craftsman homes, a stray needle in the alley and a fresh layer of graffiti on the nearby apartment building. "Can't anyone keep up a house anymore?" he said.

His children came home on the bus, and they sat down for family dinner and took turns talking about their days. Bowers had booked the wedding photographer. "Expensive but worth it," she said. The two boys had decided they wanted to go back to Florida, where they had vacationed, because they thought it might be nicer than Indiana. Krystal had met with an adviser at school and decided she wanted to become a dental hygienist, because the adviser thought there were lots of openings, and if so Krystal was happy to clean teeth

and

Quote

"We're getting to the point where there aren't really any good options left," he said. "The system is broken. Maybe its time to blow it up and start from scratch, like Trump's been saying."

Krystal rolled her eyes at him. "Come on. You're a Democrat."

"I was. But that was before we started turning into a weak country," he said. "Pretty soon there won't be anything left. We'll all be flipping burgers."

"Fine, but so what?" she said. "We just turn everything over to the guy who yells the loudest?"

Setser leaned into the table and banged it once for emphasis. "They're throwing our work back in our face," he said. "China is doing better. Even Mexico is doing better. Don't you want someone to go kick ass?"

"That doesn't really seem like you," she said, and for a few seconds she stared back at him, as if examining someone for the first time. The spices were alphabetized on the shelves. The family schedule was printed on the wall. Theirs was a happy home, a stable home.

These are not people such that I need a social scientist's help to understand them. They are the from my childhood, and it is here that the action will be in the upcoming election. I hope that the Dems can find a way to speak to them. It was once so.

[barmar]

This probably won't phase Ken, he's been through too many of these "wanna feel old" moments before.

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2016-May-27, 08:47, said:

This probably won't phase Ken, he's been through too many of these "wanna feel old" moments before.

It's true about it not phasing me, I have made my peace with age. The one that snuck up on me for the sucker punch was not my thirtieth birthday, that one I was prepared for, but rather my daughter's thirtieth birthday. The oldest granddaughter is now 23 (0r is it 24), we will see how I do when she turns 30.

An 18 year old was 3 in 2001. Pearl Harbor was less than a month before I turned 3. I don't remember it (of course) but I do have memories, some pretty detailed, of the war years, although I was not directly affected in the way some were. I don't much go in for grouping people by generations, Boomers, X's, Mills, etc, but no doubt the age we grow up in influences our outlook. I regard the post-war movie The Best Years of Our Lives as a fine depiction of at least how we liked to think of ourselves at that time. Reality may have been a bit different.
I guess I have no idea of what would be an accurate portrayal of our outlook today.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2016-May-26, 18:47, said:

You have written a lot about how to understand what is happening. Well, it is tough. But a few pages back I recommended an article for the Wash Post:


https://www.washingt...5f9a_story.html



I will quote parts.


Setser has kids and, for now, a job. Jennifer Bowers is his fiancee.




and




These are not people such that I need a social scientist's help to understand them. They are the from my childhood, and it is here that the action will be in the upcoming election. I hope that the Dems can find a way to speak to them. It was once so.

Well, for me, I looked at my own views and they did not seem to coincide with the reality that a lot of people (not all stupid) were reaching conclusions that were skewed, if not ridiculous. I figure there must be some kind of valid reason for sane, reasonably intelligent people to act like nutcases when it comes to choice of candidate to support. The "authoritarian personality" type goes a long way to explaining this phenomenon as far as I can tell.

[mike777]

study published last month in Current Biology found that people who suffer from anxiety struggle to differentiate between neutral (or "safe") stimulus and those associated with threats. Essentially, that means that anxious people experience a behavioral phenomenon known as emotional over-generalization, failing to effectively differentiate emotional situations.

"We show that in patients with anxiety, emotional experience induces plasticity in brain circuits that lasts after the experience is over," Dr. Rony Paz, a study author and researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said in a press release. "Such plastic changes occur in primary circuits that later mediate the response to new stimuli, resulting in an inability to discriminate between the originally experienced stimulus and a new similar stimulus."

In other words, the brains of people with anxiety fail to adapt to changing situations as effectively as people with non-anxious brains. Once their brain determines a "route" of how to react to a stimulus, that is the route that it continues to take, regardless of changing conditions. Paz continued:

"Therefore, anxiety patients respond emotionally to such new stimuli as well, resulting in anxiety even in apparently irrelevant new situations. Importantly, they cannot control this, as it is a perceptual inability to discriminate."

------------------

How did the study define and measure "people who suffer from anxiety"

I mean this could mean everyone at some point in our lives depending on how they define and measure it. I am anxious to know.

[Al_U_Card]

Of all the empires to rise and fall, the US did the best. Created a system to fight the eventual and inevitable decline which explains the length of time required for this latest phase of the decadent period.
To be the generation that made the transition and is now realizing that they are on the outside, looking in, is uncomfortable and unsettling.
China will have its time but their system is likely to make their hegemony somewhat more fleeting.
Le roi est mort, vivre le roi!

[hrothgar]

Al_U_Card, on 2016-May-28, 05:09, said:

Of all the empires to rise and fall, the US did the best. Created a system to fight the eventual and inevitable decline which explains the length of time required for this latest phase of the decadent period.
To be the generation that made the transition and is now realizing that they are on the outside, looking in, is uncomfortable and unsettling.
China will have its time but their system is likely to make their hegemony somewhat more fleeting.
Le roi est mort, vivre le roi!

Rome lasted for close to 2,000 years.

The US has been around for what, 240?

[helene_t]

hrothgar, on 2016-May-28, 05:35, said:

Rome lasted for close to 2,000 years.

Then you include the survival of Konstantinopel after the fall of Rome.

East Samoa might survive for a while after the fall of USA.

[Al_U_Card]

helene_t, on 2016-May-28, 06:17, said:

Then you include the survival of Konstantinopel after the fall of Rome.

East Samoa might survive for a while after the fall of USA.

Part of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar concerned his efforts to mint a copper coin for use as currency by the common folk...that was the start of the fall of the Roman Empire but nowadays things are moving ever faster...

[Zelandakh]

hrothgar, on 2016-May-28, 05:35, said:

Rome lasted for close to 2,000 years.

The US has been around for what, 240?

The Egyptians didn't do so bad either. Comparing US culture with the of the Maya, there is reason to suggest that it might not even be the "best" of the Americas, let alone the world.

[gwnn]

Could you elaborate on that?

https://en.wikipedia...in_Maya_culture

[Zelandakh]

gwnn, on 2016-May-29, 02:32, said:

Could you elaborate on that?

The link you give covers the period 250-1697. You have to judge cultures by the standards of their time. Obviously they were not producing nuclear bombs or Hollywood movies. I think the historical record is silent on whether they were using waterboarding.

[gwnn]

If you judge cultures by their time you are soon going to end up with a (near-) tautology. In other words, all numbers (other than zero) are 1 if they are properly normalized. But even granting all of that, there were other cultures where human sacrifice was frowned upon, and much befoee 1697. I don't know how you can say that the Maya were possibly superior to the US. I do get the feeling that they're impossible to compare although I do not subscribe to it. Could you elaborate on your previous post? For instance what aspect of culture do you mean, etc. Not interested in a heated debate (sorry if I came across like that) but I'd like to know what you meant.

[kenberg]

So Zeus comes down from on high and congratulates you on winning the lottery. The prize? You get to be mapped into any culture that you wish, but you cannot pick the person or the rank. So you can choose to be Mayan, but not a Mayan King. You can choose to be an American, but not Warren Buffett. You take your chances on who. We could jazz it up by letting you pick the era, but you are randomly assigned to a body. Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Midnight in Paris. Peggy Sue Got Married.
Good movies all.

Me, I'll go back to the America of my youth, c.1950. Sentimental choice maybe, but I liked it there. If someone prefers the Mayan culture, go ahead.

[PassedOut]

While many of the republicans who pointed out earlier that Donald Trump is dangerously unqualified to be president of the US have now prostrated themselves before him, the real stalwarts like the Bushes, Romney, along with wealthy contributors like the Kochs, have not. One reason: For decades, GOP has used the war on drugs or voter ID laws as cover for race-baiting. Trump just blew their cover

Quote

As Nixon aide John Ehrlichman explained to Harper’s Dan Baum in 1994, “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be against black[s], but by getting the public to associate . . . blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing” the drug “we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Now that there is a "heroin epidemic" among white voters, politicians are coming around to the idea that prison is not the solution.

[gwnn]

kenberg, on 2016-May-29, 10:17, said:

So Zeus comes down from on high and congratulates you on winning the lottery. The prize? You get to be mapped into any culture that you wish, but you cannot pick the person or the rank. So you can choose to be Mayan, but not a Mayan King. You can choose to be an American, but not Warren Buffett. You take your chances on who. We could jazz it up by letting you pick the era, but you are randomly assigned to a body. Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Midnight in Paris. Peggy Sue Got Married.
Good movies all.

Me, I'll go back to the America of my youth, c.1950. Sentimental choice maybe, but I liked it there. If someone prefers the Mayan culture, go ahead.

the veil of ignorance! beautiful.

I don't think I'm a bit Obama-sycophant but I tend to agree with him that today is the most peaceful, best period of human history. I guess we'll see how we fare when we run out of oil/fresh water/the Saudis get a nuke/we all fry together when we fry*.

* https://www.youtube....h?v=frAEmhqdLFs

I like the way Dan Carlin (history amateur podcaster) put it: the worst case scenario today (say ISIS manages to get a nuclear bomb to a major American city and sets it off, killing 100k people and rendering large areas uninhabitable) would have been a best case scenario (out of the bad ones) in the Cold War.

[kenberg]

gwnn, on 2016-May-29, 12:04, said:

the veil of ignorance! beautiful.

I don't think I'm a bit Obama-sycophant but I tend to agree with him that today is the most peaceful, best period of human history. I guess we'll see how we fare when we run out of oil/fresh water/the Saudis get a nuke/we all fry together when we fry*.

* https://www.youtube....h?v=frAEmhqdLFs

I like the way Dan Carlin (history amateur podcaster) put it: the worst case scenario today (say ISIS manages to get a nuclear bomb to a major American city and sets it off, killing 100k people and rendering large areas uninhabitable) would have been a best case scenario (out of the bad ones) in the Cold War.

Well, if I were to look at the downsides of that era, I suppose polio would be a more direct and concrete concern. I was approaching this more in the context of whether I would rather live in the Mayan culture, or the US culture. The US had this danger of atomic warfare, but of course the Mayans had this issue with the Spanish. All true, but the discussion was about superior civilizations rather than threats to survival. Of course "superior civilization" can be defined in a way to make practically anything come out on top, you had said something like this earlier, but one approach is to ask which culture I would rather live in, given that my birth rank in that culture will be randomly assigned.

It is often noted that in the US today the people that are born into, say, the bottom quintile economically have a much tougher time climbing up than was the case in 1950. At any rate, they find it tougher, so I understand and I think it is probably true, to survive in any comfort. This is the sort of choice I was addressing. That and the fact that I have good memories from then.

I do think that people worried more about polio than about the Russians. I was not factoring either issue in. Also, if I am to be mapped somewhere I want to take Becky with me or it's a no go. I was not including that either.

Actually the whole thing was a not well thought out fantasy.

[awm]

kenberg, on 2016-May-29, 10:17, said:

So Zeus comes down from on high and congratulates you on winning the lottery. The prize? You get to be mapped into any culture that you wish, but you cannot pick the person or the rank. So you can choose to be Mayan, but not a Mayan King. You can choose to be an American, but not Warren Buffett. You take your chances on who. We could jazz it up by letting you pick the era, but you are randomly assigned to a body. Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Midnight in Paris. Peggy Sue Got Married.
Good movies all.

Me, I'll go back to the America of my youth, c.1950. Sentimental choice maybe, but I liked it there. If someone prefers the Mayan culture, go ahead.

I suspect you would not be so happy with this choice if you wound up African-American (pre civil rights) especially in the South!

I'd go for one of several European countries (like Norway, Denmark, or Switzerland) in the present day. US or Great Britain is probably better if in the upper half of income distribution though.