Conservative mindset versus liberal mindset

Well, well. For long I've wondered about the fact-defying fanatic attitudes and beliefs that the right wing nut-cases and conservatives share. Now there's scientific evidence of a certain - at least partial - explanation.

Neuroscientists have found that there's a difference in brain chemistry between conservatives and liberals. In conservatives the emotional side was more dominant whereas in liberal brains there was more activity in the areas that deal with decision making and analysing of information. Conservatives were more reliant on emotions and more resistant to new ideas and tended to cling to what they had learned previously - therefore to what their emotions were telling them.

This explains a lot to me. I would consider myself more of a liberal leaning person than anything else, and it has often totally mystified me how some conservative people can so adamantly defy and deny logics, reason and facts. Now here we finally have some kind of explanation. They simply seem to be hard-wired that way and their learned beliefs and emotions are to them more important than facts and logic.

I've often wondered how e.g. GWB or the Dark Prince Mr. Cheney can live with themselves and what they've done, but apparently they believe so strongly in what they've done that no simple facts bother them. That would also explain why their off-spring is oriented in the same way - they have clearly been subjected all their live to similar ideas, beliefs and values than their parents and therefore their brains are similarly hard-wired.

Interesting, if a tad scary... Here are a couple of articles on the subject and some excerpts:

Independent: Konservatiiveilla on erilaiset aivot

Political affiliation could be all in the brain

Right-wing brains 'different'

Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported todayin the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

The results show "there are two cognitive styles -- a liberal style and a conservative style," said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research.

...

Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a "flip-flopper" for changing his mind about the conflict.

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

...

"The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions."

This emotion-based decision making seems to affect everyday life as well. This fits well with my observation that there seem to be religious-like fervor and beliefs also in the area of economics. Some people tend to believe for instance in the free market theory so much in the extreme, that they seem to be ready to strip all regulations and let the free markets find their way.

I don't really know if these fanatic sounding free-market-theorists would really strip off all economic regulations given the chance, but apparently they would aggressively rush to that direction! That is also a bit scary thought, because I liken that situation to circumstances where you have little or no laws in place in a society. And in a more or less lawless situation, personal interests would conquer and I would expect a chaos to ensue.

Another interesting thought. What about the scientists, who have very conservative beliefs or background? When they practice science, and there's a major conflict between their beliefs and what the factual information tells them, which side will conquer? Will they let the facts and science win, or do their beliefs take over like in the case of Intelligent Design theorists?

The Russian Way in business - part 2

Just to verify my previous writing about the Russian Way, please check out this article in New York Times: Guilty Verdict for a Tycoon, and Russia

Here are a few delicious excerpts from the text:

But Mr. Putin’s line is just that — a line. In addition to tossing Mr. Khodorkovsky in jail on trumped-up charges, the Russian authorities also brought bogus tax claims against Yukos itself, shoving it into bankruptcy. Then the government created a dummy corporation to take over its assets, which it sold off, for far less than they were worth, to state-run oil and gas companies, primarily Rosneft, a poorly run company that is now the biggest oil producer in Russia.

“I have never witnessed a state steal such a large amount from investors,” said James A. Harmon, who, as president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States in the late 1990s, spent much of his time dealing with Russia. Said Edward Donahue, a Massachusetts accountant who had invested in Yukos: “They stole my investment,” Mr. Donahue was among a group of investors who tried to sue Russia to get their money back. (The case was thrown out of court.)

Even since the Yukos affair, corrupt Russian politicians and businessmen have routinely used arbitrary laws and regulations to grab assets that didn’t belong to them. Royal Dutch Shell was the majority partner in a group that included the state-owned monopoly Gazprom to develop a giant oil and natural gas field. Suddenly, in 2006, it ran into severe environmental and regulatory problems — problems that disappeared as soon as Shell ceded majority ownership to Gazprom.

A few years ago, BP was the controlling partner in a huge joint venture, amounting to 25 percent of its reserves, with a Russian company called TNK. TNK wanted to control the venture — so, naturally, BP suddenly had visa and other problems. Its business began to be disrupted. Robert Dudley, an American who was running the venture — and is now the chief executive of BP — had to flee the country and go into hiding for a time. Needless to say, the joint venture arrangements were rewritten.

And here's an another interesting piece. This is pretty much the same argument I floated in my writing...

To put it more bluntly, assets that were stolen from Yukos investors like Mr. Donahue six years ago are now being recycled to a new group of investors via Rosneft. Plainly, this doesn’t bother the Russian government, and it probably won’t bother whichever investment bank handles the Rosneft deal. But it should bother the rest of us — a lot. After all, if you can steal the assets once, what’s to prevent you from stealing them again?

So, by all means, go and invest in Russia. Your money's perfectly safe... not.