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Politics and Economics
The theory was never intended to be limited to five moral intuitions and researchers have continued to consider additional intuition candidates. Liberty is gaining acceptance as a sixth moral intuition. Conceived both as a freedom from (interference) and a freedom to (pursue happiness), Liberty is especially meaningful to libertarians. (Duh).
...pundits and partisans have embraced the idea that conservatives have one moral profile, liberals another. To simplify: conservatives are heavy on Loyalty, Sanctity, and Authority and liberals are big time in the Care department. I know many people who are quite taken with this apparent division of moral labor.
...we need true competition of ideas, where our own cherished certainties are challenged and the challenge can’t be ignored, because the power dynamics are fluid and no one party has a monopoly on political power.
The ideological mind is a fortress, ever vigilant against infiltration and treason. The ideological mind keeps its eye on the prize, keen to weed out those who impede progress. And so we have Establishment Democrats, Wall Street Democrats, and now Corporate Democrats: the Left's New Despicables.
Why do we signal virtue? Is it to give each other courage: you are not alone. I stand up for the good and the true - you can, too. Is it to do good by building collective confidence to fight the forces of evil - in other words, a tactic to combat evil? Is it a form of bragging? Is it to let your family, friends, and neighbors know that you're not one of Them?
Sometimes the straw man is a “hollow man”, i.e., a complete fabrication of the opponent’s views. These are pretty easy to refute, since they can’t be supported by actual evidence. Harder to refute are strawman arguments based on half-truths.
Other countries, including Germany and South Korea, have added far more industrial robots per worker than the US over the same time period and yet have lost fewer manufacturing jobs than we have.
Those who are truly stuck in poverty need different kinds of government help than those who are suffering brief periods of hardship.
Indignation is pretty much a knee-jerk reaction to perceived injustice and is associated with a desire to punish the guilty party. The guilty party may be seen as having too much of a good thing or too little of a bad thing.
Right now there are about 3 US workers for every retiree. By 2050, there will be 2 workers for every retiree. Also by 2050, the U.S. proportion of GDP spent on just Social Security and Medicare is projected to rise from 8.6% today to 11.5% if no changes are made in these programs.
The effects of self-determined actions and non-actions come with varying degrees of certainty, immediacy, importance, magnitude, and vividness, as do the effects of restricting self-determined actions and non-actions.
Many employers have reported delaying capital investments because they haven't been able to find enough workers who would be able to operate and trouble-shoot their fancy new machines and equipment.
Unfortunately, new generations of Americans are falling even further behind. Despite unending school reform and the expansion of adult basic education, literacy levels of young adults are lower today than they were a decade ago.
As with the education premium, so with inequality. They have risen together.
What I found with many adult clients reading at the "basic" level (roughly, between 6th and 8th grade level) was that with intensive basic skills training, they could improve their skills even further. If they didn't have a GED, they could get one with sufficient preparation. If they already had a GED or high school diploma, they could complete vocational training or a community college program.
Roughly 45 million US adults read below the 5th grade level, including 19% of high school graduates and half of adults under the poverty line .
Activated brain areas included the insula and amygdala, which are associated with subjective “gut feelings”, disgust, reaction to norm violations, threat detection, and evaluation of trustworthiness.
As our moral sense develops, we may find ourselves reflecting less and reacting more. In the beginning we struggle to sort it out. Eventually we become more settled in our judgments. What began as moral reasoning is increasingly replaced by moral intuitions. Some of us may become opinionated and easily outraged...
Next to age and education/skill level, single parenthood is the biggest predictor of poverty and low wages. Single mothers do not have enough time and energy to increase their skill levels or work more than they do if they cannot afford childcare.
Insurers don't have much margin. Insurance premiums are pretty much in lock-step with healthcare costs. If the premiums employers pay for healthcare insurance went down, part of the savings would go to wage increases. If our health care costs could get in line with Western Europe's, that would mean a healthy pay raise for millions of American workers.
