European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 439

On March 15 2016 03:14 AngryMag wrote:


Because you are saying that the AFD is atleast borderline right wing extremist, explain the non success of right wing movements with social stigma (despite the vote being secret) and then accuse the 15-20% AFD voters of having racist tendencies. Incoherent. There is either social stigma and if the AFD would be too far right they wouldn't have the success of the two last years. Or there is stigma and the AFD is not too far right because otherwise virtually no one would vote for them (like for NPD or whatever right wing movements) otherwise. Or there is no stigma at all because the vote is secret and no one gives a fuck. In all three cases your explanation is simply nonsense (past stigma-->no succes for right wing movements, now succes for supposed far right party because of magic)

On March 15 2016 04:52 Iridius wrote:


I'm would just like to point out that another extremist right wing party (DVU) has had similiar success in the 1998 Saxony-Anhalt Parliament election. In the same way as the AFD they profiteered from protest voters, as well as giving racist voters a platform.
So to me, what Nyxisto is arguing at least makes sense to me.

The “cultural cognition thesis” is a relatively new approach to science communication (e.g., see Kahan, 2010, 2012, 2015; Kahan, Jenkins-Smith, & Braman, 2011; Kahan et al., 2012). Theoretically, the approach can be seen as a conceptual marriage between the “cultural theory of risk” (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982) and the psychometric paradigm (Slovic, 2000). Broadly, the theory aims to explain why groups with different “cultural outlooks” tend to disagree about important societal issues. In particular, the cultural cognition thesis argues that public disagreement over key societal risks (e.g., climate change, nuclear power) arises not because people fail to understand the science or lack relevant information, but rather as a result of the fact that “people endorse whichever position reinforces their connection to others with whom they share important ties” (Kahan, 2010, p. 296). This latter notion is central to much of the cultural cognition thesis and is generally referred to as a specific form of motivated reasoning, namely, “identity-protective cognition” (Kahan, 2012). Because espousing beliefs that are not congruent with the dominant sentiment in one’s group could threaten one’s position or status within the group, people may be motivated to “protect” their cultural identities. In fact, the cultural cognition thesis predicts that identity-protective reasoning is a mechanism that people unconsciously employ to assimilate (risk) information. In other words, people are expected to process information in a motivated way, that is, consistent with their cultural worldviews (Kahan, 2012). A key prediction that flows from this theory is that when people are exposed to (new) scientific information, “culturally” biased cognition will merely reinforce existing predispositions and cause groups with opposing values to become even more polarized on the respective issue (Kahan, 2010, 2012).

On March 15 2016 05:32 xM(Z wrote:
dude, what you suffer of is this: identity-protective cognition
(quote from a .pdf) (tldr /b so stop calling people names). if more and more people connect with the likes of Afd, means there's a real problem somewhere.

On March 15 2016 05:15 Nyxisto wrote:
In the German context I think it is really ridiculous to talk about contempt for the working class. The AfD still has retained all their libertarian economic positions. They're opposed to minimum wages, they want tax cuts, are in favour of putting the burden of education and child support back to the family (which is pretty bad for people that aren't that well off). They're very Ukip like in that regard. How are these things going to help poor people? They're solely fuelled by their immigration position. It's pretty much the German version of Trump, they're not champions of the working class.

Which is by the way why I am very sure that the nativist and nationalist stuff is the main driving force here. If they'd be voting for socialists you could convince me that this is a class issue. But the AfD voters are screwing themselves over economically

On March 15 2016 05:44 AngryMag wrote:



Sounds like a slightly more refined confirmation bias.

On March 15 2016 05:07 AngryMag wrote:



But this+the one or other election were isolated incidents stretching over decades. AFD did not sit in one single parliament in 2013 (made the first one in 2014 I think) and is now sitting in 8, not missing one in the last 8 elections. You will see this trend continue and not because everyone is a nazi but because of the utter ineptitude to compromise with vast percentages of the population, the contempt towards the working class by today's left which is also displayed in this thread and various other reasons. Denial and demonizing will just help them.

On March 15 2016 06:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Which one is which? They are both forms of unreasoning.

Why does public conflict over societal risks persist in the face of compelling and widely accessible scientific evidence? We conducted an experiment to probe two alternative answers: the “Science Comprehension Thesis” (SCT), which identifies defects in the public’s knowledge and reasoning capacities as the source of such controversies; and the “Identity-protective Cognition Thesis” (ICT) which treats cultural conflict as disabling the faculties that members of the public use to make sense of decision-relevant science. In our experiment, we presented subjects with a difficult problem that turned on their ability to draw valid causal inferences from empirical data. As expected, subjects highest in Numeracy — a measure of the ability and disposition to make use of quantitative information — did substantially better than less numerate ones when the data were presented as results from a study of a new skin-rash treatment. Also as expected, subjects’ responses became politically polarized — and even less accurate — when the same data were presented as results from the study of a gun-control ban. But contrary to the prediction of SCT, such polarization did not abate among subjects highest in Numeracy; instead, it increased. This outcome supported ICT, which predicted that more Numerate subjects would use their quantitative-reasoning capacity selectively to conform their interpretation of the data to the result most consistent with their political outlooks. We discuss the theoretical and practical significance of these findings.

On March 15 2016 07:19 WhiteDog wrote:
Your vision is nothing but class racism by the way (the poor don't think lolz, they react through their emotions ... sure !). Even the distinction between emotion and rational thinking is stupid, there is no such things in reality ; like there is a part of the brain that is strictly used for emotions and another for logic, and somehow the less educated have that part less developped right ?

On March 15 2016 07:05 xM(Z wrote:

i smell semantics dude; i won't do this. get the context of Nyx argument(educated=CDU vs uneducated=AFD) then read on confirmation bias(its wiki definition/explanation) then on ICT vs SCT experiments/studies.
randomso if your whole point was that "but the results are the same", then that's the semantics i won't go into and you're missing the whole point+ Show Spoiler +.