- 15 Mar 2018 04:47
#14896574
Preamble: Most people don't form their political opinions out of direct, detailed (aka professional) understanding of a given policy area. Even though I'm a highly educated person, I wouldn't expect my opinion to be taken seriously as a matter of discussion outside of one or two public policy areas because as someone who gained a certain degree of competence in those areas, I also came to appreciate which areas I don't have expertise in, given how complicated modern policies can be.
This is why I get frustrated sometimes that so many people these days act as if they "know everything". Celebrities in previous generations used to be asked for their political opinions and they would refuse to provide them because they were only entertainers; most people from previous generations appreciated that they understood some things and they also appreciated what they didn't understand. This doesn't happen nearly as often today. The change didn't occur because suddenly everyone "knows everything", the change happened for other reasons.
If you can accept the controversial (by today's standards) idea that people should know what they're talking about before weighing in on important subjects, you might be able to go one step further. What is it, exactly, that causes people to come to one opinion or another in policy areas that they should know they don't understand? We already know that political opinions stem largely from factors other than debate: physical attributes (stronger and taller people are more likely to be conservative), economic status (the top and bottom of the economic spectrum tend to be fiscally liberal, the middle more conservative) and familial beliefs all strongly effect political orientation and none of those things indicate understanding of a policy area in of themselves.
Debate happens anyway and this can be a good thing. But having a debate doesn't mean that people have suddenly become informed. All too regularly, neither side in a debate was informed in the first place. The winner of the debate does occasionally (although very rarely) elicit a change in policy opinions but not because they were the more knowledgeable party. If someone who lacks knowledge of an area appreciated that, they wouldn't have tried to debate with a more knowledgeable person in the first place. What actually happens is that people are emotional creatures and when dealing with a subject that they (or perhaps neither) party actually understands, they come to their conclusions for emotional reasons. Whichever side causes the other side more anxiety wins the debate and then the political opinion changes. Actual understanding of the policy area is not relevant here since usually, neither side possessed it to begin with and they won't have gained said knowledge from each other during debate.
Finally we get to the role played by psychiatric medications. Various types of anxiety and depression-blocking medications prevent negative feelings from arising in specific types of situations. I will give two examples here.
First, the example of the "sanctuary city" policies. Let's imagine an illegal alien with a skull/MS13 tattoo on their face gets brought in for illegal possession of a firearm. It's sanctuary city policy to not deport such a person. I believe that you must be on anxiety-blocking medications for this to not make you anxious. If someone immediately gets in your face and calls you racist, that will make you anxious even if you're on an anxiety blocker. If you imagine a long-term source of anxiety, such as this person later on killing someone, your medication blocks this type of anxiety and so you do not treat the position that they should be deported as a serious or reasonable conclusion.
Second, let's consider firearm laws. I'm somewhat experienced in this area. I'm not aware of a convincing argument that gun control laws reduce murder, suicide or overall crime rates. Even so, immediate possession of a gun causes immediate anxiety. Media coverage of dramatic (but statistically insignificant) events causes immediate anxiety. These are not experiences affected by anxiety-blocking medications. Concerns about long-term impact are exactly the kind of anxiety that most anxiety-blocking medications are designed to treat, therefore arguments about the long-term effects of gun control do not have an influential effect upon those who are taking said medications.
It's my opinion that no one who is on mind-altering medications should be weighing in on a policy debate of any kind. Unfortunately the ubiquitous nature of these medications among the upper classes in the west correlates strongly with the existence of seemingly suicidal (in the long term) western liberalism. I think it's easy to see why that is.
This is why I get frustrated sometimes that so many people these days act as if they "know everything". Celebrities in previous generations used to be asked for their political opinions and they would refuse to provide them because they were only entertainers; most people from previous generations appreciated that they understood some things and they also appreciated what they didn't understand. This doesn't happen nearly as often today. The change didn't occur because suddenly everyone "knows everything", the change happened for other reasons.
If you can accept the controversial (by today's standards) idea that people should know what they're talking about before weighing in on important subjects, you might be able to go one step further. What is it, exactly, that causes people to come to one opinion or another in policy areas that they should know they don't understand? We already know that political opinions stem largely from factors other than debate: physical attributes (stronger and taller people are more likely to be conservative), economic status (the top and bottom of the economic spectrum tend to be fiscally liberal, the middle more conservative) and familial beliefs all strongly effect political orientation and none of those things indicate understanding of a policy area in of themselves.
Debate happens anyway and this can be a good thing. But having a debate doesn't mean that people have suddenly become informed. All too regularly, neither side in a debate was informed in the first place. The winner of the debate does occasionally (although very rarely) elicit a change in policy opinions but not because they were the more knowledgeable party. If someone who lacks knowledge of an area appreciated that, they wouldn't have tried to debate with a more knowledgeable person in the first place. What actually happens is that people are emotional creatures and when dealing with a subject that they (or perhaps neither) party actually understands, they come to their conclusions for emotional reasons. Whichever side causes the other side more anxiety wins the debate and then the political opinion changes. Actual understanding of the policy area is not relevant here since usually, neither side possessed it to begin with and they won't have gained said knowledge from each other during debate.
Finally we get to the role played by psychiatric medications. Various types of anxiety and depression-blocking medications prevent negative feelings from arising in specific types of situations. I will give two examples here.
First, the example of the "sanctuary city" policies. Let's imagine an illegal alien with a skull/MS13 tattoo on their face gets brought in for illegal possession of a firearm. It's sanctuary city policy to not deport such a person. I believe that you must be on anxiety-blocking medications for this to not make you anxious. If someone immediately gets in your face and calls you racist, that will make you anxious even if you're on an anxiety blocker. If you imagine a long-term source of anxiety, such as this person later on killing someone, your medication blocks this type of anxiety and so you do not treat the position that they should be deported as a serious or reasonable conclusion.
Second, let's consider firearm laws. I'm somewhat experienced in this area. I'm not aware of a convincing argument that gun control laws reduce murder, suicide or overall crime rates. Even so, immediate possession of a gun causes immediate anxiety. Media coverage of dramatic (but statistically insignificant) events causes immediate anxiety. These are not experiences affected by anxiety-blocking medications. Concerns about long-term impact are exactly the kind of anxiety that most anxiety-blocking medications are designed to treat, therefore arguments about the long-term effects of gun control do not have an influential effect upon those who are taking said medications.
It's my opinion that no one who is on mind-altering medications should be weighing in on a policy debate of any kind. Unfortunately the ubiquitous nature of these medications among the upper classes in the west correlates strongly with the existence of seemingly suicidal (in the long term) western liberalism. I think it's easy to see why that is.
Orb Team Re-Assemble!
- By annatar1914
- By Tainari88