Originally Posted by TheSquealer

This again is the world through the filters of your own bias. All republicans are not one person nor are they the comments of one person and there is just as much stupidity on the democratic side which you ignore because again, you are biased towards democrats. In fact, you continually malign 1/2 of the population of the country, never once stopping to consider the magnitude of the math involved or pondering why its all so confusing to you, that you so easily conclude like so many that 1/2 a nation must be "crazy". This is an example of how you continue to press the same old point. "that team = bad".... "my team = good" (ironically, you aren't technically on either team)

Its all not that complicated.

Since you are a fan of science, i will attempt to explain a bit of well studied science for you.

We are all biased towards our views.

You can say "lets take bias out of it" but what you do not really understand or don't want to accept is that is absolutely 100% impossible. Bias is not a conscious filter. Its unconscious... meaning before you become consciously aware of anything at all, the information has ALREADY passed through all your mental filters and become distorted and perverted to suit your pre-determined narratives and beliefs. This is in part, what makes scientific study difficult and what makes removing bias from a study difficult. I would guess you at least understand that.

You don't have to dig too far to find countless studies of unconscious bias in psychology and neuroscience.... not to mention many many attempts to use them in court. Every single person here that says they are not biased against anything... say "black people",... including black people are lying. They are not intentionally lying... they just don't know. They don't have conscious access to that information. They only have the socially acceptable answers they give and the fabrications (confabulations) they use to defend those answers. And when measured and tested, the results are very very consistent across the board and across tests and across races and cultures.

So... you are biased to see things one way. I am biased to see things another. It's fine. It's exactly how human beings are designed. There is a reason you deny it. And that reason is one of the many which makes the most incredible living thing designed by nature (your brain) so advanced and downright incredible to see in action. It's actually one of the very reasons that true artificial intelligence has yet to be created and likely won't be in our lifetimes.... because our brain is not a computer. It is a million man, multi party legislative body, arguing furiously about every single choice and action and finding the winning argument of millions of arguments with every single decision or action.

You are in denial because it is actually how your brain itself is designed. And for your own survival and that of the tribe, its actually better this way. Much much better. Decisions are much much better. When you make decisions, you have no access to the actual decision making process. When someone offers you 1000.00 to take a cock in the ass on film... you're brain lights up with neural activity and literally millions of decision centers go into action weighing pro's and con's and battling it out. The only thing you are consciously aware of is the final 1 or 2 winning arguments... and with that, conscious thinking becomes the final arbiter. In terms of conscious thinking, you then falsely take credit for a winning argument that you had nothing to do with which simply popped into conscious awareness. Neuroscientist David Eagleman refers to the decision making processes of the brain as a "team of rivals". The best decisions are not made by full agreement on all sides. The best decisions are made by brutal battles where every single point is made and heard and the winning argument rises to the top. To argue.. you need arrogance and confidence in your argument no matter how lopsided or misguided and flat out wrong it may be.

This, no matter what anyone wants to believe, actually mirrors our political system.

You are not special.

You are not enlightened.

You are just ignorant of how the brain actually works and what drives peoples behaviors.

But its not your fault because you don't understand the mental processes involved... you simply react to stimuli like a rodent seeking cheese or escaping danger. And you should. That too, is by design. The brain is costly to run and though insanely efficient, your brain doesn't want to know a whole lot beyond matters directly pertaining to survival and reproduction. Conscious thinking is also slow, clunky and costly in terms of energy spent. It's more energy efficient to cling to a narrative and set of beliefs and dismiss anything which calls them into question.

So... like all, you are so sure of yourself and your own ideas and views as you ignore your own bias', give more weight to your own points and less weight to those against you, more weight to those on your team and less to those on the other.... as you lift your team up and put them on a pedestal and look at the other as the cause of every problem known to man.

That's what teams do. Teams "blind and bind". This again is the brilliance of our design and the human brain. Teams don't need to agree. They are not effective when they agree. When everyone in the tribe agrees that they will have peace for 1000 years... thats when they weaken their security and someone swoops in to destroy them. You need voices expressing all concerns and all sides of the argument with equal veracity. The more people agree, the more blind they become to the possibilities (and future genetic consequences) of being wrong.

You are nothing more than one voice in a sea of millions contributing to an argument with the same old self righteous "my team = good".. "your team = bad", "my team = right"... "your team = wrong" self assured, misguided and deluded arrogance that everyone else has on every. You are a tiny cog in a machine fulfilling your role, never realizing at all that you make no difference whatsoever and change no minds.

A wise person can step back and observe and appreciate the whole process for what it is. An ignorant person only has their own biased narrative and plays their own largely irrelevant role... for the greater good of the group "....a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."