Genes tell me who you'll vote for

[Heraclitus]

Here is the fraction of opinion variance explained by genetics on various 1986 topics, for men and for women (all are 5% significant):

VAM and VAF are the male and female fraction of opinion variance on a topic explained by genes.



Robin Hanson is interesting as always.

Of course we shouldn't forget that what class and what kind of income you end up is mostly determined by your genes and your relatives genes. So this might to a extent be measuring is the prevalence of certain genes in various social groups and classes. But since they do predict to a extent to which group you end up hanging around with they still are predictive of your political opinions, they just might not change your brain directly to nudge it one way or the other the way as these numbers might at first imply.

A genetic explanation for my own radical shift in political opinion also makes plenty of sense, also gene expression over age may help to explain the conservative shift seen in most people as they age. Robin talks about adjusting for genetic biases. Say if you know you are predisposed to have a hard on for segregation and socialism you should try and work against that to be "rational" or something.

This is stupid. We all know politics is the mindkiller. I have no real reason to change my political preferences to match the average any more than wanting to like sex or chocolate more after figuring out that *gasp* those are affected by genes *too*.

What we should do with this information is recognize that raw efficiency isn't all that matters for how one structures a society. Also no matter how much you try and "educate" the kids of those guys on the other side of the spectrum they are still likely to end up on average being mostly like mom and dad. We have real nonmaleable desires and aesthetic preferences.

We need to become more tolerant of different political opinions as well as allow people to establish states according to their desires. Even if such countries are repressive, weird or just plain icky. All the while stopping these countries from preventing people voting with their feet and leaving if they are unhappy.

Sure policies do have very important real world consequences. But perhaps over time countries shaped to these preferences would find ways to trick their brains. Something that looks and feels like a egalitarian utopia but is meritocratic. Something that feels like a nanny state but is actually pretty lean. Something that feels like a nationalist's wet dream but isn't warlike or threatening to other nations.

Actually perhaps we are already doing this to some extent now that I think of it.
We really need to get more meta about our political beliefs if we care about human happiness.

[SlowwHand]

Other than being 25 years old, could you explain the chart?

[Heraclitus]

Other than being 25 years old, could you explain the chart?

Edited the OP to add:
VAM and VAF are the male and female fraction of opinion variance on a topic explained by genes.

[SlowwHand]

So a little over 47% of females favor the death penalty?

[Heraclitus]

So a little over 47% of females favor the death penalty?

No, to slightly simplify, 47% of female variance in their opinion on the death penalty can be explained by genes.

Also no matter how much you try and "educate" the kids of those guys on the other side of the spectrum they are still likely to end up on average being mostly like mom and dad. We have real nonmaleable desires and aesthetic preferences.

Also I'd like to clarify something. When I talk about political differences being nonmaleable, I mean nonmaleable in a way that is a bit like height, if you feed a starving population the mean height will go up for a few generations, but no matter what you do you will still have people who are shorter and people who are taller than average for purely genetic reasons.

I should have wrote the kids end up leaning the same way mom and dad leaned rather than saying they will end up mostly being like mom and dad (in a relatively stable order or one that tolerates great diversity of opinion and for example has no public schools this would be true however).

[Al B. Sure!]

You need to be a member to actually see the supposed study. I hate how vague the blog is as to what this actually means or how they arrived to this.

His 2008 blog seems to indicate that if you want to be free from bias, you select the average belief. That is ****ing retarded. Just because something is the popular belief does not mean that it's right!

And I find the idea that stances on political issues could be somehow genetic laughable. Yes, because we have genes for the phenotype of being against gun control

(it's possible there are genes that can make someone more prone to a general political ideology... men, for example, I think, tend to be more 'conservative' than women. It's conceivable that some testosterone-fueled alpha male-ism increases the chance that someone would favor ideas like personal responsibility and competition. But I doubt something like this is as strong a factor nor as specific as claimed)

I think overall this is a case of regression analysis gone amok

[Heraclitus]

You need to be a member to actually see the supposed study. I hate how vague the blog is as to what this actually means or how they arrived to this.

His 2008 blog seems to indicate that if you want to be free from bias, you select the average belief. That is ****ing retarded. Just because something is the popular belief does not mean that it's right!

And I find the idea that stances on political issues could be somehow genetic laughable. Yes, because we have genes for the phenotype of being against gun control

(it's possible there are genes that can make someone more prone to a general political ideology... men, for example, I think, tend to be more 'conservative' than women. It's conceivable that some testosterone-fueled alpha male-ism increases the chance that someone would favor ideas like personal responsibility and competition. But I doubt something like this is as strong a factor nor as specific as claimed)

I think overall this is a case of regression analysis gone amok

I address much of this somewhat in my comments in the OP and the additional post.

[Hauldren Collider]

Genes could probably tell us that Hera is an idiot.

[Heraclitus]

Genes could probably tell us that Hera is an idiot.

Not yet. Some forms of mental retardation do have genetic tests for them, but just plain dumb people can't be picked out since the genetics of IQ is complex and the research incomplete. However the Chinese (God bless them) are busily working on the test you seek.



This reminds me, I'm willing to bet that in 10 years time your opinions will be closer to my current ones than they are now. Willing to take it?

[Hauldren Collider]

Why would I want to hedge money against your stupidity?

[Heraclitus]

Also I'm surprised no one has so far noted that if selection for any particular belief was strong in the past (divorce seems like one of the things that may have been selected specifically for) the heritability would tend towards zero. I'll give a virtual cookie to the one who gets the answer as to why this is so right.

[Ben Kenobi]

All this basically shows is which values can be transmitted from parents to children. Some of the gender splits are curious though.

Pretty good way to show that genetics aren't involved in the ones with large splits.

The highest heritable trait seems to be support for school prayer.

[Heraclitus]

Why would I want to hedge money against your stupidity?

We can agree on a simple set of questions with numerical components to how much we agree or disagree. Since I neither of us will argue with numbers so to speak (and I trust we won't cheat by writing down the answers and not loosing them for 10 years or googling them up just before answering them again).

If you are sure your opinions won't shift my way then this is an easy way to earn X dollars. You'd also get the satisfaction of being right, but I doubt I'm that important to you. However being shown right in front of other Apolytoners might be of some value to you, since I have a feeling you will stick around on either this forum or still hang out with people from this forum online.

[giblets]

Also I'm surprised no one has so far noted that if selection for any particular belief was strong in the past (divorce seems like one of the things that may have been selected specifically for) the heritability would tend towards zero. I'll give a virtual cookie to the one who gets the answer as to why this is so right.

I'm not sure if you can conclude that genes have the same effect on opinions on divorce in 20th century America as they do in other cultures. It could be that the way an American would approach the divorce issue is very different from how an ancient person would, so genes that make Americans more likely to condone divorce may not have done that in the past. So I wouldn't assume this is an indicator for how views on divorce affect the chances of passing on genes.

[RGBVideo]

explained by genes.

What does this mean. There is data offered, but no explanation of what it means, and no explanation of how it was gathered. If this is based on a research paper of some kind, it would be helpful to see it.

This really smells like junk science.

it's possible there are genes that can make someone more prone to a general political ideology... men, for example, I think, tend to be more 'conservative' than women

This is true, because what are called "conservatives" in the US are pushing for more political benefits for men while what are called "liberals" in the US are pushing for more political benefits for women. Special interest-based politics. It used to be the other way around in the 1950s.