The Conversion Bureau 767 members · 387 stories
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So, I was eating my own medicine (reading few search results on brain imaging and hierarchy), and found this:

Social brains and divides: the interplay between social dominance orientation and the neural sensitivity to hierarchical ranks
Abstract:

Ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, dominance hierarchies emerge through social competition and underlie the control of resources. Confronting the disruptive influence of socioeconomic inequalities, human populations tend to split into groups who legitimize existing dominance hierarchies and groups who condemn them. Here, we hypothesized that variations in the neural sensitivity to dominance ranks partly underpins this ideological split, as measured by the social dominance orientation scale (SDO). Following a competitive task used to induce dominance representations about three opponents (superior, equal and inferior), subjects were passively presented the faces of these opponents while undergoing fMRI. Analyses demonstrated that two key brain regions, the superior temporal sulcus (STS) and anterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (aDLPFC) were sensitive to social ranks. Confirming our hypothesis, the sensitivity of the right aDLPFC to social ranks correlated positively with the SDO scale, which is known to predict behaviors and political attitudes associated with the legitimization of dominance hierarchies. This study opens new perspectives for the neurosciences of political orientation and social dominance.

Hm, kinda .. BOLD. Especially given timing of publication (Published: 05 April 2017).

I also have two other articles open
Know Your Place: Neural Processing of Social Hierarchy in Humans - 2008
and
Neural mechanisms of social dominance - 2015

but trying to make sense out of them all will require time ... Well, I hope those findings can be used for deflecting some of social overpressure .... as practice, not as argument. For example, seeing or NOT seeing face of opponent (or their avatar?) might be important ... (sadly, existence of forum drama makes me skeptical about finding silver bullet here or elsewhere)

Chatoyance
Group Admin

The Dominators versus the Egalitarians. I would also bet, strongly, that the Dominators would be neophobes - afraid or rejecting of advancement and change - and the Egalitarians would be neophiles - early adopters of technology, ideas, and more progressive social orders.

Or, as I cannot help but call the division, Evil versus Good. Good being the Egalitarian, progressive, neophillic portion who desire a world more like Star Trek, and less like Game Of Thrones (or Warhammer).

7306859
I disagree, Dominators would want advancement and change for themselves first to get a leg up on the competition. A good example of this is China, the CCP are at the forefront of surveillance tech to maintain their police state. Also progress is sometimes going back from a new way that is harmful. Some people call progressives regressive, because they think the change they want to do will do more harm than good. Rushing into a new way of doing things just because it's new doesn't consider that the old way was done for hundreds if not thousands of years because it has been proven to work.

Chatoyance
Group Admin

7306930
I would offer that mere technological advancement is not a measure of these two philosophical stances - Domination versus Egalitarianism. Domination is conquest, and conquest, being war, always goes to those with superior technology. Indeed, there are evolutionary development arguments that modern humanity itself arose and dominated all other primate competitors due to the human drive to get better at war... and that meant better spears, better bows, better weapons, better technology. The argument is that our need to kill our own kind and suppress all dissent is what helped drive our evolution towards becoming a technological being.

But, if true, that does not have to determine what technology is for in the future.

A Dominator, fearful of social change, would gladly welcome any new technology - so long as that technology allowed them better control over others. Better enforcement of conformity. Better ability to resist meaningful social change. China adores facial recognition, panopticon cameras and computers capable of tracking every citizen every second, while reporting on their every action and behavior. China also adores military advancement that offers them improved ways to force their will on any wish for independence or democracy. China fights technology that permits the average person to have total information freedom and awareness. The Great Firewall Of China is an example of suppressing information and dissent.

An Egalitarian would be far more interested in technology that advances personal liberty and promotes social change and advancement. The internet itself is the very example of this drive: a means for people to communicate unhindered and without barriers or control. Television and radio accomplished the very same thing, once. And books - writing - which is often suppressed by Dominators, is exulted by Egalitarians. It is information that can easily lead to growth, change, and new social orders. Writing is a technology! Dominators burn and censor books, Egalitarians print them and make them available to all.

Technology is not, of itself good or bad, or a mark of being a Dominator or an Egalitarian of philosophy. Rather, it is what technology is desired, and how technology is used, that defines the philosophical stance of a person or society.

The same panopticon surveillance technology that allows China (or Great Britain) to scold people on sidewalks or have them vanish because they called a leader a cartoon character, could also - to a better civilization - be the watchful and studious eye that permits scientific research into social evolution... or dispatches medical or rescue crews within seconds to help and save lives. It is all in how, and why, such technology is used... and to what end. Is the use one that Dominates? Or is the use one that Enlightens and supports change and growth?

The same knife that cuts your food can be used to kill your neighbor. Which use it is put to defines the person wielding it. The knife itself is blameless.

UNLIKE, I want to add, a gun. There is no utility for a gun beyond murder. A gun cannot even be safely used as a hammer for building, for fear that it might accidentally discharge and kill someone. A knife is a technology that can heal, help, feed... or kill. A gun is a technology that can only serve Domination. Anyone can be Dominated when a gun is pressed to their head. But there is no kind purpose that a gun can ever possess... unless it is the kindness of suicide if one is already dying of a terminal illness... and even there, exist better, more sure, and kinder ways to end one's own life than with a gun. The gun is purely the technology of the Dominator.

A knife, though, can be either. Even a bomb can be either - Alfred Nobel invented dynamite to assist construction and mining.

7306991
While true a gun is used for domination it also depends on the why. A police officer uses his gun to shoot a another who is shooting a crowed area. And Dominators welcome social change if the change makes people easier to control. Everything comes down to the interpersonal level. What beliefs the were raised with? Do they follow those beliefs or changed them and why? I enjoy civil political debates, it's a breath of fresh air compared to screaming matches we see too often these days. Thank you.

I also slightly advanced in my reading (wikipedia only, so far, take with sea of salts):
Social dominance orientation - well, not an orientation I heard about often! But apparently it was researched since early 2000s?

SDO has been measured by a series of scales that have been refined over time, all of which contain a balance of pro- and contra-trait statements or phrases. A 7-point Likert scale is used for each item; participants rate their agreement or disagreement with the statements from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

- now, I think whole idea about asking humans to write what they think a bit biased, because writing 'right' answer is easier than actually living it ... but probably you can answer those questions about real-world (incl. online) actions of specific humans and find effective scale? because while this bit of articles sounds hopeful .... we all know saying is often easier than following words with behavior!

In the modern day US, research indicates that most people tend to score fairly low on the SDO scale, with an average score of 2.98 on a 7-point scale (with 7 being the highest in SDO and 1 the lowest), with a standard deviation of 1.19

I'll leave gender part of this equation to the reader :}

Chatoyance
Group Admin

7307146

A police officer uses his gun to shoot a another who is shooting a crowed area.

No. A police officer uses his gun to shoot a man six times in the back because he was holding a cigar box. A police officer shoots his gun at a twelve-year old boy because he was holding a Super Soaker. A police officer shoots a man five times in the back because he had a defective tail light on his car. A police officer shoots a man sitting beside his girlfriend because he informs the officer he is reaching for his car license. A police officer presses his knee into the primary artery of a man's neck for a full nine minutes while laughing at the man begging not to be murdered by blood strangulation, eventually falls silent, and keeps pressing to make sure the unarmed man is completely, truly dead. The police officer's three deputies work to keep the crowd at bay so the murder can be successfully completed. That is what police officers do in the real world, for real, when it is not a glorifying television cop drama. That is DOMINATION.

Dominators do not welcome social change. They welcome social control. It is not the same thing. Social control looks and functions the same whether you are in ancient Rome, Mesopotamia, or today. It is controlled and limited information, limited communication, no recourse or personal power whatsoever, and absolute subservience, based on terror, of the threat of violent death from those who enforce. It never changes, and it never grows. Only the names of the Dominators change, and only their flags look different. A fully militarized, army-weaponed police officer of today is no different in function or behavior from a Centurion of the Roman Empire. Spear or Gun, the function is the same: cower in absolute obeisance, or have your internal organs ruptured until you die.

And the beliefs both Centurian and Officer are raised with are the same. The Picts/Jews/Celts/Greeks/Moors/Blacks/Galls/Samnites are inferior and not entirely human, they cannot be trained, they are innately violent and dangerous, and they must be terrified and randomly killed to keep them in line. Also, you protect and hide your own members from any inquiry or investigation. There are only three kinds of people in the world, Enforcers, Victims and Criminals. And Victims are always of the ruling class alone.

Domination never changes. It is set in stone as ancient as (literally) Babylon. Egalitarianism is new, and the very opposite at every level. It is the difference between cruelty and kindness.

7306991
What about defense? Yes escalation is a terrible but if you don't try to be on equal footing then that is letting domination win. Also what you shown is the few who brought thier racism in with them to the force. If they were then wouldn't people in the police academy leave and post online thier stories of such things? In 2019 there were eight times cops in the U.S., some of those were in self defense. On average guns are used defensively over three million times per year. Have you ever talked to a cop or a someone who is related to or friends with one? You may be surprised. I know it's not like on T.V. mostly it's uneventful with officers rarely needing to pull out their weapon. When a cop or a white man kills a black man the news is all over it. When a black gang member kills another black member of another gang hardly anyone talks about it.

Also most police forces reflect the makeup of their communities a mostly black city will have mostly black cops. I see a lot of these problems as failure of local leadership, lack of complete family structures, little training of the police or assistance with dealing with the mentally ill.

I hear a lot of what you are saying, but I see another big difference between Domination and Egalitarianism, and that's how they function best. Domination is top down, start with a wide area and close in on specific places, group, or individuals. There are people who while trying to do what they see as god use these tactics and come off as bullies. Egalitarians work best from the bottom up, start by doing positive actions yourself where you are, helping people you know, even if you see them as a dominator. Lead by example, if you must protest then it is up to you to remind others to keep it peaceful. In time other come together, change happens and progress is made. It is slow, it is not always fun and you almost never see the results but it makes those results last. Some want a positive change right now and come off as bullies but true meaningful lasting change can take generations. I'm not saying don't try, I'm saying don't rush, build the foundation so it can stand the test of time.

I'll let you have the word but let give you some advice first. You can't change someone's mind, they have to to change it for themselves and they won't if they think you are not willing to change your mind. We need to be civil, and be willing to believe we can be wrong. If you repeat a persons position to them and ask you belief this because of "X" and they say yes then might have come to understand them at least a little. We make the world a better place one person, one interaction at a time. Slow and steady wins the race. Thank you.

Chatoyance
Group Admin

7307739
My dad was a cop. In Los Angeles, right before I was born. They kicked him off the force, in Los Angeles, in 1959, because of... brutality. In 1959. When cops could get away with literal atrocities with no fuss at all, and absolutely zero repercussions. Today, a cop can shoot an innocent child for no reason, and the worst that will happen is administrative leave, which is to say, a paid vacation (but, at least SOME notice is taken, unlike in 1959). Whee! Some cops actually do that deliberately just to have the paid time off. Why wouldn't they? It's free money and time to enjoy it!

I don't know what my dad did. It must have been pretty bad for even the LAPD of the 50's to be bothered by it. I cannot even imagine. He never got in trouble, of course - cops protect their own - just fired. I do know my father was a diagnosed high-functioning psychopath. He was literally incapable of feeling compassion or concern for any human being but himself. Everything was about his property - which included my mom and me. He ultimately killed my mother, but he got away with it because, after that police incident, he went to work for the government. The government covered up every one of his little... incidents... during my life (I'm sixty now, my dad is long dead).

I don't think literally every cop is a psychopath or evil. There has to be at least a handful in the US who are at least trying to be decent. Statistically, there has to be. But they cannot be the norm. They definitely are not... the norm. They must feel very alienated and alone. They must feel disturbed to be around other cops. But I am sure that some good cops exist. Somewhere.

I don't think most cops are as dangerous as my father was. But... there is... absolutely no excuse possible... for shooting a child five times in the back. Or knee-strangling an innocent man for absolutely no reason at all. Or... all the other three hundred and fifty thousand other reported murder-by-cop incidents (in New York alone!) recently in the news.

Cops are supposed to not randomly kill people for fun. They are doing that. That is wrong, if anything in this world is wrong.

So, fuck cops to hell.

7306829
I have this one friend who I ask him what he is doing and he gives a vague, short, and expecting answer because he wants the person to ask a follow up question. However, as far as I am concerned, I already asked, and if he doesn’t want to tell me more, then I’m not interested in prying. The thing is, though, he always does tell me more anyway, because of course that is what he wanted to do in the first place.

I feel like all of your posts are like that; I read them and finish thinking, “but what is your point? What are you trying to say?”

I see directly below Chatoyance took one interpretation of the data and everyone else is really replying to her post, but taken in reverse order - if all of those posts came first and yours came last - they aren’t actually related topics. Your title is political science, but the contents is mostly empty except for data about biology and a completely undefined search for a “silver bullet”. You make no hypothesis about why this data is important. I may still reply to Chatoyance’s interpretation of your data, but what what is your point? What are you trying to say?

7308698

What are you trying to say?

- good question. I'm trying to find (put into view) some way(s) to protect humans from wide-scale manipulation via overuse of normal for us tendencies.
But I guess you search for something else or differently, so my notes make nearly no sense for you. You still make interesting observations from your experience ...

7308298

So, fuck cops to hell.

. I often entertain myself by reading statements like this quite literally ... but my fun is not very long lived because ... according to very same wikipedia article "From an evolutionary and biological perspective SDO facilitates men to be successful in their reproductive strategy through achieving social power and control over other males and becoming desired mating partners for the opposite sex.[". Well ... what I can say? May be 'opposite sex' should be brave and reject such ..partners? Being asshole and raising kids this way is not cool anymore, all things considered? BUT this is suggestion very easy to make from safety of my empty room. Resisting authoritative figure who is physically more powerful than you is ..no fun. I think your take on 'female power' is important, exactly because it talks more about being hero by _resisting_ such tendencies, as opposed to more straightforward 'joining {male} political fighters on their terms and their grounds, by adopting their methods'. Well, in my views whole Conversion Bureau as written by you is revolt against being dominated by such currently dominating views! Revolt without replacing one dominance with another ... few can think _that_ much outside of the box ... It seems in most cases Equestria drawn using our history as analogy, and this draws in all our errors and unresolved mistakes. You deviated from such realism, and tried to imagine truely alternative psychology and thus history and political timeline and society- and individual- level relations. How much current humans can be like those imaginable (so far) ponies is open question - but you set direction and marked some dangerous waters/rocks along the way. May be 'artificial' conscience today is much more needed than narrowly-defined artificial 'intelligence'.

So yes, question of hierarchical power runs from very large scale (worldwide, nationwide ..) political problems right into individual homes and rooms and beds.

7308698
also ... I want to note that what you said to me some time ago is not wasted, I looked up few things I otherwise was likely to skip or never look into their direction.
This site is not something I naturally search for first (because I apparently integrated atheism, and their terminology and framework) but I found thoughts written there interesting and unusual. I never thought I will read someone who is .... intellectual/spiritualist AND a bit of leftist (!!).

So, thank you for being different, even if, in our specific case, this is not easy thing to do.

PS: i waited some time before answering, because it seems localnight makes me more sensitive, and I want to give my answer while in this mood.

...I actually visited twitter yesterday. Well ... politics x pony tend to give this as result:

https://twitter.com/Andydrewz/status/1298725866499784704

It's 10pm and just to make sure you go to bed with a nice image in your head, here's a picture of Boris Johnson as a Shetland pony. Thank you.

But realistically, because I still tend to recall my better experience with non-humans than with humans .... even non-human form is better than human form for me to stay ...a bit more tolerant. In sense I can invent 'excuses for excuse someone' in my head better this way.. But unfortunately, having nicer thoughts about politicians doesn't make those politicians actually more sensitive to people's problems and everypony's future ..:(

Currently on my mind:
"Dead plots" blogpost by Charlie Stross, as always with ultralong commentary trail. To be honest, my main concern less about plots in fiction, but more about reality ....

Poul-Henning Kamp
Poul-Henning Kamp | August 21, 2020 16:30 | Reply
9:
[...skip...]
The vast majority of the population used to be fed a carefully curated view of reality, provided by skilled bull-shit-filtrators keeping the schools and news-channels "sober".

What the internet did was pull the rug financially, and bypass these "do-gooders" in terms of bandwidth.
Since critical thinking is not something humans are born with, and actively frowned upon in most authoritarian subcultures, things went off the rails, pretty much precisly as Sagan predicted it would.

Now we (or at least I) come to question IF all those schools and education were of any good, or they helped to create this wave of pseudointellectuals at best?

There is another article open in another window (The Bully’s Pulpit), by author (David Graeber) who by now, if I read twitter correctly, is dead. But question still very much alive and kicking hard

In fact, books like Lord of the Flies are better read as meditations on the kind of calculated techniques of terror and intimidation that British public schools employed to shape upper-class children into officials capable of running an empire. These techniques did not emerge in the absence of authority; they were techniques designed to create a certain sort of cold-blooded, calculating adult male authority to begin with.

Now, I have some sad feelings, if not outright anger when I heard "Scientists! rationality!", may be because for me those scientists failed, but may be there is something bigger ... It sort of popular to point on 'those anti-vaxxers' or 'flat eartheners' or some such. Isn't this, by itself, hierarchism? Like, it sounds like those who read a lot (and this incl me!) just basically personally invented electricity, measured distance to stars and did everything else from those tick tomes? Oh, of course no, they not did any of this, at best they put some bricks to this wall .... ...but then doesn't this bragging about 'victories of Science!' paired with unability/unwillingness to take responsibility for very one-sided mis-development of our times actually undermine this idea about 'rational individualist' being truely better? Better for live beings, not for advancing technofetishism....

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