06-23-2015, 10:03 AM
As an addendum to the Libertarianism in OA thread, this is interesting: "Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians
What it suggests is that one's political orientation may be due not only to one's values but to one's cognitive style, which in turn is influenced by factors such as genetics and fetal development. IIRC, this same group had done some earlier work that had suggested humans seem to instinctively view morality as a collection of several (at least 5) moral values, the relative value of which varies from person to person. Thus liberals and conservatives may be naturally drawn to their political positions because those positions are the logical result of their moral priorities.
------------------------------
In the OA universe, the minds of most modosophonts are significantly more capable than an average baseline. One of the biggest differences would be in their ability to adjust their thinking to focus, learn, etc. better than a baseline. I would imagine that the much greater diversity of mindstates in OA would produce an equally diverse understanding of morality and social memes.
On an individual level, as a being underwent periods of intense learning, genemods, etc., the corresponding mindstate changes might affect these moral priorities and hence political leanings. Thus some individuals might find themselves changing their opinions radically on a regular basis! I would imagine many individuals would find this undesirable, so genemod tech might be adjusted to limit this effect. However, there would also be a possible advantage in this: individuals who have undergone many minor changes might develop a more wholistic view of the thinking style / moral / political / etc. continuum. Politics might be much less divisive despite being more diverse.
Transapients' viewpoints on moral values issues might be beyond baseline comprehension (conversely, due to baroquification transapient politics might seem far more complex than it really is), but it would be likely their understanding of modosophont approaches to morality is very advanced even pre-nanodisaster. A transapient might be able to model the local political environment and accurately predict how the local population would be likely to react to a new meme. Perhaps Isaac Asimov's vision of a science which applies statistics to large populations of modosophonts to predict the future is a very real and exact science among transapients.
I think the Encyclopaedia Galactica pretty much suggests all this already, but given this paper it seems all the more plausible.
What it suggests is that one's political orientation may be due not only to one's values but to one's cognitive style, which in turn is influenced by factors such as genetics and fetal development. IIRC, this same group had done some earlier work that had suggested humans seem to instinctively view morality as a collection of several (at least 5) moral values, the relative value of which varies from person to person. Thus liberals and conservatives may be naturally drawn to their political positions because those positions are the logical result of their moral priorities.
------------------------------
In the OA universe, the minds of most modosophonts are significantly more capable than an average baseline. One of the biggest differences would be in their ability to adjust their thinking to focus, learn, etc. better than a baseline. I would imagine that the much greater diversity of mindstates in OA would produce an equally diverse understanding of morality and social memes.
On an individual level, as a being underwent periods of intense learning, genemods, etc., the corresponding mindstate changes might affect these moral priorities and hence political leanings. Thus some individuals might find themselves changing their opinions radically on a regular basis! I would imagine many individuals would find this undesirable, so genemod tech might be adjusted to limit this effect. However, there would also be a possible advantage in this: individuals who have undergone many minor changes might develop a more wholistic view of the thinking style / moral / political / etc. continuum. Politics might be much less divisive despite being more diverse.
Transapients' viewpoints on moral values issues might be beyond baseline comprehension (conversely, due to baroquification transapient politics might seem far more complex than it really is), but it would be likely their understanding of modosophont approaches to morality is very advanced even pre-nanodisaster. A transapient might be able to model the local political environment and accurately predict how the local population would be likely to react to a new meme. Perhaps Isaac Asimov's vision of a science which applies statistics to large populations of modosophonts to predict the future is a very real and exact science among transapients.
I think the Encyclopaedia Galactica pretty much suggests all this already, but given this paper it seems all the more plausible.