[ExI] crush on stein

[Darin Sunley]

Stein herself may have a strong preference for Clinton over Trump, but by
cultural convention politicians in an active race are not allowed to
express any preferences other than the strong preference that they
themselves win. It's a form of taboo.

Maybe, perhaps, in the closing weeks of the race, when she's polling 5-10
points lower than Johnson, she may be allowed to express an endorsement for
Clinton, at least to her followers in swing states. but certainly not until
then.

On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 1:00 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 10:25 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> snip
>
> > And yet it's Hillary who's crooked not Trump, it's Hillary
> > who has something to hide not Trump. Oh and by the way, Trump is quite
> > obviously crazy but never mind that little detail, let's see if we can
> think
> > of more bad things to say about Hillary.
> >
> > I said a few months ago that I just didn't get it, and I still don't.
>
> Irrational is not an easy strategy to understand.  However, it's a
> strategy which worked for human genes _in some circumstances_ for the
> last few million years.  I have expounded on the topic for a long time
> on this mailing list, apparently with little or no influence on the
> local meme set.
>
> Those circumstances, a bleak outlook on the future, are presently the
> way a substantial fraction of the US population sees things.  That
> makes that fraction of the population a fertile media for xenophobic
> memes.  Also, mapped from the stone age, that fraction is attracted to
> an irrational leader.  I don't think people, not even here, understand
> how hardwired they are in such circumstances.  But we are talking a
> long and strong genetic selection for mental mechanisms here.  It may
> be that humans are even blocked by their evolved mental mechanisms
> from thinking "Whoa, WTF am I about to do?"
>
> > I don't get the magnitude of the hatred aimed at Hillary that dwarfs
> that of
> > any other candidate, even a crazy one.
>
> I don't think it has that much to do with Hillary, other than that she
> is not the crazy one.  It's the fact that following irrational
> leaders, under similar circumstances, has been the right thing to do
> for your genes ever since human ancestors started fending off the big
> cats.  Without the big cats to control human numbers, we had to do it
> ourselves with wars.
>
> Written into your genes is this strategy:  "When things get bleak,
> demonize some inside or outside group and follow an irrational
> leader."  Win or loose, it always got the population back in balance
> with the ecosystem that fed them.  And because the young girls of the
> defeated were booty, on average the genes did better when you follow
> this rule than otherwise.
>
> So this is the meta level of what's going on with the local (US) politics.
>
> The meta-meta level is why people, even those who understand
> evolution, don't get this?
>
> Memes do wax and wane.  It's fairly well accepted today, but 20 years
> ago I was lambasted from the bench by a Federal judge about
> recognizing status seeking (in myself) as a primary human motivation.
> Of course, Federal Judges are a first class example of status seeking.
> They give up a lot of income as lawyers to become judges.
>
> > It's as if you were drowning and
> > somebody tosses you a life preserver but you refuse to grab it because
> you
> > don't like the color.
>
> "It doesn't go with the color of my eyes."  :-)
>
> Keith
>
> >  John K Clark
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> spike
> >>
> >>
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