US Presidential Election 2016

[The Nal]

6 minutes ago, zahidf said:

The question i assume was whether we should see Trump as a role model. Culturally and practically, the USA do give their presidents more respect and veneration, so from their perspective, he would be expected to act like a role model for kids.

The "office" of President is something to aspire to I suppose but presidents themselves constantly let people down. Trump will be no different. 

I think Americans gave up on looking at their presidents as role models a long time ago. Some of the great ones were dogs with the ladies (mainly democrats), others were criminals, some stuck cigar tubes into 21 year old interns in the actual office, some started wars for no real reason etc etc. 

Edited November 25, 2016 by The Nal

[eFestivals]

5 minutes ago, feral chile said:

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying what they should model, just that we model them.

Well you certainly claim to for yourself, but please don't lay your own error onto me.

Some of us have our own brains, and recognise that everyone else does too,.

 

5 minutes ago, feral chile said:

or I'm misunderstanding you. Modelling is part of human behaviour. So we're ALL role models. To point to A role model would be to point to all humans.

So you've just admitted to talking worthless tosh - because Trump would be no less a role model than anyone else, so it can't be claimed that he's not.

FFS.

 

5 minutes ago, feral chile said:

Good role models are another issue.

If they exist, what is one is a matter of opinion,

And if in your opinion they exist, you can name at least one - yet i keep asking, and you can't name any.

So you have an opinion that you don't have an opinion about.

 

5 minutes ago, feral chile said:

All I'm saying is that people have voted in a leader, who's in a position to potentially be a role model for lots of people, and therefore what they do, people will model.

Only the mindless.

That might be you, it's not me. 

 

5 minutes ago, feral chile said:

That applies to every one of us to some extent - humans model themselves on others, so we're all role models and model ourselves on other role models (peer pressure).

No it doesn't.

Stop pretending that what you think is how everyone else MUST think.

 

5 minutes ago, feral chile said:

Sorry, I'm waffling, because I don't understand your question.

Your don't understand yourself, I'd say.

[feral chile]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thinking-about-kids/201205/i-could-do-why-role-models-matter

This is what I was thinking, only now in reverse.

This article discusses how black people could identify with Obama, and aspire to achieve what he achieved. Same with women with families and career aspirations.

We've got a president who'd be considered powerful and successful in his own right. So he will inspire people who can identify him. What he says and does is vital.

[feral chile]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

Well you certainly claim to for yourself, but please don't lay your own error onto me.

Some of us have our own brains, and recognise that everyone else does too,.

 

So you've just admitted to talking worthless tosh - because Trump would be no less a role model than anyone else, so it can't be claimed that he's not.

FFS.

 

If they exist, what is one is a matter of opinion,

And if in your opinion they exist, you can name at least one - yet i keep asking, and you can't name any.

So you have an opinion that you don't have an opinion about.

 

Only the mindless.

That might be you, it's not me. 

 

No it doesn't.

Stop pretending that what you think is how everyone else MUST think.

 

Your don't understand yourself, I'd say.

It's not what I think. It's what we know about human learning.

And I have already named 'one' - the human race.

I'm massively confused as to what you think I mean by role model. Of course Trump is a role model, a very important one, since he's president. Does role model mean something different from what I mean (might do, I'm thinking social learning theory).

Maybe think 'influence'?

The point I'm making is that he will influence people, so his attitude matters.

[eFestivals]

Just now, feral chile said:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/thinking-about-kids/201205/i-could-do-why-role-models-matter

This is what I was thinking, only now in reverse.

Hmmm. Kids are something more than a little different to fully formed adults.

 

Just now, feral chile said:

This article discusses how black people could identify with Obama, and aspire to achieve what he achieved. Same with women with families and career aspirations.

Oh, you mean people are able to identify things which appeal to them? 

I don't disagree, but that's not role models, that's no different to liking a particular sandwich.

 

Just now, feral chile said:

We've got a president who'd be considered powerful and successful in his own right. So he will inspire people who can identify him. What he says and does is vital.

So Trump is a good role model by your own logic. 

But you say he's not a good role model.

One of those things is wrong, then. Logically.

 

[eFestivals]

Just now, feral chile said:

It's not what I think. It's what we know about human learning.

No, it's what you claim to know. 

I don't put such people - any people - on a pedestal. There's things I like, but there's nothing more than that.

My existence proves your claim wrong. I know that with more certainty than a book has given you.

[feral chile]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

Hmmm. Kids are something more than a little different to fully formed adults.

 

Oh, you mean people are able to identify things which appeal to them? 

I don't disagree, but that's not role models, that's no different to liking a particular sandwich.

 

So Trump is a good role model by your own logic. 

But you say he's not a good role model.

One of those things is wrong, then. Logically.

 

Define good.

He's reaching lots of people, so he's a powerful and effective role model.

 

 

[eFestivals]

3 minutes ago, feral chile said:

Maybe think 'influence'?

The point I'm making is that he will influence people, so his attitude matters.

There is only influence for the people who are not thinking for themselves.

That might be you, it's not me.

 

[feral chile]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

No, it's what you claim to know. 

I don't put such people - any people - on a pedestal. There's things I like, but there's nothing more than that.

My existence proves your claim wrong. I know that with more certainty than a book has given you.

Neither do I. It doesn't mean that cultural values aren't influenced by them though.

I notice that most of my own moral values happen to coincide with Christianity, despite the fact that I'm an atheist.

there's no 'happen to' about it.

I've modelled myself on others (other role models), completely unconsciously.

[feral chile]

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

There is only influence for the people who are not thinking for themselves.

That might be you, it's not me.

 

You used to attack tonyblair for his ideas on freedom. Suddenly you think you're immune to social influence?

What I do know, is that it's arrogant to think we're as independent thinking as we'd like to think we are.

Edited November 25, 2016 by feral chile

[eFestivals]

Just now, feral chile said:

Define good.

It's an opinion.

So Trump not being a good role model IYO doesn't mean that he's not a good role model, it only means he's not a good role model to you.

And if influence works how you say (and role model works how you say), he's very definitely a good role model to others - so you cannot say he's not a good role model, you can only personalise it.

 

Just now, feral chile said:

He's reaching lots of people, so he's a powerful and effective role model.

Oh, so not the "not a role model" we started this conversation about then.:lol:

 

[feral chile]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

It's an opinion.

So Trump not being a good role model IYO doesn't mean that he's not a good role model, it only means he's not a good role model to you.

And if influence works how you say (and role model works how you say), he's very definitely a good role model to others - so you cannot say he's not a good role model, you can only personalise it.

 

Oh, so not the "not a role model" we started this conversation about then.:lol:

 

If I said he's not a role model it was a typo. That is entirely the opposite of the point I was trying to make. he's an extremely influential role model.

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, feral chile said:

Neither do I. It doesn't mean that cultural values aren't influenced by them though.

I notice that most of my own moral values happen to coincide with Christianity, despite the fact that I'm an atheist.

there's no 'happen to' about it.

I've modelled myself on others (other role models), completely unconsciously.

No, you've been 'modelled' - socialised.

But that's something entirely different to the view you take of others. You are free to think anything at all, you are not confined to the box of your socialisation unless that's what you choose for yourself. The limit is your ability to think, not the limits others might have tried to force you into.

 

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, feral chile said:

If I said he's not a role model it was a typo. That is entirely the opposite of the point I was trying to make. he's an extremely influential role model.

his influence is only as great as the acceptance of it. :rolleyes:

If you accept he influences you, that's your own lack of your own mind.

 

[feral chile]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

his influence is only as great as the acceptance of it.

If you accept he influences you, that's your own lack of your own mind.

 

Well I'm a behaviourist, so tend to think social conditioning is more prevalent than we know.

[russycarps]

34 minutes ago, The Nal said:

The "office" of President is something to aspire to I suppose but presidents themselves constantly let people down. Trump will be no different. 

I think Americans gave up on looking at their presidents as role models a long time ago. Some of the great ones were dogs with the ladies (mainly democrats), others were criminals, some stuck cigar tubes into 21 year old interns in the actual office, some started wars for no real reason etc etc. 

I think all of us will admit that george w bush was a role model in how to pull off wearing a leather flight jacket.

compare and contrast these two. One cool as ice, the other nerdy as fuck

 

[eFestivals]

10 minutes ago, feral chile said:

Well I'm a behaviourist, so tend to think social conditioning is more prevalent than we know.

I probably don't disagree with you very much on social conditioning.

But some people reject everyone as "a role model", and some people reject Trump as role model - you, i'd guess.

So either you're smarter than the average bunny and able to use your brain to accept or reject while others aren't, or we all have the same abilities towards that and there's something else going on.

Edited November 25, 2016 by eFestivals

[feral chile]

30 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

I probably don't disagree with you very much on social conditioning.

But some people reject everyone as "a role model", and some people reject Trump as role model - you, i'd guess.

So either you're smarter than the average bunny and able to use your brain to accept or reject while others aren't, or we all have the same abilities towards that and there's something else going on.

mmm......

maybe early socialisation?

Have you read around unconscious bias?

I KNOW I'm slightly racist, sexist and ageist, despite belonging to 2 groups that I'm biased against, as becoming aware of my own bias is part of my training, and I've tested myself objectively - to be aware and to try to guard against it.

The reason I'm slightly biased is not by choice, but because the culture I'm a part of is slightly biased. I would choose to be completely unbiased, but I know I'm not. It's unconscious though. So it'll influence me in ways I'm not fully aware of.

Independent thinking can only take you so far, though I'd question how independent it ever is, because it's shaped by our culture and our experience.

I have a feeling we're just talking semantics here.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2016 by feral chile

[The Nal]

48 minutes ago, russycarps said:

I think all of us will admit that george w bush was a role model in how to pull off wearing a leather flight jacket.

compare and contrast these two. One cool as ice, the other nerdy as fuck

 

Very true mate. A lot of the more evil ones were great dressers. 

[feral chile]

[eFestivals]

54 minutes ago, feral chile said:

mmm......

maybe early socialisation?

Have you read around unconscious bias?

So no one is 'guilty' of voting for Trump via their own intelligence?

You're digging yourself a bigger hole, just because you started from the wrong place.

Go back and rethink the place I pointed out how your failure is confirmed by your own (failed) logic. If you've got that part wrong - and you have - then everything you take from it is also wrong.

[feral chile]

11 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

So no one is 'guilty' of voting for Trump via their own intelligence?

You're digging yourself a bigger hole, just because you started from the wrong place.

Go back and rethink the place I pointed out how your failure is confirmed by your own (failed) logic. If you've got that part wrong - and you have - then everything you take from it is also wrong.

Don't know, you'd have to ask them. Though, if conditioning and learning are linked, I would have thought the better you'd learnt, the higher your intelligence. that's not necessarily a good thing.

I don't hold with this idea that you're more intelligent the less you've learnt (become socialised). it's not how we usually judge those considered to be socially deviant. We usually lock them away somewhere until we can 'rehabilitate' them.

We value intelligence, independent thought etc., because society holds those values. In practice though, we punish those who don't conform, in some way or another (including unemployed people and disabled people who don't or can't conform to the Work ethic, criminals and mentally ill people, the further away from our view of the norm we perceive them to be).

I still don't think we're in disagreement, we both agree socialisation is important, we both agree that Trump is influential, at least to enough of the electorate to vote him into power. What he does with that power is bount to affect cultural values, even if it's a reactive opposition to them. (negative role model).

 

Edited November 25, 2016 by feral chile

[eFestivals]

1 hour ago, feral chile said:

we both agree that Trump is influential, at least to enough of the electorate to vote him into power.

I disagree with you here.

I don't doubt he influenced lost of people to some degree, but the alternative candidate is just as much a part of that (in influencing people away from them), and anyway all the normal republican states voted republican and all of the normal democrat states voted democrat - which surely says there's not much influencing going on at all, really. At least, not within a single election campaign.

So the sort of influencing that he did to some degree probably isn't even that, it's more that he said what people already thought or wanted to believe (tho might not have considered before in the way he put it to them), that they could agree with. Or the other way, that something Clinton said made Trump a better fir for their pre-existing views.

I don't really think politicians much influence people, I think events do that. I think politicians are more more about confirming people's thinking, and that's why when there's two badly flawed candidates there's less of that confirming going on and number of voters falls. The most enthused are always those whose thinking most-closely matches a candidate.

 

1 hour ago, feral chile said:

What he does with that power is bount to affect cultural values, even if it's a reactive opposition to them. (negative role model).

that's just reaction to events, and an opinion formed by them.

Nothing of that says why the man voted into public office should by default be regarded as a role model.

[lost]

12 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

I don't really think politicians much influence people, I think events do that. I think politicians are more more about confirming people's thinking, and that's why when there's two badly flawed candidates there's less of that confirming going on and number of voters falls. The most enthused are always those whose thinking most-closely matches a candidate.

 

Agree with this. He looked at the rust belt states which have strongly rejected Clinton twice in the democrat primaries (for Obama first and then sanders)

He refused to debate Sanders and then nicked his anti-globalisation anti-titp/nafta/tpp policies which are so popular in these areas and this is where he won the election. It was an inspired move and nobody else spotted it.

[feral chile]

What about narrative around events then?

We've been told repeatedly that we can't afford to spend, and suddenly brexit means we can/have to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/world/europe/uk-philip-hammond-autumn-statement-brexit.html?_r=0

I still think governments persuade people to go along with policies by the narrative they place on events.

Edited November 25, 2016 by feral chile