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There are people who believe that the political polarization now afflicting the United States might finally start to subside if Americans of both parties could somehow become more empathetic. If you're one of these people, the American Political Science Review has sobering news for you.
Last week APSR—one of the alpha journals in political science—published a study[$] which found that "empathic concern does not reduce partisan animosity in the electorate and in some respects even exacerbates it."
The study had two parts. In the first part, Americans who scored high on an empathy scale showed higher levels of "affective polarization"—defined as the difference between the favorability rating they gave their political party and the rating they gave the opposing party. In the second part, undergraduates were shown a news story about a controversial speaker from the opposing party visiting a college campus. Students who had scored higher on the empathy scale were more likely to applaud efforts to deny the speaker a platform.
It gets worse. These high-empathy students were also more likely to be amused by reports that students protesting the speech had injured a bystander sympathetic to the speaker. That's right: According to this study, people prone to empathy are prone to schadenfreude.
This study is urgently important—though not because it's a paradigm shifter, shedding radically new light on our predicament. As the authors note, their findings are in many ways consistent with conclusions reached by other scholars in recent years. But the view of empathy that's emerging from this growing body of work hasn't much trickled down to the public. And public understanding of it may be critical to shifting America's political polarization into reverse somewhere between here and the abyss.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday November 12 2019, @12:22AM (7 children)
Yeeess, of course.
As another example, a king [wikipedia.org] oversees the one of the most awful** social-democracies [soylentnews.org] on the planet.
** awful indeed how it confirms your assertion in form and contradicts them at every point in substance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 12 2019, @10:09AM (6 children)
Social democracies are capitalist societies with social welfare. When the balance tips due to demographics (ageing workforce / sub-replacement birthrates / immigration) and there are more taking out than paying in, these countries too will collapse. Was that your point?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 12 2019, @11:10AM (5 children)
I think you should also show how this is a problem specific to social-democracy and a pure capitalistic society is immune.
Nope. That Norway pension fund is an investment one - as much a Ponzi scheme as any stock/share market is. The only difference is it is managed by a (pretty competent judging by the results) government agency instead of a private for-profit entity.
Sort of saying if the world economy is doing fine, so will the Norway pension fund. If the world economy is doing bad, at least the Norway citizens are backed by whatever value those $1T assets would have, so they'll be experiencing a much shorter landing than anyone who goes into hardship if missing $400 in cash flow from one month to the other.
Besides, a better health system is likely to result in a longer active age, a better education makes the persons more adaptable to career switching, a lower criminality leads to lower socialized cost of risk prevention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @12:57PM (4 children)
There's far less "taking out" for starters in a pure capitalist society.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 12 2019, @01:40PM (3 children)
And a lot less giving back and redistribution - done right, the later strengthen the society and make it more resilient to adversities. It shows in those numbers already - labor force participation rate, cost vs quality of heath care, percent of tertiary educated population, criminality.
Some more numbers?
Poverty rate: Norway - 0.2% [macrotrends.net], US - 12.3% [ucdavis.edu]
Life expectancy: Norway 82, US - 78.
Nobel laureates per 1M capita (believe it or not, this metric exists [wikipedia.org]. hypothesis - a good metric for the recognized value to humanity): Norway - 24, US - 11.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @02:14PM
And done poorly it makes all those conditions worse. One side is Norway and another side is Greece and Venezuela.
I'll note that the poverty comparison is bogus - it's not comparing like. The rest just isn't that interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:05PM
Barack Obama got a Nobel peace prize.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:26PM
Why would you even consider posting that. There is very little in the way to assume an accurate argument in trying to parallel the US with Norway. The economics, population (by count and culture), politics and government are all substantially different. To suggest that the US should use a small Scandinavian country as a benchmark is absurd. Even in an attempt to use our close neighbor Canada, you'll quickly note that California alone outnumbers it, and as a whole has a more diverse economy and population. What you're doing is saying it's as simple as mimicking Norway or Canada, but the US has a higher poverty rate than either, meaning more participants that offer zero contribution. To suggest providing all of this to some 320m residents, or even 309m legal citizens, is absurd. First: the bureaucratic establishment will flail and falter you'll be integrating a new wing to the government, the Office of Medical Provision. In a handful of years they'll open a new department for arbitration surrounding healthcare denied or discrimination, complaints and so on. And then with some speculative consideration you could maybe postulate the hazards of selecting a corrupt and paid-for government to head a healthcare program, one which will be at the very least steered by the FDA. Then there's the fact that the system is already taxed, pushing it harder and whipping it screaming "go faster!" is only going to further compromise the already poor treatment rates.
The reality is: you're treating a symptom of a much more substantial problem. A secondary issue. Insurance companies themselves are the truest issue, and the source of inflammation. Billing itself is a process that requires staff on both ends to negotiate the hazardous terrain. Hospitals charge insane rates universally to gouge insurance companies, which in turn jack up their own rates. This puts a bag of saline and its haphazard installation by an under-trained and overpaid nurse at $900 instead of a more reasonable $100, but considering the reality, the bags cost virtually nothing, and the time taken is sub 10 minutes, the real cost there is less than $20. Artificially controlled supply (read: graduate school) rarefying physicians keeps the prices and demand sorted for prospective professionals, as well, as do prohibitive costs and exclusivity of medical school.
http://truecostofhealthcare.org/hospital_financial_analysis/ [truecostofhealthcare.org]