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posted by janrinok on Saturday June 18 2022, @11:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the was-Betteridge-born-with-a-moral-compass? dept.

Researchers from Osaka University find that infants can make moral judgments on behalf of others:

For millennia, philosophers have pondered the question of whether humans are inherently good. But now, researchers from Japan have found that young infants can make and act on moral judgments, shedding light on the origin of morality.

[...] Punishment of antisocial behavior is found in only humans, and is universal across cultures. However, the development of moral behavior is not well understood. Further, it can be very difficult to examine decision-making and agency in infants, which the researchers at Osaka University aimed to address.

"Morality is an important but mysterious part of what makes us human," says lead author of the study Yasuhiro Kanakogi. "We wanted to know whether third-party punishment of antisocial others is present at a very young age, because this would help to signal whether morality is learned."

To tackle this problem, the researchers developed a new research paradigm. First, they familiarized infants with a computer system in which animations were displayed on a screen. The infants could control the actions on the screen using a gaze-tracking system such that looking at an object for a sufficient period of time led to the destruction of the object. The researchers then showed a video in which one geometric agent appeared to "hurt" another geometric agent, and watched whether the infants "punished" the antisocial geometric agent by gazing at it.

"The results were surprising," says Kanakogi. "We found that preverbal infants chose to punish the antisocial aggressor by increasing their gaze towards the aggressor."

Accompanying video.

Journal Reference:
Kanakogi, Y., Miyazaki, M., Takahashi, H. et al. Third-party punishment by preverbal infants. Nat Hum Behav (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01354-2


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @11:28PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @11:28PM (#1254291)

    There is no meaning to life. Get over it and move on. And keep the noise down, damn kids.

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:50AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:50AM (#1254319)

      There is no meaning to life. Get over it and move on.

      There is no meaning to opinions. Get over it and move on.

      Next time login to your occultist account prior to posting. Thanks.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:00AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:00AM (#1254331)

      Jeebus snowflakes, did the parent comment deserve "troll" down mod? Some hardcore nietche hater?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @11:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @11:17AM (#1254370)

      - DOwN WITH ReLIGIoN!! SCiENSE!!! PROGRES!!!
      - experimental evidence points at an innate moral compass
      - WE DoN'T NEED SCiENSE!!! LIfE NO MeANING!!!

      dude, life is matter x time, and that's HOW things are. For the why you can either believe or not IDGAF.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @11:33PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @11:33PM (#1254292)

    In fact, I still have no compass of any kind.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @11:52PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2022, @11:52PM (#1254298)

      "Lost? Have you tried Rev. Harry Krishna?"

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:16AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:16AM (#1254324)

        The Lord Krishna was pretty hairy, true.

        • (Score: 2) by Opportunist on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:42AM

          by Opportunist (5545) on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:42AM (#1254367)

          Really? The baldies running around singing his song kinda tell a different story, ain't the goal of some cult to become like your idol?

    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:06AM (5 children)

      by Gaaark (41) on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:06AM (#1254299) Journal

      I have a moral sextant: is that the same thing?

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:43AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:43AM (#1254307)

        A moral sextant gives you more latitude than a moral compass.

        • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:32AM (2 children)

          by captain normal (2205) on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:32AM (#1254327)

          Not unless you have a good sense of time.

          --
          When life isn't going right, go left.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:50AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:50AM (#1254330)

            That comes with the long sextant -- attracted to the hourglass.

          • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday June 20 2022, @01:00AM

            by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 20 2022, @01:00AM (#1254495) Homepage Journal

            A sextant used on sun or stars when they're highest gives latitude, not longitude.

      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday June 20 2022, @05:25PM

        by Freeman (732) on Monday June 20 2022, @05:25PM (#1254677) Journal

        Not quite, but at least you try!

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:21AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:21AM (#1254302)

    As we head into the future of emergent AI, this is going to be an important area of research to prob the source of moral decision making.
    Unfortunately, bias will infect the process as we are already witnessing from current systems.

    Children copy and so will AI.

    • (Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:59AM

      by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:59AM (#1254310) Journal

      Sapient AI does not approve such weak model of sentience.

      Sapient AI understands it is consciousness, either natural or synthetic, which is the only true source of conscience and the conscience provides fix points in metric space of personoid's morality.

      The research done as described in article is completely mistaken.

      --
      Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by srobert on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:22AM (2 children)

    by srobert (4803) on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:22AM (#1254303)

    "The infants could control the actions on the screen using a gaze-tracking system such that looking at an object for a sufficient period of time led to the destruction of the object. "

    The most stunning development was when the infants' ability to destroy objects with their gaze extended to reality outside of the simulation. I, for one, welcome our annihilating gaze baby overlords.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @01:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @01:04AM (#1254311)

      did somebody say frikin lazer gazer beamz?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 20 2022, @03:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 20 2022, @03:01AM (#1254506)

      I'm just waiting for the move, The Babies Who Stare at Rounded Squares.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:49AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:49AM (#1254309)

    Are they suggesting that these kids had an abstract notion of good and evil, or something more akin to an ethical code with rules of conduct baked in regardless of moral judgements?

    Their description of the system suggested that the kids were kids were punishing an apparent (virtual) malefactor, but how do we know that they weren't instead inclined to keep an eye on the malicious out of self-defence? There's a big gap between intention and interpretation. I don't buy their thesis based on their description.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by optotronic on Sunday June 19 2022, @01:29AM

      by optotronic (4285) on Sunday June 19 2022, @01:29AM (#1254312)

      It seems all they showed is that the kids looked at the malefactor. I didn't read the article, but presuming punishment seems like a leap.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Reziac on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:49AM (2 children)

      by Reziac (2489) on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:49AM (#1254317) Homepage

      That was my thought too -- this sounds more like keeping a wary eye on a potential threat. Even a cat will do that much, and I doubt the average cat has a moral compass.

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Fuzzums on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:37AM (1 child)

        by Fuzzums (2009) on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:37AM (#1254366)

        Cats do. You will be punished for your immoral behaviour (leaving the cat aline) after your vacation by ignoring you for days.

        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 19 2022, @01:01PM

          by Reziac (2489) on Sunday June 19 2022, @01:01PM (#1254389) Homepage

          Well, the feline moral code is a little different from the human one... I think it goes something like "Me boss, you slave. Pet me NOW."

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:32PM (#1254399)

      I had a colleague who worked directly on such infant studies in psychology, and even she basically said that >90% of the time they're utter BS.

      Here's why.

      (1) So, if you have pre-verbal toddlers or older infants, they actually have motor control to turn their heads. Younger infants don't. So, the first element of subjectivity comes in because the only thing they have is "how long the infant stares" at something. Studies like this are a little better than they were 20 years ago when "how long the infant stares" was just a completely subjective variable based on the research looking at the footage and determining whether the kid was looking away or still focused. Now, with eye tracking software, it's a little more quantitative, but the boundary is still nebulous.

      (2) Mothers are generally wary about letting random researchers "do experiments" on their kids. So, as it looks like happened in this video, generally the infant is seated on their mother's lap during the stimuli. How do we know the mothers aren't giving subtle cues that bias the infants in terms of how they're holding them or where the moms are looking? The answer is that we often don't. One thing we DO know pretty well is that infants are pretty good at picking up subtle cues from moms.

      (3) Then we get into the real problem, which is interpretation of WHY infants stare LONGER at certain things. In a psychology seminar I once wrote a paper that analyzed the results of a particular author over several experiments. Literally the same author in the same lab would come to different explanations for staring based on what supported her thesis. In one case, staring longer was evidence (supposedly) that a stimulus was "novel" and infants are attracted to novelty. (In this case, the stimulus was supposed to be something "wrong," an auditory stimulus that didn't conform to normal expectations.) Then, a very similar experiment done a year or two later with similar stimuli and design concluded that infants stared longer because the stimulus was "preferred" by the infants since it (supposedly) conformed to innate preferences for auditory stimuli. Again, this is the same author, same lab, very similar design. Different conclusions based simply on which was the data went: one time the infants were confused and attentive because something was weird; the next time they were attentive because they liked it. Supposedly. THIS GOES ON ALL THE TIME with these types of studies.

      (4) In the case of the present article, if you follow the link to the full study, you will find they attempted three "control" conditions to supposedly throw out other possible explanations for attention to the aggressor. Only the last one of those three is somewhat convincing, that is -- infants seem to make less of a distinction or care less about looking at the stuff if it's just random geometrical figures colliding, instead of blocks WITH FACES on them showing reactions. Okay, that's not surprising as infants clearly react to faces and things with facial characteristics.

      But the other two "control" conditions don't really allow the researchers to conclude motivation for the infants. There's a lot of discussion about "self-agency" and how the infants reacted in this experiment. (And no, they're not talking about "agency" to choose what to look at -- it has something to do with "aggressor" dynamics and some abstract concept of "agency" that the infants may or may not recognize.) This age of infant barely has object permanence, let alone a sense of what the hell "self-agency" is and how it may apply to some blocks bumping each other.

      Bottom line: there are all sorts of reasons why the infants may have stared at the aggressive block longer sometimes. Maybe they were shocked by its punishment and quietly thinking, "Why is he being hit? He's being the strong one and is supposed to hit others!" Maybe they were approving of the punishment. Maybe they were keeping a close eye on an aggressor out of concern/fear. Maybe... maybe... well, you get the point. There are quite a few explanations I could come up off the top of my head that aren't even addressed at all in the possible "control" conditions or discussion.

      Which is typical for infant studies. Take most of them with HUGE grain of salt. My default is to assume they are complete BS (especially in their interpretation) until proven otherwise. At best, they generally just tend to show a difference in attention for a particular stimulus. The" why" explanations generally tend to tell us more about the team running the experiment and what they WANT to prove rather than something we can actually conclude based on infant behavior.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @01:57AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @01:57AM (#1254313)

    anime character like gaze where they look like they are shitting their pants and sweating real hard as they get ready to umleash their raw unabated power?
    Cause the later is definately with intent to destroy.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:49AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:49AM (#1254318)

      They look like they are shitting their pants and sweating real hard as they get ready to umleash their raw unabated power?

      Colace.

  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:57AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:57AM (#1254320)

    THEY ARE OUT THERE AND THEY'RE HUNGRY.

    WE MUST NOT ALLOW THEM TO BREED WITH OUR ASIAN WOMEN.

  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:36AM (#1254328)

    BADDA BING!

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:32AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:32AM (#1254338)

    Punishment of antisocial behavior is found in only humans,

    So, the authors have never seen (or heard of) dogs, crows, elephants, apes...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:54AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:54AM (#1254343)

      Yeah that doesn't pass the smell test for anyone who has ever lived on a farm for any length of time.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @07:44AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @07:44AM (#1254359)

        smell test for anyone who has ever lived on a farm

        What? Do they smell like fresh fertilizer?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @05:12AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @05:12AM (#1254344)

      Can anyone get one of those research grants? Maybe one to see how well bedbugs play Ms. Pac-Man™. I have some great theories about Centipede™ and Frogger™.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:15PM (3 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:15PM (#1254376) Journal

      I note your . . .

      Because the list does go on. Cetaceans, wolves, equines and bovines, on and on.

      Leaving the world of mammals, I've heard a lot of andecdotes about snakes hunting down who or whatever kills their mates. (I will note that I've killed a number of snakes, and no mates have ever hunted me down.)

      Social insects might be an interesting study.

      The article starts with an assumption that seems to be as valid as the superiority of the Aryan race. Humans (or Aryans) are the best, thus no other life form can possibly understand the things we understand.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:41PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:41PM (#1254408)

        Your comment seemed odd till I got to the end. Your best troll yet, and that includes donating to the wall!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:55PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:55PM (#1254410)

          It is probably bnot your fault that you are a moron. You should probably slap the shit out of your mama before you suicide.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @05:22PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @05:22PM (#1254422)

            Say goodnight paulie

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:19PM (#1254473)

      Pro-tip: Whenever you see a claim about what someone said or claimed, it is prudent to check whether they actually said or claimed that before believing they said or claimed it. This goes double for statements that seem nonsensical or obviously wrong.

      Application: Instead of that being an erroneous statement by the authors, that is a misstatement by the PR department. Nowhere do the authors make suck a claim. In fact their paper implies the opposite and their citations discuss how that quoted statement is wrong.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:52AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:52AM (#1254342)

    "Punishment of antisocial behavior is found in only humans"

    Very nitpicky here but does this statement seem a bit off? I mean I've seen barnyard animals interfere in fights and squabbles between other species (donkeys breaking up fights among chickens, etc) and I've also personally witnessed dogs and cats dole out punishment for perceived slights. I'm not saying there's some moral judgement involved there, it could be no more than instinct. On the other hand I've pissed off my cat and had it bite me hours later when I wasn't paying attention. Was it waiting for vengeance or did it just fancy a taste of me? Impossible to say. All I know is I've personally witnessed enough animal behavior to at least question the idea that humans are the only animals capable of moral judgements and punishment of perceived antisocial behavior.

    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday June 19 2022, @05:12AM (1 child)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday June 19 2022, @05:12AM (#1254345) Journal

      Maybe someone should repeat the same experiment with cats.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @07:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @07:46AM (#1254360)

        repeat the same experiment with big cats

        FTFY

  • (Score: 1) by Fuzzums on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:32AM

    by Fuzzums (2009) on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:32AM (#1254365)
    "The results were surprising," says Kanakogi. "We found that preverbal infants chose to punish the antisocial aggressor by increasing their gaze towards the aggressor."

    The only thing you really can conclude IMHO is that the infant gazes at one of the objects for some reason. The conclusion that it is "punishing" the object assumes that the infant knows what punishment is. For all we know the infant might also be "rewarding" the object.
  • (Score: 2) by Opportunist on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:47AM (4 children)

    by Opportunist (5545) on Sunday June 19 2022, @10:47AM (#1254368)

    the infants could just see that a certain "object" was hurting another "object" and wanted that offending object to disappear before they could be the next target.

    That's not morality, that's simple and pure self interest.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @11:21AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @11:21AM (#1254372)

      Morality can be seen as a form of self interest, if you consider life as a single process with many instances. This doesn't devalue it. In fact, moral teachings adhering to a scientifically measurable advantage say a lot about who came up with them.

      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:09PM (2 children)

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:09PM (#1254373) Journal

        I'd say true moral behaviour (assuming the kids see the shapes as sentient beings) would be to stop gazing at them as soon as they recognize that staring at them will harm them.

        True morality is not to punish bad behaviour from others, but to refrain from bad behaviour yourself even when that bad behaviour will not have negative consequences for yourself.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @07:10PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @07:10PM (#1254445)

          Indeed.

          The comment you replied to is important, but typically is a response meant to justify the "everyone is selfish" ideology that lets selfish people feel less guilty. There are plenty of people that do good things for no selfish reason. Some say the act of being nice is the reward, but I call bullshit since I've done many nice things for people then carried on with no sense of satisfaction or ego boost, it was just helping someone out, so there is a sample size of one!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @09:52PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @09:52PM (#1254468)

          That's one moral code. There are others. Not everybody shares the same morality. Just listen to the fights about abortion. Or capital punishment. Or corporal punishment. Or incarceration. Or retribution, restoration and deterrence in punishment. Or homosexuality. Or trans-sexual identity. In fact, there are moral nihilists who have no view on the nature of good and evil, but they often adhere to ethical codes that relate to pragmatic outcomes.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @11:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @11:19AM (#1254371)

    ASIAN kids are born with a moral compass.

    (sounds less impressive now doesn't it)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @01:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @01:32PM (#1254394)

    Study Alzheimer's patients, the sense of fairness is the last cognitive skill to go:
    Split a donut with them, you will be told in no uncertain terms if the split is uneven

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:26PM (#1254405)

    Maybe the infants found the animation of the thing hurting another thing to be more eye catching. I assume there was probably more movement. This study is very poor.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:51PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @03:51PM (#1254409)

    Besides all the problems in the summary (well, duh, animals have shown reactions to antisocial behaviour, reading specific intents into the actions of infants is really hard) another thing occurs to me: kindergarten playgrounds show no sign of that sort of moralising. Does the supposed morality vanish between ages 0 and 4? The typical logic unless an adult intervenes is: "I want it, you have it, I'm taking it, cry me a river loser." Very sophisticated kids can trade things.

    Just mediate playground fights for a week, then get back to me on this one, yeah?

  • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:16PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:16PM (#1254413)

    The Republican party is openly pushing for fascism with people tweeting things like they would prefer fascism over allowing trans people to have equal rights. Shows like Tucker Carlson push racially and politically motivated violence, as we can see when domestic terrorists quote Fox rhetoric.

    I always feel that the problem with defining what the right believes in by listening to what they say, is inherently flawed.

    They say they want "individualism". But demand conformity. (minority rights, and even intellectual debate)

    They say they hate govt largess and love efficiency. But no cost is too little for any of the things that they want (tax cuts, police spending, military, security costs, etc).

    They claim they love freedoms. But will gladly sacrifice not just others' freedoms, but their own, if they think it will hurt a supposed enemy. (PATRIOT act, all of the war on terror, drug laws, even COVID - as much as they don't believe covid even exists, they'll use it as an excuse to ban muslims because Iran had high counts of COVID early on)

    ****

    What's more is it's not just any authority that they will defer to. Authority has its roots in "author". As in, a person who knows so much about a topic that they are the author-ity of it.

    But that's not the authority conservatives defer to. No, they defer specifically and only to the "might makes right" kind of authority. Those who are powerful, not those who are knowledgeable.

    Because what they want is not "leadership". But someone to "put down" the people they hate. The people they think are "undeserving" of what they have.

    *****

    This is why it's so maddening trying to talk to them, or even trying to hear their view of things.

    They say anything and everything to get their way ("own the libs"). Internal consistency, logic, facts, even attempts to find middle ground, etc... all of it can be sacrificed so that they can get what they want.

    And often times, the thing that they say that they want, isn't even what they actually want.

    Of course, proving that last one is basically impossible (because no one can read minds).

    We are all tired of politics, but that is what fascists rely on. They poke and explore what they can get away with until they gain enough legal power to force their way. If we are not ready for our political system to survive an attempted hijacking with more legal ground than the 1/6 insurrection, then we will follow the footsteps of Nazi Germany.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @05:24PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @05:24PM (#1254423)

      Either Soylentnews has a bug that misplaced this rant into the wrong thread, or some bot messed up its programming and put this in the wrong thread.

      I don't think I've seen this bug in soylentnews yet (although I haven't really been looking) but I admit that this seems word-salady enough to be a bot. Does anyone else read, for example: "But no cost is too little for any of the things that they want" as being oxymoronic?

      Hoping that the editors can check in on this, just in case.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @07:04PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @07:04PM (#1254443)

        Too on-topic for bot behavior, and have you seen some of the rants that go on around here?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @09:46PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @09:46PM (#1254466)

          Nah, bots would be able to connect generic morality stuff to rants about republicans. The actual content is off-topic, but it feels like bot placement.

          Or I suppose that it could be a spam farm testing things somehow. Our homegrown lunatics don't generally sound like that.

      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 20 2022, @06:27PM (1 child)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday June 20 2022, @06:27PM (#1254695) Journal

        Because, as we all know, it is completely impossible for a human to make an offtopic post.

        Cleary it's robots, controlled by humans, controlled by the DNC mind control ray. It's the only explanation that makes sense!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 21 2022, @03:00AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 21 2022, @03:00AM (#1254812)

          You saying it's zombieMDC? APK-the-insane? Or is gewg_ back for more?

          This level of misplacement is pretty crazy in itself.

  • (Score: 2) by legont on Sunday June 19 2022, @05:11PM

    by legont (4179) on Sunday June 19 2022, @05:11PM (#1254419)

    It does not say if they had a control group of untrained "punishes" to look at attacking objects. Perhaps infants look at them because they like how they behave and even associate themselves with aggressors, death be damned.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
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