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It is no state secret that Harris has radically shifted numerous political positions in the last few months. She was for banning fracking and now she is for fracking. She wanted a mandatory gun buyback and now is touting her supposed Glock ownership. She wanted to ban private health insurance and now believes in it. She thought the wall was racist and wanted to ban ICE; now not so much.
What I found interesting was how she talked about why she changed (assuming for a second she actually changed). She said that as VP she has been traveling the country and listening to people. And she really wanted to form a consensus.
Of course, every presidential candidate wants to “unify.” But in explaining how Harris derives her views (assuming in earnest) she goes to consensus. I don’t think anyone has commented on this but this shows the difference between male decision making and female decision making. Male decision making often tries to figure out what he thinks is true whereas female decision making tries to figure out what belief is most popular. As a male I find the first great and shudder at the latter. Of course maybe there is some wisdom in the wisdom of crowds (though perhaps you need some of that male thinking for wisdom of crowds to work!)
It may in part explain the gender difference that is emerging in the polls. It isn’t that men hate women; they shudder at consensus decision making by a leader.
I don't think Kamala being a woman has much to do with it. There's plenty of male empty suits who pick their words badly. I think she's just an empty suit who picks her words badly.
This doesn't make her unique among politicians. It makes her unique among presidential candidates, sure, but there's plenty of old school politicians at lower levels who take whatever stand they believe they have to take to get elected and blatantly grasp for an explanation afterwards. And she's a presidential candidate this round because she was Joe Biden's veep, and that's mostly from being black, not from being a woman.
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In every one of those situations she's moving away from her base.
My guess is that the word "consensus" tested well with the base as the thing to say to justify the change.
So yes, that base is women but otherwise "consensus" has nothing to do with the actual decision making process.
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[citation needed]
Flippant quip aside, I partly agree with your assertion. In my experience, women are more likely to seek consensus. That probably generalizes, since women are about half a standard deviation higher on the agreeableness scale than men, on average.
I disagree that the gender analogy (women : popular ideas) is (men : true ideas). Quite frankly, I see as much popular bullshit spewing from men as I do from women. What I agree to, however, is that (in general) when women discuss a subject they are likely to converge towards a consensus opinion without much overt argument, whereas (again, in general), men will overtly argue for their takes, and use the arguments as opportunity to jockey for position among their group.
Here's the thing: I am a mathematician, and I worked and argued with plenty of other women in math, tech and engineering, who tend to be more disagreeable (in terms of Big-5 personality traits) then women in general. The disagreeable women are no more likely to gently gravitate to consensus then the equally disagreeable men.
Meanwhile, when I worked with teachers (who tend to be more agreeable), I had employ extreme teaching techniques to encourage them to push back on another's asinine assertions, men as well as women.
On truth-seeking versus popular-ideas-seeking: engineers and techs are just as motivated to determine the truth, be they men or women, because in those fields, you test your ideas against reality, and reality doesn't care about the provenance of your ideas. Writers and philosophers are just as motivated to determine what will be popular (or better yet, viral), be they men or women, because in those fields, the test for your ideas is the potency of them as memes--how well your ideas compete for memetic space within your society (more importantly, the part of that society that determines your social status).
So I assert that the pattern you observe--that women tend to gravitate to popular opinions while men appear to seek the truth--is best explained by two factors:
Women are more agreeable then men, in general;
Men are more concentrated in fields where ideas are tested against reality, and women are more concentrated in fields where the value of ideas are in their memetic potency.
PS. This is also a response to @monoamine and @falling-star, giving an N = 1 sample for how a female Mottizen replies to the post.
Lizard brain moment.
Male communication among other males is (often physical) combative and jockeying until status hierarchy is established. Then once the hierarchy is established, there is peace. When status is gained from being right in this hierarchy, and the main method of jockeying is attacking their position for being wrong, then naturally this will align towards truth-seeking over time. A male will get drunk and attack the concept of gravity until someone (usually another guy) pushes him off a ledge.
Female communication among other females is memetic, status is not gained from being right but by being convincing. Women don't care about the concept of gravity, what matters is if they can get other people to agree with them that gravity exists/doesn't exist. They are not going to push anyone off the cliff to test that theory, because they (correctly) intuit that the fall will kill one of them.
I am trying to parse your argument, since it's in the "if A then B" form and you didn't explicitly claim that A is true (here: A = "male status is gained from being right").
If you were asserting that male status is gained from being right, then your entire argument would imply that no male-dominated society will have top-down beliefs that were contrary to reality. How I wish that were true, but history proves otherwise. (see most religions, or North Korea)
(case in point: every geek that got bullied by the popular jocks)
Rather, I assert that men as well as women gain status not from being right but by being convincing. Many men tend to do it in a more straightforward argumentative way, many women tend to do it by building coalitions and seeking consensus, I will give you that. (Always exceptions, I know enough agreeable men and disagreeable women to know that the generalization doesn't always hold.)
Half there, guys seek status in many ways and contexts. Being right is one. If there is more status to be gained by beating the other guy's head in with a rock, unga bunga applies. The point is, men attack each other to figure out where they stand. Conflict comes from not knowing where they stand and where others stand in relation to them. If you don't know how strong/tall/rich/smart that guy is, you're gonna try and find out.
How about:
Among men, men get status through demonstrating situational-appropriate competence. When the group already has a clearly established hierarchy of competence, men defer along the hierarchical lines. If hierarchy is not yet established, or new evidence suggests that the established hierarchy is no longer deserved, men jostle for status primarily in confrontational style that calls into question the level of competence of the one who slipped up as compared to the challenger.
Do you agree with this generalization? If not, what part would you change?
Don't agree with this statement. As mentioned, competence is not the only metric. It is the metric when competence is what is being measured.
If you're measuring strength, then the strongest man wins, no amount of bullshitting will stop the stronger man from being stronger.
In my observation, I have noticed that male conflict comes from not knowing who is to be master. Once they know where they stand in relation to other males, there is less conflict. This is why I consider the male conflict model better at aligning for truth-seeking, because they will fight each other until they figure out what wins (and what wins is usually rigorously tested by other men trying to attack or disprove it).
Female conflict is different. I have observed that female conflict comes from the struggle to identify and ostracize the outlier that might cause trouble to the group (pick your group, family, workgroup, sports team, social network circle). Therefore, the conflict model trends towards groupthink over acknowledgement and acceptance of any truth that might cause issues within the group.
Thanks for clarifying your perspective!
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I think you've got cause and effect completely backwards on your second factor.
Yes, you are right. I agree that, because a field's goal is memetic potency, women are more likely to be drawn to it. Thanks for pointing that out.
On the other hand, there is a reinforcing factor at play, too. If someone falls ass-backwards into mathematics, one will still learn how to question assertions and demand proof. If someone gets steered into social studies, one will still learn how to test the waters with some friendlies--and to do it subtly, in I-came-across-this-thought kind of way--before publicizing it more broadly.
The reinforcing factor is more like a loop: E.g., because most mathematicians are disagreeable, the confrontational style of argumentation gets more highly prized in the field. E.g., because most social studies teachers are agreeable, consensus-building styles get more highly prized in the field.
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I'd be curious to see what female Mottizens (do any exist?) would respond to this post with.
There's at least 4 I know of.
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In a policy-oriented, non-tribal democracy, the "male" mode seems better for reflecting voter preference: everyone can vote for the candidate that agrees with their beliefs and values, with no worries that the rug will be pulled after the election as the candidate does a 180. In a tribalised or one-party democracy where elections are not decided on policy, what you call the "female" mode seems better: the majority policy preferences will at least be approximately realised at the "winning candidate does whatever is popular" stage.
In concrete terms, imagine if 90% of Americans were against open borders, but there are 53% of voters who will vote Democrats no matter what. Would you rather Democratic leadership does the masculine thing and stand on the principle of open borders because they determined this is correct, or they yield to what is popular?
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Just to pick two recent examples, Starmer and Biden the two promised moderates acted in a rather far left manner. It isn't good odds to bet that Kamala, the most liberal senator which has taken quite extreme positions over the years, is genuinely moving to the center.
Much of the discourse about centrism, moderation is it self a far left psyop. How this works is they want a uniparty which includes the opposition party and themselves all sharing a far left agenda and excluding sensible agendas like opposing mass migration, illegal migration, and calling them selves moderate, opposition is labeled far right, disinformation promoters, etc, etc.
This agenda also includes in addition to the progressive stack, and delegitimizing the interests and demonizing those harmed by it that would oppose it, the obvious discrimination, but also authoritarianism against any dissent, including the right of freedom of speech. Which Kamala and her vice president have been rather open about how what they consider hate speech is not freedom of speech.
Anyway, it is the goal of the mainstream left to create a very rigid far left ideological hegemony and the appearance of wide bipartisan consensus.
However, it is true that women voters have proven to be more aligned with this agenda, at least in countries like the USA. They are also polled to be quite more against freedom of speech and pro progressive authoritarianism than men.
As for leftist politicians who are male vs female leftist, I don't think it matters that much. The average is at such, but once you have selected for a politician of this ideology and faction, you are going to get something similar.
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Much simpler explanation is that she still wants to do those things but is lying about them because she knows that they are unpopular and she won't be able to do them if she doesn't get elected. This is not really a gendered phenomenon.
I noted that as a possibility. I was just trying to engage her rhetoric as if it was honest.
That seems like a silly thing to do. Politicians usually say what polls well, not what they will do.
Yeah. I guess the other point is I don’t think a male would explain policy changes as listening to consensus. So even if you think (and I would count myself in that group) that Harris is lying it is interesting how she lies.
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Basing your conclusions as to gender differences on something so unlikely makes them pretty empty, is the thing.
She may reply. Even if she is lying (which I agree she probably is) how she lies is gendered.
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Can you substantiate this? Because this really doesn't match my experience. Differences between men and women in terms of decision-making strike me as more about performing different virtues for different audiences. A "good" man is tough and decisive, so men making decisions try to look tough and decisive. A "good" woman is supportive and non-confrontational, so women making decisions try to seek consensus (or at least look like they have). Truth is a tertiary concern, or people already think they know what is true.
I would expect those to be hyperbeliefs anyway. If there is a fairly robust intersubjective agreement on what constitutes a "good man" or a "good woman", people are going to pursue it, causing the 'fiction' to leak more and more into reality. If people choose partners based on these definitions, they will leak into genetics generation by generation as well.
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Not exactly the same but there are known differences
Women score half a standard deviation higher in agreeableness than men. For reference male/female height is 1 SD
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/
It's around 2 SD.
You're right. Calculating using Our world in data figures gives 1.87
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shes a politician not a philosopher, its not her job to seek truth but to win votes and serve the people
you try to make it seem like because shes a woman she is less objective but trying to give voters what they want is the objectively right move in her position
Yes, just about every successful politician is like that. Ideally, you pick out your policies well in advance so that you don't have to do a 180 in public, but sometimes it can't be avoided. Often, you can just get by with deemphasizing something you used to talk a lot about instead of actively coming out in support of the other side.
Even with the benefit of hindsight, you still might want to change your opinions because the ones which allow you to rise in a party are different from the ones which win elections.
Having a leader who has principles and is willing to sacrifice their reelection to follow their principles is better than having an opportunistic leader who will do whatever the public wants only if their principles are good principles, followed sensibly.
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I think that misunderstands a Republican democracy. The theory isn’t to have a leader that simply does what the public wants. The idea is for a leader who the public can believe in to make the right decisions. Simply delegating those decisions to consensus seems to my mind to be an abandonment of leadership but the question really is what is the better style of leadership.
I’m suggesting Harris has a different leadership style. Maybe some people prefer it. My point is that the difference is in part gendered.
Well, that's just it. The "right decision" is often a subject to with the people believe it is.
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As Edmund Burke famously put it —
I like this quote. I'm a (very minor) elected official myself, and I treated the campaign almost like a job interview. I was entirely honest about my opinions under the theory that I was going to be elected to lead and make decisions and the public should know what decisions I was likely to make. If I won the election, that meant that the public wanted people with my specific ideas in the office.
I am intensely frustrated by my fellow representatives who constantly want to circle back to public opinion when deciding issues -- they elected YOU, right? So what the public WANTS is you to make a decision in accordance with the values you ran on. If we're just going to punt on decisions every time then we're just stuffed shirts; there's no need for elected representatives at all, we'll just run Twitter polls every week and we can stay home.
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I’ve often thought on areas where the representative does not have strong convictions or recognizes there is significant uncertainty, it makes sense to side with consensus.
But it makes zero sense to do so on important issues wherein the rep does have strong convictions.
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You'd be a fool to think she cares about any of these issues and won't immediately make a hard left turn on guns and the border once she is elected.
Right now she needs consensus from the people.
Once in office, she will only need consensus from powerful people within her own party.
Do you honestly believe that Kamala will start mass deporting illegals because that's what the majority of people in the US want according to polls?
I think that many politicians rarely genuinely hold any position. They research and float various positions, hoping to find ones that resound with voters and then lean into those positions. Previously in her career, Harris did well with some of these more progressive positions, partly because she began in Cali, partly because Obama/Biden were claiming the middle, partly because of her starting diversity hand and partly because progressives were an ascendant influence. Now, she needs to move to the middle and is. Not every Dem national candidate is going to be a southern governor like Clinton, but probably all candidates are going to adapt like Clinton.
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Every politician should be a mix between "leader" and "representative." It's up to the voters to choose exactly how they want their mix tuned.
Trump's populism has recently proven the current electoral effectiveness of being representative. Democrats have adapted to the meta.
I think gender differences have more to do with which groups each party and politician is better at representing than any preference for different styles. You could use gender essentialist framing to argue that women should prefer a "leader" because they're less able to lead themselves and be equivalently wrong because either way, it's a just-so story.
It probably is a just so story. I was just thinking the so called long house and then came across Harris’ statements. The two resonated.
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