Should there be a Code of Conduct or ethical behavior in political discourse?

[Theodarzna]

So, with a lot of discussion about PC-Culture, Censorship, No Platforming, ect ect. What and how should we have a platform for the discussion of opposing views? Is it necessarily good for us that it ultimately falls now to whomever can command a megaphone, pour cash into the bottomless pit of media advertising, and or rally a lynch mob quickly? With people using their positions of power to censor and control discourse, is there any place in which a person will encounter opposing views?

Basically, were, when and what forum should exist for opposing views to come to ahead in some form of good faith debate? Or is that simply impossible now? Or even bad?

[Independent voter]

Well, if you want to persuade as many people as possible, you are limited in the tactics you can use during a discussion. If you go all out trying to crush your opponents, your listeners could be turned off by your brutishness.

So I think there is a code. It's just when you venture out into extreme speech, controversial things that the rules are thrown out the window.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Not legally just *social rules and social conduct*. I mean, I like debates to be civil if it's intended to be serious.

[Calfredd]

I'd rather there be no mudslinging ads. I don't care what so-and-so supports, what will you do if elected that doesn't require bringing up your opponent every 2 sentences?

[chewie49]

the title of this thread in other words:

"Should there be a way for progressives to ban or censor anyone who disagrees with me because I'm threatened by strong words and opposing views."

[Kokolums]

A Princeton study suggests none of this matters. They ran a study and showed that you can reliably predict the winner 70% of the time by showing audiences a split-second glance of the two candidates' faces.

http://www.science20.com/news_accoun...nt_of_the_time

Are elections decided by looks? A Princeton University study says even a split-second glance at two candidates' faces is often enough to determine which one will win an election.

Princeton psychologist Alexander Todorov has demonstrated that quick facial judgments can accurately predict real-world election returns. Todorov has taken some of his previous research that showed that people unconsciously judge the competence of an unfamiliar face within a tenth of a second, and he has moved it to the political arena.

His lab tests show that a rapid appraisal of the relative competence of two candidates' faces was sufficient to predict the winner in about 70 percent of the races for U.S. senator and state governor in the 2006 elections.



"We never told our test subjects they were looking at candidates for political office -- we only asked them to make a gut reaction response as to which unfamiliar face appeared more competent," said Todorov, an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs. "The findings suggest that fast, unreflective judgments based on a candidate's face can affect voting decisions."

Todorov and Charles Ballew, an undergraduate psychology major who graduated from Princeton in 2006, conducted three experiments in which several dozen participants had to make snap judgments about faces. Participants were shown a series of photos, each containing a pair of faces, and asked to choose, based purely on gut feeling, which face they felt displayed more competence. The differences among the experiments largely concerned the amounts of time an observer was allowed to view the faces – as brief as a tenth of a second or longer -- and to pass judgment afterward.

What was unknown to the participants in the third experiment was that the image pairs were actually the photographs of the two frontrunner candidates for a major election being held somewhere in the United States during the time of the experiment in late 2006. The races were either for state governor or for a seat in the U.S. Senate. In cases where an observer recognized either of the two faces, the researchers removed the selection from the data.

Two weeks later elections were held, and the researchers compared the competency judgments with the election results. They found that the judgments predicted the winners in 72.4 percent of the senatorial races and 68.6 percent of the gubernatorial races.

"This means that with a quick look at two photos, you have a great chance of predicting who will win," Todorov said. "Voters are not that rational, after all. So maybe we have to consider that when we elect our politicians."

Todorov's paper on the findings, written with Ballew, appears in the Oct. 22 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper has inspired researchers elsewhere to re-examine their assumptions about visual images and their effect on decision-making among the public.

"Political scientists have spent 50 years documenting only modest effects of the media on voting behavior, but Todorov's research suggests we may have been looking in the wrong place," said Chappell Lawson, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Most of these previous studies have relied on transcripts or printed records of what the media say, with much less attention to visual images."

Lawson, who called Todorov's work "pioneering," added that some of his own work corroborates the new findings, indicating that competence appears to be a universal quality, recognizable across cultures. His research shows that American observers could predict the outcome of elections in Mexico based on the same gut reactions.

"Both of these papers speak to the seminal quality of appearance in candidate success," Lawson said. "Our findings surprised us, because Mexican politicians often emphasize very different aspects of their appearance, such as facial hair, which American political figures avoid. But Americans could still pick out the Mexican winners. Our data show effects at least as strong as those Todorov found."

Political scientists, Todorov said, are likely to be most interested in his findings, primarily because they will want to identify which voters are most strongly influenced.

"It's still unclear how these effects operate in the real world," he said. "Not every voter is going to be affected. Obviously, some people vote according to their values, but many others are uninformed about candidates' policy decisions. So we need to do the hard work to find out."

Article: "Predicting political elections from rapid and unreflective face judgments", Charles C. Ballew II and Alexander Todorov

[Endus]

The one thing I'd like to see would be debates where the moderator, well, moderates. By this, I mean give the man a team of 10+ researchers, working in the background in realtime, as well as a booklet of expected facts and details he can reference himself, and make one of their roles calling out politicians when they say something that isn't factually correct.

Not to silence them, but just to clarify for the audience that the speaker has either made an error or, if they double down, is deliberately and maliciously lying to everyone for political gain.

Honesty should be the one central core principle, in politics. If we don't find a way to hold politicians to that, then we're letting them tell whatever fanciful lies will delude enough of the populace to get by until the next election. To paraphrase Barnum; you don't need to fool all of the people all of the time, you just need to fool a majority for just long enough for them to vote.

And really, this shouldn't be taken by anyone as being a partisan position. The only way this is partisan is if your "side" relies on just this kind of dishonesty to win.

[breadisfunny]

it sure isn't mmoc. or any other forum.

[derpkitteh]

no. there's already too much scripted bullshit, just look at hillary clinton. the bitch sounds like a damn pre-recorded answering machine, with less life.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

no. there's already too much scripted bullshit, just look at hillary clinton. the bitch sounds like a damn pre-recorded answering machine, with less life.

Corporate doners probably help control h er words.

[Revi]

The one thing I'd like to see would be debates where the moderator, well, moderates. By this, I mean give the man a team of 10+ researchers, working in the background in realtime, as well as a booklet of expected facts and details he can reference himself, and make one of their roles calling out politicians when they say something that isn't factually correct.

Not to silence them, but just to clarify for the audience that the speaker has either made an error or, if they double down, is deliberately and maliciously lying to everyone for political gain.

Honesty should be the one central core principle, in politics. If we don't find a way to hold politicians to that, then we're letting them tell whatever fanciful lies will delude enough of the populace to get by until the next election. To paraphrase Barnum; you don't need to fool all of the people all of the time, you just need to fool a majority for just long enough for them to vote.

And really, this shouldn't be taken by anyone as being a partisan position. The only way this is partisan is if your "side" relies on just this kind of dishonesty to win.

I'd think that'd be a great addition to political debates if they could keep it completely unbiased. It wouldn't solve the problem of people not trusting scientists, but it'd help a lot.

[Endus]

I'd think that'd be a great addition to political debates if they could keep it completely unbiased.

Just to be clear, I don't mean things like "correcting" positions on economic policy based on someone's preferred outlook, just factual misrepresentations. And in a "I think you misspoke, Mr./Ms. Candidate, because you said X, when actually Y is true", and give them a chance to rephrase in case it was just an honest slip of the tongue (which happens).

I might think trickle-down economics is a bunch of hooey, and that the facts don't really support it as a model, but that's outside the scope of what I'm talking about. Though they'd be free to kick out any facts candidates cite to try and shore up that claim, if faulty.

[Deleted]

Just to be clear, I don't mean things like "correcting" positions on economic policy based on someone's preferred outlook, just factual misrepresentations. And in a "I think you misspoke, Mr./Ms. Candidate, because you said X, when actually Y is true", and give them a chance to rephrase in case it was just an honest slip of the tongue (which happens).

I might think trickle-down economics is a bunch of hooey, and that the facts don't really support it as a model, but that's outside the scope of what I'm talking about. Though they'd be free to kick out any facts candidates cite to try and shore up that claim, if faulty.

This doesn't work in practice for the reasons sites like factcheck don't work.

Eg I had a recent discussion with a friend. It happened to concern the UK but it could have been anywhere. My position was that party x had spent less than party y while in power, the polar opposite of popular opinion. I cited GDP numbers as proof. He cited factcheck which acknowledged the GDP numbers but placed it into the context of eu expenditure where it appeared excessive.

Now, you could also cite comparisons with us or china to validate your data, or just ignore them altogether or use some other metric, and it comes down to what your bias is. In your hypothetical scenario that puts way too much power in the hands of the mod, who gets to effectively rule who "wins"-whether you meant it like that isn't relevant because that is how it will be used by the "victor".

Btw What happened to wikipedia, which might be viewed as the most comprehensive attempt to do what you describe, in recent years, is horrendous.

[Luxxor]

So, with a lot of discussion about PC-Culture, Censorship, No Platforming, ect ect. What and how should we have a platform for the discussion of opposing views? Is it necessarily good for us that it ultimately falls now to whomever can command a megaphone, pour cash into the bottomless pit of media advertising, and or rally a lynch mob quickly? With people using their positions of power to censor and control discourse, is there any place in which a person will encounter opposing views?

Basically, were, when and what forum should exist for opposing views to come to ahead in some form of good faith debate? Or is that simply impossible now? Or even bad?

I've noticed you sudden presence here in OT and I'm not impressed. Lots of whiny, SJW type threads. You come off as very naive.

[dextersmith]

Such a code of conduct may inhibit free speech.

[Endus]

Such a code of conduct may inhibit free speech.

Free speech has never meant that you could express anything without contradiction or consequence. Literally never. It only applies to government enforcing restrictions on the content of one's speech, outside of the single exception of speech that causes harm (slander, verbal threat, etc).

If you want a world where you can say whatever you want and nobody can shout you down or point out how big a liar you are, then you're not looking for a world based on freedom of speech, because your position necessitates restricting the free speech of others, to respond to your speech.

You're free to speak your mind. The public is free to respond in kind. That's freedom of speech. If you don't want to get shouted down and called nasty names by a crowd who are more than willing to point out the errors you've made, then your sole recourse is to not speak. Which is your right. But once you do, your freedom of speech ends where theirs begins.

[dextersmith]

Free speech has never meant that you could express anything without contradiction or consequence.

Stopped reading there! Of course there'll be contradictions and consequences but a code of conduct could stifle unpopular opinions or the expression of offensive matters.

[Mistame]

I say give them both machetes and the one left standing wins. /s

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Stopped reading there! Of course there'll be contradictions and consequences but a code of conduct could stifle unpopular opinions or the expression of offensive matters.

Except maybe that's a grey area and isn't truly defined. Someone finds something offensive, someone else will. It's not black and white. You wouldn't be losing freedom of speech.

[dextersmith]

Except maybe that's a grey area and isn't truly defined. Someone finds something offensive, someone else will. It's not black and white. You wouldn't be losing freedom of speech.

You would be if the code prohibits anything considered aggravating to others.