If we disagree, one of us is wrong - Libertarians and Computer Science

[ClayTrainor]

Ever wonder why the internet seems to have such a strong libertarian presence, compared to the rest of society? This report really explains the correlation well, i think.

Source: http://ivo.co.za/2007/08/09/libertarian-iq/


There’s a fascinating comparison to be made between computer scientists and libertarians. It is pretty old, originally having been posted to libernet in 1992 by Stuart Reges, but it remains very much worth reading and digesting. It explains a lot about how libertarians argue, and why the internet seems to be so libertarian.The piece was reposted here. Its original title appears to be Libertarian IQ. I’ll repost it at the end if you prefer your reading in something more colourful than 72-column monospaced text. Some highlights:


Just as programmers have a model of computation, libertarians have what I call a model of interaction. Just as a programmer can “play computer” by simulating how specific lines of code will change program state, a libertarian can “play society” by simulating how specific actions will change societal state. The libertarian model of interaction cuts across economic, political, cultural, and social issues. For just about any given law, for example, a libertarian can tell you exactly how such a law will affect society (minimum wage laws create unemployment by setting a lower-bound on entry-level wages, drug prohibition artificially inflates drug prices which leads to violent turf wars, etc.). As another example, for any given social goal, a libertarian will be able to tell you the problems generated by having government try to achieve that goal and will tell you how such a goal can be achieved in a libertarian society.I believe this is qualitatively different from other predictive models because of the breadth of the model and the focus on transitions (both of which are also true of programming). On newsgroups I often see questions … [that] … libertarians almost always quickly answer by saying, “I’ll tell you exactly what would happen…” And, surprisingly, the libertarians tend to give the same answer in most cases.

I think most people find this odd about libertarians. They understand how an economist might be able to predict the effect of a certain law on the economy or how a social scientist might be able to predict how drug legalization might affect the ghettos, but they don’t understand how somebody could predict all of these things, especially someone who has no formal training. Libertarians, on the other hand, don’t seem to understand how someone could fail to have such a model of interaction… The nonlibertarians have no comprehensive model of interaction, and as a result, they can’t communicate in a meaningful way with those who do. Their attention is always focused on misleading superficial problems rather than on the underlying causes of such problems.

Click here to read more (http://ivo.co.za/2007/08/09/libertarian-iq/)

[TheBlackPeterSchiff]

Interesting. It's funny because I am a DBA and a lot of my fellow IT programmers are libertarians.

[nayjevin]

A person notices that some people are making $1 and $2 an hour and are having difficulty managing financially on such a sum. This seems bad and they want to fix it. But they have no model of interaction that would allow them to reason about what might cause such a result. So they decide to pass a minimum wage law so the problem will go away. And it does (apparently). There aren’t any poor people making $1 and $2 an hour anymore. But there are suddenly lots of unemployed people who have to live off welfare (a new problem). Does the person make the connection and realize that they caused this problem? Not without a model of interaction. So instead they say we have to fix the unemployment problem. And then we have to fix the new problems generated by the fix to the unemployment problem. And then we have to fix the new problems generated by the new fixes. And so on.

Symptoms vs. problems, like Mickey and the brooms in Fantasia, or plugging a hole causes pressure elsewhere.

[Kylie]

But it does seem odd that we get that, and debate the effects on here all the time.

Why can't the others see it? I don't see how they just can't.

[dannno]

Wow, that is a great read, can't believe I haven't seen it before.. I recommend people click on the link and read the full text, it's about a 10 minute read but very well worth it..

+rep

[dannno]

But it does seem odd that we get that, and debate the effects on here all the time.

Why can't the others see it? I don't see how they just can't.



Did you read the full article?

The part about the TA and the student programming exercise, and then the following explanation relating it to libertarianism is invaluable.

I don't know what to do about it.. I mean, how do you help that student understand? That's the real problem.

[QueenB4Liberty]

I loved this article! It makes perfect sense.

[QueenB4Liberty]

Did you read the full article?

The part about the TA and the student programming exercise, and then the following explanation relating it to libertarianism is invaluable.

I don't know what to do about it.. I mean, how do you help that student understand? That's the real problem.

Yeah I don't understand how to do that either. I've been trying for years.

[Kylie]

Did you read the full article?

The part about the TA and the student programming exercise, and then the following explanation relating it to libertarianism is invaluable.

I don't know what to do about it.. I mean, how do you help that student understand? That's the real problem.


I just did.

Fantastic article. Now I understand, I think. Just a fundamental difference in thinking.

Bet the Dept. of Education is super proud of their handiwork.

[TroySmith]

Really good article.

[Ray]

Good article, I read it a year or two ago. If only more people realized that actions have consequences that go beyond the immediately visible effects.

[reardenstone]

If we "get it" and there are so many new young people getting it, why can't we finally stop masquerading as "republicans" and give real
Libertarianism the attention it deserves. I understand the machine, but dressing in Republican clothes forces real libertarianism into hiding.
Why didn't the Libertarian grow from the 2% club to the 4% club in 2010?

[jack555]

It's funny I just ran into this on Facebook,a liberal tried to tell me that me saying that significant tax increases would hurt the economy was "made up facts"

[squarepusher]

so would it be safe to say that Libertarians are strongly logical?

[malkusm]

Thanks for sharing. Really good article, although I have a Computer Science background as well as a Math/Statistics background, so I can't speak for everyone.

The problem is that we have to stop using the logical arguments that are comfortable to us if we want to convince the large majority who doesn't see the underlying problems, but only the symptoms of the problems. Think about the arguments that your liberal or conservative friends use. They are emotionally driven:
"We must do something for the poor."
"This is a humanitarian effort."
"We must spread democracy."
"If we don't attack them there, they'll attack us here."
"Guns kill people."
"Without regulation, people would exploit the disadvantaged."

This is exactly why we hate debating those people; but we can employ equally effective, rhetorical/emotional arguments without compromising our values in order to win them to our side. It's much easier once they are on our side to get them to see the more logical/technical points we have to offer.

[Sentient Void]

Being an IT technician myself, completely agreed.

Great article, I remember reading it a bit back, but I love seeing it pop up now and again.

[Philhelm]

Interesting. I'm not a programmer, but had started out as a computer science major. As much as I'm skeptical of psychology, I think a better explanation would be the Meyers-Brigg Personality Test. I had found it interesting that roughly 30% of RPFers are INTJs, despite the fact that INTJs only account for perhaps 1-3% of the general population. One of the descriptions of the INTJs is that they want people to make sense, and that they are system builders. Some of the professions they are attracted to include computers, law, academia, etc. I think the bottom line is that the people here simpy "get it," and can see the big picture. Also, Thomas Jefferson was listed as an INTJ.

[Vessol]

Lol, am I the only non IT/Programmer here? Well to be fair, I have programmed before on a hobby basis but I'm not interested in a career in computers. My own educational field, history, I tend to find is full of tons of Statists.

[Philhelm]

Lol, am I the only non IT/Programmer here? Well to be fair, I have programmed before on a hobby basis but I'm not interested in a career in computers. My own educational field, history, I tend to find is full of tons of Statists.

I have a bachelor's degree in history (for what it's worth...), and agree that the area seems riddled with statists.

[JohnEngland]

Interesting. In my undergraduate studies, I read Computer Science.

However, I now do something completely different and was never anywhere near being a libertarian during my computing days.

[S.Shorland]

This is why American historians are statists (maybe).It's an interesting watch anyway.Norman Dodd was a very clever man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUYCBfmIcHM

[fisharmor]

I'm definitely spreading this around. Next time I'm talking to someone and quietly seething, thinking to myself "WTF is wrong with you that you can't see this thing right in front of your f*&^%ing nose!", I'll know.


Lol, am I the only non IT/Programmer here? Well to be fair, I have programmed before on a hobby basis but I'm not interested in a career in computers. My own educational field, history, I tend to find is full of tons of Statists.

Well, I'm glad you're carrying your breadth of vision into that field.
I had a surreal experience last year which hopefully your breadth of vision can correlate to the discussion.
I try to reconstruct medieval armor as a hobby. Last year I got to be in a group examining a fairly large private collection of extant pieces.
The other reproductionists and I were asking questions for about an hour - Why is this rivet placement off? What tool was used to make this hole? Any idea how they did the engraving on either side of the flutes? Where's the attachment point, how does it hang?
Then one of the company pipes up: "Man, you guys are asking questions I never would have thought to ask."
It becomes clear he's not a reproductionist, so I ask what he does:
Museum curator.

(FYI, the owner of the collection - the guy answering all the questions - works for IBM.)

[acptulsa]

Computer variables are easy. If you flub a line of code once or a thousand times, you'll get the same crash in the same amount of time. So, you develop a set of 'standards' that help you avoid the crash.

And the Founding Fathers set up a similar set of standards, but since people are variable other people think they can be ignored if we just get someone conscienscious in place. A benign dictator is a wonderful thing. Like a good boss.

But the 'variables' never seem to vary in the long term. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If it doesn't corrupt the benign dictator you entrust the power to, then it corrupts everyone who is vying for his job. People don't live forever.

In the long term. Yeah, Dubya went up the Hill and lied. Obama didn't go up the Hill at all. Next time, the next neocon will start two wars without going up the Hill and cite what 'your guy' did as precedent. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, the axiom is proven, it happens in the end. QED. That's the secret that will break down the wall between the logic and the desire to help those poor people.

[Pericles]

Computer variables are easy. If you flub a line of code once or a thousand times, you'll get the same crash in the same amount of time. So, you develop a set of 'standards' that help you avoid the crash.

And the Founding Fathers set up a similar set of standards, but since people are variable other people think they can be ignored if we just get someone conscienscious in place. A benign dictator is a wonderful thing. Like a good boss.

But the 'variables' never seem to vary in the long term. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If it doesn't corrupt the benign dictator you entrust the power to, then it corrupts everyone who is vying for his job. People don't live forever.

In the long term. Yeah, Dubya went up the Hill and lied. Obama didn't go up the Hill at all. Next time, the next neocon will start two wars without going up the Hill and cite what 'your guy' did as precedent. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, the axiom is proven, it happens in the end. QED. That's the secret that will break down the wall between the logic and the desire to help those poor people.
That ^^^

[newbitech]

yep being able to navigate the abstraction layers in society is what helped me get real cozy with the ability of one individual to make a change. I never used to believe this before I started hearing more about Ron Paul's ideas of liberty. It was real easy for me to grok protecting individual as the only legitimate role of government.

[AlexMerced]

I swear I did a video on this at some point, but what I find esepcailly for prgrammer during your training in Object Oriented Programing that you learn to think of systems as several independant working components which helps breakdown issues in an effective way.

A non programmer look at a car as a car, while a programmer looks at the car as the system that emerges from the function of seperate pieces such as the engine and such.

Actually this type of thinking really is true for all those that "build" things, and if you build stuff it's easier to see how aggregation destroys information.

[acptulsa]

I swear I did a video on this at some point, but what I find esepcailly for prgrammer during your training in Object Oriented Programing that you learn to think of systems as several independant working components which helps breakdown issues in an effective way.

A non programmer look at a car as a car, while a programmer looks at the car as the system that emerges from the function of seperate pieces such as the engine and such.

Actually this type of thinking really is true for all those that "build" things, and if you build stuff it's easier to see how aggregation destroys information.

Yet at the same time, it doesn't matter if you're programming the control system for a nuke plant or a killer new game for seven-year-olds, the fact remains that If A then B remains true from one application to another. So, computer programming makes it easy to learn to apply truths learned from one experience to a different problem, perhaps?

Maybe you have to have a deeper understanding than most to know when apples and oranges are all fruits, and all grow on trees.

[newbitech]

I swear I did a video on this at some point, but what I find esepcailly for prgrammer during your training in Object Oriented Programing that you learn to think of systems as several independant working components which helps breakdown issues in an effective way.

A non programmer look at a car as a car, while a programmer looks at the car as the system that emerges from the function of seperate pieces such as the engine and such.

Actually this type of thinking really is true for all those that "build" things, and if you build stuff it's easier to see how aggregation destroys information.


I would't say aggregation destroys information, it just makes information private or hidden from "public" consumption.

[White Bear Lake]

This is a great article. +Rep

It's definitely interesting to me, especially considering how my huge interest in Psychology/Statistics/Econ fits in with my views as a libertarian.

[brandon]

I tried reading this last night when I was drunk and found it insufferable. I think I'll give it another try later though.

[fisharmor]

A non programmer look at a car as a car, while a programmer looks at the car as the system that emerges from the function of seperate pieces such as the engine and such.

Shooting seems to be a hobby amongst liberty lovers as well as a rights issue... I wonder if the draw to guns is similar.
Now this is just an observation, but it seems that people who see an L-shaped black thing, who would never even do a 25 cent trigger job on a Glock, tend not to be absolutists on 2nd Amendment issues. The ones who can debate whether the plunger safety is really necessary - those types tend to be a little more open to the crazier ideas associated with liberty.

[AlexMerced]

Yet at the same time, it doesn't matter if you're programming the control system for a nuke plant or a killer new game for seven-year-olds, the fact remains that If A then B remains true from one application to another. So, computer programming makes it easy to learn to apply truths learned from one experience to a different problem, perhaps?

Maybe you have to have a deeper understanding than most to know when apples and oranges are all fruits, and all grow on trees.

Well, I have a amateur programming background which I havn't used in ages so the tech has grown beyond me. Although, I can definetley say the logical way you must breakdown problems to solve them when coding has changed the way I look at most things in the world, cause code is just a manifestation of thought to it's logical end.

Also, the internet is a perfect example of the benefits of decentralization, especially when you compare old file sharing technologies like napster which depended on a central server versus bit-torrent which is completley decentralized thus indestructible.

So whether it'd be programming principles or the imperical example of the internet, being tech savvy may pre-dispose you to being libertarian and most liberal techies are libertarians and don't know it but I find very few true conservative or liberal techies, they are always some shade of libertarian.

[AlexMerced]

Shooting seems to be a hobby amongst liberty lovers as well as a rights issue... I wonder if the draw to guns is similar.
Now this is just an observation, but it seems that people who see an L-shaped black thing, who would never even do a 25 cent trigger job on a Glock, tend not to be absolutists on 2nd Amendment issues. The ones who can debate whether the plunger safety is really necessary - those types tend to be a little more open to the crazier ideas associated with liberty.

I don't know, I think I'd fall in the camp of being a propnent of some of those "crazier" ideas, I am for privatizing foster care and allowing to be a for profit business and think child labor laws should be repealed ASAP along with public education, and think doing labor in exchange for education when your a kid is a fair trade.

[fisharmor]

I don't know, I think I'd fall in the camp of being a propnent of some of those "crazier" ideas, I am for privatizing foster care and allowing to be a for profit business and think child labor laws should be repealed ASAP along with public education, and think doing labor in exchange for education when your a kid is a fair trade.

Yeah, but you can't count for being a gun fan, 'cause you're in NY.
:P

[VIDEODROME]

Sometimes getting someone to change their thinking seems as hard as getting a left handed person to switch to right hand writing. Either because people are just wired differently or they've been indoctrinated. Probably a mix of both.

[AlexMerced]

Yeah, but you can't count for being a gun fan, 'cause you're in NY.
:P

that's a good point, the most of I've ever shot was a BB gun in cub scounts

[Brian4Liberty]

Also, Thomas Jefferson was listed as an INTJ.

The opinion of an INTJ. ;)

He could have been an INTP "Architect". Similar to INTJ: few in the general public, a lot of them here. Interest in Myers-Briggs is common with these types too.

[Vessol]

Well, I'm glad you're carrying your breadth of vision into that field.
I had a surreal experience last year which hopefully your breadth of vision can correlate to the discussion.
I try to reconstruct medieval armor as a hobby. Last year I got to be in a group examining a fairly large private collection of extant pieces.
The other reproductionists and I were asking questions for about an hour - Why is this rivet placement off? What tool was used to make this hole? Any idea how they did the engraving on either side of the flutes? Where's the attachment point, how does it hang?
Then one of the company pipes up: "Man, you guys are asking questions I never would have thought to ask."
It becomes clear he's not a reproductionist, so I ask what he does:
Museum curator.

(FYI, the owner of the collection - the guy answering all the questions - works for IBM.)

Historians, from what I understand, have a very linear mind. Something has to happen because of something else. A to B to C. Cause and effects. Going back to the independent systems theory that is being discussed about, this is very much something that is lacking in the study of history. It's a story, with progression.

There is certainly a push for more widespread thinking as to cause and effect within history. Instead of looking at the cause of WW1 due to a system of alliances, it's been spread out to include the reshaping of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, the industrialization of a united Germany, and many other reasons. These are great, but they still focus too much on finding linkages I think. They focus too little on the attitude or beliefs of the people, but that goes more towards sociology which is a subject matter that is absolutely cluster-fucked with Statists.

I wouldn't look down at your curator too much. He may not have had those questions you all asked in his mind, but I'm sure he had many questions that you did not even think about. Historians like to look at a more broader picture. He might ask who produced the armor, who used it, what was the economical value of it, what time period was it built in, how was it recovered. Etc. He wants to know it's history really, not how it works. How something works does not hold much interest to many historians.

I myself would have asked questions like you had, and I'd be greatly into them. However, I am not a intricately detailed person. I like learning how things work, but I don't feel that I need to find out how each and everything works. I know a good deal about computers, building my current one even, but there are many subjects that I fall completely short on. Assembly languages are the first thing that comes to mind :P. It's the same thing with me and a car. I appreciate learning more about cars and how they work, however it is not something that I find myself drawn to.

[Distinguished Gentleman]

There seems to be a thriving community of libertarians at MIT. Via a previous thread, 23% of the student population identify themselves as libertarians.

[VBRonPaulFan]

I can concur with this, i'm a programmer and several people I work with are libertarian leaning or heavily libertarian as well.

When a program crashes, the user sees the crash as the problem.

When a program crashes, a programmer sees a chain of events possibly 100 or more steps long leading up to the actual symptom that is the crash. You can't look at the end result, something definitive happened that led up to that point. The crash could've been caused because of using a pointer pointing to a bad sector of memory that you freed up inadvertently 30 function calls ago, and you just hadn't used it up until that point.

It is a completely different way of thinking, and it takes a while to train yourself to get to that point. Like Alex said, you might look at a car and just see a car. A programmer might look at a car and see a collection of objects making up a larger container object. A car contains an engine, seats, a cooling system, an engine management system, etc.

[Philhelm]

The opinion of an INTJ. ;)

He could have been an INTP "Architect". Similar to INTJ: few in the general public, a lot of them here. Interest in Myers-Briggs is common with these types too.

I've always been moderately interested in psychology, despite being vehemently opposed to how it's implemented in society and being skeptical of most theories. I do admit to having an interest in the Myers-Briggs personality test for some reason. I think that personality type (not necessarily based on any test) would be the root cause here. I'd argue that being a computer programmer is merely a symptom of a personality type, which in turn is one of the causes for pursuing libertarian ideas.

[ClayTrainor]

I feel this thread is worthy of a random bump. :)

[acptulsa]

March? So this isn't the same thread I saw here in '08?

Don't feel bad, Clay. I'll bet the old one was 'archived'. Thanks for digging this back up.

[Sam I am]

I think that the writer of this article is full of shit.

He cherry picks examples that kinda sound similar, to make really not too much of a point.
Using his "model of interaction" one can draw a better connection between computer scientist mentality, and Communism.

[AGRP]

Note how many ignorant people believe Obama is the problem (~90% of the time).

Note how many libertarian/constitutionalists even mention his name (~5% of the time).

[TheViper]

Thank to the OP and for the bump (wasn't a member back then yet).


I did some BASIC programming back in the early 90's but nothing beyond that or since. But I do build and troubleshoot computers which requires a programming-like though process. The article makes some interesting correlations that do seem to have a lot of validity to them.

[ClayTrainor]

Thank to the OP and for the bump (wasn't a member back then yet).


I did some BASIC programming back in the early 90's but nothing beyond that or since. But I do build and troubleshoot computers which requires a programming-like though process. The article makes some interesting correlations that do seem to have a lot of validity to them.

You're welcome :)

Bump

[jmdrake]

Hmmmm.....I never noticed that. I have a MS in compsci and worked in the field most of my life. The programmers I knew have all been free spirits but we never talked politics much. One of my supervisors when I worked at a web development company thought the moon landing was fake. (No correlation between that and libertarianism. I just thought that was odd and he was crazy. I wonder if he met me know if he'd think I was nuts? :D)

[heavenlyboy34]

Thanks for bumping. It's still a good thread. :cool:

[DamianTV]

I guess I missed it the first time around. Its was good enough that I not only had to Bookmark it (which is rare for me), I also had to give the OP a +Rep on a very old thread.

[hazek]

Wow! Great read and I completely agree with his theory.


I don't know what to do about it.. I mean, how do you help that student understand? That's the real problem.

Yes! This is exactly what our biggest problem is! How do you get that student to understand what the real problem is. I think the first step has to be to get him from under the influence of media propaganda that is constantly reinforcing his current way of thinking and the problems/solutions derived from it. Second, maybe he'll never understand our reasoning, our way of thinking but instead we have to formulate our solution into terms his way of thinking can comprehend and will make him want to try our solution.

Like the article says either you think like that or you don't. And if they don't the last thing we should be doing is stuff that requires them to think like us, right? That's why I'm always saying that reasoning will not work. That's why I'm saying that Ron doing good in the debates will not get him elected. People just don't understand what he's saying. We'll not enough people anyway. Most people don't think like us. And for those people that don't we have to lure them in by their way of thinking.

One of my ideas was to try and sell them freedom. Look at freedom as a product and instead of giving them logical reasons why they should want it, we try to sell it to them. How do you sell anything? Well you identify a want and you turn it into a need. So for instance if people have a problem and want something, we show them how freedom is what they need to get it.



But like I'm constantly repeating myself. First order of business is collectively understanding that media propaganda is our biggest obstacle and that have to first focus on how to beat it. Only then we will be in a position to do something about the actual problems.

[ClayTrainor]

Glad you are all enjoying this thread as much as me. :D

[LibForestPaul]

Did you read the full article?

The part about the TA and the student programming exercise, and then the following explanation relating it to libertarianism is invaluable.

I don't know what to do about it.. I mean, how do you help that student understand? That's the real problem.

<tinfoil hat>
Is it that a small % of the population is resistant to educational propaganda. That no matter how hard the globalists try to mold the reasoning and behavior of individuals through elementary school, university studies, and corporate controlled media; there is a small group that simply can not be reprogrammed or dumbed down?
</tinfoil hat>

[osan]

Read it. Pretty good stuff and I agree on the central thesis about addressing core structural issues vis-a-vis outward symptoms.

The same could be said for engineers as well.

[osan]

I've always been moderately interested in psychology, despite being vehemently opposed to how it's implemented in society and being skeptical of most theories. I do admit to having an interest in the Myers-Briggs personality test for some reason. I think that personality type (not necessarily based on any test) would be the root cause here. I'd argue that being a computer programmer is merely a symptom of a personality type, which in turn is one of the causes for pursuing libertarian ideas.

I strongly agree with this. The foundational personality dictates much of the manner in which a person navigates life's challenges and twists. This also ties into the basic structure of intelligence and attitude. When the combinations are nominally "right", a person is able to address a given issue. When it is "wrong", they simply are not. Asking such a person to dope out a given problem is like asking someone to see who has been blind since birth. It cannot happen and there is often no point in attempting to make that pig sing, knowing the forthcoming result. Having taught in the department of computer science at the City College of New York, I can relate to the story well. I can also say that attitude is a MAJOR factor in these sorts of situations - perhaps the single greatest one. Some people are constitutionally incapable of thinking in certain ways, but in my experience this is fairly uncommon. What is painfully too common is the attitude wherein a person simply refuses to defocus their mode of thinking, thereby allowing new ways to be learned. That was the problem with the student cited in the article - I would bet money on it. I have taught many hundreds of CS students and rare has been the case where a student just was not cut out for the discipline on inherently intellectual grounds. It seemed to me that in most cases once the instructor was able to find the right analog by which to communicate a given idea, the bulbs would light right up and quantum strides achieved. Such has been my experience not only as a teacher, but in the business world where I have been tasked with making sure large capital development projects of enormous complexity came off on time and on budget. No mean feat, especially these days.

Attitude and communication skills are the two most important things in a man's life. Having some measure of guts is another, IMO. I have found, for example, that "progressives" tend to be people of comparatively meager character, cowardly, self-centered, poor communicators, and hold atrocious attitudes about those things for which their passions are aroused. This makes them very dangerous people as they tend to be sneaky, dishonest, cowardly, and unwilling to accept any truth that does not accord with their normative preconceptions about life and how to live amongst one's fellows.

[Proph]

<tinfoil hat>
Is it that a small % of the population is resistant to educational propaganda. That no matter how hard the globalists try to mold the reasoning and behavior of individuals through elementary school, university studies, and corporate controlled media; there is a small group that simply can not be reprogrammed or dumbed down?
</tinfoil hat>

All of those tests were from high school students, right? It probably has more to do with upbringing than anything. Too bad the original writer didn't get any stats on the parenting styles of the students that did poorly (not that he really could have). The TA example reminded me a lot of how a kid from an authoritarian household might handle the situation. Instead of trying to understand what's going on, they might be more inclined to just look for someone to tell them what to do.

That's not to say that they can't change later in life, though. I'm sure someone else has already said this in the thread (if not several people), but the kid has to *want* to learn in order for the TA to do anything. If they can't trace a program through (for at least 2-3 loops), there's not much he can be taught until he can do so. Using this metaphor, I imagine the left-right paradigm and Austrian economics (even if it's just a very rudimentary grasp of it) would be the equivalent to knowing how those loops work in politics/"real life".