Is it not a bit rational then to apply a type of discount to all cost benefit calculations of newer technologies? One that increases costs and lowers benefits estimates?

Better actually. Large numbers of Americans have kin spread all over the world. They do not try to track them down. (Although many people help out old country such as happened after the fall of communism in easter europe) If Obama never knew he had a brother and cousins in Kenya then the failure to help them tells us nothing about his capacity for empathy.

The fact that he did know his brother and others and yet did nothing, does suggest a lack of sympathy for their plight. As I have said repeatedly, 3rd world poverty is wrenching to observe when in afflicts perfect strangers. When it touches someone you know i.e. when you can “put a face to it” the impact is even worse.

There are no objective standards for empathy. Your “objective” test relies on your personal, arbitrary definition that Obama owes nothing to his brother due to their circumstances. Your “objective” test relies on the arbitrary definition that hurting someone emotionally is the same a depriving them of material necessities.

In your judgement, you think it acceptable for a person to ignore a brother in dire poverty (if that is what happened). Fine. The concepts of obligation and empathy differer from person to person and from culture to culture. I don’t believe however, that most Americans would find this unacceptable behavior, especially in one who founds his claim to office on his compassion for the less fortunate. People will not equate McCain’s emotional injury of his first wife to the physical neglect of Obama.

People will not do so due to their intuitive understanding of how people relate to one another and what it usually means when one person ignores the plight of another in any particular circumstance. Most people have learned that those who are indifferent to the suffering of blood kin are even more indifferent to the suffering of strangers.

Nothing you’ve said has convinced me that they are wrong to do so.

Jonathan,

As I stated, there is an unlimited right to be wrong. There is no right, however, to be right when you’re being wrong. Go ahead and shout from the rooftops that 2+2=5, you’re just making a fool of yourself and if I happen to be nice enough to call you a fool for doing so I’m not setting any tyrannical dictates on you but just throwing reality in your face. You remain free to close your eyes if you wish.

Because comrade Boonton sets the rules for what people can think, feel, and the standards of civil society, and truth – all manner of formerly subjective bits and pieces of life. Little authoritarians like Boontons are a dime a dozen where I come from and where Obama would like to take this country.

Boonton, why doesn’t the other commenter have a right to make such a judgment by any means she wants to use?

Why do I feel those goal posts moving. After 50 posts of saying we don’t have enough information but let’s treat the very brief article you posted as 100% accurate for the sake of the argument you now tell us we do have enough information but it’s ‘out there somewhere’ and it’s my job to research it. As the person presenting this argument you are the one who should back it up. (Yes another tyrannical dictate from me! Arguments should be backed up by those making them!)

I wonder how you would feel if Obama had never even attempted to locate his birth father & simply lived his American life until becoming famous would have caused the media to locate his Kenyan relatives for him.

The crux of your ‘research’ argument continues to fall on failing to distinguish between those who freely ignore actual family members (which in most cases is blood members) versus those who fail to establish intense connection with family members that are found after long periods of time.

It might help if you knew that this is not the only article detailing Obama’s relationship with his relatives in Kenya. Perhaps you should do some research and look at the entire pattern. It’s troubling.

I just think your going to find it a hard sell that an American millionaire and powerful politician who preaches compassion and scorns his opponents as heartless nevertheless does not help a brother (and other more tenuous relations) in dire need. If someone in Kenya named a school after me I think I might be motivated to send them a check or two.

It’s not a matter of requirement but rather one automatic compassion. I admit it is very much a matter of judgement. I cannot see myself behaving as Obama appears to have done

For the sake of the argument I said I was assuming the article was 100% true. The article didn’t say Obama showed the man no compassion. The article said a relative of his was having a hard time (for reasons unclear). The article said Obama’s contact with this relative was extremly limited. The only behavior Obama exhibited that can be really questioned is not keeping tabs on him so he was alerted to his distress before the media was. You can’t see yourself failing to keep tabs on a relative? Really?

This is the issue I have with the studies you cited. Are they specifically looking at people’s relationships with blood relatives who they have no contact with until late adulthood? Essentially you’re talking about adoptees who find their birth families or cases like Obamas where one parent is absent since he was born.

My point is that here were people in dire need whom Obama had a relationship with, however tenuous, and yet he seems to have not been moved to something for them.

Well yea except, again taking the article to be accurate, Obama had/has no knowledge of this guy’s situation. This knock on Obama only makes sense if you invent an ethical duty to keep tabs on top of one to help in a reasonable way when you learn a family member is in trouble.

That’s not an ethical duty & if you were going to apply this test objectively you’d have to know a lot about McCain’s family and his interaction with them as well.

I see nothing, though, that would require him to not only help when he is made aware of a relative in distress but also to keep tabs on relatives with whom he has little relationship and leap in with aid upon hearing of problems.

It’s not a matter of requirement but rather one automatic compassion. I admit it is very much a matter of judgement. I cannot see myself behaving as Obama appears to have done. Neither can I image individuals whom I know and trust behaving in such a way. In your model of acceptable human behavior, Obama ignoring his 3rd world kin (if he did) is acceptable to you but I do not think it is acceptable in the judgement of most people.

I’m kind of curious, since you feel cheating on one’s wife enhances the odds that one will cheat elsewhere do you feel a bit nervous about circling the wagons around McCain?

Yes. I do trust people who never cheated and never divorced more than I trust those who did either (cheating >> divorce). `On the other hand, McCain has proven that he will put the good of others before his own good even at the cost of his own life. In this regard, McCain is tested while Obama remains a cypher.

In any case, they could both be bastards. Just because McCain is jerk does not mean Obama is a saint and vice versa. We should examine each individuals behavior in isolation to make a judgement of that individual before we compare them one to the other.

Anyway, I think you’re reading of studies is biased.

No, these studies, such as the World Values Survey are widely regarded. There is a distinct correlation between one’s self-described political orientation and self-described closeness to ones relatives. Such closeness can be measured by objective standards such as how often individuals contact relatives.

Think about it, how empathatic could a person be who simply decides to ditch their adoptive family that raised them for over three decades upon a once time meeting with a birth relative?

Such person would be a monster but nothing in that scenario touches upon this discussion. We’re not talking about Obama having to choose or even prioritize between his American family and his Kenyan relatives. We’re talking about Obama using a small percentage of his personal fortune to make material life significantly better for individuals he has some relationship with.

Relatives who you meet exactly twice in your lifetime are not immediate.

They are measured against the rest of humanity. My point is that here were people in dire need whom Obama had a relationship with, however tenuous, and yet he seems to have not been moved to something for them. I believe that for myself and most people whom I know and trust, doing so would require an active force of will. I suspect that anyone who could do such thing lacks normal empathy.

Relatives who you meet exactly twice in your lifetime are not immediate.

That is an arbitrary definition. Again, it is a matter of judgement. You might feel no such connection but I would and I am far from unusual in this regard.

By your test McCain fails and Obama wins.

It’s your test with the boundaries you chose. By my standards, Obama’s realitves in Africa are in his immediate relationships because he knows them as individuals. I mean seriously, I would expect him to help out if in the same circumstances he bumped into some guy he vaguely remembered who lived in the same dorm when he was in college.

I don’t find McCain’s and Obama’s failings to have inflicted anywhere near the same level of harm on those effected. McCain’s action inflicted emotional distress but apparently not to much because he remains on good terms with his ex-wife. Obama’s possible neglect caused physical pain and harm by denying the individuals effected basic necessities of life. McCain and his wife are equals. Obama the millionaire is an economic giant compared to relatives. Cheating on your spouse does not require the same cold heartedness as letting someone go hungry. Writing a check does require the same emotional strength as disciplining the heart.

McCain faced a wrenching emotional choice with no good outcome. Obama just need to pay attention and pry open his wallet.

You don’t have a right to judge other people’s family life with no real information.

I do when I make a character hire. The character of a President is paramount. We are forced to make such decisions based incomplete information. It sucks but that is life.

If elected, Obama will wield the power of life and death over the entirety of humanity. Judging whether he actually cares about anyone else is of the highest importance.

You don’t have a right to judge other people’s family life with no real information. I’m sorry you don’t like that. I guess you just didn’t have a proper upbringing but that has nothing to do with tyrannical dictates from me but simply the nature of civil society. There is no law against you being in the wrong on this matter (and no I don’t think there should be). Nonetheless, you are in the wrong and it is absurd to call me tyrannical for pointing that out. You are free to be as wrong as you want for as long as you want. You will live with the consquences of being the person you choose to be, not me.

This has been a curious weekend for biology vs nurture since my wife’s meeting with her birth father revealed she in fact has two half-brothers. The search for her birth mother continues as she remains oddly elusive (we suspect the father was reluctant to share many details about the mother since his wife was with him at the mtg & he had the impression she died as a baby so the whole thing is something of a shock for a family that appears to be very quiet…shrug, non-Italians for ya).

Anyway, I think it is very clear that biology is only a headwind. While she is of course interested in meeting her brothers and imagines it will be great fun to be an ‘older sister’ there is no magical ‘blood trigger’ that causes birth relatives to suddenly displace the family she had for 35 years. I’m also not just relying on a sample of 1, other people I’ve spoken too have had similar experiences. There is a curiousity that drives people to track down birth families but usually once that is satisfied there’s usually a profound sense of anti-climax about the whole affair. While I don’t doubt she will keep in touch with these new contacts, I would be surprised if they ever approached the importance of her adoptive family….

I appreciate that you’re honest about your biases. I’m kind of curious, since you feel cheating on one’s wife enhances the odds that one will cheat elsewhere do you feel a bit nervous about circling the wagons around McCain? Perhaps that’s not a fair question as we are in the middle of a campaign and people are syced up for that.

Anyway, I think you’re reading of studies is biased. I suspect when you say they have shown people who don’t feel connection to blood relativies tend to lack empathy for others revolves around people who don’t feel connection to birth relatives they were raised with. Think about it, how empathatic could a person be who simply decides to ditch their adoptive family that raised them for over three decades upon a once time meeting with a birth relative?

Anyway, I’ll agree Obama should have been moved by 3rd world poverty. I would be surprised if he didn’t provide some help to his relatives as he meet them in his travels. I see nothing, though, that would require him to not only help when he is made aware of a relative in distress but also to keep tabs on relatives with whom he has little relationship and leap in with aid upon hearing of problems. As the article itself indicated, this kid is deciding to go to a local college & seems to have no contact himself with much closer relatives in Kenya. This isn’t a case of him starving to death in a refugee camp, this appears to be a complicated situation & I find it a stretch to assert that Obama is morally at fault for failing to keep abreast of how his half-brother was doing. If you want some balance I’ll also say that I don’t think McCain is at any particular fault for failing to stop his wife from calling herself an only child despite the fact that her half-sister has asserted publically she feels slighted by it.

Like it or not you presented an objective test:

I think that people who care for the people in their immediate relationships will be more likely to make sacrifices for the greater good while holding political office than those who do not.

Well the most immediate relationship is one’s wife and children. Relatives who you meet exactly twice in your lifetime are not immediate. By your test McCain fails and Obama wins. Now I’m not asking you to say because of that Obama should win your vote….but objectively he passes your test

I fail to see why you seem to feel whenever I express an opinion I’m directing some type of tyrannical order to you.

That’s because you fail to see the difference between these two statements:

More to the point, do you or Shannon or myself have the right to evaluate Obama’s family life with literally no information at all and the answer is no.

and

I don’t feel that I have the right to judge Obama…

The tables are already turned. McCain is a pro-American, pro-defense statist Democrat in all but name and has numerous personal failings. He was my last choice for Republican nominee, and many normally Republican voters would probably vote for Hillary Clinton over him. I would not but I think that the widely acknowledged likelihood that many McCain voters would prefer her over him answers your hypothetical question.

Obama is an exceptionally weak candidate for numerous reasons. Shannon is analyzing Obama’s relationship with his half-brother because Obama’s behavior and history raise more questions than they answer. I don’t think the same is true for McCain.

If Obama was the Republican with all the right policies would you be here today writing what you wrote or would you be all over McCain?

That is untestable assertion. I can’t honestly how I would react but I admit I have a natural tendency circle the wagon around anyone running against a far leftist because I fear the consequences of their policies.

I have a keen interest in people emotional equilibrium/ intelligence/discipline due to my studies of psychology, neurology and evolutionary psychology. I also grew up in a small town which lead me to the observation that patterns of behavior in one area of life extend to others. People who cheat on their wives, especially those who do so repeatedly, are more likely to cheat in business and the law. Research bears this view out. I have completely lost adherence to the modern polite fiction that “personal matters”. however arbitrarily defined, do not predict a persons public performance. Statistically, this is not true.

In terms of objective evidence, I can only point to a study done a couple of years ago which tracked the results of scandals on political careers. The study showed that Republicans were (IIRC) five times as likely to lose office following a “personal” scandal than were Democrats. From that, I could offer that people who vote Republican (and who hold rightwing, usually socially conservative values) do reject otherwise acceptable candidates on character issues.

However, at the end of the day a wind is all it is.

I would say it is a canyon sized rut that people with normal amounts of empathy must consciously crawl out of. Getting people to follow abstract laws instead of caring for the immediate welfare of their families is the central problem in getting developing nations to work. It is only in the last half century that we in the West have separated family from economics, politics and military matters. Blood is a powerful draw and we should pay attention to those who ignore its call.

The flip side to this which I don’t think you’ve thought about is the intense emotional impact that 3rd world poverty has on anyone from the develop world who encounters it. I’ve seen some in Mexico and I’ve spoken to everyone from Peace Corp members and anthropologist to hard bitten oil field roughnecks. In every case, watching people live in that poverty shakes people to the their core. The impulse to do something for those people, complete strangers all, is visceral.

Now combine that powerful urge to help total strangers with an innate connection to a specific person or group. That means that not only did Obama look around at a bunch of people mired in the deepest poverty and shrug his shoulders and walk away, he also looked at people with a direct connection to him and then walked away.

I hopeful that the brother will turn out to be the equivalent of an American street person, someone who alienated friends and families. However, stories about his general behavior towards the people in Kenya he has some relationship to do not set my mind at ease.

But it is overwhelmingly likely to follow blood. People have a natural, genetically hardwired affinity for their genetic kin. People who ignore this connection are more likely to be individuals with little or no empathy for others.

And here I don’t disagree with you. Back in 16 I acknowledged adoptive families have to fight the headwind of biology while non-adoptive ones enjoy biology as a tailwind. However, at the end of the day a wind is all it is. Obama was not raised with his half-brothers. While they may be blood they are not his family in the way his wife and children are (not being an Obama expert, I don’t know what other family Obama has in the states left living from his mother’s side). Two brief encounters is not sufficient to trigger the ‘hardwired affinity’. Human behavior is not as simplistic as lower animals in this regard and that’s a very good thing. This is the test you should evaluate Obama and McCain on….assuming you think (which I don’t) that this is a good test for a candidate.

Let me ask you and all onlookers a question and please try to answer as honestly as possible. Imagine the bizzaaro universe where everything is opposite. In that universe, McCain is the Democrat and Obama is the Republican. Likewise their policies are likewise swapped from our own universe.

In that universe did you write up a post bemoaning the fact that Obama has all the right policies but fails your character test? Did you consider McCain ideal for taking care of his family?

Somehow I suspect in that alternate universe we are reading a post by you zeroing in on McCain’s crappy treatment of his first wife, his current wife’s crappy treatment of her sister. In that post you’re telling us how typical this is of leftists and you’re contrasting that with Obama’s loyality to his wife and children, his frugal spending habits and telling us how that confirms the findings of various studies of right wingers.

See by un-objective I’m trying to say your test is post-hoc. You begin with your conclusion (leftists don’t do family well) and you seek out evidence to confirm it. It’s the most common bias we all have, confirmation bias.

Please try to think about it as honestly as you can. If Obama was the Republican with all the right policies would you be here today writing what you wrote or would you be all over McCain? I’m not saying I’m immune to this bias but I think I shield myself from it as well as possible with my ‘none of my business policy’. I suspect McCain was probably a jerk to his first wife, his wife is a jerk to her sister but that’s between them and not me.

I think your attack on Obama is ‘gotcha politics’ because it is not based on any objective test but based on post hoc reasoning.

I’m not sure what “objective test” you have in mind. I can only infer Obama’s, or any other humans, internal mental states from his actions.

As I pointed out, we all have relatives with whom we have deep connections and others we have less. Sometimes this tracks blood closeness and sometimes it doesn’t.

But it is overwhelmingly likely to follow blood. People have a natural, genetically hardwired affinity for their genetic kin. People who ignore this connection are more likely to be individuals with little or no empathy for others.

This is also a stance that is connected to essentially nothing unless you come from the ‘blood above all’ school of thought…which, as I said, is something adoptive families would have a beef with you about.

Actually, adoptive families are weaker than biological families. They are more likely to fall apart and adoptive children are more likely to suffer abuse at the hands of their adoptive parents than their biological ones. You can look over the entire range of human behavior from murder to loaning money and in every instance people are far more likely to favor their genetic kin over anyone else. You can’t escape Darwin just by wishing it so.

The idea that ad hoc or adoptive families are every bit as strong and loving a biological ones is, unfortunately, from the statistical perspective, a polite fantasy we’ve invented to make people in those circumstances feel better.

The actual objective test you presented was one Obama passed and McCain failed. You’re free to say that policy differences are much more important.

Not sure I follow. Any sociopath can stand up on a stage and espouse a particular policy if doing so advances the interest of the sociopath. Policy tells us nothing about whether the individual will sacrifice for the greater good.

You create a strange escape hatch for McCain (ohhhh he said he could have done better! see everythings ok)

Obama’s and McCains behaviors are in no way linked. It is quite possible both of them are either saints or heartless bastards. McCain’s mistreatment of his first wife does make me think less of him but that has no logical relationship to my assessment of Obama.

You don’t think that I am being honest. I must confess I don’t think you are either. Based on the history of type of people who support Obama, I find it difficult to believe that you would not find the lack of support for an impoverished brother by a Republican indicative of a cold and selfish nature.

You’re reading me incorrectly then. I think your attack on Obama is ‘gotcha politics’ because it is not based on any objective test but based on post hoc reasoning.

Of course I can imagine a person feeling emotionally connected to a half brother. I can also imagine a person not feeling so connected. As I pointed out, we all have relatives with whom we have deep connections and others we have less. Sometimes this tracks blood closeness and sometimes it doesn’t.

So what? For Obama to have ‘passed’ the test you set out not only must he feel connected to a distant half-brother but he must have made a point of going out of his way to keep tabs on him and his well beign and act to avert any problems. This is a pretty convoluted ethical stance that seems to have been created out of thin air simply to ‘get’ Obama. This is also a stance that is connected to essentially nothing unless you come from the ‘blood above all’ school of thought…which, as I said, is something adoptive families would have a beef with you about.

The actual objective test you presented was one Obama passed and McCain failed. You’re free to say that policy differences are much more important. But you don’t say that. You create a strange escape hatch for McCain (ohhhh he said he could have done better! see everythings ok)

I think your thoughts on the 60′s vs today are interesting but I’d like to take a day or two to think about them over the weekend before I respond more….

methinks
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this thread is about Obama, not McCain. I have a problem with the income tax system, full stop. I favour a consumption tax – which is beyond the scope of this thread.

Ahhh so now who are you to tell me that I’m consuming too much? Who are you to tell me that I can afford to cut back on consumption to pay your consumption tax? Please submit now all the names and addresses of your extended family so I can conduct an intense investigation into whether you’ve treated them properly over the years….I’m entitled to nothing less than this ‘character check’ of someone who wants to dip her hand into may wallet!

But, in this second paragraph we get to the meat of what you really mean. Y start by declaring that you know the truth and I don’t. You are truthful and I am not.

On the contrary, I didn’t declare I know the truth. In fact, I declared I’m probably wrong about many things and I don’t even know which things they are! I said the difference between us is not that I have some special lock on the truth, it’s that you seem to be rather indifferent to it. You seem to think truth comes second to ideology. It is the other way around.

It’s nice that you finally bothered to tell us what you did and didn’t read among his books. Too bad you wasted all that time reading when the extent of the ‘research’ you presented was just cut and paste jobs from Internet spam. You are, of course, free to disagree with my assertion that you totally botched the meaning of the few valid passages you quoted. It is kind of odd that the best you can do to support this disagreement is esssentially name calling (ohhh snopes is ‘basement’ stuff). If you read the book and I did not one would normally guess you should have a great home team advantage on me.

I’ll be the judge of what’s sufficient for me to judge and what isn’t, not you.

I fail to see why you seem to feel whenever I express an opinion I’m directing some type of tyrannical order to you. Yes yes, you will judge what’s sufficient for you. Trying to untangle your nonsense online is more than enough for me, believe me running your life is the last thing I need. Trust me, I have plenty of other things to occupy my time.

Well, you can only imagine. I’m that situation and I can’t imagine not sending them money.

REally? Good for you. I’ve written quite a bit in this thread about family & the dyanamics of this situation. If you want to engage it feel free. If you don’t, feel free as well. Not only do I have little need to judge your opinion, it has proven to be of little value to my life.

Well, you can only imagine. I’m that situation and I can’t imagine not sending them money. If the story is true, not sending his own brother (NOT a distant relative whom he has never met) a few bucks to ease his hardship in a third world country is unacceptable to me.

Of course, I’m completely dishonest and untrustworthy because Boonton, the knower of all truths and beyond reproach has said this is so. Thus, it must be true.