My observation, on the question of theism, which is related to conservatism, is that most players with high scores were atheists. I remember Thucydides being one of the only exceptions, having > 1000

Not at all Thucy! I'm just asking the question. I'm left of center, but feel I can be ruthless with the best of them. I just wanted to hear what others have to say.

Lmao I'm agnostic though Manas so..

Also number of points really means very little except are you the type who bets more than half his savings or not

Then the type who bets more than half their savings make better diplomacy players..

Yeah. I think both political ideology and religious views have no impact on Dip ability.

Disagree gramilaj I think it has little bearing.

There are two kinds of people, the risk averse and the not. I think both can be good at diplo.

^^ agree.

I could actually see it having an impact. Generally, conservatives see the world in black and white and liberals see shades of gray. Now, depending on the way you play diplomacy, each can be a strength or a weakness. Except for in a very small number of cases, I am willing to forgive a stab (though with wariness), and move back to being allies. That may make me naive, but I have had games in which this was a key to winning/or getting a good draw. I have played with some who once you stab, you are now enemy, and that is that. I would image that the "you are now enemy" type are mostly conservatives. Or, maybe I am wrong, and just drawing conclusions from the few people I know who play and what their ideological leanings are.

Hmm I dunno Tantris - at the diplo club I started on my campus I preached nothing but gray-shading to the new people I was teaching.

the key to the game, i said, was adaptability and rationality in the face of extreme emotion (i.e. being betrayed)

I do feel those are important to the game. But, most people don't play like that.

That's a terrible generalization of conservatives and liberals, Tantris.

@Thucy, it depends on what our metric is for a "good diplomacy player". On this site, one of the metrics is number of points. I'm just making a little joke.

+1 Eden. " Generally, conservatives see the world in black and white and liberals see shades of gray." I think this can be easily disputed. But thats not the point of this thread...

At least, in the extremes, it seems true.

i hate tories

Anyone else see reports on the study that demonstrated that conservatives tend to have more activity in the part of the brain that involves fear and liberals have more activity in the part that makes them lovey-dovey everyone likes me and we all should get along? Are my memories making that story up?

"Are memories making that story up?"

See other thread "On Lying"

lol. I dunno. I may have heard that before but dont remember it specifically

There was a study that said conservatives have bigger fight/flight centers and liberals have bigger areas dealing with complexity....like conflicting ideas.

Any who believes that conservatives don't see the world in shades of gray has obviously never seen a conservative calculating his tax returns.

In the spirit of making unfounded generalisations, however, it is pretty well known that Liberals have a nasty habit of hugely underestimating the intellect of their opponents which is a huge weakness in diplomacy. Several scientific reports that I have conveniently forgotten confirm this to be true.

LMAO octavious. I like it.

well religious views does effect diplomacy. Cause generally speaking Athiests and Agnostics are (on average) smarter then Christians, and, in a game like diplomacy, intelligence does help.

@Octavious:
Here is an article discussing the study I was talking about...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iISI7ifh-AjUE3ejyC1wQmwFrMFw?docId=CNG.61c886c438708471a9f4ea23070fa70c.3a1

By the way, I don't think that means conservatives are stupid....

"religious views does effect diplomacy"

lmao

"smarter then Christians"

herp derp derp

You disagree with my ideas. There was an IQ test that suggested Atheists, Agnostics and Jews were smarter the Christians and Muslims...

It's true Thucy. Not saying any one Xian can't be smart, but seculars are smarter as a whole.

IQ tests are for shit. I max out most of the standard ones. Why? Because it is all about pattern recognition. Go take an online one 10 minutes before you take an official administered standardized one and you will find you score is better than one taken without a practice before hand.

Oh, and yellowjacket, what exactly is secular about being Jewish?

This is true. IQ tests are really about guessing what the question is really asking.

E.g. What is the next number in this series: 3 - 6 - 6 - 9 - 6 -12 - ....?

a) 12
b) 9
c) 6
d) 15

Sorry, I messed that up, let me try again...