On the difficulties of prosecuting a government for forcefully starving it's country after taking control over all of it's food supplies (Khmer Rouge): http://works.bepress.com/solomon_bashi/1/ "Although numerous governments have manipulated food supplies in an effort to control their constituents and/or target specific populations, there is no legal precedent for trying and convicting leaders for government induced famines. As the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (“ECCC”) attempts to administer justice to the victims of the Democratic Kampuchea (“DK”) regime, which held power from 1975-1979, the court should examine the feasibility of prosecuting the DK leaders for the starvation which they caused. While starvation may not have been the most brutal of the DK regime crimes, it was certainly the most prevalent."
Political Extremism & Why Headlines Make People Dumber: http://www.scholar.harvard.edu/files/todd_rogers/files/psci_extremism.pdf "People often hold extreme political attitudes about complex policies. We hypothesized that people typically know less about such policies than they think they do (the illusion of explanatory depth) and that polarized attitudes are enabled by simplistic causal models. Asking people to explain policies in detail both undermined the illusion of explanatory depth and led to attitudes that were more moderate (Experiments 1 and 2). Although these effects occurred when people were asked to generate a mechanistic explanation, they did not occur when people were instead asked to enumerate reasons for their policy preferences (Experiment 2). Finally, generating mechanistic explanations reduced donations to relevant political advocacy groups (Experiment 3). The evidence suggests that people's mistaken sense that they understand the causal processes underlying policies contributes to political polarization.
Many of the most important issues facing society - from climate change to health care to poverty - require complex policy solutions about which citizens hold polarized political preferences. A central puzzle of modern American politics is how so many voters can maintain strong political views concerning complex policies yet remain relatively uninformed about how such policies would bring about desired outcomes"
On the difficulties of prosecuting a government for forcefully starving it's country after taking control over all of it's food supplies (Khmer Rouge):
ReplyDeletehttp://works.bepress.com/solomon_bashi/1/
"Although numerous governments have manipulated food supplies in an effort to control their constituents and/or target specific populations, there is no legal precedent for trying and convicting leaders for government induced famines. As the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (“ECCC”) attempts to administer justice to the victims of the Democratic Kampuchea (“DK”) regime, which held power from 1975-1979, the court should examine the feasibility of prosecuting the DK leaders for the starvation which they caused. While starvation may not have been the most brutal of the DK regime crimes, it was certainly the most prevalent."
Political Extremism & Why Headlines Make People Dumber:
http://www.scholar.harvard.edu/files/todd_rogers/files/psci_extremism.pdf
"People often hold extreme political attitudes about complex policies. We hypothesized that people typically know less about such policies than they think they do (the illusion of explanatory depth) and that polarized attitudes are enabled by simplistic causal models. Asking people to explain policies in detail both undermined the illusion of explanatory depth and led to attitudes that were more moderate (Experiments 1 and 2). Although these effects occurred when people were asked to generate a mechanistic explanation, they did not occur when people were instead asked to enumerate reasons for their policy preferences (Experiment 2). Finally, generating mechanistic explanations reduced donations to relevant political advocacy groups (Experiment 3). The evidence suggests that people's mistaken sense that they understand the causal processes underlying policies contributes to political polarization.
Many of the most important issues facing society - from climate change to health care to poverty - require complex policy solutions about which citizens hold polarized political preferences. A central puzzle of modern American politics is how so many voters can maintain strong political views concerning complex policies yet remain relatively uninformed about how such policies would bring about desired outcomes"