-Why wouldn't a nurturant parent want someone else's kid to be fighting in Iraq, so we don't have to fight here?
-Why would a strict father encourage his son to recklessly destroy natural resources at the expense of future generations?
-Why would a nurturant parent want to encourage their child to choose an alternative lifestyle that could cause them to suffer degradation and discrimination for much of their adult life?
-Why must a strict father take serious issue with which gender his child is attracted to?
Unrelated to those three issues - why would a strict father oppose his child getting a decent science education, and why oppose a decent biology education in particular? Why wouldn't a nurturant parent? Why would a nurturant parent want to prevent his (adult) child from carrying a sidearm to protect himself? Why wouldn't a strict father want to prevent this?
When we hear "strict father" and "nurturant parent" those terms make intuitive sense to us, and we then filter information within that framework. Because the terms are vaguely defined, it's easy for us to interpret new information as fitting within this framework. Because there exists a way of describing nearly any view as belonging to either a nurturant parent or a strict father, this framework has no predictive power and very limited descriptive power.
When we are asked to pair "strict father" and "gay rights," the availability heuristic gives us an image of a man with a military haircut throwing his gay son out of the house, or something roughly analagous. With "nurturant parent" and "gay rights," the availability heuristic gives us an image of someone encouraging their gay son to be himself. I would imagine there are plenty of parents we would call nurturant who strongly discourage their kids from "being gay," and there are probably many fathers we would call strict who have no problem with their sons or daughters being gay. The discrepancy is probably much larger for something like environmentalism or health care, and there probably isn't much of a pattern for agricultural subsidies.
There is nothing about strictness or nurturance that dictates any particular political attitude. We simply associate these attitudes with people, and we associate those people with political viewpoints. The reality outside of our simplistic, uninformed mental picture is likely a whole lot more complex.
Some people say that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans are conservative in the sense of opposing change, while Democrats are liberal in the sense of promoting change. But this isn't true - both parties want change; neither especially cares how things were done in the past.
Some people say that Republicans are fiscally conservative, while Democrats are fiscally liberal. But this isn't true. Republicans and Democrats both run up huge deficits; they just spend the money on different things.
Some people say Democrats are liberal in the sense of favoring liberty. But this isn't true. Republicans want freedom to own guns and run their businesses as they please, while Democrats want the freedom to have abortions and live as they please.
Someone - it may have been George Lakoff - observed that Republicans want government to be their daddy, while Democrats want government to be their mommy. That's the most-helpful distinction that I've heard. Republicans want a government that's stern and and protects them from strangers. Democrats want a government that's forgiving and takes care of all their needs.
I was thinking about this because of singletons. Some people are in favor of creating a singleton AI to rule the universe. I assume that, as with party affiliation, people choose a position for emotional rather than rational reasons. So which type of person would want a singleton - a daddy-seeking Republican, or a mommy-seeking Democrat?
I think the answer is, Both. Republicans and Democrats would both want a singleton to take care of them; just in different ways. Those who don't want a singleton at all would be Libertarians.
Regardless of whether you think a singleton is a good idea or a bad idea - does this mean that Americans would overwhelmingly vote to construct a singleton, if they were given the choice?
And would the ideas about how to design that singleton break down along party lines?