Utah County Political Shtick

Assorted Flowers Today's blog post is a bit technical. My intention is to explain some of my thoughts on how people behave unconsciously (and sometimes even consciously). At its heart, this is about group psychology, and applying the ideas of classical conditioning . I really came to this understanding from a different direction, however; one informed more by my experience with computer science and physics than by psychology. Image by BruceBlaus . Obtained from Wikimedia Commons . To begin with, I need to describe the humble neuron . Neurons are the basic unit that makes up the brain. They are cells. By themselves, neurons are relatively simple things. The basic feature that makes neurons special is the way they link up and pass signals to one another. A typical neuron is made up of a cell body with an axon and dendrites. The axons and dendrites are basically like tentacles. Typically, the axon of one neuron will connect to one or more dendrites of other neurons. The de...

Protected Wetlands in Southern Provo As someone who grew up in California and takes the responsibility of voting very seriously, I have been greatly impressed by the caucus system in Utah. The caucus system in Utah is incredible. It is a state treasure. In my mind, it is the only thing that stands between Utah politics and the toxic politics that I fled in California, and it is more than hyperbole for me to assert that the primary reason I left California was its toxic politics. In California, as with many other states, elections are largely decided with money, and the information is largely controlled by a powerful and politically uniform media. It takes real work to scrape together enough information to make an informed decision on candidates, parsing their statements closely to learn about their ideology, scrutinizing their endorsements rather than just accepting well-recognized names and happy-sounding organizations as de-facto evidence of a candidate's merit. When the ...