I really enjoyed the von Rueden reading. The break down of the differences in leadership between SSSs and LSSs, especially when looking at physical qualities and other traits that made leaders in these societies, reminded me a lot of the trait theory of leadership. Like with this reading, when learning about the trait theory of leadership in my LDST 102 class, I was fascinated in the implications of it in current society. Being politically minded, I related a lot of examples back to political circumstances. Prior to my LDST 102 class or this reading, I already knew the fact that the taller presidential candidate tends to win. I was also aware of the arguments regarding level of attractiveness affecting the perception of candidates (think Nixon vs. JFK debate). After learning about the trait theory of leadership, the reasons as to why these preferences exist and the changes that appear to be occurring in them began to make more sense. However, even after learning more about trait theory of leadership, I did not realize how ingrained into society these preferences for leaders are. The evolutionary aspect of the preferences deriving from SSSs fascinated me but also made me wonder if these preferences are capable of changing on a wide scale.

The part of the preferences that I focused on the most with these questions are the physical attributes. The physical attributes of taller, masculine, stronger, etc… all relate back to men, making me question the possibility for women to acclaim high political power, particularly the American presidency, while these preferences still stand. In the 2016 presidential election and during the 2020 democratic primaries, we saw women rise to new levels of political recognition by being the first female nominee from a major political party and through, at one point, being a front-runner in a crowded democratic primary. However, each time, these women were beaten out by men that were taller, more masculine, etc… than the women. With that as the basis, I think that it is interesting to look at these physical preferences and determine if they are in any way, shape, or form decreasing. In tracking the way the preferences are decreasing (assuming they are decreasing given recent strides by female politicians), I think that you would be able to determine the point when these evolutionary preferences would no longer play a role in political leadership. Then, since they would no longer play a role in political leadership, the same findings could possibly be translated to the private sector and leadership within business.

I’m kind of a fan of game theory. I remember first learning about Prisoner’s Dilemma when reading “The Mysterious Benedict Society” when I was younger and then learning about a few of the other dilemmas during my Intro to Comparative Politics course freshman year. Each time I hear more about it, I find the new information fascinating. From this reading, I had never heard of Chicken or Stag Hunt.

In learning about Prisoner’s Dilemma, I have always thought that I would be the person to choose the cooperative option. I would rather believe that the other person would also choose the cooperative option rather than choosing the cheating option and possibly getting stuck with the extra years or screwing over the other person. However, as the options are presented in the model dilemma, I do not know if I would choose the cooperative option in the Stag Hunt because I would be worried about the possibility of the both of us not catching the stag and being stuck with nothing given the higher levels of risk in Stag Hunt. However, when the stacks were changed to the freedom of speech in Tibet, I completely understood (and agreed with) why people would choose to chase the stag. I think that it is interesting how my thought of what I would do changes between the model and the example. It shows how important context is, especially when discussing game theory and the actions you would take in the situations.

From first reading Flanigan’s thesis, I did not agree. The concept of making prescription grade drugs available without a prescription seemed to be getting too close to anarchy for me. The concept of getting rid of the checks that are intended to keep people from abusing drugs seems dangerous. While I understood the argument of DIC and how it should work in reverse as well, the idea that doctors should respect a patient’s decision if it is not in the best interest of the patient’s health does not sit right with me.

A large part of my disagreement comes from biases that I hold that restrict me from being able to agree with Flanigan despite her laying out her case well. A large of portion of my family are in careers that are STEM focused. The importance of modern medicine was instilled in me young. One of my uncles was a doctor as a hospital for a long time that would often see cases of opioid addition. His town in Ohio was one of the capitals for opioid addiction. He told us how awful it was to see these addiction cases. While Flanigan addressed this concern in the article, the concern I still have for it is enough for me to reject Flanigan’s argument. However, the decriminalization of prescription drugs, especially in these cases, still resonates with me. I agree with this portion of her argument. The decriminalization of prescription drugs will allow for better treatment options of those that suffer from drug addiction while still allowing for the drugs to be prescribed.

In reading the Blindspot reading for next class, the section titled “The Cost of the Stereotype That American = White” stood out to me the most. Just yesterday, I saw a tweet from Congresswoman Ilhan Omar in which she listed characteristics about herself such as “Hijab, Muslim, Black, Foreign Born…” The point of the tweet was to point out xenophobia that she has come face-to-face with since 2016. In a response to the tweet, Senator Ted Cruz questioned why she had not mentioned “American” in her list attributes. He claimed that it was due to the supposed negative connotation with word “American” that he believes exists currently among liberals. However, in response to Cruz, Joshua Collins (a man running for Congress in Washington) remarked that “American” did not need to be on the list because it is implied since Omar is a congresswoman. He goes on to state, “[Omar’s] not required to call herself American in every tweet just because she’s not white.”

The implicit bias of American = White makes it so POC in the United States are constantly forced to prove their citizenship status while white people are able to exist within this country without having their citizenship status questioned. In a personal example, I have a friend from high school that is an immigrant from Korea. Her parents are naturalized citizens and are registered to vote. However, my friend told me that they never choose to vote and dislike interacting with people that are not Korean because they worry about their citizenship status being questioned. Meanwhile, my paternal grandpa is an immigrant from Canada. Although he has lived in the United States for roughly 60 years, he has never become a US citizen. However, he has not experienced the same questioning of his legal status as my friend’s parents have. People just assume that he is an American citizen because he is white. He often makes jokes about how people will be talking to him, assume that he is American, and then he will mention that he is not a citizen and the person he is talking to will be shocked.

This stereotype is dangerous because, like in the reading, the implicit bias can lead to people being treated as though they do not belong. Which, leads to the greater consequences of people loosing their job and being framed for crimes that they did not commit.

I took the implicit bias test for age and I am not really that surprised by the results that I got. I got that I have a moderate automatic preference for young people over old people. This is an implicit bias that is held within American society and, given my age, it makes sense to me that I would also adhere to it. The main thing that I found interesting about the test is the questions that it asked before hand. It asked about what age others perceive you to be, what age you wish you were, and how old you wish to live to (among other things). For how old I wish to live to, I answered truthfully and put 100 years old. Upon getting the results of the test back and realizing that the results did not surprise me, I decided that this is a contradictory belief of mine. I should not wish to live to be 100 years old while also holding this preference for younger people. However, I wonder how much of the preference has to do with my current age and if I were to take this test again at 50 years old if my results would be different.

As I was reading the pages from Blindspot, the examples being used seemed eerily familiar to me. I felt as though I had read the book before. In high school, I get through a two year time period where I read a couple nonfiction books on how the mind works. The pages from these books, or at least the examples they used, kept popping up everywhere, from the AP Language and Composition exam to lectures in college. Particularly, the first example used in the passage from Blindspot, the table example, is also used in Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T. Hallinan. Likewise, the various wordings of the car crash example is also used in Bounce by Matthew Syed. Many of the memory examples used in Blindspot had similar examples in both of these other books. 

While I have continued to notice these examples being used in different contexts around me, I do not think that the way I perceive the world has changed much. I have not thought that I experience the same memory issues as shown with the “mindbugs.” I have not actively thought about the perceptions I make have just because my mind is unable to comprehend the entire picture. However, in seeing the examples and explanations pop up again, I think I should actually begin taking it to heart. In my daily life but also in my academic life. I should actively realize the mind fills in pieces of information when reading articles and, therefore, the information I remember may not be the information that was actually presented to me. Ultimately, I believe that I have experienced these arguments too many times to not see the merit behind them.