Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Ulysses Pact

Some time in the future you might be crazy. You might decide to scupper your boat on some rocks because some moistened bint persuades you to. Now if you tell people to ignore you when you go crazy you have entered a Ulysses pact.
An example of this is someone making a living will in case they get dementia or car crashed into a coma where they won’t really be able to make decisions for themselves anymore. But what other events lead to known changes in cognition?

How Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers' Voting on Women's Issues "Parenting an additional female child increases the propensity of a member of Congress to vote liberally on women's issues, particularly reproductive rights."”
Could conservative voters enter into a Ulysses pact with a politician that if he has a female child he cannot alter his votes on reproductive rights? I am not saying here that liberalising your opinion on this topic is a bad idea just that it may not match the preferences of those who voted you into office.

Kuhn was of the belief that old scientists never really accepted new theories and in fact delayed the acceptance of new ideas. A Ulysses pact of “ignore the old people who invented the last theory” is probably too vague.

In what other areas do people bias their decision making in response to certain events?

No comments: