Went to a meeting last night in town.
The back story is, between the trust funders that moved here, and the covid refugees from the cities and the long term locals, the town is split.
We have town meetings for all elected officers, budgets, both town and school, and all other business. During covid lockdown, the town report was mailed out. With it, was a ballot sheet with all articles to be voted on.
Over 400 people returned ballots, compared to the 90-110 that show up in person to vote on town meeting day.
That has prompted demand for Australian ballot to get a broader range of people to vote for town business.
The group that always has town meeting day off, doesnt want australian ballot, people who have to work do.
So a group came in to talk about how to come up with an answer to the split community.
To me, the interesting thing was the slides she brought.
It showed people's brainwaves, who were wired up and asked questions.
Then, the same people were shown clear facts that went against their views.
Every one of them, left, right or independent, when shown counter information reacted the same.
The frontal cortex, which governs judgment, emotion and reasoning, shut down, to barely firing levels.
She said people are hardwired into their views, and nothing gets through to change it.
The brain will just reject contrary information.
After the meeting, I had her pull the pictures showing the brain activity again. It was very interesting, and explains a lot!
Trying to find a way around that, is for another meeting Nov 5th.

ECT for everyone , eh?