Have you met an engineer? I'd say "being an engineer" is probably the single most predictive trait for authoritarianism in my experience.

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nerdsniper 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

As an engineer, I do think there’s some mild but noticeable correlation in bulk. But there are other categories which would be much more predictive. And most of the correlation with engineers are actually a confounder effect from things like multigenerational socioeconomic status, or religion.

If you were to control for other variables I doubt there’d be much correlation. After filtering out engineers who belong to other categories with stronger associations to authoritarianism, you’re more likely to be left with the hyper-individual-freedom types than the hyper-authoritarian types.

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lkbm 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Possibly, but it's just as much a predictive trait of being libertarian, which for all its faults, is extremely anti-authoritarian.

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jfengel 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

When libertarian means liberty for everyone, it's anti-authoritarian.

Too often libertarian means liberty for me and not for you. That's authoritarian.

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bb88 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. --Lord Acton.

It's not really so much one's belief system as it is what happens when one gets power -- and that's hard to predict regardless of the ideology.

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galangalalgol an hour ago | parent [-]

Not really. Seeing what people do when they get power is as predictable as what they do when given meth.

	▲	nerdsniper 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Eh. Maybe. But I do see people who are pretty consistent when they have power. It may be somewhat unpredictable before they get power, but somewhat more predictable once you’ve seen how they act with it. This principle of relative consistency is baked into how I test employees for management and friends for trust, and in the past, roommates as well. Though I do acknowledge potential for growth as well, but in my older age I generally also need to see evidence of motivation to give strong benefit of the doubt wrt possible trajectory.

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eli_gottlieb 41 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Libertarianism is just privatized authoritarianism.

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SlightlyLeftPad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Except in 21st Century America, where libertarian is really just masked authoritarian. Essentially, that means “free to do whatever you want as long as it’s our way.”