The faces of liberals and conservatives consistently differ

Wednesday, January 27th, 2021

Facial recognition technology can expose individuals’ political orientation, as faces of liberals and conservatives consistently differ:

A facial recognition algorithm was applied to naturalistic images of 1,085,795 individuals to predict their political orientation by comparing their similarity to faces of liberal and conservative others. Political orientation was correctly classified in 72% of liberal–conservative face pairs, remarkably better than chance (50%), human accuracy (55%), or one afforded by a 100-item personality questionnaire (66%). Accuracy was similar across countries (the U.S., Canada, and the UK), environments (Facebook and dating websites), and when comparing faces across samples. Accuracy remained high (69%) even when controlling for age, gender, and ethnicity. Given the widespread use of facial recognition, our findings have critical implications for the protection of privacy and civil liberties.

Comments

  1. Kirk says:

    I have this theory that part of this has to do with the amount of estrogens we’ve dumped into the environment, along with all of the phtalates that mimic the hormone.

    You look around you at the modern young male, and you note an incredible amount of both physical and behavioral effeminacy. Why, do you suppose that is?

    I suspect that it’s because they’ve been exposed to enough of those estrogen compounds to seriously warp their physical and behavioral development, resulting in the effects we see around us today with all the manchildren. You don’t get the right developmental behavioral cues in the chemistry, it’s not surprising that these poor bastards are behaving more like teenage girls than they are adult men.

    I’d also lay long odds on this being correlated with the urban/rural divide, as well. You’re inundated with that crap in urban environments, while out in the suburbs and countryside, there’s a lot less of it.

    And, naturally, the differences in politics and physical expression are going to flow out of these things. I’d wager that this study would probably find that the majority of pre-modern men who appeared more masculine would likely also be termed “conservative” in facial features, regardless of their politics.

    I believe that a lot of the shift in politics over the last few generations is probably linked to this massive hormonal pollution of the environment, and I’ll lay you long odds that in a few generations, the conventional wisdom is going to rank what we’re doing with them right up there with the Roman’s use of lead in everything as a civilization-wide stupidity.

    Give you an idea of how bad it is–Even in “pristine” mountain lakes in the North Cascades, the biologists are finding evidence of these hormones and chemicals being high enough to warp the development of embryonic fish immersed in those clear, cold lakes up in the high country. One of them was telling me that he could tell from testing the water how many women on birth control had been in the watershed over the past year or so…

  2. Wang Wei Lin says:

    I can tell by the vacant look in their eyes.

  3. Harry Jones says:

    The moist robot hypothesis gains empirical support. I blame unfermented soy products.

  4. Bruce says:

    Nark face. Most Liberal Democrats and establishment Republicans (National Review photos, Bill Kristol, Lincoln Project) have it. Trump Republicans and real leftists don’t. But there’s a whole Nark Left ratting out workers who don’t want higher wages through higher immigration or by any means necessary to employers.

    As the Internet and electronic records make it easier to get dirt on people, more people nark. Narking to Mr. Big is a female trait, and lots of otherwise normal women do it. Not all male narks are effeminate, not all effeminate males are narks, but they go together.

  5. Jim says:

    Facial recognition is like wiretapping, but millions of times more applicable, invasive, abusive, and degrading.

    State wiretapping law precedes federal wiretapping law.

    Insert the provisions.

  6. Bomag says:

    I agree with Kirk on the endocrine disruption.

    I’m sure my YouTube feed is selection bias, but the farm and ranch videos feature manly men and feminine women; my urban-based videos trend toward feminine men and manly women.

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