tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post43845647849649777..comments2024-03-29T06:22:47.638-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Galactic matters & supermassive black holes!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54884033763533365662023-05-05T18:02:21.249-07:002023-05-05T18:02:21.249-07:00onward
onward
onward<br /><br />onward<br /><br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21231269819161682972023-05-05T17:40:00.213-07:002023-05-05T17:40:00.213-07:00Keith Halperin:
“Predictable and familiar” is wha...Keith Halperin:<br /><i><br />“Predictable and familiar” is what AI can do, and will do it increasing it well.<br /></i><br /><br />Guilty as charged. I mentioned before that if AI is ever able to produce new episodes of the 1966 <i>Batman</i> in the same style they would have been performed in back then, that's a rabbit hole I would fall down into, even more easily than holodeck sex. I don't mean just Batman, but all sorts of serial fiction, including but not limited to James Bond, The (Steed and Emma) Avengers, Perry Mason, and early-to-mid 1970s Marvel comics. Again, not modern reimaginings of those things, but continuations of the original series in the same style.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />On the more general topic of modern historical illiteracy, I will point out that however Hollywoodized old period pieces used to be, many such movies used to strive to at least get the <i>feel</i> of a historical time and place correct. When watching the old black and white <i>Cyrano</i>, for example, I can distinguish the French and Spanish soldiers by their uniforms. Much at <i>The Ten Commandments</i> messes with the biblical story, watching it <i>feels</i> like you're in ancient Egypt, or in the neighboring desert. For all their faults, westerns <i>feel</i> like you're out in the old American west.<br /><br />Some time around the 1980s, movies stopped feeling authentic in that same way. Characters in seventeenth century France or the colonial era throw out anachronisms like, "Yeah, right" and such, almost as if to purposely break the fourth wall. Either the writers don't know enough to create verisimilitude, or they purposely avoid doing so.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18969110900172195722023-05-05T17:26:04.300-07:002023-05-05T17:26:04.300-07:00The excerpted article below posits an early evolut...The excerpted article below posits an early evolutionary strategy wherein non-Alpha males began coordinating a system of frontier justice against bullying alpha males, essentially replacing warrior kings with metaphorical sheriffs and posses. Which led away from a reproductive strategy favoring kings with harems and toward one favoring civilized behavior.<br /><br />While I began reading this as a hopeful sign, it also occurred to me that the same (successful) strategy is the one used by the likes of the KKK and the Nazis to gang up against the threat of a black man or an immigrant family moving in or the <i>untermenchen</i> in general. Tucker Carlson to the contrary, gang enforcement of social hierarchy is <b>exactly</b> how white men fight. And I find it worrisome that this does seem to be a successful strategy over a period of millennia.<br /><br />https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/03/opinion/trump-evolutionary-psychology.html?searchResultPosition=1<br /><i><br />...<br />In effect, Sarkar, Wrangham and Boehm are describing an early stage of what over time has become an essential ingredient of a civilized, ordered society: the acquisition by the state of police power and the legal use of force to enforce norms and laws.<br /><br />In an email, Sarkar put it this way: “Humans appear to have inherited the capacity to coordinate with one another to enact violence.” While chimpanzees also demonstrate this capacity, according to Sarkar, “one factor that contributes to the uniqueness of human violence is the ability to use language, which allows individuals to freely share thoughts and intentions with one another and to form remarkably precise plans. This means that humans are able to engage in much higher levels of coordination in planning and performing aggression.”<br /><br />Sarkar added that it is “very difficult — or impossible — to connect the evolutionary origins of aggression to contemporary political events.”<br /><br />In their article, Sarkar and Wrangham continue the argument:<br /><br />For coalitionary proactive aggression against a formidable alpha male to be adaptive, it was critical for sub-elite males to ensure that their alliance was stable and that the execution could be performed at minimal risk to alliance members. Only then could they act safely without retribution from the alpha male or his sycophants.<br /><br />This shift of authority and control away from abusive, domineering individual males to collective groups of less powerful men and women had substantial consequences for the composition of society, then and now:<br /><br />Alpha alliances of sub-elite males could kill coercive alpha males, drastically reducing the reproductive success of coercive alpha males. Such control would also have signaled the limits of acceptable intragroup aggression. The direction of selection on male aggression thus changed as a result: Rather than selection favoring coercive behavior that males used to achieve and maintain alpha status, the actions of alpha alliances ensured that selection acted against it. Simultaneously, the necessity of coordination and cooperation for targeted conspiratorial killing of alpha males meant that selection favored proactive aggression, and especially coalitionary proactive aggression.<br /><br />The result: “Individual alpha males were thus replaced by alpha alliances of sub-elite males.”<br />...<br /></i>Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-29096812297109426342023-05-05T17:19:04.178-07:002023-05-05T17:19:04.178-07:00LH... ouch!
LH... ouch!<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-3314231760098263202023-05-05T17:05:49.741-07:002023-05-05T17:05:49.741-07:00PSB,
I thought I made that clear with the cry wo...PSB,<br /><br /><i> I thought I made that clear with the cry wolf comment. </i><br /><br />I don't think you did. It strikes me that you consider yourself a pretty decent judge of who is crying wolf and when. I get that their whines discourage belief. I really do. I've seen plenty of that stuff served. The world will end if we have to stop using CFC's!<br /><br />I invite you to look in the mirror and ponder the person who appears to have already made up his mind before they even start whining. If you don't have a process where an honest issue could be raised by someone you've never met, then there is no point in them making the honest effort.<br /><br />———<br /><br />I'll use myself for another example. My team wanted to fly rockets to space. There was a small chance we'd kill people. There was a larger chance we'd damage property. We were a shoestring operation with no insurance and no way to do tests that didn't look rudimentary. We went out as far from people as we could manage and then took the risk.<br /><br />Ethical or not?<br /><br />After a few years we had a track record.<br /><br />1. We didn't kill anyone. <br />2. We did manage to injure our own people occasionally. <br />3. We also managed to catch the desert on fire once. That was a fiasco where one local property owner wanted to sue… so we went elsewhere.<br />4. Our dreams of making money to fund our operations were just that. Dreams.<br />5. We organized well enough that we functioned like a business.<br /><br />No matter what kind of entrepreneurial concept you cook up, there is never enough money for testing. Only your competitors have that much cash and they'd rather you lost your shirt. More than once my team had to deal with an FAA official who 'heard from someone else' how things should be done. We had no ability to raise that kind of cash and argued that others were using the FAA to create a barrier to entry. <br /><br />What would you do in that situation?<br /><br />[There are no right or wrong answers as far as I'm concerned. There are just risks and impacts.]Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83557296967663114952023-05-05T14:20:25.964-07:002023-05-05T14:20:25.964-07:00Re: Reading, Dumbing, WGA strike, AI, etc.
I thin...Re: Reading, Dumbing, WGA strike, AI, etc.<br /><br />I think part of the reason for book readership declining (especially among the college-educated like me) is: after looking at print (on a screen) all day, we don’t want to continue to look at print so much…<br /><br />A well-informed, critical-thinking population is-, was-, and will probably forever be a threat to those who highly value power and keeping it for themselves.<br /><br />I heard a spokesperson for the WGA say that while some (perhaps most of us here) desire innovative, thought-provoking material, what sells best (at least on the screens) is reliably “predictable and familiar” (https://variety.com/2022/tv/ratings/hallmark-three-wise-men-and-a-baby-most-watched-tv-movie-2022-1235440080/ Hallmark Channel is currently ranked as the most-watched entertainment cable network”). “Predictable and familiar” is what AI can do, and will do it increasing it well.<br /><br />What I believe will happen is that AI will raise the creative artistic bar- the schlockmeisters will become largely unemployable (except to create some especially juicy schlock to be copied and imitated), and few artists of any types will be able to earn decent First World livings through the primary production of their art (https://electricliterature.com/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-book-sales-but-were-afraid-to-ask “A recent Author Earnings report suggested maybe 4,600 writers earn 50k a year off of book sales alone. Not so shabby, maybe, until you realize that about that many MFA students graduate each year.”) I call it the “oligopilization of the creative arts”- there will still be massive best-selling written, musical, and video creations, but there will be fewer and fewer people taking home more and more of the total earnings (https://www.bookbeaver.co.uk/blog/how-much-do-writers-make The top 10% of UK writers account for 70% of all writing revenue. In fact, only 13.7% of authors have writing as their sole source of income.)<br /><br />In addition, the better-and-better knockoffs will be coming “faster and furiouser”- untraceably and unsueably….<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Keith Halperinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09841504651752178493noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77829006393659670432023-05-05T08:16:57.674-07:002023-05-05T08:16:57.674-07:00Heard on the Stephanie Miller radio show:
Clarenc...Heard on the Stephanie Miller radio show:<br /><br />Clarence Thomas is an owned NFT (that's Non-Fungible <i>TOKEN</i>)Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7599280156544028012023-05-04T22:14:53.520-07:002023-05-04T22:14:53.520-07:00Lead.
A few years ago (i.e., more than 10) I was ...Lead.<br /><br />A few years ago (i.e., more than 10) I was deployed to Kyrgyzstan. We were mostly confined to Manas AB, so when there was an opportunity to get out for a while, I took it.<br /><br />I found myself, with a crew of other airmen (which term, at the time, included women) painting a Soviet-era school still in use*. After a while, I checked the ingredients list and found Pb.<br /><br />"Hey, lieutenant," I said, "there's lead in this."<br /><br />"That's all they have around here," he replied.<br /><br />I'm not a great painter and was already pretty well splashed. I decided to go Galen when I got back on base and, lacking a bathtub, take a lot of hot showers. Then I noticed peeling paint in all the classrooms, which taught all ages up to college. I'd bet the old paint was lead-based too.<br /><br />*Kyrgyz independence came with a sudden cessation of funds for road repair and other infrastructure upkeep, except for the capitol, which is still a beautiful Potemkin structure.<br /><br />Pappenheimer<br /><br />P.S. On the other hand, I met an old friend from India again - the Mynah. Also got to learn about the Kyrgyz culture hero, also named Manas, who is always depicted with his golden eagle on his shoulder.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08628667566485965800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76625899399613519372023-05-04T20:15:59.355-07:002023-05-04T20:15:59.355-07:00Matthew,
Reading hasn't died yet, but it'...Matthew,<br /><br />Reading hasn't died yet, but it's not looking good. Reading, however, isn't necessarily the end-all-be-all of intelligence. Ever read a Harlequin Romance novel? Anything written by a politician? Military action genre? Westerns? There's a hell of a lot of garbage out there that people can read and come out less intelligent than they went into it. Radio, TV, and the Internet are really just more of the same. I had a landlord ages ago who commented that between the History Channel, Discover, the Science Channel, and similar, you could waste your life away watching GOOD television (though I've seen some pretty scatological programs on those, too). The good stuff is far outweighed by the bad, which is much easier to sell (more corruption from the business world). What we need most is to teach critical thinking skills, something I tried to do when I was teaching, but the schools pile on so many things they require to teach, trying to squeeze that in was risking my career. On top of that, our tradition factory-model schooling is so contrary to human nature, that any such effort would fail at least 2/3rds of the students. We'll have to find other ways to fight stupidity.<br /><br />Cheers!<br /><br />PSB<br /> Lenahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05693969299639295594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41877395943658620202023-05-04T20:04:39.335-07:002023-05-04T20:04:39.335-07:00Alfred,
"Communication? Sure. But will you b...Alfred,<br /><br />"Communication? Sure. But will you believe it?"<br />- I thought I made that clear with the cry wolf comment. As Dr. Brin has pointed out on multiple occasions, power attracts corrupt people, and business is clearly power. If you believe a word coming from an organization of any kind that has money on the line, you're being dangerously naïve. Who would I accept to run safety tests? I'm not sure I'd trust anyone in this country, though the FDA has a mostly good track record, when it's not being politicized. The problem is, these days everything is being politicized, even your preferred soft drink. The EU is generally more responsible about these things, since they take the safety of their citizens more seriously than the enrichment of rich people. However, a whole lot of what they do gets published in other languages than English, and even when it is published in English, Americans rarely take anything seriously that isn't American in origin, so we rarely hear about it here. Several years ago someone did a study which found that a very high proportion of scientific experiments performed and reported on in the US had been done, often years earlier, in Europe, but Americans didn't have a clue. We're so good at patting ourselves on the back. <br /><br />Ultimately any human organization can be corrupted. That's why we should never rely on results from just one lab. That's really basic scientific method.<br /><br />And oh yeah, the chemicals we lace our foods with is an enormous example., and an enormous problem (did I just make an obvious pun?). We could lie awake every night worrying and have a different modern problem to worry about every night, and grow those manly amygdalae. Gotta start somewhere. Worry is pretty worthless, but when you are barred from taking action, it's a pretty natural response (and oh so good for our mental health, too!).<br /><br />Fun fun fun!<br /><br />PSBLenahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05693969299639295594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44995016482141528792023-05-04T19:46:52.426-07:002023-05-04T19:46:52.426-07:00DP,
"So, things like doomsday prepping and M...DP,<br /><br />"So, things like doomsday prepping and MAGA membership are just the results of an overworked amygdala?"<br />- It's a recursive relationship (a.k.a. a feedback loop). Starts small but grows until it collapses under its own weight.<br /><br />"How about the effects of glyphosate-based herbicides, microplastics, PFAs and other forever chemical on fetal brain development?"<br />- The Romans had no idea what lead pipes were doing to them, and of course the rich patricians got the best of it. Today we have gobs of substances we use on a regular basis that could be as bad or worse. You would think we would have learned something from what happened to the Romans, but evidently profit for a few is so much more important than safety for the unwashed masses. <br /><br />And we still don't know what's causing the Autism epidemic - which is affecting all demographics.<br /><br />More cheery thoughts.<br /><br />PSBLenahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05693969299639295594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91366992738712800172023-05-04T19:38:48.114-07:002023-05-04T19:38:48.114-07:00Duncan,
And lead is yet another great example of ...Duncan,<br /><br />And lead is yet another great example of the evils of corporate executives. But the damage will take generations to be rectified. Young people who are growing up without the lead are still growing up in the social system that lead created, with all the mindless memes that come from leaded dreams. The more complex the society, the higher the stakes get, the greater the need for oversight. <br /><br />And leaded gasoline is still in use all over Latin America. Cheery thoughts.<br /><br />PSBLenahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05693969299639295594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15280121432398222782023-05-04T18:56:02.064-07:002023-05-04T18:56:02.064-07:00The dumbing down of America
One of the main reaso...The dumbing down of America<br /><br />One of the main reasons is lead - lead in petrol lead in paint lead in the soil<br /><br />And todays youngsters are SMARTER than we were - not dumber - their behaviors show that - less crime, unwanted pregnancy's <br /><br />The APPARENT "dumbing down" is mostly our generation - we are in the "driving seat" - people born before we took the lead out of petrol starting in the 70's - probably 1980 before the effects dropped completely - 1980 - 43 years old today - the USA is being run as usual by the over 50's <br /><br />The Dumb Generationsduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-33689247462073307212023-05-04T17:27:17.343-07:002023-05-04T17:27:17.343-07:00DP,
At this point we'd probably spot the unex...DP,<br /><br />At this point we'd probably spot the unexplained orbit change of a dinosaur killer rock from an orbit inside Jupiter's path. Back in the early 20th we might have missed it and got smacked, but nowadays we'd probably see it and be curious enough to go have a look.<br /><br />———<br /><br />Any sinister, world killing competitors would have to make deliberate plans to find a very dark rock and then push it only while our view of it involved looking nearly into the sun. The rock itself would have to arrive quickly and invisibly which is tricky given our current IR capabilities*. <br /><br />That's all quite possible, but the only quick way to do the orbit change now would be with a rock that starts WAY out there. We have a pretty good catalog of all the close, large (multi-kilometer) rocks.<br /><br /><br />* There are a lot of amateur sky watchers with digital IR equipment nowadays. I watched a you-tuber stream his first few experiences with his new IR filter and was stunned at how much methane absorption showed up in his images of Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons. Obviously he had a filter tuned to a methane absorption band, but the images REALLY popped and caused him to puzzle over why then accidentally learn some physics and chemistry.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67650805023838898712023-05-04T17:09:32.946-07:002023-05-04T17:09:32.946-07:00PSB,
Communication? Sure. But will you believe it...PSB,<br /><br />Communication? Sure. But will you believe it?<br /><br />Even with me, some folks here are tempted to believe I'd rather side with the foxes and wolves on this stuff. Look at the way you describe them. You dehumanize them using metaphors involving foxes and chickens.<br /><br />I'm not saying some of your adversaries don't deserve your ire, but once you decide they are monsters I sincerely doubt you'll listen to their communications. You'll suspect they are up to no good… and might even be right.<br /><br />So… let's make this a bit more concrete. Who would you accept as a source of testing information regarding Bisphenol S toxicity levels? Who may communicate the science and state of current testing? Who may say whether or not longitudinal studies are necessary? Most importantly, who might you listen to when it comes to stating whether you should consider taking a risk? It would still be your call whether or not you did.<br /><br />———<br /><br />I wouldn't bother with pressing this point if you hadn't already expressed an understanding of how much learned fear dominates our lives. Over Muscled Amygdala Syndrome. I put to you that many suffer this condition when it comes to product safety tests.<br /><br />If you all REALLY want to worry about this stuff, you should be thinking about food additives that trigger hormone receptors within us. There's a reason why so many of us are obese nowadays. That's a MUCH worse problem than some of our cancer risks. Much of our Type II diabetes caseload is likely self-inflicted.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52260778044310856342023-05-04T14:50:10.198-07:002023-05-04T14:50:10.198-07:00What caused the dumbing down of America? Specifica...What caused the dumbing down of America? Specifically historical knowledge? <br />TV killed readership in the Boomer generation.<br />Computers killed readership even more. <br />Social Media did even more damage. <br /><br />Here's numbers for readership since the mid-90s:<br />https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspx<br />matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-66731886576294123202023-05-04T12:50:44.000-07:002023-05-04T12:50:44.000-07:00Lena - "But what's caused the dumbing dow...Lena - "But what's caused the dumbing down of America?"<br /><br />How about the effects of glyphosate-based herbicides, microplastics, PFAs and other forever chemical on fetal brain development?DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-57954423316139864112023-05-04T12:47:04.596-07:002023-05-04T12:47:04.596-07:00Lena - "the more you use it, the stronger it...Lena - "the more you use it, the stronger it gets"<br /><br />So, things like doomsday prepping and MAGA membership are just the results of an overworked amygdala?DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90238004236821591862023-05-04T12:43:04.089-07:002023-05-04T12:43:04.089-07:00Asteroid lurkers could be far more sinister.
Supp...Asteroid lurkers could be far more sinister.<br /><br />Suppose an ancient interstellar species, not wanting competition in accordance with the "dark forest" hypothesis, leaves a machine lurker in the asteroid belt.<br /><br />Once the lurker detects radio signals from Earth it pushes a massive dinosaur killer sized asteroid into Earth's path.<br /><br />The resultant destruction of life solves the problem of a competitor species for at least another million years or so.DPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07087941506162882852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18169868501046934462023-05-04T11:29:14.895-07:002023-05-04T11:29:14.895-07:00Alfred,
Communication. If it's not possible o...Alfred,<br /><br />Communication. If it's not possible or dubious ethically, communicate it. That's all it takes. Failure to communicate breeds paranoia, and you end up with a Cry Wolf situation. There is so much dishonesty and blatant disregard for human life in the business world that a whole lot of people will never trust their word on anything. Honest businessman is an oxymoron. That's how many people see it, and they are entirely justified.<br /><br />PSB<br /><br />Lenahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05693969299639295594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36826663180732439722023-05-04T11:05:09.727-07:002023-05-04T11:05:09.727-07:00PSB,
I'm still sticking with Duncan and the E...PSB,<br /><br /><i>I'm still sticking with Duncan and the EU.</i><br /><br />I'm mostly fine with that because most of the time the foxes don't want to test things it is because of costs.<br /><br />Just don't be too quick in jumping to your conclusion about those of us who disagree wanting to side with the foxes. Some tests that people want are actually impossible. Some are just unethical. For both, it isn't obvious that they are until one takes a hard look at how the tests would actually be done.<br /><br />I WOULD ask that testing done by people with no financial stake in an outcome be considered as a means to limit liability of those who make use of that research. We do this today when the feds certify an aircraft design. As long as airlines follow proper procedures, it's not easy for next of kin to win punitive awards when a plane falls out of the sky.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-19745221880674417712023-05-04T11:00:02.827-07:002023-05-04T11:00:02.827-07:00Robert,
It's both. The amygdala is functional...Robert,<br /><br />It's both. The amygdala is functional from birth, so people are capable of feeling anxiety should the need arise. But it's like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets, until it becomes pathological. That's how PTSD and other anxiety disorders happen. That's also a big part of why scare tactics are so effective in the short term, but in the long run just might turn out to be civilization killers.<br /><br />The better you understand brains, the better you can operate them (as a general rule - I've read a ton, but when you're brain is plain broken, the reading has little efficacy). <br /><br />PSB<br /><br />Lenahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05693969299639295594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83696357923198152402023-05-04T09:50:51.794-07:002023-05-04T09:50:51.794-07:00When Gorbachev re-emerged after three days hiding,...When Gorbachev re-emerged after three days hiding, and it was clear that the Cold War was all the way over, I walked to a nearby scenic hillside, looked at San Francisco at night, its streetlights shining like a dragon's hoard, and I thought to myself,<br />"Maybe we'll live after all."Paradoctorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04821968120388981470noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-37784112219147638762023-05-04T08:37:24.648-07:002023-05-04T08:37:24.648-07:00Early childhood trauma, which need only be constan...<i> Early childhood trauma, which need only be constant fear, can have some pretty impressive deleterious effects on memory and other aspects of cognition.</i><br /><br />I wonder if I would be so anxious if I hadn't grown up expecting to be dead before 30. I know the Cold War had an effect on me, because when I heard the Berlin Wall had come down it felt as if the world snapped into focus (like getting glasses for the first time) and into colour. Or like a weight I hadn't known I was carrying had dropped off my back.<br /><br />But anxiety could be a long-term effect.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04909011338723657265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90283214865314249682023-05-04T08:04:19.349-07:002023-05-04T08:04:19.349-07:00Larry,
But what's caused the dumbing down of ...Larry,<br /><br />But what's caused the dumbing down of America? The one obvious historical factor is the Cold War, which the average house hominid of the '50s did not grow up in from early childhood. Early childhood trauma, which need only be constant fear, can have some pretty impressive deleterious effects on memory and other aspects of cognition. Presumably, if an entire nation is being taught fear by its leaders, the people who were born with higher sensitivity to trauma would be most effected, and that would shift the bell curve over for the next generation. Lather, rinse, repeat, and we have the effects of generations of cumulative trauma. Thus the fact that people are finally starting to notice that the American way has created an enormous mental health crisis. This is why it pays to be a jack-of-all-trades. If all someone knows is politics, they can't make the connection. If all someone knows is psychology, they aren't likely to make the connection. If all someone knows is history, they just might if they are thinking in terms of lead and the fall of the Roman Empire, but without the psychology and/or neuroscience background, they won't have enough detail to be able to say anything that doesn't sound wildly speculative.<br /><br />The moral of the story: read widely.<br /><br />PSBLenahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05693969299639295594noreply@blogger.com