Science of the Spirit

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Pathocracy: Brave New World or 1984?

Harrison Koehli
Sott.net
Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:31 UTC

To those who have grown up in countries considered "free", the vision of George Orwell's 1984 strikes us as a threatening nightmare, a warning of a not-so-distant future where freedom is but a word. Like seed perpetually scorched before it even has a chance to take root, all that it means to be human is actively degraded, denied, and punished at even the smallest display.

The vision of the Party's rule, its inhumanity and utter ruthlessness and mendacity frighten us and we hope it will never come to pass here. But we have no clue how to prevent it, and just like the people in Orwell's fictional world, we are perpetually caught off guard when it comes to pass in our own lives. One day we wake up and realize we are living in a nightmare, and we have been for a long time. "It'll never happen here" and "We've taken every precaution" become "When did it happen" and "How did we get to this point?" This perennial sickness takes hold of a nation and we are at its mercy.

Arun Gandhi And 'The Jews'

Joe Quinn
SOTT.net
Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:29 UTC

Dr. Arun Gandhi in front of a picture of his grandfather Mahatma Gandhi

Arun Gandhi is the fifth grandson of the famous Mahatma Gandhi, a public figure and an established and true man of peace. So what was he doing spreading nefarious 'conspiracy theories' about the Jews back in January 2008?

Psychopaths Among Us - ABC Report

Dr Jonica Newby
The Australian Broadcasting Company
Thu, 05 May 2005 12:26 UTC

Click the play button to watch this 12 minute report by ABC News Australia

Is your boss manipulative? Intimidating? Totally lacking in remorse? Yet superficially charming? Then you could be working with a workplace psychopath. The latest figures suggest one in ten managers are psychopaths, and this week Catalyst goes deep inside their minds - what makes them tick, how do you spot them; and how do you avoid being crushed by them. We'll also run a handy test - tune in to find out if your boss is an office psychopath.

Use It Or Lose It? Study Suggests The Brain Can Remember a "Forgotten" Language

Medical News Today
Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:00 UTC

Many of us learn a foreign language when we are young, but in some cases, exposure to that language is brief and we never get to hear or practice it subsequently. Our subjective impression is often that the neglected language completely fades away from our memory. But does "use it or lose it" apply to foreign languages? Although it may seem we have absolutely no memory of the neglected language, new research suggests this "forgotten" language may be more deeply engraved in our minds than we realize.

Psychologists Jeffrey Bowers, Sven L. Mattys, and Suzanne Gage from the University of Bristol recruited volunteers who were native English speakers but who had learned either Hindi or Zulu as children when living abroad. The researchers focused on Hindi and Zulu because these languages contain certain phonemes that are difficult for native English speakers to recognize. A phoneme is the smallest sound in a language-a group of phonemes forms a word.

The scientists asked the volunteers to complete a background vocabulary test to see if they remembered any words from the neglected language. They then trained the participants to distinguish between pairs of phonemes that started Hindi or Zulu words.

Sleep Helps Reduce Errors in Memory, Research Suggests

Science Daily
Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:00 UTC

Sleep may reduce mistakes in memory, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by a cognitive neuroscientist at Michigan State University.

The findings, which appear in the September issue of the journal Learning & Memory, have practical implications for everyone from students flubbing multiple choice tests to senior citizens confusing their medications, said Kimberly Fenn, principal investigator and MSU assistant professor of psychology.

"It's easy to muddle things in your mind," Fenn said. "This research suggests that after sleep you're better able to tease apart the incorrect aspect of that memory."

Fenn and colleagues from the University of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis studied the presence of false memory in groups of college students. While previous research has shown that sleep improves memory, this study is the first to address errors in memory, she said.

Truth to Power: Psychopaths Rule Our World

Niall Bradley
SOTT.net
Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:55 UTC

Watching Europe's political class squirm after Ireland's No vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum last year, I couldn't help but feel that some of them know something we don't: there is an agenda that must be met. The Irish people could not be threatened into sealing the nEU Deal, yet it's business as usual for the fanatical Eurocrats who are adamant nothing will get in their way. Incessant media hype is portending economic ruin lest Ireland vote 'correctly' at the second time of asking this fall.

It is evident, for those with eyes to see, that political discord between rival criminal cartels is purely for public consumption. Bread and circuses. Policy is not shaped by party politics. Decisions are made by a few: everyone else adjusts or starves. Weapons of financial mass destruction deployed by Central Bankers and Disaster-Capitalists, under the guise of protecting the markets and improving the efficiency of the system, vacuum the wealth of the nations - the work people produce - into ever fewer hands.

While we share a symbiotic reality, mutually bound by rules and conventions, theirs is very different. It shadows ours, feeding off the real economy below by manipulating the supply of money, which private banks control. 'Market crashes' are built into the system. Rules designed to regulate economies and prevent volatility are periodically altered. Hysteria is induced in people through repeated media suggestion forecasting impending doom. In the ensuing panic brought on by shock, windows of opportunity open for the few to recast the rules in their favour, extending and entrenching their vice on the real economy.

Word gets around: Twilight and the trick of the psychopaths

Maasanova
Under the Radar Media
Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:52 UTC

Note: The following is largely extracted from two articles: Twilight of the Psychopaths, by Dr. Kevin Barrett and The Trick of the Psychopath's Trade by Silvia Cattori.

I make the effort to share this information because it gives me, at last, a plausible answer to a long-unanswered question: Why, no matter how much intelligent goodwill exists in the world, is there so much war, suffering and injustice? It doesn't seem to matter what creative plan, ideology, religion, or philosophy great minds come up with, nothing seems to improve our lot. Since the dawn of civilization, this pattern repeats itself over and over again. The answer is that civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been built on slavery and mass murder. Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, cheat, steal, torture, manipulate, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse, in order to establish their own sense of security through domination. The inventor of civilization - the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers - was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies - especially military hierarchies.

It's Not Hard to Be a Job-Slashing, Pension-Grabbing CEO -- If You're a Psychopath

Thom Hartmann
Smirking Chimp
Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:45 UTC

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the US... Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total US pay in 2007, the latest figures available."

One of the questions often asked when the subject of CEO pay comes up is, "What could a person such as William McGuire or Lee Raymond (the former CEOs of UnitedHealth and ExxonMobil, respectively) possibly do to justify a $1.7 billion paycheck or a $400 million retirement bonus?"

The First Psychopaths - er... Corporation

Angie Reidel
Think or Be Eaten Blog
Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:23 UTC

Thousands of years ago people lived in close knit clans and the population of the world was only a tiny fraction of what it is now. People could go an entire life time without ever encountering a stranger. Unfortunately, sometimes strangers purposely encountered them.

One particular day at one particular village a very long time ago, such an encounter took place. It was just after dawn on a foggy morning that the village clan was going about its normal morning routine. Firewood was gathered, fires were lit, and food preparation was underway. Mothers breast fed their babies, children played and elders sat waiting to be fed.

The comforting sounds of fire crackling and children laughing were interrupted by the muffled rumbling of hoof beats and the sharp clatter of scraping metal coming from somewhere beyond the fog. The sounds grew louder and more distinct by the second, and so, sensing danger, the people of the clan quickly gathered together in the center of the camp.

Moments later, emerging from the haze came a terrifying vision:

The Evolution of Humanity

Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Sun, 31 May 2009 04:49 UTC

Imagine that you are standing in a large room full of people. You are not part of the assembled crowd but are merely observing the activities and the people.

A large and grandiose party is in full swing. People continue to arrive all the time, swelling the already voluminous mass of humanity. A band plays in the corner, some of the people are talking and drinking while others dance to the music. As you wander around you notice that the people gathered in the room seem to have organised themselves into groups. As you listen in on the conversations that are taking place you learn that these groups seem to be organised by social status, racial type or simply those with a similar world view. Very clear however is the fact that there are those that are well dressed and seem to be well fed and there are those that appear to be rather more disheveled and materially poor.