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Are we stupid? On the need for citizens to become politically engaged to make democracy work

Alan Hart
alanhart.net
Sun, 24 Nov 2013 22:13 UTC
The following is the text of the address I made to the Seek, Speak and Spread Truth Conference in London yesterday, 23 November. Its main thrust is about the need for citizens to become politically engaged to make democracy work (before it's as dead as the two-state solution for Israel-Palestine) in order for our children and grandchildren to have the real prospect of a future worth having.
Time for Truth
© Can Stock Photo
I want to start with a promise. I won't be disturbed and you won't be disturbed by my mobile 'phone because I don't have one. I have thrown mine away because I am trying to stay human.

That said I'll give you my one-sentence overview of the state of affairs on our small, fragile, endangered planet. Modern life is a de-humanizing process which has reduced us, most of us, to units of consumption, digits in corporate computers, figures on accountants' balance sheets.

What this suggests to me is that the prime task for each and every one of us is to claim back our humanity.

I'll be offering some thoughts on how we can do this, but first of all we have to address what I consider to be THE most important of all questions - the question of human nature.

What, really, is the quality of it?

Comment: No objective moral philosophy concerning human nature and 'the good life' can be reached without knowledge of psychopathy and the spectrum of different types of humans. Projecting our own inner landscape onto others who are fundamentally different can only result in the same mistakes being repeated endlessly.

Political Ponerology

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Eye 1

U.S. neuroscientist Jack Fallon believes he is a psychopath

Joseph Stromberg
woub.org
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 10:53 UTC
Image
© James Fallon
Compared to a control brain (top), neuroscientist James Fallon’s brain (bottom) shows significantly decreased activity in areas of the frontal lobe linked to
One afternoon in October 2005, neuroscientist James Fallon was looking at brain scans of serial killers. As part of a research project at UC Irvine, he was sifting through thousands of PET scans to find anatomical patterns in the brain that correlated with psychopathic tendencies in the real world.

"I was looking at many scans, scans of murderers mixed in with schizophrenics, depressives and other, normal brains," he says. "Out of serendipity, I was also doing a study on Alzheimer's and as part of that, had brain scans from me and everyone in my family right on my desk."

"I got to the bottom of the stack, and saw this scan that was obviously pathological," he says, noting that it showed low activity in certain areas of the frontal and temporal lobes linked to empathy, morality and self-control. Knowing that it belonged to a member of his family, Fallon checked his lab's PET machine for an error (it was working perfectly fine) and then decided he simply had to break the blinding that prevented him from knowing whose brain was pictured.

Comment: The vast majority of psychopaths don't kill or rape people. In fact, the really successful ones end up as lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, politicians, academics, generals, CEOs, bankers.

It's frankly amazing that the process of ponerization (the steady decay of society due to the cancerous effects of psychopaths reaching positions of power over others) has advanced to such a degree that a psychopath can reveal his true nature and no one bats an eyelid.

Fallon's ability to be introspective and caring for others, assuming for a minute that he is telling the truth, means right away that he isn't a
psychopath. By definition, psychopaths have no conscience, and cannot grow one.

What is interesting about his findings is that they suggest brain scans and the search for anatomical signatures of psychopaths are unreliable methods and lead to dead ends.

This takes us back to the drawing board where the old-fashioned detective work of observing people's words versus their actions over long time-periods is the most reliable way to discern psychopathic behaviour, and then weigh the probabilities of psychopathology being the root cause versus other character disorders like borderline personality or schizophrenia.

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Display

Not surprising: Preschoolers exposure to television can stall their cognitive development

John Paul Gutierrez
International Communication Association
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 12:28 UTC
Image
Television is a powerful agent of development for children, particularly those in preschool. But when could too much TV be detrimental to a young child's mind? A recent paper published in the Journal of Communication found that preschoolers who have a TV in their bedroom and are exposed to more background TV have a weaker understanding of other people's beliefs and desires.

Amy Nathanson, Molly Sharp, Fashina Aladé, Eric Rasmussen, and Katheryn Christy, all of The Ohio State University, interviewed and tested 107 children and their parents to determine the relationship between preschoolers' television exposure and their understanding of mental states, such as beliefs, intentions, and feelings, known as theory of mind. Parents were asked to report how many hours of TV their children were exposed to, including background TV. The children were then given tasks based on theory of mind. These tasks assessed whether the children could acknowledge that others can have different beliefs and desires, that beliefs can be wrong, and that behaviors stem from beliefs.
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Cheeseburger

Exposure to fast food symbols makes appreciating everyday joys harder

Eric W. Dolan
PsyPost
Sun, 17 Nov 2013 14:56 UTC
Mcdonalds
© McDonalds
Success, in the Western world, means "gaining time," according to French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard. The faster we do things - work, eat, sleep, read - the more time we "gain."

But this focus on time efficiency could be making the small things in life harder to enjoy.

A trio of Canadian researchers have discovered that simply being exposed to symbols of Western society's culture of convenience can undermine people's ability to find pleasure in everyday joys.

"It is ironic that technologies designed to improve well-being by minimizing time spent on mundane chores may ultimately undermine the surplus leisure time they permit. By instigating a sense of impatience, these technologies may prevent people from savoring the enjoyable moments life offers serendipitously," doctoral student Julian House and professors Sanford E. DeVoe and Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto wrote in the study.
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Info

People with higher emotional intelligence are better decision makers

Alan McStravick
RedOrbit
Wed, 20 Nov 2013 12:19 UTC
EQ
© Thinkstock
The concept of emotional intelligence (EQ) has been recognized in the field of psychology, most especially in the school of thought established by the humanists. EQ is understood as the ability to identify, use, understand and manage emotions. When a person possesses an elevated or high EQ, they are able to use their abilities positively as a means to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse potential conflicts with others.

As stated above, EQ has been on the psychological scene for some time. The earliest known allusion to the concept dates back to the 1930s when Edward Thorndike offered a description of a concept he called 'social intelligence.' To Thorndike, this was simply the ability to get along with other people.

In the 1950s, psychologist Abraham Maslow, famous for his theory, 'The Maslow Hierarchy of Needs,' built upon the concept of social intelligence when he offered instruction on how people could successfully build emotional strength.

It wasn't until 1985 the term 'emotional intelligence' was actually introduced. The first known appearance of this term was presented in a doctoral dissertation entitled "A study of emotion: developing emotional intelligence; self-integration; relating to fear, pain and desire (theory, structure of reality, problem-solving, contraction/expansion, tuning in/coming out/letting go), written by then-PhD candidate Wayne Payne.
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People 2

Are we all PSYCHIC? Scientists believe that animals - including humans - have a collective consciousness

Victoria Woollaston
The Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 19 Nov 2013 05:51 UTC
  • Behaviours found to spread throughout species seemingly telepathically
  • These behaviours were adopted among groups that had never met
  • This led scientists to believe they're spread via a collective consciousness
  • Blue tits and macaques among species that share behaviours this way
  • Report in 2010 claimed to have proved humans have similar psychic skills
  • However, these claims have been dismissed some scientists in more recent reports
Some may call it coincidence, while others call it a sixth sense but why do people think about someone right before they call, for example, or 'have a feeling' something is about to happen before it does?

It may be due to something called collective consciousness - a term used by certain scientists to describe the practice of humans, and animals, sharing behaviours and ideas with each other telepathically.

Image

Some call it coincidence, while others call it a sixth sense but why do people think about someone right before they call, for example? It may be due to something called collective consciousness - a term used by some scientists to describe the practice of humans, and animals, sharing behaviours and ideas telepathically
A report in 2010 claimed to have proved the presence of this consciousness and, by default, psychic abilities in humans.

But these claims divided opinion and more recent reports dismiss them as nonsense.

The idea of a collective consciousness was first presented by French sociologist Émile Durkheim in 1893.
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Laptop

How Google is rotting our memories: Young people today have 'worse memories than their parents'

Nick Mcdermott
The Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 19 Nov 2013 05:32 UTC
  • People's reliance on the Internet has caused growing levels of forgetfulness
  • Many people now see Google as an extension of their intelligence
  • We are now much worse at remembering facts we know are available online, such as as geographical details
It provides us with instant answers to almost any question imaginable.

But our reliance on Google for fact-checking and finding basic information has made us forgetful, say scientists.

It was also found that many individuals view internet search engines as an extension of their own intelligence, rather than a separate tool.

As a result they still regard themselves as being clever even when they need the internet to find answers.

Image

Our growing reliance on the Internet for fact-checking and other basic information has resulted in growing levels of forgetfulness, according to scientists
In a series of tests, researchers found that participants were more likely to recall information if they believed it had been erased from a computer.
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Rainbow

10 remarkable ways meditation helps your mind

Jeremy Dean
PsyBlog
Sun, 10 Nov 2013 11:45 UTC
Image
© Andy Ramdin
Studies find meditation provides lasting emotional control, cultivates compassion, reduces pain sensitivity, boosts multitasking and more…
Meditation is about way more than just relaxing.

In fact, if I listed the following mental benefits from a new pill or potion, you'd be rightly sceptical.

But all these flow from a simple activity which is completely free, involves no expensive equipment, chemicals, apps, books or other products.

I've also included my own very brief meditation instructions below to get you started.

But first, what are all these remarkable benefits?

1. Lasting emotional control

Meditation may make us feel calmer while we're doing it, but do these benefits spill over into everyday life?

Desborders et al. (2012) scanned the brains of people taking part in an 8-week meditation program, before and after the course.
While they were scanned, participants looked at pictures designed to elicit positive, negative and neutral emotional responses.
After the meditation course, activation in the amygdala, the emotional centre of the brain, was reduced to all pictures. This suggests that meditation can help provide lasting emotional control, even when you are not meditating.

Comment: For a comprehensive and effective meditation technique, visit our Éiriú Eolas program.

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Arrow Down

Study: Students who cheat more likely to want government jobs

Larry Clifton
Digital Journal
Mon, 18 Nov 2013 15:25 UTC
high-tech listening devices
© National Police
Spain's National Police caught up with a gang who supplied high-tech listening devices to students in exams, giving them the answers.

Bangalore - A new study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that people who cheat are more likely to want government jobs. The study by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania included hundreds of students in Bangalore, India. Study results suggest that one of the contributing forces behind government corruption could be who gets into government work in the first place, according to an LA Times report.

"If people have the view that jobs in government are corrupt, people who are honest might not want to get into that system," said Rema Hanna, an associate professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. To combat that problem, governments may need to find new ways to screen people seeking jobs, she said.

One experiment during the study involved more than 600 college seniors in India. Students were asked to roll a die in private and report what number they got. Each participant rolled the die 42 times and got paid more for higher numbers. Researchers could tell whether the numbers each person reported were significantly different than equal amounts of random die rolls. Those who reported consistently high numbers were allegedly cheating.

Cheating was unbridled as more than a third of students claimed scores that fell in the top 1% of the predicted distribution, said researchers. However, "students who apparently cheated were 6.3% more likely to say they wanted to work in government," according to the report.
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People

Do different languages confer different personalities?


The Economist
Tue, 05 Nov 2013 14:41 UTC
Image
© Alamy
Last week, Johnson took a look at some of the advantages of bilingualism. These include better performance at tasks involving "executive function" (which involve the brain's ability to plan and prioritise), better defence against dementia in old age and - the obvious - the ability to speak a second language. One purported advantage was not mentioned, though. Many multilinguals report different personalities, or even different worldviews, when they speak their different languages.

It's an exciting notion, the idea that one's very self could be broadened by the mastery of two or more languages. In obvious ways (exposure to new friends, literature and so forth) the self really is broadened. Yet it is different to claim - as many people do - to have a different personality when using a different language. A former Economist colleague, for example, reported being ruder in Hebrew than in English. So what is going on here?
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