Maxims, rules of thumb and other observations on human cognition and sociocultural affectations

This will be added to on an irregular basis...
  • What is said to humans directly is received with skepticism and considered with dubiousness while that which is heard in passing, especially that which most conforms to their mentality or prejudices, is readily believed.
  • Humans have a certain cognitive latency between exposure to new information or experiences and the ability to think dispassionately and intellectually about it.
  • Humans have a certain cognitive spectrum starting with the moment of exposure to new information or experiences and ending with some point at which the thing is effectively "in the past" for them.
  • This cognitive spectrum is linked to the emotional process often referred to as shock, anger, denial and acceptance.
  • The more and faster information or experiences are presented to people and the closer the quarters and the lesser the distance between people, the more their early reactions in the passionate emotional stage are reflected back to them in the manner of responses to those reactions from others in light of those responses.
  • The more outrages which are suffered without sufficient time to allow emotional bleed-off, the farther the bar for subsequent reaction and outrage are pushed, and the more further events must progress before reaction and outrage.
  • It is possible for serious detriments to eventually sit below this threshold for long enough for their damaging effects to build and multiply until their entire society undergoes some reactive convulsion.
Bookmark and Share

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

American kids, dumber than dirt / Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history

He cites studies, reports, hard data, from the appalling effects of television on child brain development (i.e.; any TV exposure before 6 years old and your kid's basic cognitive wiring and spatial perceptions are pretty much scrambled for life), to the fact that, because of all the insidious mandatory testing teachers are now forced to incorporate into the curriculum, of the 182 school days in a year, there are 110 when such testing is going on somewhere at Oakland High. As one of his colleagues put it, "It's like weighing a calf twice a day, but never feeding it."

American kids, dumber than dirt / Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history.



any TV exposure before 6 years old and your kid's basic cognitive wiring and spatial perceptions are pretty much scrambled for life


Absolutely. Thanks to watching television since before I could walk, that entire school report I did in fifth grade about the relativity of the Hubble constant to actual observation vis a vis the ongoing expansion of the universe and the implications of localized and macroscopic spatial distortions affecting red-shift in terms of spatial stretching as well as inherent modification of frequencies by changing electrodynamic interaction with intergalactic plasma was entirely a put-on.


Furthermore, my accuracy with a BB gun was just a fluke. Thanks to television there is no way I should have been able to keep a one inch shot group with 75% or better accuracy at 200 feet. My spatial distortion should have given me a real Ted Striker drinking problem.


It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I can still spell just fine…