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.
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Friday, January 11, 2008

Newspeak continues...

New rules on licenses pit states against feds - CNN.com

"The last thing I want to do is punish citizens of a state who would love to have a REAL ID license but can't get one," Chertoff said. "But in the end, the rule is the rule as passed by Congress."

There are three implications in this statement there in one sentence.

1. There is an implicit assumption that the citizens love this big brother shit and want to have the DoHS blessed number of the beast card if it wasn't for their in-the-way stick-in-the-mud disloyal state governments. This is in my mind similar to the Soviet claim that the people of Prague wanted the invasion of Czechoslovakia to free them from their bourgeois heretic government.

2. There is an implicit assumption that the government has a right to force this on the states when in fact it in no way shape or form does, as it amounts to circumventing constitutional legal history not to mention American tradition by turning state driver's licenses into national ID cards.

3. Then there is the implicit threat of punishment of the people of the states if the states do not capitulate. Either overthrow your recalcitrant governments at the polls, or we will break you seems to be the long term message.

4. There's actually a fourth implication of extreme arrogance on Chertoff's part as it implies he believes he either has the right to punish the states, and the usual governmental cowardice of blaming congress.

It's like a wife beater saying to his wife as the blows land, "you made me do this! I didn't want to do this, but you made me! Why couldn't you just do what I told you!"

Of course, despite all this, systems, aka people, will continue to slip through their fingers. Despite massive security procedures, we and the Soviet Union freely spied on each other and compromised the allegiances of each others' citizens almost at will all through the worst times of the Cold War.

Do they really think that this will stop terrorists? No, because that is not the point. The point is that your rulers, the people you the lazy ass common people negligently put into power at the polls DO NOT TRUST YOU. They live in insecurity and rule by fear. They sell you hopelessness, you distribute it like crack dealers. They tell you can'ts and won'ts and you believe them. It's at the point you could have the secret truth of extraterrestrial life given to you by an Air Force defector and you'd simply not care. Similarly, you can see for yourself that your political class sells you solutions to nonexistent problems for no reason other than to entrench and reinforce their power.

If you want just and righteous rulers, you must first rule yourself. Stop running from the world people. Wake up and take control of yourselves. Before the global civil wars come. You're living a self-fulfilling prophecy which ends terribly. Please, stop. Come back to reality. The world isn't that bad, things aren't so negative, there's hope for you and yours. All you have to do is get a fucking grip.