Tr1v14l Pursu1ts: Douglas Adams can sleep well...

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.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Douglas Adams can sleep well...

...as the idiotic and inane in government, business, and military continues to track his sense of the weird.

The US Army and Navy have both hired experts in the ethics of building machines to prevent the creation of an amoral Terminator-style killing machine that murders indiscriminately.

Er... Yeah.

"We have to stop Skynet! In ten years when they turn it online it becomes self-aware and perceives us as the enemy! It starts taking over the Internet, and sending endless e-mails and rewriting every web site to convey a message of friendship and peace so revoltingly sickeningly sweet, that millions kill themselves within days!"