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

Monday, January 12, 2009

Haredim continue their drive to make Orthodoxy look as cultish and silly as possible...

Haredim negotiate for mehadrin El Al flights | Jewish News | Jerusalem Post

Yup, because we just can't stand that someone else on the plane eats lower on the food chain than Glatt Kosher, or women with less fabric than a burqa, or women in general, or anything like a reminder of the modern world in which they coexist. Shtetle in the sky...

The gender separation would include male flight attendants for haredi male travelers. Haredi females would be served by both male and female flight attendants.

Yup, I'm sure those prissy little men are so much better off without scary women serving them meals. So why do the women have to suffer male flight attendants?

I love this.

Last year El Al and the Council for the Sanctity of the Shabbat, which is controlled by the Ger Hassidic Sect, reached an agreement according to which El Al planes would refrain from flying on Shabbat.

Does that mean they fall out of the air when they cross a date line?

You know, the Japanese capsule hotel idea needs to be extended to flying. Each person in a capsule, wearing a mask providing air, and the space between their body and the capsule filled with expanding foam. The capsules are loaded into cradles in the cargo jet, and they are hit with nitrous oxide and subjected to random shiurim on the headphones for the duration. WHEEEEEE!!!

Ten hours later, touch down and unloading. Never having seen a female or been exposed to anything. In fact, we can start with airline branded blindfolds and black velvet hoods and gloves to ensure that there is not the slightest chance of contact by eye or skin with someone not righteous enough to enter their world much less women.

And people think I'm wrong when I saw that charedi Orthodoxy is going to drag the rest of it into disrepute through extremism. If you don't think so, consider how any truly liberal Muslim feels every time they pick up a newspaper. Every average Jew will get that feeling more and more as this sort of vicious idiocy continues. What a desecration of G-d it is to run from His works.