2devnull

I gave one quote that is an example of the lack of thought, here’s another,

“by spending millions of dollars on research into manipulating the human brain. But while the science never exactly panned out, residual beliefs fostered by this bizarre conflict continue to play a role”

In what sense did the science “not pan out”?

What “residual beliefs” could she mean? The text implies that it’s the idea that the human brain cannot be manipulated.

Almost every sentence has that level of inanity and incoherence. Advertising meanwhile is a billion dollar industry built on manipulating brains.

The author seems not merely uninformed but a mix of unaware and unconcerned that they don’t know what they’re talking about. No discussion of hypnosis, Stockholm syndrome, and a general vibe that psychology is like not really a thing unless it coincides with cherished narratives. And then little chestnuts like, “the idea of brainwashing continues to be a powerful metaphor for the effects of systemic racism.” Say what?

“ and disrupt international drug cartels who are looking to smuggle fentanyl into our nation,” they said.”

Just a totally absurd statement. Drug traffickers pour across the border in droves, daily. Anybody who supported this && does not support securing the border is a corrupt weasel and an enemy of Americans.

“It also implies that explanations of belief in conspiracy theories need to accommodate the observation that beliefs in such theories vary much more between people than within people.”

To me it implies that what they are operational using as “conspiracy theory” is nothing more than individual differences in personality. Those who want to study/address/remove “conspiracy theories” really just have a problem with individual differences and want to control others.

Usenet didn’t have this problem. It’s not being online and interacting with others that’s the problem. It’s the money. And we’ve known that forever.

Arguably that’s the meta force behind social media. The platforms are designed to make people think in collectivist terms, which coincidentally (or not) makes things easier for more tyrannical forms of government. Indeed Facebook and old twitter are arguably quasi-federal entities.

I’d say a lot of that is genetic and or cultural. At the very least there are many of us who do not possess that instinct. We have much lower karma scores but we don’t care.

“the skill to stop being angry”

Often that amounts to changing the people or circumstances in one’s life. That’s the point of therapy. A good therapist wouldn’t help a sexually abused child stay in a bad situation and just learn to suppress emotion. Well maybe a cbt therapist would. But a good therapist would try to help catalyze a change in the situation causing the trauma.

Monks are doing it on easy mode. They have nothing to anger them, zero triggers. It’s the whole point of hermeticism. Remove all sources of stress. Desire nothing. Of course they aren’t angry, they have nothing; nothing to feel angry about.

The world is nothing but edge cases. Expressing anger requires cooperation. If someone doesn’t want to listen, and you express anger at them anyway, is it not abuse?

I think the answer about why it’s so specific is if you just say you threw someone out of a window people might assume it was only one story high and not lethal. Defenestration tells you that it was a high window, and often implies the ejection of the owner or a legitimate occupant. Similar to shock vs electrocution.

Seems wise to get out in front of the impending backlash.

Seems like a good lens through which to view California politics, which is often dominated for better and worse by special interests like the trial lawyers, firefighters, etc…

Boycott please.

“Not only did we measure significant concentrations of PFAS in these containers, we can estimate the PFAS that were leaching off creating a direct path of exposure,” said study coauthor Graham Peaslee, PhD, professor of physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Notre Dame.”

I’m glad the EPA tried but have to wonder why congress can’t do their jobs.