The Purple Koolaid Playtime Show!

McMemes (Want Fries With That?)

**************************************************************************************************************************** I opened up the Netscape browser window yesterday, and a little popup window brought me this "news" that maneuvered itself over the day's headlines:

Why Dominant, Alpha Men Are Appealing
Mathematics Proves Christ's Resurrection?
10 Easy Ways to Cut Down on Fat
What Causes Morning Breath?
The No. 1 Song That Changed the World
Eat Up: One Food May Stop Cancer Cold

Many of you might recall the 80's-era sci-fi TV show "Max Headroom." The premiere episode's storyline was about a new kind of advertising which delivered information at such a rapid-fire pace that the viewers' heads would explode.While the show might have been somewhat prophetic in one aspect, it seems the opposite effect might actually be more the case: viewers' info-intake is more likely to shut down and implode under the avalanche of information we're currently inundated with on a daily basis.

The problem with today's fast-paced, info-age lifestyle is the danger that we're becoming *so* harried and bombarded with information that we lose the time and the patience required to actually slow down and be a bit more analytical in our thoughts. This of course creates an ideal atmosphere for the purveyors of McMemes. We lead such busy lives that we tend to grab our information on the fly -- often without double-checking or second-guessing.

McMemes (or McInfo, if you don't care for memetics jargon) are kind of a bastard child of Mach's principle of economy of thought. Metaphorically speaking, they're like overprocessed, fast-food, "pieces-parts" nuggets of information -- often aimed right at the gut. They aren't always the best kind of "brain food" because they aren't always accurate, don't always encourage you to think, and a lot of them tend to have staying power simply because they push the right buttons. They tend to encourage and reinforce lazy thinking such as false dichotomies, stereotyping, conflating issues and subject matter, and other emotion-based reasoni reactioning.

Journalists, preachers, lawyers, politicians and entertainers can be quite skilled in serving up McMemes because they love to utilize the kind of language that tugs at the emotions, pushes buttons and win converts/customers.

Thanks to them, we are now familiar with McMemes such as "Men are From Mars; Women are From Venus"; various urban legends; the idea that Iraq was somehow connected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks; that Republicans or Democrats allegedly represent certain values; that people from different states are either "red" or "blue" according to the 2004 election results; etc. etc.

Predictably, with so much competition in this Age of Information, and audiences' attention spans becoming ever shorter like an ADD child, McMeme purveyors have resorted to grabbing the audiences' attention through such time-honored advertising techniques as flashy presentation, shouting, simplistic "good guys vs bad guys" dichotomies, and becoming virtual cartoon characters.

Additional reading: Lazy Thinking Is Hard-Wired
Ernst Mach and Daniel Dennett: Two Evolutionary Models of Cognition

Harun Yahya's "Fossil" Frauds

I'm starting new sections on this blog devoted to discussing specific topics.  Check out the Evolution Debates section which will be devoted to various discussions on that particular topic.  First page completed (although ongoing) is a debunk of the multiple-website-owning creationist Harun Yahya and his mislabeled pictures of alleged Cretaceous era mammals.  See the comparisons that show how ineptly these images are misidentified (and/or forged) and that Yahya shouldn't be taken seriously as a credible information source.

Happy Independence Day!

Be sure honor your flag today!

They Should...

So our endless winter has decided to dump more than a foot of snow on the area.  By midweek, temperatures will rise and there will be widespread flooding.  I'm surprised that the cities haven't thought of an enterprise that involves vacuuming up the snow off the streets and shipping it (melted) by rail to Los Angeles.  They can have it...

White bird's got rhythm

Duuuude! 

(The bird's name is Snowball and here's his story.  Apparently self-taught, including the little headbang at the end.)

Although if YouTube is any indication, this is hardly unique behavior.  Apparently cockatoos dig pop music.

The Trap

The Trap, yet another Adam Curtis documentary, examines game theory, anthropology, evolutionary psychology and the notion of perceived freedom.  Can human beings, as social creatures, ever truly attain individual freedom?  As one system of control and heirarchy is phased out, another steps in to take its place.  Part 1  Part 2  Part 3a  3b   3c

Richard Dawkins: "Nice Guys Finish First"

This film explains that "survival of the fittest" does not necessarily mean "...of the strongest", but of the perpetuation of the most successful reproductive strategies.

More Timeless Fables

...from a modern-day storyteller

Most of us are familiar with the whimsical children's stories of Dr. Seuss, but before he embarked on his career as a famous children's author, he had been a political cartoonist as well as a writer for "Private Snafu", a series of Warner Brothers cartoons created for the U.S. Army. Given Seuss' background in politics, it's really no surprise that many of his stories also play out as sociopolitical commentary.

Seuss was ahead of his time -- in this story, identifying memetic trends and clique behavior before the term was even coined. Note how he's distinguishing bird-brained mentality vs. the more clever manipulator, portrayed as a primate.

(I didn't produce this video, by the way. It was either this or the longer song-and-dance animated production that was posted on YouTube).

Versus

Mental JPEGS and the Evolution of the False Dichotomy

Al Sharpton was in the news yet again, this time for his defense of the stripper who accused several Duke University lacrosse players of rape.

Why were the Duke lacrosse players so widely presumed guilty before being proven innocent? Is it because many automatically equate "white, male" with "oppressor" and "black, female" with "oppressed"? Is it because "lynch mob mentality" really knows no color?

So many others are commenting on this case that yet another entry in the blogosphere would be redundant. So let's move on to a more thematic topic.

For any reader who assumes these past two entries have been about defending white guys while criticizing blacks, or have been making any presumptions about my race, sex, place in the political spectrum, etc. then you probably haven't been thinking outside your personal Crayola box.

In the book "Blink", Malcolm Gladwell discusses how the human mind has been programmed to make "snap judgments"; which are often based on earlier learning experiences. Our minds grasp a learned concept; it is compressed into a kind of shorthand form of information and then stored in memory for quick reference. I'll refer to these here as "mental jpegs". As with jpegs, complexity, nuance and details often get lost, and in addition are usually contaminated with personal bias of some sort. This is the brain's way of economizing energy, which really came in handy back in the days when snap judgments were more of a matter of life or death.

Mental jpegs are roughly defined as a subset of ideas, assumptions, traits or characteristics. Conversely, a partial or incomplete set of ideas or characteristics can elicit a mental jpeg label with the assumption that all other ideas, characteristics, etc. are associated with them. (For instance, assuming that someone who discusses evolution also votes Democratic.)

One of the shortest shorthand forms of thinking is "us vs. them". Either something is "on our side", or it's "against us". Judging from the universal popularity of sports, video games and other forms of competitive behavior, we are seemingly programmed to react in such a manner so we can enjoy combat or sparring of some sort. Or perhaps, too, this is rooted in our social/tribal makeup, based on an instinctual need for group solidarity. ...In fact, neuroscientists more recently performed a study that demonstrated that partisan thought is rooted in the unconscious. Note this particularly glaring example of "affiliation over idea".

The power of this kind of reflexive mental jpeg has been demonstrated time and time again throughout the course of human history. It appears to be an innate part of our nature and nobody seems to be immune to it no matter what political party, nationality, race, sex, educational background or affiliation. It appears to arouse a certain irrational combative mode of behavior and often gets in the way of problem-solving.

If we really need to harbor any particular dichotomies, perhaps they should be: "is this thinking, or is this reacting?"

Chicken Little

An older version of a still-relevent tale. (Originally uploaded for an animation blog -- hence the superimposed credits if you don't mind them).

Chicken Little
Uploaded by thadk