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Wondahboy's Comments
Re: Human Computation
google images already has a sufficient image filter. so you could potentially have categories of risk for the images; i.e. safe, moderately safe, and completely unfiltered. players could knowingly sign up for any of these categories, and I'm sure there would be a sizable demographic willing to label the riskier category. there is still a slight chance that a bad image could crop up in a filtered league, so you could set an age limit on the game and put up a disclaimer. There are so many people playing it shouldn't cut into the productivity too much.
By: Wondahboy
Re: Mark Larsen Dumps Mitt Romney for Ron Paul
where do you people find the time to understand what the hell is going on? fuck it. i'm so confused. i'm ready to call it quits and make like Henry David Thoreau.
By: Wondahboy
Re: Daily Show: Mitt Romney Erupts: Mitt Romney Erupts All over a Journalist at a Staples....
I gave up TV news except as a performing enhancing drug for when I exercise, because it reliably raises my blood pressure and heart rate past normal physiological levels. I'm harnessing the anger, so to speak. Gives me that extra clench.
By: Wondahboy
Re: Louis Theroux: Hypnosis
But, if I can only be hypnotized if I want, then isn't that mixing the experimental effect with a placebo effect? It's a bad design for proving the efficacy of something. Albuterol dilates my bronchioles and reduces resistance to flow of air, whether I want it to or not. Why doesn't hypnosis work the same way? I need an explanation that goes beyond the psychobabble.
Moreover, the pressure to confirm the effect of the hypnosis is significant. If I've payed money to be hypnotized, and it doesn't do what the hypnotist is purporting it is doing, I have to save face and say that it is, otherwise I'm just another asshole who has fallen for something that is widely believed not to work.
Cognitive dissonance could also be another effect.
There are just too many confounding variables to make an accurate judgment of hypnosis without actually trying it. I could be totally off base because I haven't read any primary literature on it, but I would like to. These are my first impressions.
As for memories, if they are consciously inaccessible, they may still be stored somewhere, but remain incompletely encoded. It's been studied in people with lesions to nuclei and tracts thought to lie somewhere on the path to long-term memory storage. However, the only time at which the memories can be accessed is when the subject is woken up from sleep.
There is my unsolicited two cents.
Moreover, the pressure to confirm the effect of the hypnosis is significant. If I've payed money to be hypnotized, and it doesn't do what the hypnotist is purporting it is doing, I have to save face and say that it is, otherwise I'm just another asshole who has fallen for something that is widely believed not to work.
Cognitive dissonance could also be another effect.
There are just too many confounding variables to make an accurate judgment of hypnosis without actually trying it. I could be totally off base because I haven't read any primary literature on it, but I would like to. These are my first impressions.
As for memories, if they are consciously inaccessible, they may still be stored somewhere, but remain incompletely encoded. It's been studied in people with lesions to nuclei and tracts thought to lie somewhere on the path to long-term memory storage. However, the only time at which the memories can be accessed is when the subject is woken up from sleep.
There is my unsolicited two cents.
By: Wondahboy
Re: How to Kill a Human Being
I'm under the impression that if a person is undeniably guilty of a crime worthy of death, their death is a deterrent secondarily, but a cost-saving maneuver primarily. It's expensive to feed, house, and watch over these people as though they were children, and if they prove to be refractory against any kind of rehabilitation, then why bother maintaining them?
That's one part of me. Another part believes that many countries could learn from the prison system of Norway.
That's one part of me. Another part believes that many countries could learn from the prison system of Norway.
By: Wondahboy
Re: Bill Maher: Savage Reports
Am I wrong to be absolutely terrified of Mike Huckabee?
By: Wondahboy
Re: Diseases Are Caused by Sin (Not God)
You're suggesting negative eugenics against stupid people, but it's been well-accepted that this or any kind of eugenics also selects for nascent undesirable traits. It is an ineffective way to ameliorate the woes of being a human in a society.
I think that people generally find a dogma to follow because they lack the cognitive power to carve their own logical way through life. An atheist can categorically hate the spiritual person just as illogically as the fundamental can hate the non-believer. The categorical hater will actively deny those people they hate the benefit of the doubt, regardless of faction. Liberals can be just as much like hateful sheep as Conservatives. There is no escape from dogmatism and categorical thinking, so long as there is genetic variation, bad parents, a perseverance of intolerance, and a paucity of intellectually nourishing stimuli in popular culture. While I agree that this video was very obviously intended as a satire (to me), I cannot blame people for what they do or say. You're really mean.
I think that people generally find a dogma to follow because they lack the cognitive power to carve their own logical way through life. An atheist can categorically hate the spiritual person just as illogically as the fundamental can hate the non-believer. The categorical hater will actively deny those people they hate the benefit of the doubt, regardless of faction. Liberals can be just as much like hateful sheep as Conservatives. There is no escape from dogmatism and categorical thinking, so long as there is genetic variation, bad parents, a perseverance of intolerance, and a paucity of intellectually nourishing stimuli in popular culture. While I agree that this video was very obviously intended as a satire (to me), I cannot blame people for what they do or say. You're really mean.
By: Wondahboy
Re: George Carlin: Voting
Since when is it good rhetoric to forget proper punctuation and insult people? Maybe if you explained how to enjoy Carlin's comedy without all the spittle and condescension you'd accomplish something besides inflate your ego a little and make that person's opinion even stronger, thereby making the world's collective opinions just a little more heterogeneous, when we should be working towards homogeneity. but fuck it, right? but wait, don't fuck it, right? What was Carlin saying again? That's exactly why I still cannot enjoy Bob Dylan, the Beatles, punk rock, and Miles Davis. It's just so easy to excoriate someone when you could actually convince them. This isn't a presidential debate, you don't have to prove anything to anyone, and you actually have a shot at changing someone's opinion. It's just a thought.
By: Wondahboy
The torture policy does validate certain inhumane treatments of prisoners. If the soldiers overextended the policy, it's just as much their fault as President Bush's for not ensuring that such an unprecedented policy was enacted carefully. Bush is a messy coward.