1. My understanding of what the Wired article was saying is the same as yours - that the phenomena is due to numerical comprehension rather than empathy. The focus of my sentence about it was meant to be on their reference to Asberger's which suggests a lack of empathy but my wording may have been clumsy.
2, Do read the actual paper I linked carefully. As I said, although it does mention "psychophysical" issues that could be misread the way Wired does it quite unambiguously concludes that the issue is affect rather than the conclusions you repeat from the Wired article. The Wired writer simply invented those conclusions which had nothing whatever to do with the research.
3. Especially interesting are the fact that the reduction in compassion kicks in when 2 individuals are highlighted instead of just one, and when statistics are ADDED to an emotive focus on one. That is very clearly NOT a "strictly intellectual process" and THAT was the point of the paper - opposite to Wired.
4. I'm sure the research will be used for marketing a wide range of humanitarian causs, not just those related to genocide and that the authors moral choice was to work for the common good.
My point was that the critique about larger numbers of preventable deaths from other causes is not answered at all by the reference to heinous acts by known human antagonists. Rather that reveals an irrational criteria.
5. This links to my own critique of the actual research - that peoples psychology on these matters has social causes. If correct the conclusion should be that we need social changes rather than more emotive marketing of humanitarian causes. It is in fact totally absurd in this day and age that we allow parts of our own species to die of starvation, disease or genocide etc while depending on marketing techniques to privately mobilize resources from people who don't control the wealth of society with research on how to better appeal to their emotions instead of those who produce the wealth of society actually controlling it and using it appropriately.
6. There are in fact known human antagonists whose heinous acts are responsible for deaths from poverty, starvation, disease etc as well as genocide. They form a ruling class. Focusing emotively on them as individuals would work no better than similar focus on their individual victims. Some no doubt live exemplary lives. But failure to grasp that it is the social requirements for maintaining a separate minority ruling grasp that necessitate the cognitive failures of the majority is a glaring indication of the contrast between real social science as engaged in by people like Marx and this sort of stuff.
7. Thanks for the tip re being able to (partially) circumvent the absurdity of not being able to get papers through the internet by a trip to the local library. Again this waste of resources for both individuals and local libraries highlights the absurdities of the system of private property. It does help maintain both the unscientific character of the research and the ignorance of the people - more so where there are no local libraries, but even where there are.
8. Repeat do read the paper and compare with the Wired article.
2, Do read the actual paper I linked carefully. As I said, although it does mention "psychophysical" issues that could be misread the way Wired does it quite unambiguously concludes that the issue is affect rather than the conclusions you repeat from the Wired article. The Wired writer simply invented those conclusions which had nothing whatever to do with the research.
3. Especially interesting are the fact that the reduction in compassion kicks in when 2 individuals are highlighted instead of just one, and when statistics are ADDED to an emotive focus on one. That is very clearly NOT a "strictly intellectual process" and THAT was the point of the paper - opposite to Wired.
4. I'm sure the research will be used for marketing a wide range of humanitarian causs, not just those related to genocide and that the authors moral choice was to work for the common good.
My point was that the critique about larger numbers of preventable deaths from other causes is not answered at all by the reference to heinous acts by known human antagonists. Rather that reveals an irrational criteria.
5. This links to my own critique of the actual research - that peoples psychology on these matters has social causes. If correct the conclusion should be that we need social changes rather than more emotive marketing of humanitarian causes. It is in fact totally absurd in this day and age that we allow parts of our own species to die of starvation, disease or genocide etc while depending on marketing techniques to privately mobilize resources from people who don't control the wealth of society with research on how to better appeal to their emotions instead of those who produce the wealth of society actually controlling it and using it appropriately.
6. There are in fact known human antagonists whose heinous acts are responsible for deaths from poverty, starvation, disease etc as well as genocide. They form a ruling class. Focusing emotively on them as individuals would work no better than similar focus on their individual victims. Some no doubt live exemplary lives. But failure to grasp that it is the social requirements for maintaining a separate minority ruling grasp that necessitate the cognitive failures of the majority is a glaring indication of the contrast between real social science as engaged in by people like Marx and this sort of stuff.
7. Thanks for the tip re being able to (partially) circumvent the absurdity of not being able to get papers through the internet by a trip to the local library. Again this waste of resources for both individuals and local libraries highlights the absurdities of the system of private property. It does help maintain both the unscientific character of the research and the ignorance of the people - more so where there are no local libraries, but even where there are.
8. Repeat do read the paper and compare with the Wired article.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment