Willpower and Stupidity

Is the ancient virtue of willpower still relevant in the modern age?

We eat, drink, smoke and gamble too much, max out our credit cards, fall into dangerous liaisons and become addicted to heroin, cocaine and e-mail.

...In experiments beginning in the late 1960s, the psychologist Walter Mischel tormented preschoolers with the agonizing choice of one marshmallow now or two marshmallows 15 minutes from now. When he followed up decades later, he found that the 4-year-olds who waited for two marshmallows turned into adults who were better adjusted, were less likely to abuse drugs, had higher self-esteem, had better relationships, were better at handling stress, obtained higher degrees and earned more money. _NYT

A more scientific term for willpower is executive function (EF), coordinated in the prefrontal lobes of the brain. Together with intelligence (IQ), levels of EF powerfully determine life success over the years. EF can be improved by training in children, but such training should occur between the ages of 4 and 7 for maximum benefit.

The interaction of willpower and stupidity is more complex than most people understand. First, what do we mean by "stupidity?"

"A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."

"Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation."

"Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake."

"Our daily life is mostly, made of cases in which we lose money and/or time and/or energy and/or appetite, cheerfulness and good health because of the improbable action of some preposterous creature who has nothing to gain and indeed gains nothing from causing us embarrassment, difficulties or harm. Nobody knows, understands or can possibly explain why that preposterous creature does what he does. In fact there is no explanation - or better there is only one explanation: the person in question is stupid." _Science20

Stupidity arises from multiple causes. Low intelligence, spite, ignorance, laziness (lack of willpower), miscalculation, and unavoidable constraint propagation (bad luck) are just a few of the many causes of stupidity and stupid people.

In the United States, stupidity has become concentrated near seats of power such as Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. Government is one obvious host and purveyor of mass stupidity, along with all other institutions which are closely involved with government -- such as labour unions, news media, education, financial and economic institutions, law enforcement, the courts etc. Even the military -- which believe it or not is the most competent branch of government -- has been infiltrated by politically correct stupidity via social promotion of PC-favoured officers and the enforcement of politically correct policies.

Labour unions have become the seat of stupidity in a particular way recently, thanks to the union-friendly Obama regime. A violent storming, vandalism, and assault of a port in Washington state goes unpunished by government officials. While warming up a crowd for President Obama, Jimmy Hoffa Jr. tells Obama to "take out the son of a bitches," referring to Tea Party members and Republicans, and neither Hoffa nor the Obama White House will apologise for this rather blatant lapse of civility in the midst of an official Obama event. AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka dictates to Obama what he needs to say in his jobs speech before a joint session of congress -- encouraging the president to "go to the mat" -- and is rewarded for his presumption by being seated next to Michelle Obama for the president's speech.

These are all examples of stupidity by labour union officials and thugs. But many more similar examples occur on a regular basis. If the general public were to become widely aware of this stupidity, the political fortunes of Mr. Obama and those close to him would deteriorate even more quickly than at present. But for now, the news media continues to overlook and cover up the mistakes of Obama and his friends.

Mr. Obama's stupidity is not only in his friends and hangers on, but is engrained in every policy that he has pursued since being inaugurated. His war against the private sector, his war against energy, his promotion of a bankrupting "green jobs agenda," his vilifying of national allies and his cozying up with national antagonists, his diverting of scarce national assets into the purses of political cronies, his irreversible expansion of government mandate and government debt, his unprecedentedly divisive effect on society -- all of these evidences of stupidity and more should be enough to portray Obama's administration as "the stupid regime."

It should be obvious that willpower is not a simple antidote to stupidity. In fact, stupid people often pursue their stupid agendas with the utmost will.

It is true that if the masses had exerted more willpower in their oversight of government and government officials, that this massive clusterfuck could have never grown so bad so quickly. But that was then, and this is now. What do we do now?

Can the example problem -- the rise of stupidity in US government and society -- be solved within the political and societal structure, or will entirely new structures and forms of organisation be necessary?

This question will be explored in future articles.

Cross-posted from Al Fin blog

Poor Future Orientation, Poor Executive Function

Humans with an inability to postpone gratification for purposes of future profit tend to have poorer executive functioning of the frontal lobes of the brain. This mental deficit is reflected in adult life by a consistently lower personal net financial worth, than will be seen in other adults with better frontal lobe function.

Executive Function (EF) of the human frontal lobes has been found to be a better predictor of life success than a person's IQ score. EF reflects the person's ability to stick to a task until it is finished, and a person's ability to control his emotions in social settings. Delayed gratification for purposes of future gain is a very important aspect of healthy executive function of the brain.

Previous studies have suggested that EF is highly heritable. A recent study of net financial worth of women ages 36 to 49, compared by race, provides rough support for inheritance of EF as a partial explanation for wealth discrepancy.

In a groundbreaking report released Monday by a leading economic research group, social scientists turned a spotlight on the grave financial challenges facing an often overlooked group of women, many of whom could not take an unpaid sick day or repair a major appliance without going into debt.

"It's rather shocking," said Meizhu Lui, director of the Closing the Gap Initiative based in Oakland, Calif., who contributed to the report "Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth and America's Future."

Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5. _Source

Executive Summary of report PDF

Full report PDF

In mainstream academic and media culture, there is no room for explanations that include inherited characteristics such as EF or IQ -- at least when it comes to deficiencies of people of colour. But in the real world of falsifiable science, it is criminal and corrupt not to look at genetic and heritable characteristics that may partially explain group differences.

Of course we are seeing a lot more corrupted science in these days of radical political correctness and engineered green leftist dieoff policies. Such policies are largely responsible for a diminished respect for science and academia.

There is a developmental window when executive function can be trained -- up to the age of 7. Children of all races and ethnic backgrounds could profit from such training. But if those with a heritable deficit in EF are not trained to maximise their EF, society itself is at fault. And every person in that society will pay for that neglect.

Zombies in the Making

Human history is full of examples of ambitious people who discovered the "back door password" into human minds. Using this key, turning human beings into zombie followers was not so difficult.

Throughout history, it seems as though individuals had the ability to sway others to follow them no matter where they [led]. In the las[t] century, both Hitler and Mussolini had the ability to bend millions of people to their fascist will.

...Scott Wiltermuth of Stanford University in California and colleagues have found that activities performed in unison, such as marching or dancing, increase loyalty to the group.

"It makes us feel as though we're part of a larger entity, so we see the group's welfare as being as important as our own," he says.

...Psychologist Jonathan Haidt at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville thinks this research helps explain why fascist leaders, amongst others, use organised marching and chanting to whip crowds into a frenzy of devotion to their cause....

...our brains are geared to mimic our peers.

"We are set up for 'auto-copy'," says Haidt.

Neurological evidence seems to back this idea. Vasily Klucharev, at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, found that the brain releases more of the reward chemical dopamine when we fall in line with the group consensus. _Source

Populist leaders who have learned the secret can seemingly come out of nowhere to control an entire population. While it appears that they have turned thinking humans into complete zombies, the true situation is more complex. The potential for zombification always existed, waiting for the proper key to fit the lock.

Far more interesting to me are the "skeptics", the "resisters". Independent thinking persons who generate their own goals and stoke their own energies to create their own lives, are the starting material for the next level. Zombies and would-be zombies are flimsy, too subject to the changing winds and tides. To create a next-level human, one must start with the best materials.

It is instructive to observe the history of the American colonies, as they evolved over time. Stubborn and strong minded persons tended to flock together and created one environment, while more pliable and group-minded persons flocked to create a different environment. As settlements of even the strongest-minded individuals evolved, natural flocking tendencies began to predominate, and the more independent persons migrated out to more open territory that required a tougher-minded sort.

There is little question but that the relative strength of independence vs. conformity lies at least partially in genetic factors. Environment no doubt plays a strong part in strengthening innate tendencies toward either group-think or independence. Executive function combined with IQ and other personality and character traits, all are both largely heritable and strongly influenced by environment. Why should zombie-potential be any different?

And perhaps we do not need to go back in history at all, to see successful examples of zombification?

Cross posted at Al Fin

Can Obama Be a Messiah to Black Males?

There is a sense of optimism among many US blacks regarding the so-far successful candidacy of Barak Obama. This ecstatic burst of utopianism extends well beyond the US black community into Europe--even to Islamic terror organisations--but it is US blacks whose hopes are elevated to the most rapturous levels.

If Obama could do anything to help black males in the US, perhaps it would be worth it to elect him president just for that. What are the challenges?

In examining graduation rates, the report finds a national graduation rate for black males (47 percent) that is 28 percentage points lower than the graduation rate for white males (75 percent). In ten states, the difference in graduation rates for black males and white males is 30 percentage points or more...In addition to low graduation rates, black males also have "consistently low educational attainment levels, are more chronically unemployed and underemployed, are less healthy and have access to fewer health care resources, die much younger, and are many times more likely to be sent to jail for periods significantly longer than males of other racial/ethnic groups," according to the report. _Source_via_JoanneJacobs

As a group, black males are the chronic statistical laggards of US society. Can Barak Obama do anything at all to help them? The problem is vast and begins at a very early age.

In the country as a whole, the number of Black students in Special Education classes is disproportionately high and the number in Gifted/Talented programs is disproportionately low. The number of Black students, particularly Black male students, who receive out-of-school suspensions and are expelled is also disproportionately high. _Source_via_JoanneJacobs

A quick look at the chart above shows that as bad as young black males are doing in school, their sisters--born of the same parents, raised in the same homes, and eating the same foods--are actually doing fairly well.

Why are black girls doing reasonably well by comparison? Black girls, in contrast to the boys, get pretty good grades, go to college at decent rates and graduate from college at very good rates, earning degrees as twice the rate of men. _Source_via_JoanneJacobs

Black males are staggeringly over-represented in the prison population--44% of prisoners, and only 5% or so of the population (black males of prison age). The overall IQ average for American blacks is 85. That is 1 standard deviation below the overall mean of roughly 100. It very possible that the black male average IQ is even less than the overall US black average IQ, looking at comparative life success.

We know that executive function (EF) is more important than IQ for life success, although EF lacks a comparably accepted metric to IQ, so it is more difficult to compare EF statistics. EF can be improved by training (Posner, Rothbart), which should be done not much later than age 6. Even so, EF--like IQ--is highly heritable, so that there are limits to what training can do. Still, better trained than not.

Finally, if Barak Obama becomes US President next January, will the IQ's and EF's of black males magically and instantly normalise? Will we see abrupt drops in criminal and delinquent behaviour from black males? Will black males suddenly begin succeeding in school--from kindergarten through college? Will the exaggerated strut of young black males suddenly have a full complement of efficacy and competence backing it up?

Probably not. Not immediately, and not for a very long time. Then what will become of all of the magical expectations floating around the messianic candidacy of Barak Obama?

Obama has no substantive achievements, no particular experience or accomplishments to prepare him for the challenges he would face as chief executive of the world's only superpower. But never mind all that. Born of a white mother, raised largely by a white family, and only absorbing the victimist culture of black America secondhand--what has prepared Obama to pull black males out of the incredibly deep hole they are in?

Memory Theory from Develintel

Chris Chatham of Developing Intelligence Blog has a dynamite posting today on "Visualizing Working Memory." Chris finds that the conventional view of human memory as pictured above, is deficient in several ways, that he details in his post.

Although hugely influential, the model has a few unfortunate shortcomings.

Most importantly, memory is not a static process. Memory decays unless it follows the cycle of learning, encoding, recall, and recoding. In contrast, the classic "modal" model distinguishes storage functions from processing functions - i.e., one is a "black box" and one is a "black arrow." Unfortunately, this distinction is artificial, because the brain contains only arrows: processing (activation) and memory (synaptic efficacy) are two sides of the same coin, and memory itself is a process.

Second, all arrows are not created equal. "Architectural" differences (such as the synaptic efficacy of recurrent connections) among different parts of the brain lead to different processing profiles. These profiles can differ in terms of bandwidth, or in other words, how much information they are capable of holding at a time. Orthogonal to bandwidth, these profiles can also differ in terms of decay rate (or alternately, vulnerability to interference): that is, some regions are capable of maintaining information indefinitely while others are capable of maintaining memories for less than one second.

Third, multiple processing paths require gating functions. Perhaps the largest advantage of removing the "boxes" from the traditional "box and arrow" diagram is that one must become explicit about the functions performed at every step. As a result, such diagrams will be more likely to provide a nice one-to-one relationship between cognitive functions and neuroanatomy. And pure-arrow diagrams remove the need for some elusive "executive functioning" box to coordinate and configure the processes; instead, one need only posit a gating function at the intersection of every arrow with another, in which some process allows information to pass along from one arrow to the next (probably based on dopamine fluctuations).

Then Chris describes his own developing model of memory, which is pictured below and to the left. He has drawn his own model to better reflect the physiological realities of memory as he has discovered them to be.
Sensory Memory. As you can see from the image ...., incoming sensory information has an extremely high initial bandwidth, and a rapid rate of decay, as indicated by the fat, short arrows. Furthermore, there is no rehearsal process, and sensory memory is constantly overwriting itself. This is indicated visually by the multiple arrows which overlap, and quickly diminish in width.

Working Memory. This process slowly transitions into a relatively low-capacity - and low-decay - polymodal short-term/working memory process, as indicated by the smaller width of the arrows in the middle of the diagram. Importantly, the width of this arrow does not shrink over time, indicating that the rate of decay is extremely low; indeed, we can hold somewhere between 4 and 7 items in working memory (depending on modality) without decay.

This short-term/working memory process feeds two unique rehearsal processes, each of which is relatively robust to decay yet limited in bandwidth: an articulatory rehearsal process, as well as an "inner scribe" which supports imagery functions (such as mental rotation). These rehearsal processes essentially "refresh" short-term/working memory with previous information, allowing it to be maintained over time.

Long Term Memory. Finally, the entire diagram rests above the base of one massive arrow that folds back on itself: this represents long-term memory. Long-term memory has an essentially unlimited capacity, as indicated by this arrow's enormous base width, but is subject to decay and interference over time. Items can be retrieved from long-term memory, at which point a "gating function" permits us to actively think about the past (i.e., rehearse it), or to merely let it recur and disappear again from our "mind's eye."

Read the entire article here.

I am not surprised that Chris has referred to work from Gerald Edelman's lab in previous posts. This model reminds me of some of Edelman's concepts of memory, as described by Rosenfeld in The Invention of Memory. Chris has some very impressive postings on his blog. Be sure to look through them.