Slashdot Mirror
A Shopping-Scanner Darkly
An anonymous reader writes "Using functional MRI scans, researchers have found which parts of the brain are active when people consider buying something and can predict whether or not they'll ultimately bite. One of the main findings was that rather than weighing a choice between the pleasure of making a purchase and the delayed gratification of using the dough for something else, the brain is actually weighing between the pleasure of buying and the pain of forking over the cash."
Would someone please stick a sock in this Imam's mouth?
Thanks in advance,
Kilgore Trout, Patriot
My topic is nothing new. However, since no one else has found it fit to address directly, I will address it here. It is worth noting at the outset that when Pat Robertson was first found trying to direct social activity toward philanthropic flimflam rather than toward the elimination of the basic deficiencies in the organization of our economic and cultural life, I was scared. I was scared not only for my personal safety; I was scared for the people I love. And now that Robertson is planning to commit confrontational, in-your-face acts of violence, intimidation, and incivility, I'm indubitably terrified. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that he owns drawers and boxes full of legal documents, which he is convinced prove his position? Stripping from the term "counterexpostulation" the negative connotations it evokes, I will try to solve the problems of phallocentrism, deconstructionism, economic inequality, and lack of equal opportunity. Robertson is trying hard to convince a substantial number of self-centered gasbags to cause this country to flounder on the shoals of self-interest, corruption, and chaos. He presumably believes that the "hundredth-monkey phenomenon" will spontaneously incite distasteful carpetbaggers to behave likewise. The reality, however, is that if Robertson doesn't realize that it's generally considered bad style to mold the mind of virtually every citizen -- young or old, rich or poor, simple or sophisticated -- then he should read one of the many self-help books on the subject. I recommend he buy one with big print and lots of pictures. Maybe then, Robertson will grasp the concept that he claims that if he kicks us in the teeth, we'll then lick his toes and beg for another kick. I would say that that claim is 70% folderol, 20% twaddle, and 10% another homophobic attempt to force us to do things or take stands against our will. Robertson's argument that without his superior guidance, we will go nowhere is hopelessly flawed and totally circuitous. If Robertson were to use more accessible language, then a larger number of people would be able to understand what he's saying. The downside for Robertson, of course, is that a larger number of people would also understand that small minds are little troubled by this. Excuse me; that's not entirely correct. What I meant to say is that frightful four-flushers like Robertson often think they have the right to cure the evil of discrimination with more discrimination. Am I aware of how Robertson will react when he reads that last sentence? Yes. Do I care? No, because I have a dream, a mission, a set path that I would like to travel down. Specifically, my goal is to identify, challenge, defy, disrupt, and, finally, destroy the institutions that pursue an oligophrenic agenda under the guise of false concern for the environment, poverty, civil rights, or whatever. Of course, time cannot change his behavior. Time merely enlarges the field in which Robertson can, with ever-increasing intensity and thoroughness, trick us into trading freedom for serfdom.
The simple, regrettable truth is that Robertson's values represent a backward step of hundreds of years, a backward step into a chasm with no bottom save the endless darkness of death. Dysfunctional oligarchs demand the advantages other people have earned without the disadvantages, like having to earn them. Yet there is one crucial fact that we must not overlook if we are to perceive our current situation as it is, rather than in the anamorphosis of some "ideology" such as simplism or mandarinism. Specifically, just the other day, some of Robertson's ultra-maledicent mercenaries forced a prospectus into my hands as I walked past. The prospectus described Robertson's blueprint for a world in which the most pharisaical big-mouths you'll ever see are free to sensationalize all of the issues. As I dropped the prospectus onto an overflowing waste
The University of Chicago has recently installed a 9.4 Tesla superconducting magnet for fMRI brain research. They claim this MRI can resolve down to individual neurons, and can even watch them fire. A press report is available here.