As someone who researches the effects of video games on education (primarily on learners of English as another language) I can tell you the empirical research into the topic is not nearly so cut and dried.

There was a lot of hype about the "brain age"-type games when they first came out, some of which this video references, but what we know now is that those types of games only make you "smarter" in the sense that they make you better at solving similar puzzle-types. In other words, the gains you see are really just the effects of practice. The supposed "smartness" does not transfer over to other skill areas. See this link for more info: http://pamkato.com/2013/04/17/do-brain-training-games-work-yes-no-and-maybe/

So basically everything referenced in this video can be explained by "practice" rather than by some special characteristic of the video games themselves (certainly video games make the practice part fun, though). Furthermore, there is pronounced lack of research into whether the benefits such as those reported in this video actually mean anything significant (i.e. whether being able to more concretely differentiate different levels of gray when you are younger actually leads to better vision when you are older compared with non-gamers, whether you retain the ability to read small text as you age better than non-gamers, etc.).

I do believe there are cognitive benefits to ALL kinds of gaming (board games, pen-and-paper RPGs, card games like poker, crossword puzzles, tic-tac-toe, etc.) but based on the empirical evidence so far I'm not convinced there is anything particularly special about video games that leads players to become "smarter" in the sort of general sense that is being suggested here.

Thanks for the article. It kinda reads like an add for Jennifer Mathers' 'octopuses are smart' book. Her 2008 Consciousness and Cognition paper does a better job at laying out the most cephalopod behaviors impressive behaviors:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810006001504
. Don't get me wrong; I think cephaolopods totally awesome, but I don't see the case for them being cognitive leaps and bounds above other invertebrates. The behaviors that they are capable of are found elsewhere among inverts, yet people (often encouraged by Mathers or her coauthors on that book) seem to imply they are basically eight armed dogs of the sea:

Behavioral conditioning in the lab (which Mathers likes to call "learning") - Bees, butterflies
Moving objects to close off burrows - mantis shrimp
Carrying objects as temporary refuges - crabs
Individual recognition - wasps, lobsters?, mantis shrimp.
Complex spatial navigation - ants, bees.
Learning via observation - I'm not aware of other inverts that do this, but the cephalopod evidence is also pretty weak.

Maybe there are some more recent, and more convincing results?

Economic analysis from a marxist perspective can be dangerous to your health. You might develop an untamable urge to urinate on any Tories you might run across in the streets, after which you'll have your spinal curvature readjusted by a bunch of rozzers with nightsticks.

Imagine what it's like over here: a leading figure of our opposition is an outspoken communist of Iranian heritage, who also happens to be just about the only macroeconomist in parliament. You can literally see the cognitive dissonance in peoples' heads when she's presenting her case.

@Shepppard
ah...my young friend.
come over by the fire,your buddy enoch has some things to speak to you about.
are you comfy?
need a drink? beer? coffee?

then let us begin.

1.why do YOU care what another makes an hour?is it YOUR business?

but i understand the basic gist of your point:unskilled labor.

ok.thats a fair point.
but why is 15$ an hr too high?
what arbitrary scale are you comparing their hourly worth to?
walmart workers?

here is a facts that may give you some perspective:
a.if we take the minimum wage from 1978 and factor in inflation and worker productivity todays minimum should average 22$ an hour (yes...you read that right).
b.the workers in these unskilled jobs are in the high percentages in goverment subsidies.to the tune of 7 BILLION a year.so basically we ALL are subsidizing mcdonalds and walmart to pay their workers like shit.

so are you still against them getting a living wage? when you and i are subsidizing their income. the companies they work for get to pocket those profits,you and i get to help pay for their housing and food stamps.

walmart even helps ttheir employees sign up for food stamps! now isnt that adorable.

dont you think it a better idea that these companies pay their help at least enough where they dont need government susbizies? you know.like actually PAY them and not force us to?

2.if these corporations paid a minimum of 15$ an hr the projected hike in product prices will be......./drum roll.....
...........15 cents per item.........

3.how come it appears to be taboo to point to a CEO of a company who is making billions in bonuses while his/her workers are having to receive food stamps?
when did obscene gluttony and greed become something cool? even praiseworthy? while ridiculing those trying to survive and demanding a little bit of dignity as something to be chastised and cajoled for even having the impertinence to ask for a living wage.

the cognitive dissonance on display is on an epic scale.

who do YOU think you have more in common with?
the dude working at your local burger king?
or jamie dimon?

and dont even get me started on that condescending argument "get an education to get a better job".

i have been seeing many posts of late that reflect the very same flavor of yours @Shepppard and the one thing they all have in common is this judgemental value system that they just pulled out of their ass but in reality was given to them by the very people fucking them,and their children in the ass.

there will come a day when these people will realize they are slaves.
debt slaves.
wage slaves.
and while they were bickering the banksters and the corporate elite cleaned their clock.....
and they didnt notice until it was too late.

those elite fuckers.
they have a small club and you aint in it.
they dont like you.
they will never like you.
me?
im on your side man.

upvoted for the conversation sparked, not the video in and of itself.

Just to throw my two cents in: I think the vast majority of civilizations out there probably have intelligences similar to our own just because that is what evolution would dictate. This is of course based only on observing our own evolutionary path which is unfortunately the only model we have access too. But it does actually tell us quite a bit, based on an environment similar to ours it would appear that intelligence would plateau at a certain point because it just isn't beneficial to beings in early societal stages. Ie: you only need a certain amount of intelligence to outsmart a mammoth, this does not involve an innate understanding of complex mathematical principles.

That being said, since there are (probably) billions of planets that could support life I'm sure there are a couple outliers whose intelligent life has a more innate understanding of complex knowledge. It would "probably" be more nuanced than just beings whose intelligence completely dwarfs our own. Parts of their brain (or however you want to translate it to extraterrestrial anatomy) which handle physics or mathematics etc. may be larger giving an added dexterity to problem solving in that SPECIFIC cognitive fields. Similarly to how certain people have added capacity in one portion of their brain or another but does not make them gods in comparison to other.

The reality is that we probably already have met the superior godlike species and we created them. Computers already excel vastly over us in many areas and I'd assume it's only a matter of time before they surpass us entirely.

But hey there are almost assuredly an near infinite amount of planets out there, so maybe there is one where GOD evolved?

Laws must be reactionary, because you should not be punished for harms that you haven't yet committed.
'Imagined future harms' are a poor reason to take action against anyone.
Fundamentally, you're not in charge of other people's imagination. That's their business, not yours.

Inevitability is not an issue, incidents are inevitable for all drivers, without exception, so long as they keep driving.
Any non-zero probability will have an incident, given enough time.

Every driver is unique, and it is not deterministic that "driver A + 3 beers" is worse than "driver B".
It's not deterministic that driver B has a lower probability of incident.

These guys were good enough to get a license, and are legally 'suitable' to drive.
They are above the "absolute bar" determining 'ok' or 'not ok' to drive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeIJ0kQtLyg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I-OqmQc5hI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiRDv4nxe64
(Seriously, watch them end to end... it's amazing.)

Imagine the drivers that you know. Do you think a few beers will get them even close to as bad as the people in the links? Because it's enough to get them a DUI. Hence the irrationality of just saying "drink = unsuitable to drive".

There are lots things that impact your cognitive function.
too tired
too excited
too bored
too entertained
too preoccupied with memories
too preoccupied with anticipation
etc, etc, etc...
A driver at 90% attention due to these reasons is considered ok, but a driver at 95% attention [for whatever reason] ... that just happened to drink alcohol ... is a criminal. Again, irrationality.

The fact that you're operating in a diminished state /specifically/ due to alcohol is not meaningful.
How much you are diminished [regardless of why] is what matters - but that isn't even in the drinking and driving public discussion.
Heck, some people aren't even prepared when at 100% attention and 100% sober (like the folks in the links).

I generally dislike how unprepared drivers are.
Just being able to drive around a few blocks, parallel park, and answer a few questions from a booklet you just read 5 minutes prior, is crap criteria.
IMO, it shouldn't even be criteria until much later.
IMO, people should be able to proficiently autocross in the wet before they are even given a chance to begin learning the road rules.

IMO, people consider driving a necessity (which it is if you want a normal life), and they throw driving into the same bucket as walking.
Something they need to do every day, it's mundane, nothing special, nothing worth concerning yourself about.
If they have an "accident" (the term accident should really be "operator error" 99% of the time), they even get offended if you say that they screwed up.
Like as if it's just an "Oh well, shit happens" sort of thing, and blaming them for what they did is profane.

At the same time, there's a religion of "drinking and driving hate" that has mushroomed into something not far from crazies frothing at the mouth.
"He drank... and drove! Burn him! Burn him!" ...
Imagine being the person that was arrested, watching people talk to you like you're the antichrist himself ... and you never even hurt anyone. Discussing amongst themselves 'what they need to do to you'.

Punishing only harm has two benefits :
A) It focuses on real victims.
B) It only involves people who were demonstrably not suitable drivers (the harm is the demonstration) - without any emotional bias for the reason behind the unsuitability.

Using the law for deterrence is possibly even illegal in itself (If I had my way, it would be seen as so).
There is supposed to be "no cruel and unusual punishment".
If you ask "what makes is it cruel/unusual?" - the answer will be that it causes excessive suffering.
Deterrence consists of punishing people in excess (making examples), in the hopes that it scares 3rd parties.
So then the idea is that the suffering should be in proportion to the crime.
Making examples, is by definition, punishing in excess of what is deserved.
DUI laws are by design an exercise in exactly this.

-scheherazade

if you call yourself a republican or a democrat you will tend to lose perspective on reality.

the mere act of attaching your identity to a particular party caters to the ego, and clouds cognition. You will tend to "think" with the party.

which is stupid.

so don't

Your argument is purely reactionary. You're essentially saying that we should just let people drive as drunk as they want and only punish them when somebody inevitably gets hurt. Shouldn't we try to prevent people from getting hurt in the first place? Isn't that the whole point of having laws? If laws only matter once the blood is on the floor, why bother having them at all?

There's no reasonable justification for driving drunk. Alcohol impairs your cognitive functions and when driving, you need those functions at their sharpest. There's an established correlation between driving drunk and getting into accidents (often resulting in casualties). Therefore, it is completely reasonable to punish people for driving drunk. It has nothing to do with "disliking personal behaviors" and everything to do with statistical fact. If your personal behavior puts other people at risk, then yes, the law should punish you for it.

That aside, I completely agree that everyone should be punished for causing harm, regardless of their BAC or mental state when doing so.

I, too, feel the cognitive dissonance between the aesthetic beauty of the visuals and the tragedy of the humanitarian crisis unfolding amid the pink.

As Freud put it, insanity is defined by an inability to see reality, and I have met very few people who could, in fact, see reality. In my experience, most people are too busy looking at the world through the murky lens of their particular flavour of religion or ideology to actually ever want to be bothered with reality, and should even the tiniest sliver of the nasty stuff make its way past their defenses, the ensuing emotional (over)reaction is sure to keep their attention diverted to less offensive matters.

Most people are such a garbled mess of emotions, cognitive laziness and stupidity (because stupidity never seems to go out of style) that they're always bordering on... well, if not insanity, then at the very least obscene absurdity.

Going to the extreme ends of the spectrum just makes it more obvious.

I feel I can say with some authority that having worked with (primarily) schizophrenic patients for the last 3 years that you don't have the slightest clue what your talking about.

"She's a tiny step away from attacking these random strangers......she needs to be committed"

Yup, there's absolutely no hint here that she's the vulnerable one most likely to actually end up hurt or taken advantage of. (it's not like only around 10% (UK) of sufferers act violently) Better watch out for that crazy lady people! She's probably got an axe at home and everything....

"If you, or anybody were to try and talk to her and "understand" her, she would repay you with accusations of stalking and wanting to do her harm"

So you know her personally then? Maybe you read her case file instead? I'm sure you'd never make such an outrageously deep personal judgement about someone based on only a few video's clearly shot only during psychotic episodes!
Naturally you must have taken the time to find out what she's like when she's calm and comfortable and how her condition has developed over her lifetime, I mean what kind of colossally judgemental anus would make a sweeping character judgement without doing that? Not you I'm sure

So tell me. Has she had any cognitive behavioural therapy? Did she respond well? How frequently has she suffered episodes in the past? Is this a recent condition? What medication is she on? What kind of family support does she have? Has she ever committed a serious violent act in the past? Does she have friends? Is there any history of self harm, eating disorders, learning difficulties? Has she ever displayed suicidal ideation? Has she been institutionalised in the past? How did she respond to that? Has she ever refused treatment? ETC. ETC. ETC!!!!

"And what is there to understand?"

Yeh what's there to try and understand about the personal complexities of another human beings anguish? Clearly she just needs to be locked up in Bedlam and drugged with all the other crazies!.........
...........Disgusted beyond words

"This is the kind of video blankfist would post, and then leave me a personal comment saying something about how this video demonstrates that all of my political beliefs are wrong, when all it really demonstrates is the level of cognitive dissonance inherent in the entire conservative worldview."

Except I was never a conservative. And that's also assuming a lot from me. And possibly a misrepresentation of my character. Glad to see things didn't change while I was out.

@skinnydaddy1
seriously dude?

redirect? are you even aware of the meaning of that term?
i have been very clear on my position.
i was just addressing your apparent cognitive dissonance which you just solidified in your last comment.

so i gather you are going to stick with your SECOND position and have decided to abandon your FIRST position.

ok..fine.
this is starting to bore me anyways.

1.what war crimes did he show?
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16731-bradley-mannings-legal-duty-to-expose-war-crimes

http://pakistan.shafaqna.com/shafaq/item/10102-bradley-manning-exposed-us-%E2%80%98war-crimes%E2%80%99.html

2.what corruption did he show?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks

3.what did he do that made him your hero?
already answered.multiple times.

4.For there to be whistleblower should there not be something wrong that he has knowledge of?
see:links above

5.He stated he did not like what was being done in the United States citizens names. What exactly? And what gave him the right to claim anything in my name? anyone's name?

again,see:links above.
your consequent follow up questions deal with a subjective morality.the answer will be different for everyone and manning has already explained quite clearly his reasons.

i presume those reasons are not adequate for you and you would have chosen a different path and hold manning in contempt.
it appears you put your oath above all else.
even at the detriment of others.

on this we fundamentally disagree.

6.You and the rest of your little group keep saying the same thing and yet never manager to answer a single question. What makes him a hero?

me and my little group like to "read".

i suggest you do the same.

i am now done with this.i can already see where this is going.your desire to be "right" will over-power your ability to listen to dissenting voices contradicting your internal narrative.

any and all new information with be dealt with as somehow being inherently "wrong" for the simple fact of being in conflict with your opinion.
which will devolve any productive discussion into a quagmire of red herrings and straw man arguments.

and all of it predicated on the assumption that i wish to change your mind in regards to this particular incident.

which of course i dont.
because i dont really care what you think.

your ignorance is obvious.
your arguments are flimsy and disjointed and in direct conflict with each other.
but most of all....
you are boring.

God, this thread....It's rather mind-numbing-

"And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird (and Wolf)." Rev: 18:12, choggiphrased

Let this 134rth comment go down on record as another reiteration of the fact that CNN is nothing more than a programming organization, with so-called "news" as a facade for an agenda to render it' s viewers cognitively sterile through stultifyingly, surfeited horseshit.

More please Blitzor, on that mother who held her daughter like a kite by the hair to keep her in the bathtub??