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Radical Changes at Cathy’s World [Dan Collins]

If you want to be part of her world today,

Sign here, save a pet, or pray–if you pray.

Damage to an area of the brain behind the forehead, inches behind the eyes, transforms the way people make moral judgments in life-or-death situations, scientists are reporting today. In a new study, people with this rare injury expressed increased willingness to kill or harm another person if doing so would save others’ lives.

Damage to the Prefrontal Cortex Increases Utilitarian Moral Judgements (Nature)

The findings are the most direct evidence to date that humans’ native revulsion for hurting others relies on a part of neural anatomy, one that likely evolved before the brain regions responsible for analysis and planning.

Watch the left claim that it is responsible for war-supporters, but not harvesters of stem-cells from fetuses.  Related considerations here.

Capybara aficionados include President Hugo Chávez, who grew up in Barinas, a state on Venezuela’s steamy plains where capybaras are common. On his television show, “Hello, President,” Mr. Chávez has promoted capybara empanadas washed down with papaya juice.

Which is great, because in a few more years that will be about all they have to eat.

I couldn’t find any capybara recipes in English, but I did find some for nutria in this thread, search for Rusty Hammer, about halfway down.

AppleTV impressions.

The actor was just 7 when his father was first sent to prison, for murdering a Texas businessman. He was in college when his father was convicted of the judge’s assassination.

This is your body, given for my gustation.

Cuckoo.

19 Replies to “Radical Changes at Cathy’s World [Dan Collins]”

  1. Michael_The_Rock says:

    Watch the left claim that it is responsible for war-supporters, but not harvesters of stem-cells from fetuses.

    Watch the left claim that this problem not only results from injury, but from genetic abnormalities as well, ie: conservatives are born crazy.

  2. Damage to an area of the brain behind the forehead, inches behind the eyes, transforms the way people make moral judgments in life-or-death situations, scientists are reporting today. In a new study, people with this rare injury expressed increased willingness to kill or harm another person if doing so would save others’ lives.

    I wonder if banging your head against the ground can cause the injury.

  3. McGehee says:

    …conservatives are born crazy.

    Ironically, I was reading the excerpt and thinking, “It takes an injury to cause that? But I was born that way.”

  4. McGehee says:

    But then, I’m 3/4 Irish and 1/4 Scottish, so what can you do?

  5. McGehee says:

    Any bets that this portion:

    …if doing so would save others’ lives.

    …gets completely overlooked in most discussions of the study?

  6. Dan Collins says:

    Yes, they describe the operation of this brain region as like a “thumb on the scale” of a purely rational consideration.  Damasio is a very interesting guy.

  7. Capybara aficionados include President Hugo Chávez,

    Ya know, I like capybaras, too, but not for lunch.

  8. RC says:

    Just how stupid do you have to be to believe that the tendency to defend others is a result of brain damage.  Sheesh, what kind of idiot even came up with the original thesis.  Talk about humans shorting out evolution.  If these idiots were in our gene pool earlier in our evolution the planet would be dominated by either cockroaches or gerbils…or maybe fuzzy bunny rabbits with great sharp teeth.

  9. RC says:

    Ah, I see.  With this whoppingly huge sample of 6 people they really think they’ve found a causal relationship.  It seems much more likely that with such a small sample size they’ve demonstrated that the incidence of moonbattery is very low.  Since none of the six people were gelatineously cowardly enough to not be able to make a moral judgement it seems more likely that a normal person is able to more effectively make life-or-death decisions that would completely freeze a morally deficient moonbat.

    tw: Or else75 maybe these idiots just need to go back and repeat research methods 101.

  10. Al Maviva says:

    Isn’t a capybara basically the world’s largest rat?  Which makes eating it sort of icky?

    TW:  I like the food here, Ixtliqik, but the meat tastes a little off79.  Is it capybara?

  11. FabioC. says:

    I don’t know, RC, the sample is indeed small but the study may be onto something. This is not the only study reaching similar conclusions – that brain damage can dramatically alter one’s emotions and even morals.

  12. Isn’t a capybara basically the world’s largest rat?

    More like a hamster.

  13. furriskey says:

    A hamster on steroids.

  14. His Frogness says:

    “Hello, President”!?!?!?!?

    followed by prime time “Me and Hugo”, and then later, on The H Word, Hugo breaks up with Isabelle and finds love for her sisterm who just so happens to LOVE eating capybaras.

    Communism sucks.

  15. He was in college when his father was convicted of the judge’s assassination.

    The Houston Chronicle had an article on that this morning.  The web headline is: Woody Harrelson’s assassin father dies in prison.  The dead trees headline was much more sedate: Texas federal judge’s assassin dies in his cell

    The article, taken from the San Antonio Express-News, describes the senior Harrelson’s thoughts on his actions and eventual demise.  These came up at his trial.  For instance, the Feds retrieved a notepad from his hotel room:

    A second passage on the pad also came into evidence, although the FBI agent was less certain about the handwriting.

    “I wish to be cremated with absolutely no religious services,” it said. “My ashes should be spread over the John H. Wood Jr. Courthouse in San Antonio.”

    John H. Wood Jr. is the federal judge he assassinated.

    More here.

  16. EricP says:

    Funny, I had the same reaction as McGehee.  My thought, “I guess I’m brain damaged because I can’t contemplate not being willing to defend other people”.

    I personally see this as just another cog in the lefty process of changing soldiers into a victim/identity group.  They only fight to defend us because they are BRAIN DAMAGED!  Don’t you FEEL for them.  BRING THE POOR SOLDIERS HOME NOW!!!!!!

  17. Major John says:

    Odd, I enlisted before I started playing rugby and got those concussions – so what is my excuse???

  18. narciso79 says:

    Of course, it has been speculated by some, that Charles Harrelson, was one of the three ‘tramps’

    photographed near Dealey Plaza, around the time

    of the Kennedy Assassination. So if only one of

    the fired US Attorneys.s were investigating this angle, so naturally they had to. . .One of the

    many problems with this theory, is that this

    prominent a ‘mechanic’ wouldn’t be used to hit

    a federal judge, However, Judge Wood’s replacement

    was Judge William Sessions, who more than a decade

    later, became the FBI director. . .

  19. DaveInCO says:

    A hamster on steroids.

    And even if he does hit number 756 this year, Hank AAron will still be the homerun king.  As far as I am concerned.

    A normal42 person’s forehead doesn’t look like a buttcheek.

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