Mind Hacks

This is just a mess of links from Mind Hacks that I found interesting.


**Since mzrowan posted something on attacks of sleep, I will follow up with violent sleepers.

**A brief bit about the history of sexual surgeries, including some words from the patients in the 19th century.



**An interesting interview with Wade Davis, who has done a lot of work on mind-altering substances and how cultural context interacts with their effects, which is fascinating.

Two bits struck me. The first because I have friends who have tried ayahuasca.

It’s interesting how these things change though. I find it fascinating that there is this ayahuasca phenomenon, it’s literally sweeping Europe and sweeping the United States. I meet young people who take ayahuasca and they speak so positively about the experience whereas I remember the whole point of ayahuasca was facing down the jaguar, being ripped away from the tit of jaguar woman. That was sort of what its point was.

And the second because it makes a lot of sense to me.

That said, I found that psychedelics were extremely useful to me when I was young, when I was trying to de-construct the world that I had been born into but didn’t necessarily want to live in. And then as I carefully constructed a world, became married, became a father, developed a career, created a world, I found psychedelics profoundly disorienting and not very helpful.

In PR, the theory of the sleeper effect is a powerful one, but counter-intuitive - messages that are more effective later than when they are first presented. There does seem to be such effect, but under two specific circumstances: A big first impression and a source we don't trust. One caveat, we have to be made aware of the source's untrustworthiness after we've heard the message, or we just dismiss the message out of hand and the effect is diminished.

**Using some of the research on the Illusion of Control to battle pseudoscience

**A pretty extensive roundup of the controversy about the American Anthropological Association's controversial decision to change the wording of their mission to remove the word "science".

Who Goes Nazi?

A fascinating article from a 1941 issue of Harper's Magazine, Who Goes Nazi?"

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one's acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times - in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.
[...]
Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.

It is an interesting read, and I started it not realizing it was written in 1941. I thought it was more recent but mimicking an older style.

And in a strange way, this story Shira linked to speaks to some of the same issues.

I'll do anything for love, but I won't do that.

If I ever start smearing myself with an addictive substance in order to get an addict to be more into me by associating my body with her addiction, please just point and laugh at me until I slink away in shame.

What do you call your romantic partners?

It's a question that gets dredged up constantly with any number of permutations and I'm certainly not going to lecture anyone on their choices. (Assuming you aren't constantly calling them abusive names or some such.)

I still cling to "girlfriend" as implying some level of commitment and priority, although quantifying it remains a nebulous exercise.

I enjoy reading about how other people navigate the issue, especially those in relationships the culture doesn't have a default script for, which is why I enjoyed reading this article by a cis woman dating a trans man about her struggle to come up with terms and titles.