Victims With Closed Minds Dominate Campuses

[From article]
Even President Barack Obama recently lamented the declining state of affairs on America’s college campuses. Essentially, a doctrinaire sense of victimology has descended upon campuses such that free speech, critical thinking, and debate are all but abolished in favor of “Safe spaces.” The complaints are extensive and well-founded. Allan Bloom’s concern in the 1980s about the “Closing of the American Mind” is profound, real, and upon us at today’s university campuses
[. . .]



The public poorly understands how dire the communication culture is on college campuses -- especially in election years like this one. We must seek dramatic reforms to prevent the painful reality check that must await the students of Coddle University. Here are the steps that should be taken:
State legislatures should convene hearings to examine the tax-exempt statuses of universities.
[. . .]



2. 15% of student fee moneys should be spent on student activities that encourage open dialogue and debate: debate teams, public debates, mock trial, and similar student advocacy activities. Most universities raise between $250,000 and $500,000 a year in student fees. In Ohio, I worked at a school where fees went to clubs such as: the masturbation club, the X-box club (they bought gaming consoles), and the California appreciation club.
[. . .]



At issue here are our paramount civil rights found in the First Amendment. Colleges and universities are creating intellectually stifling environments comparable to Jim Crow America. Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition must flow from the citadels of critical thinking that should be American colleges and universities. The reactionary ideology against individual rights that corrodes the minds of our young people since the 1960s must be confronted and reversed.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/reforming_academia_in_2016.html

April 23, 2016
Reforming Academia in 2016
By Ben Voth

Drug Industry Promotes Dangerous New Drug In New York Times

Promoting drug treatment, this psychiatrist, who promotes drug treatment, makes remarkable arguments for taking drugs to erase memories. Most importantly he does not address potential abuses of these drugs which can be used by say, defense lawyers and criminals to render witnesses ineffective. What stops that? But also the human body and mind are extremely complex. Psychiatrists are one group of omniscient beings, the smartest man in the room, who thinks they know all there is to know about the body and the mind. Their omniscience causes extreme behavior by people who take drugs which make them violent, when they were not previously. If violence occurs conveniently when the person stops taking drugs, what is the argument for starting? Humans can recognize patterns. After noticing the pattern it is necessary for people to act to prevent the same harmful pattern in their lives. These drugs would eliminate the recognition and the impulse to act. This psychiatrist promotes drug treatment, the mission of the pharmaceutical industry, their obedient compensated prognosticators, the psychiatric industry and the lobbyist for the drug companies, NAMI. They promote drug usage with fantastic claims and seldom notice any side effects.



[From article]
The current standard of treatment for such phobias revolves around exposure therapy. This involves repeatedly presenting the feared object or frightening memory in a safe setting, so that the patient acquires a new safe memory that resides in his brain alongside the bad memory. As long as the new memory has the upper hand, his fear is suppressed. But if he is re-traumatized or re-exposed with sufficient intensity to the original experience, his old fear will awaken with a vengeance.
[. . .]
New research suggests that it may be possible not just to change certain types of emotional memories, but even to erase them. We’ve learned that memories are uniquely vulnerable to alteration at two points: when we first lay them down, and later, when we retrieve them.
[. . .]



These studies suggest that someday, a single dose of a drug, combined with exposure to your fear at the right moment, could free you of that fear forever. But there’s a flip side to this story about how to undo emotional learning: how to strengthen it.
[. . .]
It is also why we should think twice about casually prescribing stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall for young people who really don’t need them. Stimulants also cause the release of norepinephrine and may enhance fear learning. So it is possible that taking stimulants could increase one’s risk of developing PTSD when exposed to trauma.
[. . .]
The study examined the use of prescription stimulants, like Ritalin and Adderall, and the rates of PTSD in nearly 26,000 military service members between 2001 and 2008, and found that the incidence of PTSD increased along with the prescriptions.
[. . .]
The clear implication of these studies is that emotional memory is not permanent after all.
[. . .]
you still remember your biography, but your fear would be stripped of its force. The subjects knew perfectly well after the study that they previously feared spiders and that they now — strangely — felt little to no anxiety around them.
[. . .]
Some may view any attempt to tamper with human memory as disturbing because it seems at odds with what we ought to do as a culture with the darker aspects of our history: Never alter the facts, even if we have divergent interpretations of them. And it is critical not to destroy places where crimes of humanity and collective trauma took place, like the concentration camps, so we never forget what we have done and remain capable of doing. Fair enough. But I see no reason not to help frightened individuals soften their painful emotional memories.
[. . .]



It turns out that panic disorder is associated with an increased sensitivity to carbon dioxide in the brain.
[. . .]
Curiously, that might help explain why some people have panic attacks that wake them at night.
Evolutionary design has left us a few million years out of date; we are hard-wired for a Paleolithic world, but have to live in a modern one. The irrational fear of anxiety disorders was once probably useful and lifesaving. No longer.

Correction: January 22, 2016
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described some of the details of a study. Arachnophobes who were given a drug and exposed to a tarantula were able to touch the spider four days later, not hold them in a jar on Day 1.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/opinion/sunday/a-drug-to-cure-fear.html?_r=0

A Drug to Cure Fear
Richard A. Friedman

JAN. 22, 2016

Brains Found Upstate New York, Police Seek Inquiries From Anyone Who Lost Their Mind

Maybe the brains could be useful in Washington DC.

[From article]
Gouverneur police collected one of the brains and brought it to a local veterinarian for an examination, WWNY TV 7 reported. The veterinarian determined the brain had been professionally removed -- likely from a dog -- and preserved in formaldehyde.
The veterinarian told North Country Now that the brain was consistent with a beagle-sized brain and was in very good condition with no damage.
But a chemistry professor at Clarkson University told North Country Now the specimen was possibly from a sheep, not a dog.
Regardless, police told both news outlets there was little to fear. The nine brains are believed to have been part of a collection for educational or research purposes and no criminal activity, other than littering, is suspected, police said.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2015/05/possible_dog_brains_found_in_st_lawrence_county_a_mystery.html

Mystery of 9 brains found in St. Lawrence County village remains unsolved
By Ken Sturtz | ksturtz (at) syracuse.com
May 21, 2015 at 11:51 PM, updated May 22, 2015 at 12:48 AM

Technology Enabling Memory Implants Will Bring Interesting Consequences

[From article]
The holiday of the future will still provide memories of strolls along sunny beaches, the sensation of sand between your toes and the peaceful rush of the ocean, but there will be one crucial difference.
You won't have ever actually been away - in fact you might not have even left your home.
Instead, people will download memories to their brains to make them feel as if they have been on a sun-kissed holiday.
That’s just one of the many realities we could face as we learn to manipulate the human mind, US physicist Dr Michio Kaku told MailOnline in an exclusive interview.
[. . .]
First of all, someone goes on vacation before you, and pleasant memories such as walking on the seashore and picking up rocks are put on a disc,’ Dr Kaku told MailOnline.
‘Then they're uploaded into your own mind; relax, and there you are at the beach.
‘Feel the wind at your face, hear the sound of the waves, all the sensations – you’ll have a memory of a very nice walk on the beach in some exotic location, that’s what this person before you felt.
‘These things are within the realms of possibility – it’s only a matter of time.’
[. . .]
As Dr Kaku points out, we have learned more about the brain in the last 15 years than we have in the rest of human history.
And crucially, our knowledge of the map of neural connections in the brain, known as the connectome, is rapidly improving.
This is thanks to machines such as MRI scanners that can see which parts of the brain light up as a person performs different activities.
[. . .]
On telepathy, Dr Kaku says we can already take someone who’s totally paralysed, hook them up to a computer, and allow them to send messages on the internet.
In the future, you could ‘walk into a room, mentally turn on the lights, internet, answer emails, call up for a movie. Indeed the computer mouse will gradually be phased out.
This will be made possible thanks to programmable matter – the dream of creating tiny little dust particles with the power of a PC, known as catoms, that can change their electric charge and be rearranged – all by our minds.
[. . .]
Advancements in brain manipulation have important moral implications in the future, too, according to Dr Kaku.
‘[You could] fire a gun and record that, and insert it into an innocent person’s brain so he thinks he fired a gun when he didn’t.’
Dr Kaku says it will be entirely possible that we will one day be able to upload entire skills into a person's brain.
To become a doctor, for instance, someone could have all the relevant medical terminology and procedures uploaded into their mind.
[. . .]
Innocent people can be fooled into believing they have carried out a violent crime that never took place, a study has revealed.
Psychologists found that during just three hours of interviews, adults could be convinced they had perpetrated a theft, an assault, or even attacked somebody with a weapon when they were a teenager.
People can be fooled into believing they have carried out a violent crime that never took place
Using suggestive memory-retrieval techniques, the researchers were able to trick 70 per cent of the participants into believing they had committed an offence.
The effect was so strong that the participants ended up providing detailed descriptions of things that had never actually taken place

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2965072/Will-holidays-soon-uploaded-MINDS-Dr-Michio-Kaku-reveals-use-brains-50-years.html

Will holidays soon be uploaded to our MINDS? Dr Michio Kaku reveals how we could use our brains in the next 50 years
US physicist Dr Michio Kaku was speaking exclusively to MailOnline
He revealed his theories on how we may control our brains in the future
Include implanting 'memories' to make us think we've been on holiday
Could also send our minds to distant worlds to control surrogate robots
We'll be able to manipulate our surroundings with 'programmable matter'
Creature from the another world would think that we were 'sorcerers'
By JONATHAN O'CALLAGHAN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 06:28 EST, 23 February 2015 | UPDATED: 08:24 EST, 23 February 2015

Technology Will Enable Erasing Memories

[From article]
“Once organized crime figures out how to do this, I could see a horrific scenario wherein somebody is kidnapped and threatened that unless they pay an exorbitant sum, their lifelong memories of their wife or daughter would be erased,” warned Goodman.

http://www.infowars.com/expert-future-hackers-could-wipe-peoples-memories/

EXPERT: FUTURE HACKERS COULD WIPE PEOPLE’S MEMORIES
Neurohackers could kidnap hostages and threaten to delete their AI-enhanced brains, warns former FBI futurist
by PAUL JOSEPH WATSON

FEBRUARY 13, 2015

Mind Of Muhammad

The fundamental problem with Islam is the belief that God talked to Muhammad and dictated the contents of the Koran to him. Muslims are indoctrinated into believing this is so, and they act on the numerous incitements to violence that they find in it.

[From article]
After the invaders left, Muhammad attacked the only remaining Jewish tribe of Yathrib and ended up distributing their wealth to the faithful. When he arrived in the valley, half of its 20,000 population was Jewish, divided among three major tribes. By the time of the Battle of the Trench, Muhammad had forced out two of the Jewish tribes. Hoping to escape the same fate, the remaining tribe at first insisted on not taking sides during the Meccan attack, then agreed to aid the invaders, but then backed out of it. Muhammad used this as an excuse to behead all of the men and boys.
[. . .]
What these verses mean in plain language is that the Jews surrendered after a three-week siege, hoping Muhammad would exile them as he had done to the other Jewish tribes, but he beheaded the men and boys -- somewhere between 400 and 900 with 700 being the likely number of victims. He happily seized all of their wealth of farms, date plantations, fortresses, and homes, and he enslaved all of the woman and children. The booty was distributed among his followers who participated in the siege -- minus the 20 percent cut he kept for himself. The likely reason he attacked the Jews was to seize their wealth to pay off his followers for the hardships they had endured during the Battle of the Trench. The fact they had briefly taken sides with the Meccans was merely the pretext.[2]
The chapter continues with blog entries concerning his marriage to Zaynab, the wife of Zayd, a slave whom he had adopted three decades earlier.[3] Muhammad added Zaynab to his harem after pressuring Zayd to divorce her. He lusted for her and wanted her for himself, his adopted son be damned. This marriage scandalized even some of the truest believers because it was considered taboo among the Arabs for a father to take the wife of his son. Muhammad made use of Allah to finesse the matter. To deal with his critics, he had Allah dissolve the practice of adoption and declared that not only was his adopted son no longer his son, but he had never been his son because adoption was a human invention and was displeasing to Allah. Therefore, Muhammad declared he was blameless in the matter.
[. . .]
All you have to do to understand the truth about the mind that created Islam and the ideology that is threatening the world is to read Chapter 33 of Muhammad’s Koran, which means “Recital.” Here is the Yusuf Ali translation of Chapter 33 (variously called The Clans, The Coalition, The Confederates)

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/the_mind_of_muhammad.html

March 20, 2015
The Mind of Muhammad
By F. W. Burleigh

How To Argue With Closed Minds, Don't

[From article]
The truth is that conservatism is an ideology that is in accord with natural law and basic human decency, while liberalism is merely the summit of a slippery slope leading down to the hellish depths of collectivist misery.
Liberals aren’t going to like to hear this manifest and demonstrable truth. So you’re going to get called “racist,” “sexist” and “homophobic,” even if you’re a conservative black lesbian.
[. . .]
If you're trying to win an Oxford Union debate with a liberal, you’ve missed the point. This isn't about the Marquess of Queensberry’s fussy little rules. This isn't about some sort of extended-pinky exchange of ideas over a fine glass of port. This is about fighting for our way of life and our fundamental rights against the intellectual heirs of Stalin, Mao and Hitler.
Attack. This is about winning. First prize is freedom. Second prize is tyranny.

http://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2014/06/02/dont-argue-with-liberalsit-only-encourages-them-n1845401

Don’t Argue With Liberals – It Only Encourages Them
Kurt Schlichter

Jun 02, 2014

Science Can Erase Memories

[From article]
Scientists have zapped an electrical current to people's brains to erase distressing memories, part of an ambitious quest to better treat ailments such as mental trauma, psychiatric disorders and drug addiction.
[. . .]
The experiment recalls the plot of the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," where an estranged couple erases memories of each other.
[. . .]
Their test subjects were 39 patients who were undergoing electroconvulsive therapy, for severe depression. In ECT treatment, patients get a muscle relaxant and an anesthetic and an electrical current is passed to part of their brains, triggering a brief seizure that can help treat the depression. It isn't clear how the technique works: Some scientists have suggested it changes the pattern of blood flow or metabolism in the brain, while others believe it releases certain chemicals in the brain that battle the depression.

So will this technique be available to defense attorneys who want to eliminate memories of witnesses? Who will regulate this technology? What I love about scientists who explore manipulating the minds of men, is that they seem to lack any common sense and any historical perspective. No matter what technology was discovered, invented, it is always found to be useful for crimes and terrorism. What is it that makes these geniuses unable to see what evil can be done with what they are doing? 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304866904579270390834135678

In a Test, Unwanted Memories Are Erased
It Is Unclear Whether the Disappearance Is Permanent.
By GAUTAM NAIK
Updated Dec. 22, 2013 6:54 p.m. ET

Reading, Writing Keeps Mind Active

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2238753/Forget-brain-training-gadgets--just-writing-letter-reading-newspaper-mind-active-old-age.html

Forget brain training gadgets - just writing a letter or reading a
newspaper is enough to keep your mind active into old age
The simple activities all helped stave off memory loss
Those who also played chess, watched a play, or regularly visited the
library had 'younger brains'
Daily Mail (UK)
PUBLISHED: 13:10 EST, 26 November 2012 | UPDATED: 13:24 EST, 26 November 2012

Books and Fine Minds

"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries." - Rene Descartes

Benedictus (also called Baruch) Spinoza, exposed a flaw in Descartes' philosophy. Descartes revealed that an easy way to establish one's own existence is the famous Latin phrase, "Cogito Ergo Sum." I think therefore I am. It makes sense. If you can perceive your own thoughts then you know that you exist. Of course if you have sophisticated enough dreams you may be able to imagine that you are thinking and be aware of your thoughts. That would create a problem i.e., how do you know you are dreaming.

Nonetheless Descartes went on to say that because we humans can have an idea of God, that proves his (or her) existence too. That does not follow. And that is what Spinoza revealed after analyzing Descartes' philosophy. Which brings me to the above quote from Descartes. His aphorism is true if and only if all of the finest minds of past centuries wrote books. His statement is a kind of academic snobbery which is not uncommon among people with degrees. It exists to an extreme degree within those who have PhD.s and their attitudes toward persons with only MAs or BA degrees.

Many of us know people with very fine minds who do not write books. But also there are people who write books whose minds are not so fine.

That raises the issue of what makes a fine mind? Currently Barack "Barry" Obama is President of the United States. He has degrees from Columbia University in New York (BA), and a law degree from Harvard University (JD). He worships fine minds and credentials. But like so many people with fine minds and credentials he lacks common sense and integrity. Many people that he worships also lack common sense and integrity as well. So if these people with fine minds and credentials wrote books but they lack common sense and integrity, are these the kind of people with whom we want to have conversations?