Apocalypse Neuro: Why Our Brains Don't Process the Gravest Threats to Humanity

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#1

Our brains are incredible little mushboxes; they are unfathomably complex, powerful organs that grant us motor skills, logic, and abstract thought. Brains have bequeathed unto we humans just about every cognitive advantage, it seems, except for one little omission: the ability to adequately process the concept of long-term, civilization-threatening phenomena. They’ve proven miracle workers for the short-term survival of individuals, but the human brain sort of malfunctions when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change.

Interesting article. I think it captures exactly why I so pessimistic about our collective ability to unfuck things.

Marshall reiterates that fighting climate change requires personal sacrifice now for fuzzy benefits much later: “The cognitive psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel prize for his studies of how irrationally we respond to such issues, sighed deeply when I asked him to assess our chances: ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I am deeply pessimistic. I see no path to success.’”

Aside: Don’t know if this is in the right forum. It’s about the functioning of the human brain, but it’s also about the inevitable collapse. We can move it, if appropriate.

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#2

(Yeah, the forum categories are rough guidelines or topic directions. I don’t worry too much about them, and we can easily reassign if it makes sense.)

#3

“Fighting climate change” just seems like a euphemism for more command and control. None of these climate policy wonks are talking about adapting for an unpredictable climate. I reject the premise that climate is even predictable.

#4

Well, this post is less about climate change than the human brain’s inability to function in the world we’ve so radically modified.

#5

I’m a sucker for all things mismatch theory.

#6

I’m not sure I agree, for a couple of reasons. First is the WEIRD problem - pretty much all psychology and brain research ever done has been done on WEIRD - Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic - people, which horribly skews the research outcomes, and is going to continue to do so until the WEIRD problem is rectified, which will take years. In the meantime, all studies that claim X about human brains and behaviours need to be taken, if not quite with a pinch of salt, then certainly with a healthy degree of skepticism.

The second is that the article’s conclusion that our brains are not capable of registering a slow-moving threat is demonstrably false: if it were true then there would be no activists worrying about climate change and fossil fuels. You and I wouldn’t be worried about it either…but we are (certainly, I am…). Where does that leave this study? Are we genetic freaks, spontaneous mutations? Or evidence of an evolution, but how can that be since the threat is far off: evolution can’t plan in advance. There do seem to be an awful lot of people across the world who are very concerned…

I propose an alternative hypothesis: the problem is not hardwired into our brains, rather it’s a problem of culture: both of our emotions and our society. Our emotions because many people simply refuse to face up to the reality of the situation, the same way an alcoholic refuses/is unable to face up to his drinking. And our society because the rich psychopaths in charge (who are refusing/unable to face up to their addiction to power) have set up our media in a way that deliberately distracts a significant portion of the population (“the masses” : those who aren’t concerned about global warming), in a way that means the elite can continue to enrich themselves (via gasoline and car sales, etc) even though the elite will die in the collapse as well (just like an alcoholic drinking himself to death). The problem is cultural, not neurological.

This doesn’t make me particularly optimistic: I’m currently watching one of my best friends drink himself to death. Nothing I have said or done has done the slightest good in convincing him not to drink The same may well be true for the masses who continue to ignore the existential threats to our civilisations: they’ll deny everything and keep shopping and driving.

And yet…I question whether “hardship” or “suffering” is really inevitable in transitioning to a low-carbon society. Here on this forum we discuss what REALLY makes us happy: rewarding work and social relations. These can be had in a transitioning society: it’s the trinklets (smartphones, cars, shopping) that people think they will miss, but give people real good work to do and a sense of purpose and I think they will forget those trinkets and remember what is really important (Occupy Sandy is a good example). And if as part of that we can remove the power-crazy elites from the helm, I think we’ve got a fighting chance.

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#7

Do you think culture is arbitrary and/or random?

I would submit that it is not, and that culture is an emergent property of evolved brains interacting with environment. Various cultures solve problems of similar environments in similar – not random – ways. Phenotypic expression of behaviors relative to environment happens throughout the animal kingdom, and it seems to me that attempts to exempt human brains from this animal trait is itself part of our own culture’s narrative that humans are somehow apart, somehow separated, from “nature”.

All nature vs. nurture or genes vs. culture dichotomies are false dichotomies. It is always both. Always.

#8

As an aside, I’m glad to see something I posted stimulate some interesting discussion. :smile:

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#9

I agree that there are limits to what culture can create, and that there are some hardwired instincts (i.e. humans aren’t a blank slate), but in my (not that extensive) readings of ethnography, and in my (a bit more extensive) readings of human emotional issues the overall impression I have is of an amazing amount of cultural/individual flexibility, an amazingly wide variety of expression of our biological brains.

But yes, the debate between nature and nuture is fairly meaningless and has gone on far too long .