all about brain damage, complete with Star Trek references
Today I learned that the CDC surveyed 12 states for incidences of brain injuries, and of them, Arizonans were per capita the most frequently brain-damaged. Apparently in most of the states, traffic accidents are the worst problem, followed by elderly people who get hurt falling. In Arizona, even with all the snowbirds and retirees, we get more assaults than falls. So, come visit the Wild West!
In other brain injury news, people who have damage to the prefrontal cortex lack empathy. I'm not sure how much information got lost in translation to a newspaper article, but it sounds like if you ask a bunch of people if the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, ie, would you push somebody under a bus to save five other people, the people with prefrontal cortex injuries say yes more often than other people.
Ok, so that's a little different than Spock volunteering to get fried to get the Enterprise going again, but my answer was that you should absolutely push one person under the bus to save five others, so I'm in total agreement with the people with brain damage. (I also yell "Kill him!" when one of those indestructible bad guys on tv is down.) The only problem here, and the article points this out, is that asking hypothetical questions doesn't tell you what people would really do, so this study is essentially reporting that some people lack empathy on paper.
The thing is that I know exactly what I would do in real life in that situation. If I were in charge of pushing somebody under a bus, I would dither around looking for some other solution until we all got killed. So, EI in action, and problem solved!
And in news that should be brain-damage related or at least made up, Chicken McNuggets are 56% corn.
In other brain injury news, people who have damage to the prefrontal cortex lack empathy. I'm not sure how much information got lost in translation to a newspaper article, but it sounds like if you ask a bunch of people if the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, ie, would you push somebody under a bus to save five other people, the people with prefrontal cortex injuries say yes more often than other people.
Ok, so that's a little different than Spock volunteering to get fried to get the Enterprise going again, but my answer was that you should absolutely push one person under the bus to save five others, so I'm in total agreement with the people with brain damage. (I also yell "Kill him!" when one of those indestructible bad guys on tv is down.) The only problem here, and the article points this out, is that asking hypothetical questions doesn't tell you what people would really do, so this study is essentially reporting that some people lack empathy on paper.
The thing is that I know exactly what I would do in real life in that situation. If I were in charge of pushing somebody under a bus, I would dither around looking for some other solution until we all got killed. So, EI in action, and problem solved!
And in news that should be brain-damage related or at least made up, Chicken McNuggets are 56% corn.
posted by missmolly at 9:50 PM
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