Twelfth Bough

"By studying people’s reactions to a range of artificially-generated faces, Oosterhof and Todorov were able to identify a set of features that seemed to engender trust. Working from those findings, they were able to create a continuum: faces with high inner eyebrows and pronounced cheekbones struck people as trustworthy, faces with low inner eyebrows and shallow cheekbones untrustworthy." ~~~~~~~ http://socialcapital.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/would-i-lie-to-you-engineering-trust-with-your-face/ http://thrivingtoo.typepad.com/thriving_too/2008/08/faces-you-can-t.html http://mindhacks.com/2008/08/19/judging-trustworthiness-in-the-face/ http://webscript.princeton.edu/~tlab/databases Very interesting research. In 2005, Todorov's lab garnered international headlines with a study published in Science demonstrating that quick facial judgments can accurately predict real-world election results. Taking what they have learned over time -- namely that, rightly ...

We received some excellent comments and links from the last post . Many thanks to our brilliant friends and blogmates. We want to unpack the ideas more fully. This particular piece of information might be the key to some mysteries? When the limbic system was stimulated the patients vigilance weakened, they lost capacity to think, often they began to undress or grope and when the stimulation stopped they did not remember it. SOURCE The limbic system affects behavior and memory. If the limbic system could be dialed up and down by some methods, people would experience a range of behavior and memory states? This would be very useful to the controllers, especially if done by secret methods, without people's consent? Is this possible on a wide scale? Well, look at what the limbic system regulates: Limbic system structures are involved in many of our emotions and motivations, particularly those that are related to survival. Such emotions include fear, anger, and emotion...

I highly recommend James' latest string of posts up over at WPC that lay out brilliantly the geopolitical forces at work and the role of Russia, and of Vladimir Putin. http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/International/ht_vladimir_putin_dog_koni_ss_thg_120228_ssh.jpg Here at TB the post Putin and Berlusconi hangs around at the top of the most popular list. After watching the videos that James posted, we understand much more clearly that Putin rescued Russia against tremendous odds after Yeltsin and the oligarchs plundered the country's industry and infrastructure. If he were truly woven into the dialectic and meant to succeed in reviving Russia, it seems to us the odds would not have been stacked so high against him. Watch him holding people accountable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flC---s2moA Putin has the ability and the will to hold people accountable. He doesn't pretend to lead; he leads. It shouldn't be so stunning, but it is, because over here ...