Thursday, March 22, 2012

Save It For Later! (Better Think Of Your Future!)

5:20 Of This Interview
2:36 Of This Interview

FEAR ITSELF

Fear is the innate response that got all of us animals through the first few billion years. Fear is the appropriate reaction to imminent danger. In the Stone Age, it was the guardian of daily life.

In prehistoric times, a ravenous wolf or skulking enemy could set upon a vulnerable person at any time of the day or night. Imagine what would happen if our ancestors had to go through a long checklist each time they were faced with such a threat. He would first have to spot the menace, rev up his heart, pump up his breathing rate, and sharpen his reflexes - all while calculating the odds of running away or fighting it out. Once the decision to run, for example, was made, our ancestor would then have to find an escape route and get his body going in the right direction. By that time, he would be dead.

  Fear takes care of all that. Like kick-starting a Harley, fear produces a surge of adrenaline and cortisol that thrusts our bodies into survival mode. These hormones increase heart rate and blood flow to the brain and muscles, heighten the senses, and shut down unnecessary systems such as digestion and the sex drive. They even shunt blood away from the skin so we won't bleed as easily. The body is racing in less than a second, ready to rumble or to get out of Dodge.

In the Stone Age, fear, triggered by legitimate threats, was a daily companion. Something was always trying to eat you or steal something from you. Our inherent need for this fight-or-flight reaction originated in lives led in real peril.

Now fast-forward a million years or so. This same reaction is set off a dozen times a day by blaring horns, the sight of some televised disaster, or a neighbor's dog barking as we stroll by. Most of us can simply shut out the offending stimuli. We become accustomed to them, learning to suppress our natural response. But for other's it's not so easy. Their genetically attuned nervous systems are less easily tamed.

These people live in a state of constant alertness, overreacting to even minor stimuli. These reactions drain their energy and wear them out. They become tired and irritable. They feel anxious all the time. Although the conditions they live in are the same as for the rest of us, their brains are just tuned differently.

When such a reaction is triggered at an early age or often enough, anxieties can develop into phobias, unreasonable fears of common things. You probably know someone irrationally afraid of spiders, snakes, lightning, or the dark - the list of phobias is a mile long. We are all a little afraid of these things, for good evolutionary reasons. They were dangerous to us in the early days.

The same mechanism that evolved to warn us away from real harm can also fixate on the harmless. Some people fear cats, water, flowers, meeting new people, crossing bridges, or even going outdoors.

Phobias are learned reactions, but this learning follows a well-worn evolutionary pathway. Something scary happens closely connected to the object of the phobia. A cat pounces on us when we are small. A snarling dog charges us with teeth bared. We are taking out the trash in the dark and hear a crash in the distance. Our minds link that object or condition with the fear that is naturally triggered. When the fear is great enough, we seek to avoid the suspected cause at all costs. No amount of reasoning will erase the fear.

...

It's important to step back a moment and remember that these ingrained responses had immense value at one time. Imagine a Stone Age person with too little fear. She would be unafraid to walk dangerously close to a crumbly cliff, balance on a high tree limb, or stand up to a much larger foe in a fight. It takes little imagination to figure out the consequences for people underendowed with a capacity for fear. They are out of the gene pool.

For the sake of survival, most of us wound up with a finely tuned sense of caution and the ability to recover from even extreme fear. For those who didn't, luckily enough, phobias can be unlearned.

 HIGH ANXIETY

Most animals live in an eternal present and seem quite happy that way. (It helps that they don't have the mental apparatus to conceive an alternative.) They solve problems as they occur. While awake, animals hunt for food and care for their young. When they smell, see, or hear an enemy, they run or stand and fight. At night they retreat to protected nests or lairs and sleep untroubled. They live by instinct, inbred patterns of behavior fixed in their genes over thousands of successful years. Some days they're hungrier than others. Sometimes perfectly awful things happen - they lose a cub, they get bitten by a snake, or rain drenches them to the bone. But for them, as Scarlet O'Hara said, tomorrow is another day. No planning, no fears for the future, no worries.

We humans take it a bit further. Our ability to plan or imagine the future evolved to help us prepare for the hunt and to store up food for the lean times. But when this ability to plan combines with instinctual fears, the situation can get out of hand pretty quickly.

Anxiety is the downside of planning. When we lacked the ability to imagine the future, we didn't worry about it. You might be a lot happier now if you weren't concerned with saving for retirement. Same goes for fretting about that next promotion, paying for a new car, or wondering what to do with the kids all summer. In such a life, each day would hold a lot less anxiety. Ah, the good old days, 2 million years ago.

https://www.tvo.org/video/programs/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin/this-sad-modern-condition

Animal behaviorists have evidence that planning is not unique to people. Crows, jays, and some chimpanzees can put off a quick and easy reward in the interest of a bigger food payoff in the near future. These are clever animals. But no amount of research will ever find them worrying about losing their job in a recession or what their teenage kids are up to on a Saturday night.

Our rise from live-for-today to strategic long-range planning took a long time. But even this most recently evolved ability rests on the older ground of our instinctual fears.

Exactly what brought about this cerebral change is much debated. Some paleontologists think an increase in our knowledge of plant foods, stone tools, and fire led to an increase in the size of human groups. More people interacting required more complex planning to hold the band together. Others suggested that harsh conditions of the recurring Ice Ages required us to learn to store food and plan for longer winters. Or perhaps outthinking other animals became vital when hunting grew in importance. Early bands of nomadic hominids were largely gatherers and needed little foresight to know where the bushes would be the next day.

Just by chance a single remote kin of ours came into the world with a few extra neurons that enabled her to think just a little further ahead. Even this slight increase in brainpower made her a little bit better at reckoning where to wait for a passing deer or how to sharpen a stone tool. A few more successes in hunting, providing just a little more food, meant her newer brain genes survived to spread through the tribe. Gradually, random brain gene mutations that fostered survival gave each generation just a little more edge.  

As soon as our ancestors could plan for the next hunt - or the next day or week - they began to worry about the whatifs. What if the game wasn't where they thought it would be? What if the game wasn't where they thought it would be? What if the rains didn't come? What if a gang of unattached males made a raid on the tribe's females? Foresight and planning gave them an edge, but it also made them edgy. Out of Pandora's mental toolbox flew anxiety, worry, fretting, insomnia, and the panopoly  of all our insecurities.

http://www.learning-mind.com/new-study-reveals-that-anxious-personality-can-be-inherited-from-your-parents/

Anxiety is the anticipation of danger, or at leas distress. With a normal amount of anxiety, we become more alert. We are better prepared to respond to threats, such as a cobra that might be in our path or a mugger around the next corner.

But when anxieties escalate, they can elicit full-blown fear. The body, in a state of continual preparation for an event that never comes, transforms the fear response into symptoms: a pounding heart, sweating, nausea, chest pains, shortness of breath, stomachache, and headache. We experience this as dread or even panic, but often can't identify the cause.

In our world, obtaining food and shelter requires holding a job, negotiating with others, and managing money. We need to plan. We have to deal with strangers. We need higher social skills just to fill our basic needs. As routine as this is for most of us, think back to the first time you rented an apartment or opened a bank account. There can be plenty of anxiety attached to even the simplest of social chores. Most of us become accustomed to them quickly. The more experience and control we have, the less anxiety these tasks produce.

The perception of control helps. Consider the difference between riding in an airplane and driving a car. Which makes you more anxious? Although traveling by air is a thousand times safer, few people feel less anxious. Some people respond to a need for control by rising to the top of large organizations. Others narrow their lives in an ever-shrinking spiral, ultimately finding comfort only in their own home or bed.

Through the slow sifting of evolution, many of us inherit an extra helping of the genes that allow us to plan yet may lead to anxiety. Some all too easily make the link between an anticipated event and the fear response. Our minds, designed to sense when we are in danger, alarm us even when we are not.

For these people, the stresses of daily life can be overwhelming. A normal desire to plan ahead takes a U-turn and bears down on them like a speeding truck. Mere anticipation of a stressful encounter triggers a full-blown fight-or-flight reaction. This is a panic attack.

The same response that prepared us for combat in the Stone Age can be set off by boarding a jet or crossing the street. Even when it's appropriate to fight or flee, we may burst out in tears or withdraw to the safety of our homes. While the threats we face are seldom physical these days, our bodies and brains still respond as they always have.

Evolution Rx: A Practical Guide to Harnessing Our Innate Capacity for Health and Healing. Meller, p. 217-223.

The past has gone, the future has not happened. All you have is "NOW."
But, George, You Can Have A Successful Future If You Plan For The Future Now! So, George, You Don't Just Have Now! You Have The Future And If You're Intelligent And Have Low Time Preference You Prepare For The Future Now By Controlling Your Impulses (Spending Habits, For Instance) And Delaying Gratification (Delaying Having SEX And Children, For Instance). Understands, George? A Smart Person Uses Now To Better Position Him/herself For The Future! 

Among over 80k individuals in 76 countries, patience increased with distance from the equator (blue = higher levels). Patience positively predicted savings behavior, educational attainment, and per capita income. Patience was associated with higher IQ.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TV-IlTy66x2ry7yI_ODp8HMq2wDSCKKl/view

Western Europeans Had Better Technology Due To A Higher Mean I.Q. (The Average Population I.Q. Was Higher Than Hawaiians) And A Disposition That Was More Inclined To Delaying Gratification And Planning Ahead (More Discipline And Foresight). Their Greatest Technology Was The Agricultural (Farming) Based Society They Developed And Had Been Subject To For Thousands Of Years Prior To Conquering The World (Including Hawaii).

This Allowed Them To Domesticate Plants, Animals, And Themselves, Which Ultimately Created Their Stronger Immune System (Living In Proximity With One Another And With Animals Exposed Them To Diseases That They Eventually Evolved Immunity To). And Helped Them Evolve The Genetic Changes (The Domestication Of Themselves) That Created The Personality Types That Led To Education, Exploration, Industry, And Invention.

Additionally, Farming Enabled Them To Stockpile Resources And Accumulate Wealth Which Created More Power And Free Time Among The Population (Power And Free Time Which Allowed Them To Pursue Other Interests Besides Surviving, Including Education, Exploration, Industry, And invention). Furthermore, Living In Larger Settlements Increased The Formation And Flow Of Ideas And This Opened Up All Types Of Opportunities For Western European Populations.

Hawaiians Were Out Competed By A Superior Race. A Race That Had Greater Technology, Better Social Organization, And A Stronger Immune System (All Due To Greater Intelligence And The Agriculture Based Society They'd Developed). And Once This Superior Race Annihilated Them, They Implemented A Lifestyle That Was Foreign To Hawaiians Which Further Brought About The Demise Of Hawaiians (Hawaiian Genetic Makeup Wasn't Adapted To This New Social Environment).
Yet more evidence that latitude (and cold winters) has influenced human behavioral traits: thrift varies with length of winter season. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108
Replying to and
Cold winters => long-term orientation (planning, patience, thrift, delayed return) Warm climate => continuous harvesting all year long, immediate return and short-term orientation

The average IQ of African Americans is especially interesting because it sits between that of Africans and Europeans. This implies that much of the difference between Europeans and Africans is genetic, since the environment of African Americans is much closer to the European one than it is to the African one. Thus, the African American IQ probably reflects an element of environment and some admixture with Europeans. African Americans are, as we have noted, up to about 25% European genetically. Interestingly, the IQ in Jamaica, where European admixture is much lower and living standards lower, is around 75 (Lynn & Meisenberg, 2015). These differences make evolutionary sense. A cold environment, such as that to which Northeast Asians are adapted, would have strongly selected in favor of intelligence because it would require the ability to plan, conceive of survival strategies (such as building shelters and making clothes) in extremely harsh conditions, and it would select in favor of very low time preference, of those able to think far into the future to plan for the colder times. This is known as the Cold Winters Theory. It is possible that a trade-off had to be made, in terms of sexual selection, in selecting for parasite resistance or for intelligence. Intelligence would be more important in colder climates while parasite resistance (advertised through physical prowess) would be more important in tropical climates (Miller, 2000).
 
(Race Differences in Ethnocentrism  

High IQ ppl thriftier & save more, high IQ countries establish and develop financial institutions that promote such behavior.
High IQ people save relatively more than others, countries with high IQs are also characterized by greater levels of saving.
    Get you a good read! 📚
"Be Patient, So I Wait..." - St. Nick The Pimp!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZCIVwMCd4I
Slow Twitch Muscle Fibers In Action At The 1:01 Mark. Slow Twitch Muscle Fibers That Are Essential For Populations Evolving In Cold Climates Or Where Farming And Structured, Hierarchical Based Living Is Essential For Survival. (If Your Ancestors Moved Into Colder Environments Where They Developed Agriculture [Didn't Need To Hunt And Gather Anymore] And Limited The Amount Of Warfare [Violence] For Various Reasons, Fast Twitch Muscle Fiber Genes Would've Decease In The Population.)

Western Europeans Domesticated Themselves. Over Thousands Of Years Of Farming And Later Serfdoms Individuals With Overly Combative, Confrontational, Impetuous, Impatient, Undisciplined, Indolent, Carefree, Etc. Genes Were Culled From The Population. This Led To The Creation Of Personality Types That Created Modern Governments, Politics, Legal Systems, Laws, Etc. In Western Europe. Over Generations These Personality Types Succeeded In These Environments And Ultimately Dominated The Wealth And The World. (Non-Whites Live In A European World With Non-European Genes. No Wonder Some Of You Can't Function In This Type Of World And End Up In Jail. UNDERSTANDS ME?)

"I Got The Gangster, The Pimp, And The Hustler Patiently Waitin'" - Lil Stormin Norman Brook Nutty #Bitch!

Which makes perfect sense. Empathy depends on your ability to overcome your own perspective, appreciate someone else’s, and step into their shoes. Self-control is essentially the same skill, except that those other shoes belong to your future self—a removed and hypothetical entity who might as well be a different person. So think of self-control as a kind of temporal selflessness. It’s Present You taking a hit to help out Future You.

“For a long time, people have speculated that we use the same mechanisms to reason about other people as about our hypothetical selves,” says Rebecca Saxe from MIT. “So this new study fits really well.”

http://distributedrepublic.net/archives/2008/05/15/black-america-the-cycle-poverty-and-time-preference
http://distributedrepublic.net/archives/2007/07/09/intelligence-and-time-preference

“Then there’s the other side that says raise the SAT eligibility requirements. OK, raise the SAT requirement at Alabama and see what kind of team they have. You lose athletes and then the product on the field suffers.”

DUH, DUH, DUH, DUH, DUH DUHHHHHHMB!

 I HAVE VERY LITTLE RESPECT FOR THE ACADEMIC AND INTELLECTUAL ABILITY OF COLLEGE ATHLETES, ESPECIALLY BLACK COLLEGE ATHLETES. BUT I DECIDED TO SCAN AND POST THIS ARTICLE HERE SO THAT YOU'D READ THE HIGHLIGHTED WRITING BELOW!
http://methalashun.blogspot.com/2013/05/you-go-to-school-to-learn-not-for.html

 DID I TELL Y'ALL THAT THAT SHAUN CODY GUY WAS A FAT LEGGED, FAT BODIED, PIMPLY MEXICAN LOOKING KID WITH A LOW IQ IN HIGH SCHOOL? DID I TELL Y'ALL THAT YET? IMMA TELL THAT TO HIS FACE IF/WHEN I EVER SEE IT AGAIN!

"GIRL, YOU GOTTA PRACTICE PATIENCE!" - PACMAN DA GUNMAN!
 
Matt Lieberman @social_brains  ·  4h
No one 

I'm NO ONE, Matt. You're Write! And I Like Your Book! I Especially Like Pages 189-202, 224-238! And I May Write These Paiges Out Soon.

What do you think of this data? Harvard admission rates from 2010-2015:

In the United States, there is no more pivotal moment in determining ambitious adolescents' future than finding out which college they did or did not get into. Getting into Georgetown rather than Greendale will open a variety of doors, confer higher prestige, and typically lead to a higher paying job. This, in turn, improves one's dating pool, the house one can buy, and the vacations within reach. For most students, high school grade point average (GPA) and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores disproportionately influence the odds of getting into any particular school.

Ability to delay gratification makes remarkable contributions to both GPA and SAT scores. Mishel retested his preschoolers once they had taken the SAT years later. Those who had last longer at age four scored better on SATs. In fact, preschoolers who could wait until the experimenter returned of his own accord scored more than 200 points better on the SAT than those who gave up after thirty seconds. More recently, Angela Duckworth found that GPA was better predicted by a person's ability to delay gratification than by their IQ.

Since the discoveries linking self-control and academic outcomes, various other findings also point to self-control as the key to the good life. People with higher levels of self-control have higher incomes, higher credit scores, better health, and better social skills from childhood to adulthood, and they report being happier with life.

Self-control is clearly one of the greatest assets a person can have, but you might be wondering what it has to do with the social brain. We will get there, but before we do, let's be clear about what we mean when we talk about self-control. Self-control typically involves some impulse, urge, or reaction that we want to stop or prevent. Our impulses and emotional reactions are essential in guiding us toward desirable outcomes and away from danger, but they also seem to have a mind of their own and often need to be restrained. Whether it's avoiding that extra slice of pizza at 2 a.m., not telling your boss what you really think of him, or overcoming the urge to drive on the right side of the road when you are visiting London, your habitual responses need to be put in their place from time to time.

When you feel yourself exerting effort targeted at overcoming one of these undesired responses, that's self-control. Why does self-control relate to GPA? Probably because kids who can keep the urge to play videogames at bay long enough to do their homework will do better in school. Why does self-control improve SAT scores? In part, because self-control helps a person to persist in the face of the colossal boredom that is the SAT test and all the preparation that goes into getting ready for it. And rather than going with the first answer that comes to mind and moving on to the next problem, which is driven by the impulse to be done with the test, self-control allows the student to stay focused on each problem until they are sure they have the best possible answer.


"I Been Sittin' Patiently Waitin'..." - Ralo Tha PiiiiiimP (Pimpin')
After the negative response to a recent tweet, Geoffrey Miller locked his personal account. (TWITTER)

"DEAR OBESE PHD APPLICANTS: IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE THE WILLPOWER TO STOP EATING CARBS, YOU WON’T HAVE THE WILLPOWER TO DO A DISSERTATION #TRUTH."

Self-control is the price of admission to society. If you don't restrain your impulses, you will end up in prison or a psych ward. If you do restrain your impulses, you are allowed to freely pursue your goals. And there are nonpunitive incentives for self-control as well. People with greater self-control get paid more because self-control allows those individuals to do things that are of greater value to the rest of society...

...

How many people devote countless hours of effort, requiring deep reservoirs of self-control, in order to get into medical school, where even greater self-control is required to make it through the internships and residencies, only to find out that being a doctor does not make them terribly happy. Fewer than half of the doctors in the United States say they would choose the same career if they had to do it over. The world respects doctors because they do something that provides a profound benefit to the rest of us. Adolescents want to be respected and wealthy, they want to make their parents proud, but all of the self-control that doctors-to-be apply in the pursuit of becoming a doctor might ultimately be more valuable to us than it is to them.

Pursuing careers that benefit others more than oneself might be an accidental confluence of factors, but it is not uncommon for societal norms to push people to engage in self-restraint in order to benefit the greater good...

...

Society bestows some of its greatest rewards to those with high self-control: admissions to top universities and scholarships to pay for them. We have already seen that the major determinants of admission, a student's GPA and SAT scores, are both highly influenced by self-control. We think of the SAT as an intelligence test and thus think of admissions to top universities as an intelligence competition. Though there is truth to this, admission to top schools is just as much a competition over self-control. How much were you able to restrain all of your distracting impulses through thirteen years of school and in studying for the SAT? We might endorse the SAT as the ticket to admission, believing it to separate the smartest from the rest. Indeed, the creators of the SAT designed it to be a measure of intelligence that could not be granted through practice or hard work. But ultimately, we as a society give people access to top universities based on a test that can be conquered through self-control.     

Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. Lieberman, p. 206-207, 225-226.

POOR LIFE, POOR DECISIONS
"The capacity to anticipate and plan for the future is a mental attribute which would be favored under northern conditions and selected for"

"WE LIVE FOR THE MOMENT, NIGGA, FUCK THE FUTURE!" - Lil B A Stoner!
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2010/03/kevin-macdonald-brain-imaging-evidence-for-the-genetic-basis-of-iq-and-behavioral-restraint/

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/22/us/marshmallow-test/
"(For adults) you can turn something that's very appealing into something that's very aversive," said Mischel. He used the example of how to quit smoking because as a young man, his insatiable appetite for nicotine led to a three-pack-a-day habit augmented with a pipe and even an occasional cigar.
"If you're a smoker and as you approach the cigarette you're thinking lung cancer ... and imagining it very vividly, your picture of your lung with a black spot and your physician telling you 'I'm so sorry to have to tell you etc.' that visualization can be very powerful," said Mischel.

"I Been Paaaaaatiently Wait Innnnn..." - Mr. Flii
Does moral reasoning correlate with moral behavior? Do people who rationally evaluate moral behavior act in a more moral way? Apparently not exactly. There appear to be two variables that do correlate to moral behavior: intelligence and inhibition. Criminologists have found that criminal behavior is inversely related to intelligence, independent of race or social-economic class. Augusto Blasti found that IQ was positively related to honesty. In this context, inhibition basically refers to self-control or the ability to override an objective that your emotional system wants. You may want to sleep in, but you will get up to go to work.

Researchers headed by Walter Mischel, a psychologist at Columbia University, have been doing a very interesting long-term study on inhibition. They began with a study of preschoolers, using a food reward. One by one, children were seated at a table and were asked which was better, one marshmallow or two. We all know what they answered. On the table were a marshmallow and a bell. The researcher (let's call her Jeanne) told the child (Tom) that she had to leave the room for a few minutes, and when she returned, he could have two marshmallows. However, if Tom wanted her to come back early, then he could ring the bell, but if he did that, she would give him only one marshmallow. Ten years later, the researchers sent questionnaires to the parents about their then adolescent children, and found that those who delayed eating the marshmallow longer in preschool were rated as more likely to exhibit self-control in frustrating situations, less likely to yield to temptations, more intelligent, and less distractable when trying to concentrate, and they earned higher SAT scores. The team continues to follow these people today.

How does self-control work? How does one say no to attempting stimulus? Why did some of these kids wait until the researcher returned while staring at the marshmallow? In the adult world, why are some people able to refuse the Death by Chocolate cake on the dessert tray, or drive at the speed limit while everyone is passing them by? SHE KEEPS ON PASSING ME BYE!

In order to explain how that aspect of willpower, "the ability to inhibit an impulsive response that undoes one's commitment," aka self-control, works, Walter Mischel and his colleague Janet Metcalfe proposed that there are two types of processing. One is "hot" and the other is "cool"; they involve neural systems that are distinct but still interact. The hot emotional system is specialized for quick emotional processing. It responds to a trigger and makes use of the amygdala-based memory. This is the "go" system. Its neuronal basis is in the hippocampus and the frontal lobes. Does this sounds familiar? In their theory, they stress that the interaction of these two systems is of critical importance to self-regulation and to decision making in regard to self-control. The cool system develops later in life and becomes increasingly active. How the two systems interact depends on age, stress (under increasing stress, the hot system takes over), and temperament. Studies have shown that criminal behavior deceases with age, giving support to the idea that the cool system that increases self-control becomes more active with age.

Human: The Science Behind What Makes us Unique. Gazzaniga, p. 146-147    

Hey, Watch And Read This!
And This
And This
Still, weakness of will remains a puzzle on this analysis. How is it possible to choose a dispreferred alternative, as we all do whenever we eat a dessert we know we should avoid?

...

Consider the following illustration. Entering a restaurant at 7:00, I prefer skipping my dessert at 8:00 to having a dessert at 8:00. I know at 9:00, I will be more pleased if I have skipped the dessert than if I have succumbed. However, once my main course has come and gone and the waiter returns to offer me a dessert, my situation changes. If it is now 7: 45, I no longer consider what would have made me happier at 7:00. That time period has come and gone, and now I only care about what pleases me now and in the future. When the waiter asks if I should like him to bring me the cheesecake, my answer depends on what pleases me now and what will please me later; the more heavily I discount the future, the more I will focus on what pleases me now. I refer to the time period when the short- term pleasure of the dessert tempts me as my "period of weakness." I have weakened despite having remembered what I had told myself at 7:00, and knowing that I will feel indigestion at 9:00. It is during this interval that I believe myself not in control, not fully autonomous.

Now, all else equal, larger coefficients of impulsivity will bring about longer periods of weakness. The future becomes more heavily discounted, so there is more room for a discrepancy between the future decision which I initially plan to make (avoiding the dessert) and the choice I actually make in the future (when the waiter arrives with the dessert menu). The argument in Race, that the coefficients of impulsivity are greater for blacks than for whites, would therefore imply that blacks will suffer longer and more frequent such episodes.

The fact that behavior during periods of weakness is less than free is explained by John Locke's insight that free action must not only express preferences all action, even of children, animals and madmen, does that but that the preferences expressed must meet the agents approval.  


Race expounds a conception of free will according to which an agent is free when he is able to step back, examine his desires, and act on those desires he prefers to act on. This is why choosing a prospectively dispreferred but transiently attractive alternative is not free; I did what I wanted, but not what I wanted to want. But a more significant corollary is that freedom increases with reflectiveness and self- restraint. With insight into his own motives, the intelligent man can anticipate preferences he does not wish to act on, and thereby take steps to forestall their becoming dominant. Cognizant that he will be tempted by dessert, he may drink a glass of water, or shame himself into declining dessert by assuring his companions beforehand that he will. Self- restraint, for its part, gives a man time to contemplate the consequences of yielding to questionable impulses. (Why Race Matters: A Preview)
  1. Blacks and Hispanics have less ability to delay gratification than Whites. Source:
You're Unable To Control Yourself If You're Hungry! Grab Ahold Of Yourself Pimp! Then Grab A Kit-Kat Bar Pimp!
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-willpower-20151107-story.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=52999
CONTROOOOOOL!

http://archive.mises.org/17979/time-preference-and-marshmellows/  (Read The Comments, Specifically Dagnytg's)

http://ericsjackson.blogspot.com/
Read Eric's "Monday, May 28, 2012 Time preference and the sexual marketplace" Post.

MOST POPULATIONS EVOLVED TO BE MORE IMPULSIVE, TO VALUE INSTANT GRATIFICATION, FULFILLMENT, AND ENJOYMENT OVER LATER GRATIFICATION,  FULFILLMENT, AND ENJOYMENT (ESPECIALLY IN TERMS OF FOOD (WE EAT WHAT WE WANT RIGHT NOW)). IT WAS ADAPTIVE TO BE SO IN OUR ENVIRONMENT OF EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTEDNESS. HOWEVER, IN THIS CURRENT, MODERN ENVIRONMENT IT IS NO LONGER AS ADAPTIVE.

DELAYING GRATIFICATION. POSTPONING SATISFACTION. SELF-CONTROL AND SELF-DISCIPLINE TO PASS ON IMMEDIATE, SHORT-TERM ENJOYMENT TO GET FUTURE, LONG-TERM ENJOYMENT (PASSING ON THE SHORT-TERM ENJOYMENT OF WATCHING TV OR THE SHORT-TERM ENJOYMENT OF PLAYING ON THE COMPUTER TO GAIN THE LONG-TERM BENEFITS AND FUTURE PAY OFF OF GOING TO SCHOOL OR STUDYING FOR A CLASS).


The Marshmallow Test 
Childhood Self-Control Forecasts Midlife Aging. They also showed fewer signs of aging in their brains. By midlife, these children were better with health, financial, and social demands


Lastly, an entire subfield of experimental psychology today is devoted to phenomena variously called "effortful control," "self-regulation," "time discounting," "ego strength," or (more appealingly) "willpower" and "grit." These concepts are all connected to impulse control, as we're using the term: the capacity to resist temptation, especially the temptation to give up in the face of hardship. The results of these studies - beginning with the well-known "marshmallow test" - are conclusive and bracing. Kids with more impulse control go on to get better grades; spend less time in prison; have fewer teenage pregnancies; get better jobs; and have higher incomes. In several studies, willpower and grit proved to be better predictors of grades and future success than did IQ or SAT scores.

..

Led by social and developmental psychologists such as Roy Baumeister, Carol Dweck, and Angela Duckworth, a large and growing body of research has demonstrated the capacity to resist temptation - including especially the temptation to quit when a task is arduous, daunting, or beyond one's immediate abilities - is critical to achievement. This capacity to resist temptation is exactly what we mean by impulse control, and the remarkable finding is that greater impulse control in early childhood translates into much better outcomes across a wide variety of domains.

This finding was first made - stumbled on, actually - by Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel in his famous "marshmallow test" of the late 1960s. Trying to determine how children learn to resist temptation, Mischel began putting treats in front of three- to five-year-olds. The children were told that they could either eat their chosen treat (often a marshmallow) or, if they waited a few minutes, get another one too. Children who held out for fifteen minutes received a second marshmallow.

A majority ate up; only a minority held out. The great surprise, however, came years later. Although it wasn't part of his original plan, Mischel followed up on the roughly 650 subject children when they were in high school. It turned out that the children who had held out were doing much better academically, with fewer social problems, than those who didn't.

Another brilliant discovery by my colleague Gail Heyman: Young kids delay gratification not only because of the consummatory benefits of larger-later rewards, but also because they value the reputational benefits of *seeming* self-controlled.

Now confirmed by numerous studies, the correlation Mischel discovered between impulse control and success is nothing short of jaw dropping. Kids who "passed" their marshmallow test, waiting the full fifteen minutes, ended up with SAT scores 210 points higher than those who ate up in the first thirty seconds. For college grads, impulse control has proved to be a better predictor than SAT scores - better even than IQ.

In the most comprehensive study to date, researchers in New Zealand tracked over a thousand individuals from birth to age thirty-two. Controlling for socioeconomic status, intelligence, and other factors, the study found that individuals with low impulse control as children were significantly more likely to develop problems with drugs, alcohol, and obesity; to work in low-paying jobs; to have a sexually transmitted disease; and to end up in prison. Those with high impulse control were healthier, more affluent, and more likely to have a stable marriage, raising children in a two-parent household.

There's been another finding too, of equal if not greater importance. Willpower and perseverance can be strengthened. That's where culture comes in. Cultivating impulse control in children - indeed in anyone, at any age - is a powerful lever of success.

But not by itself: impulse control by itself has nothing to do with academic achievement or moneymaking. The Pennsylvania Amish have as much impulse control as any group, denying themselves electricity and every modern convenience. But they aren't academically or economically overachieving, because their culture points them away from those goals.

In other words, impulse control in isolation is mere asceticism. As always, it's the fusion of all three Triple Package elements that creates an engine of economic success. (The Triple Package)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-choice/201507/5-reasons-we-act-impulsively
WHY YOU'RE IMPATIENT AND IMPULSIVE.

Meta-Analysis: Self-control is around 60% heritable – that is, genes explain around 60% of the differences between individuals in their levels of self-control (N > 100,000)
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1087318901535399938

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayrecord&uid=2014-34012-001

 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/self-regulation-star-leaders-secret-weapon-daniel-goleman?trk=prof-post
REGULAAATOOORS! MOUNT UP! (MOUNTIES!)
Does thinking about God make it easier to exert self-control?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304451104577392423504385572
G0D

 http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/05/13/0146167215586196
Your Ability To Delay Gratification Predicts Your Likelihood To Act Morally And Your Giveness* To Criminality. In Other Words, If You Can Control Your Impulses You're More Likely To Be Moral And NOT Commit Crimes!

*The Givens!

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/04/09/0956797615569001
Self-Destroyed (No Self-Control) And Unemployed!


https://www.amazon.com/Inventing-Ourselves-Secret-Teenage-Brain/dp/B07BFDSX96
https://www.edge.org/conversation/sarah_jayne_blakemore-sarah-jayne-blakemore-the-teenagers-sense-of-social-self

  1. ugh. Whatever your views on cannabis, there's increasing evidence that consuming cannabis regularly during the teenage years can be harmful. And I imagine teenagers might look up to this guy as some kind of role model. Not cool Elon.
I suspect increased marijuana usage is a material factor in recent crime and disorder increases. It’s insane how we’re criminalizing vaping at the same time we’re legalizing a much more dangerous drug.
Ouch! "Legal access to marijuana leads to a decline in academic achievement."


https://twitter.com/Mangan150/status/889237298117836800
Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife
https://twitter.com/Mangan150/status/1035497422577795075

https://twitter.com/Inductivist/status/1485143534797606914
Replying to
Been saying that for a long time. It's also linked to violence and schizophrenia is certain people.

https://twitter.com/dr_appie/status/1321141473329467395
Genes associated with higher education are also associated with whether you've ever tried cannabis. Cannabis use disorder shows an equally strong genetic relationship with education, but in the opposite direction (higher risk = lower education).
Cannabis users are more likely than non-users to develop psychotic disorders – but does cannabis use *cause* these disorders? Apparently not. Instead, the same genetic/environmental factors that increase the risk of one also increase the risk of the other. psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/E3765.abstract
You Have Much Less Self-Control As A Teenager Because Your Prefrontal Cortex Is Not Yet Fully Developed! Not Yet Pimp!
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2KNGd9NSmg
 The Teenage Brain!

The delayed maturation of the frontal cortex also helps explain the defining feature of adolescence..weird predilection for bungee jumping.

Intelligence, Grit, and Self Control as Explanatory Factors in Racial Differences in Life Outcomes

NO JOB, SO I ROB PIMP!

The Black Man's Inability To Save Money Or Even Hold On To Money!

"WE JUST LIVIN' INN THE MOMENT!" - T Y (THAI) $ (DOLLA SIGN)

http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2011/03/345-no-longer-being-nigga-rich.html
Nigga Riche (Niggerish!)

http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138%2814%2900129-9/abstract?cc=y

http://mason.gmu.edu/~gjonesb/IITE.pdf