Mindless Behaviour Quotes

[...] true hedonic engineering, as distinct from mindless hedonism or reckless personal experimentation, can be profoundly good for our character. Character-building technologies can benefit utilitarians and non-utilitarians alike. Potentially, we can use a convergence of biotech, nanorobotics and information technology to gain control over our emotions and become better (post-)human beings, to cultivate the virtues, strength of character, decency, to become kinder, friendlier, more compassionate: to become the type of (post)human beings that we might aspire to be, but aren't, and biologically couldn't be, with the neural machinery of unenriched minds. Given our Darwinian biology, too many forms of admirable behaviour simply aren't rewarding enough for us to practise them consistently: our second-order desires to live better lives as better people are often feeble echoes of our baser passions.

Of course a degree of competence is needed, and few jobs are entirely brainless, but supposedly knowledge-intensive organisations are often crowded with people with limited emotional and practical intelligence. These smart people may avoid careful analytical processes and instead rely on fast and frugal mental rules of thumb to get the job done. What’s more, many firms actively encourage employees not to exert their intelligence overmuch. They push smart people into dumb jobs, swamp staff with information, enforce behavioural scripts that are followed mindlessly, encourage colleagues to avoid addressing tough questions, and incentivise experts and amateurs alike to be ignorant. As a result organisations can often help to encourage remarkably bright people to do stupid things.

Every child should also be taught to comply gracefully with the expectations of civil society. This does not mean crushed into mindless ideological conformity. It means instead that parents must reward those attitudes and actions that will bring their child success in the world outside the family, and use threat and punishment when necessary to eliminate behaviours that will lead to misery and failure. There’s a tight window of opportunity for this, as well, so getting it right quickly matters. If a child has not been taught to behave properly by the age of four, it will forever be difficult for him or her to make friends. The research literature is quite clear on this. This matters, because peers are the primary source of socialization after the age of four.

Sadly, history shows us that people literally scrambled their children's brains with heavy exposure to screens at young ages. Developing primate brains are wired to interact with others in a real environment, learning the enormous range of human behaviours from copying the people they love and trust, not staring mindlessly at images.