PUBLIC OPINION > Constantly Surfing the Web Can Give You Mental Disorders

Things are best in moderation. I'm either a panthiest or deist & I find it "fascinating" that those inclined to believe in institutionalized folklore are falling for an unreal IMAGE.

Here's an article about us becoming Sheeple &/or Hu·bots.

FRIDAY, 30 MARCH 2012
Could our society be contributing to the rise in autism rates?
According to recent news reports, the number of school children classified as being autistic has risen by 56% in the last 5 years.

This is an enormous number, and controversy is raging over whether the rise is due to parents pushing for a diagnosis to gain extra resources for a child showing only mild traits or if there is an environmental cause for such a dramatic rise.

Studies have indicated that the criteria for autism is now so broad that other developmental disorders (for example language developmental disorders) which, several years ago, would have been diagnosed separately, now meet the criteria for autism.

The widening of the criteria for autism indicates that there is no organising idea behind the understanding of the condition. From the human givens perspective, we would suggest that what we term 'caetextia' ('context blindness' a chronic disorder manifesting in the inability to adjust behaviours or perception to deal appropriately with interacting variables) is the organising idea behind autism and Asperger's.

The reason for the rise in autism is probably due to a number of different factors, however there is a possibility that, in addition, the set up of our current culture is actively favouring the development of both left brained and right brained autism (what we term 'right brained caetextia').

As we discussed in a previous post, in Silicon Valley, the technological centre of the USA, there has been a threefold rise in children diagnosed with autism in just a decade.

In the same way, it is possible that in our society as a whole, we are inadvertently encouraging both left brain and right brain autism.

Here is a quote from Godhead: The Brain's Big Bang, explaining the premise behind this idea:
"Another factor favouring autistic behaviour in today's workplace is the growth of overly prescribed working practices that remove personal responsibility from people in public services. The management style in HM Revenue & Customs, and agencies focused on education, health, policing and law, suit those who are context blind. (For a person with caetextia, 'responsibility' is just a buzzword - without multiple processing abilities, their attempts to be responsible often lack common sense, which after all is just another way of saying, 'seeing the bigger context'.)

Alongside the growth of working conditions that favour people with left-brained caetextia, the media may be encouraging right-brained caetextia by randomly generating fantasies and continually stimulating imagination in ways that make it harder for people to stay in touch with reality. Vast numbers now pay a disproportionate amount of attention to emotionalism in music, television, 'reality' shows, computer games and on-screen interaction with one another in ways the inhibit the development of apathy skills and the ability to read multiple contexts. Characters in soap operas become real for them, artificially constructed celebrities infiltrate their mental landscape, and online 'relationships' divorced from empathic face-to-face communication, mimic psychotic symptoms to become delusional substitutes for genuine friendships (which involve mutual understanding and getting innate needs met.)

Although both types of caetextia occur in society, there is no widespread understanding of what is required for people to hold the middle ground: the flexibility of thought that arises from having equal access to imagination and reason. If we continue to create the conditions that favour both left-brained and right-brained caetextia, either by means of the media saturating the population with emotionalism, or by subjecting people to overly systematised, computer-controlled and rightly prescribed working environments, without valuing the middle position, the end result might be that the window of opportunity for us to evolve further will slam shut."

For more on this topic and references for the above passage, please see the book Godhead: The Brain's Big Bang.

http://blog.humangivens.com/2...

Here's another one, looks like the Boss is Dilbert Seinfeld:

http://lornemitchell.com/blog...

It would appear that organisations can also demonstrate the symptoms of caetextia (or context-blindness). Organisational Caetextia (or OC as we will call it from now on) can help us understand why some organisations exhibit a sort of madness when dealing with their customers and employees – yet give us a clue as to why they remain blind to the significant consequences of acting in such a crazy way.
In cases of caetextia in individuals, the new research has uncovered two types of context blindness – and OC can also be observed in two distinct types of dysfunctional behaviour. Before we look at these two types, though, it is worth looking in more detail at the part of the brain that allows us to process context.
The research has also uncovered two types of Caetextia: front-of-brain or straight-line thinking blindness and back-of-brain random association blindness. What is interesting is that these types of caetextia can also be applied to organisations and can help us understand why some organisations are so disconnected.

The first type can be called “Process OC”. This is where an organisation processes work in logical straight lines without taking into account the wider organisational implications of doing so. This type of OC is fixated in the front of the brain. Examples might be a call centre agent who does not know which person or department to hand-off someone to and simply puts them into a telephone black hole. Another example might be an agent who says “I am really sorry that this has happened to you, I will get someone to ring you back” – and they never do.

Organisational Caetextia of the process type tends to happen lower-down organisatons (for instance someone in the back-office saying: “that’s not my job, I only process this type of transaction”. Front line workers will often be encouraged to adopt to this type of thinking with phrases such as “You are not paid to think. Just do what I say”. This dysfunctionality is exacerbated by outsourcing arrangements where the supplier organisation fulfills its minimum service level obligations and is very much driven by the mantra “if it is not in the contract, then I can do it, but it will cost you more”.

The second type “Informational OC” tends to be found higher-up in organisations. This type of OC is based in the back of the brain. The symptoms of this type of organisational madness is driven by managers and “leaders” defining a whole world of information they need to run the business that is of very litle value other than to those managers holding their jobs down or playing the politics of the given day. Often the amount of information needed expands without any understanding on the cost associated with gathering it. The information is then dressed up as targets to “motivate” those lower down the organisation to stretch themselves to meet those targets and get a bonus. Vast parts of the organisation chase numbers that have no bearing on the reality of what is actually happening to customers on a day-to-day basis.

In times of stress, the information will often be used to create random associations between the data sets, coming to rapid conclusions to reinforce otherwise illogical assumptions and then finding it rather difficult to justify their decisions after the event. The whole saga of justifying Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq is a good example of this. Organisations also use such pools of information to get rid of people lower down in the organisation who are not “conforming”… even if the data bears no resemblence to reality and the people are doing valuable work with customers.