"only a minuscule proportion of the sensory data processed by the unconscious mind (capable of processing approximately 11 million bits per second) is referred to the conscious mind (capable of processing approximately 50 bits per second)."
By that measure, a two-hour movie can be compressed down to 22.5 kilobytes... :-)
>By that measure, a two-hour movie can be compressed down to 22.5 kilobytes... :-)
I can't speak for other's but for myself that sort of compression ratio seems at least possible.
Most of the conscious mind is dealing with a highly compressed stream of symbols (compressed abstracted versions of the actual audio-visual stream), and how they relate to one another in time and space.
More concretely, imagine yourself watching a movie in the theatre:
"That actor's accent is a bit off" "Why do her teeth look so bright?" "I forgot who directed this, hmm was it that Swedish guy.. the guy who directed 'Heaven', wait... was he Swedish? Aargh I wish I could go on IMDB now and check"
".. ugh that kid in the front row's phone is distracting"
"The visual style reminds me of this other movie".
"The music is getting ominous, something bad is about to happen."
"Oh crap the main character is screwed, how he is going to escape this trap?"
"I wonder if my gf is enjoying the movie?"
etc
For each viewer, that seems likely to me. For viewers collectively, there is more information; some viewer's girlfriend is going to be someone who studies trees, and another viewer is going to think some character looks kind of like the President. This effect of viewer diversity might justify the video file being more than a megabyte!
Automated sub-sub conscious processors in the brain are mostly responsible for how little information the higher mind has to deal with. If there is a tree in a movie, the visual cortex will say "It's a tree, what next?". If there is an abstract tree symbol, the visual cortex will say "What is this giant solid color block sitting in the middle of my field of view?" and send it up to your conscious mind for processing, resulting in a more taxing experience for the audience. Of course, if we knew how the brain worked, we could maybe somehow send signals directly to whatever ball of neurons handles abstract concepts...
Making it easier for a post to hit the frontpage might be desirable to reward people for interacting with the "new submissions" page - if it only needs 3 votes, there is a much higher likelihood of instant gratification.
Might be something to build into the next algorithm.
Mexico's problem is in essense, that outside market pressure makes its inhabitants behave in a way that is at odds with keeping up a state under the rule of law.
As a thought experiment, think what would happen if Mexico made drugs legal. Their government would had to fight against the cartels, and might at some point win.
What you have then is a system where Mexico has much less criminality. They can't export to the US directly of course, but people will just buy drugs legally in the Mexican north and try to smuggle it the the US. The US can decide for themselves if they want to legalize it or not, and if they don't the US criminality is still there, but the Mexican criminality is gone.
Well what would likely happen then is another 1989 Panama. One of the main reasons why the US invaded Panama was its involvement in drug trade. So the US would criticize Mexico publicly, and at some point probably invade it.
It looks to me like current time Mexico is stuck between a rock and a hard place. They must be opposed to drugs because their powerful northern neighbor wants them to, but outside market pressure, from the very same neighbor at the same time destabilizes it.
So it's an issue that should be solved by an outside party - the US. But that party won't tackle the issue because Mexican people can't vote in the US.
> Their government would had to fight against the cartels, and might at some point win.
I dont think that would be a big problem. Everybody that has a car coule without any trouble start trafficing drugs into the US, without fear of the police. The goverment would essentially only have to be passiv antil the funds of the cartels drain.
Guns and stuff are expensive. A well organised logisics firm (for example) could outperform these cartels in drug transportation. All the goverment would have to do is protect the firms.
Many of the people that work for the cartels could get jobs in 'legal' frims that do the same thing, witch would be a better workplace for people.
> Well what would likely happen then is another 1989 Panama. One of the main reasons why the US invaded Panama was its involvement in drug trade. So the US would criticize Mexico publicly, and at some point probably invade it.
MMhhh possible but Im not sure the US people or the international community would stand for this. I doute that the US would go so far.
I think legalizing drugs is the only workable solution for Mexico.
I assure you that it's really just not that simple.
I am adversely effected by all manor of sensory offence — including motion in my peripheral, heat, smells, unpredictable vibration.
The real problem is that it's a downward spiral: if something is bothering me and I become agitated, I am far more likely to become aware of other things which conspire to keep me from being productive. Ultimately, I fall into a state of manic anxiety and get really down on myself for feeling so ineffective.
I really wish I could just put in earplugs. They irritate my ears.
On the one hand yes. On the other hand, many people seem to ignore (I'm pretty sure, it's not acceptance) such surveillance behavior if the product is sexy enough. See what happens with smartphones and their apps right now.
