How America Lost The Plot (Repost)

From the ageist and illiberal abomination that is the 21 drinking age and especially its authoritarian enforcement, to drunk driving, to drug policy, to transportation policy, to environmental policy, to foreign policy, to Tobacco 21, and so on, America has well and truly lost the plot long ago on so many issues.  How long ago, you may ask?  Well, roughly 40 years ago, if not even a bit earlier than that.  But how and why did it happen in the first place?  Why can't our "leaders" (and many of those who keep voting for them) ever seem to see the forest for the trees?

In the book, The Master and His Emissary:  The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist (2009), the author delves into the familiar idea of the left vs right hemispheres of the brain.  Only unlike the usual surface-level analysis in that we see in pop neuroscience, this one is a real deep dive into the truly resounding implications of these brain differences for society and civilization.  Ten years later, it was even made into a documentary, The Divided Brain (2019), by McGilchrist himself along with award-winning documentary filmmaker Vanessa Dylyn, et al.

To summarize:  the two hemispheres of the brain each see the world and process information in fundamentally different ways:  the left brain is more reductionistic in thinking, while the right is more holistic in thinking.  The left is more logical, analytical and detail-oriented, while the right is more creative, intuitive, and sees the bigger picture.  The left is more linear, while the right is more non-linear.  The left sees the map, while the right sees the territory.  And so on.  While both sides are of course quite valuable and necessary, the brain functions best overall when the right brain is in charge.  The left is a great servant, but a terrible master, hence the title of the book.  And Western culture has, for thousands of years, oscillated between favoring the overall relative dominance of each of the two hemispheres.  In recent centuries and decades, as in some other historical periods as well, we have become far too left-brain dominant, with very negative consequences, according to the author.  Not only does the left not really know what the right is doing, but at least half the time the left doesn't even know what the left is doing!  The left brain has thus essentially hijacked society, and that in turn leaves us "increasingly incapable of grappling with critical economic, environmental, and social issues, ones that shape our very future as a species", as the documentary would put it.  I am largely oversimplifying what he said, of course, but that is the basic gist of it overall.

One obvious reason for this excessive left-brain dominance could be due to poorly-designed education, of course.  But another could be that the left brain is faster in terms of processing speed than the right, and the pace of life is undoubtedly much, much faster nowadays than even the recent past.  Though the latter would be more of a chicken-or-the egg question. 

(And to all of the political conservatives and reactionaries who try in vain to shoehorn all of this into their silly left-wing vs right-wing political spectrum, like that one guy on The Daily Sceptic did recently, please get your own ideas.  This book, by a renowned Oxford scholar, truly thoroughly transcends such a naive interpretation of politics.)

A-ha!  That really explains a LOT!

Clearly, the USA (and a good chunk of the world as well, but especially the USA), has only gotten more, not less, left-brain dominant since roughly 40 years ago.  We as a society have been reactively lurching from crisis to crisis, moral panic to moral panic, trend to trend, fad to fad, idol to idol, and propaganda to propaganda, throwing at each whatever left-brained nostrums seem like a good idea at the time without really thinking it through.  But try as they may, the map is NOT the territory.  And their reductionist "solutions" invariably affect not just this thing over here, but also that thing over there, and that other thing all the way over there, and so on.  Oops!

One thing's for sure:  As the late, great Buckminster Fuller famously said, you cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that got us into that problem in the first place.  Unfortunately, not nearly enough people have gotten the memo, it seems.

UPDATE:  Looks like McGilchrist has a sequel to the aforementioned book, titled The Matter with Things, as well.  In it, the following quote is probably the most pertinent:

"[Y]ou could say, to sum up a vastly complex matter in a phrase, that the brain's left hemisphere is designed to help us ap-prehend – and thus manipulate – the world; the right hemisphere to com-prehend it – see it all for what it is."

Food for thought. 

A brain divided against itself cannot stand.

Blowing Hot And Cold (Cognition)

In psychology, the concept of "hot and cold cognition" has gained much currency in recent years.  "Cold cognition" is thinking while NOT being swayed by strong emotions, time pressure, and/or peer pressure, while "hot cognition" is thinking when one IS thus potentially swayed in the "heat of the moment".

In what passes for pop neuroscience these days, it has become in vogue to claim that while cold cognition fully matures by around age 16 or so, hot cognition takes much longer, often well into the mid to late 20s.  A major proponent of this theory is Laurence Steinberg, who has written extensively on the topic.  One major study by Steinberg et al. can be found here, which compares various ages in various countries on several hot and cold cognitive tests.  (What the authors call "psychosocial maturity" is a synonym for "hot cognition".) And while such a pattern was apparently seen to some extent in the aggregate, when you break it down by country, the pattern breaks down as well.  And the weak results cannot be explained away by individualism vs collectivism, rich vs poor, Global North vs Global South, eastern vs western, or any other obvious societal characteristics.  And notably, the USA was an outlier where instead of hot cognition improving steadily and largely linearly to (and likely beyond) age 30 like most other countries, it began to level off in the early to mid 20s and plateaued from then onwards.  And one of the other countries actually saw a regress (oops!) in hot cognition in the mid to late 20s.  Cold cognition, on the other hand, was generally much more consistent by country, and nearly always leveled off around 16.

It's almost like hot cognition is actually a skill where "practice makes good enough", as opposed to "biology is destiny".  There is far too wide a variation between individuals and societies to seriously argue otherwise.  And even a quick and cursory observation will reveal that most older adults aren't really all that great at it in the real world.  All the more reason to call BS on any claim that young people's civil rights be curtailed in the name of specious junk neuroscience.

As for the tempting idea that the juvenile injustice system (or a third category) thus be expanded to include young adults (ages 18-25 or so), or otherwise going easier on young adults, please allow me to channel the late criminologist James Q. Wilson.  He noted that even if disadvantaged demographics have a "steeper hill to climb" in terms of staying out of trouble, the prospect of punishment actually has greater utility for them to make it easier for them to climb that proverbial hill.  To that I would add, of course, as long as they are not completely incompetent, and it is in the interest of justice to do so.  And treating young adults as non-adults for that purpose is ultimately a trap, a velvet glove to the iron fist of revoking their hard-won civil rights as well.

That said, it is certainly the very height of hypocrisy to try and punish young people of any age as adults when they commit "status offenses" based entirely on age like underage drinking or smoking, curfew violations, and stuff like that which would not be crimes when adults do these things.  All such "status offenses" thus need to be either decriminalized or removed from the law books entirely, just like victimless crimes (or what the late, great Peter McWilliams called "consensual crimes") more generally.  Ageists really cannot have it both ways!

And finally, people of ALL ages really need to use their cold cognition to plan ahead better, to avoid the pitfalls of relying solely on hot cognition in potentially dangerous situations.  We ignore that at our peril.

How America Lost The Plot

From the ageist and illiberal abomination that is the 21 drinking age and especially its authoritarian enforcement, to drunk driving, to drug policy, to transportation policy, to environmental policy, to foreign policy, to Tobacco 21, and so on, America has well and truly lost the plot long ago on so many issues.  How long ago, you may ask?  Well, roughly 40 years ago, if not even a bit earlier than that.  But how and why did it happen in the first place?  Why can't our "leaders" (and many of those who keep voting for them) ever seem to see the forest for the trees?

In the book, The Master and His Emissary:  The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist (2009), the author delves into the familiar idea of the left vs right hemispheres of the brain.  Only unlike the usual surface-level analysis in that we see in pop neuroscience, this one is a real deep dive into the truly resounding implications of these brain differences for society and civilization.  Ten years later, it was even made into a documentary, The Divided Brain (2019), by McGilchrist himself along with award-winning documentary filmmaker Vanessa Dylyn, et al.

To summarize:  the two hemispheres of the brain each see the world and process information in fundamentally different ways:  the left brain is more reductionistic in thinking, while the right is more holistic in thinking.  The left is more logical, analytical and detail-oriented, while the right is more creative, intuitive, and sees the bigger picture.  The left is more linear, while the right is more non-linear.  The left sees the map, while the right sees the territory.  And so on.  While both sides are of course quite valuable and necessary, the brain functions best overall when the right brain is in charge.  The left is a great servant, but a terrible master, hence the title of the book.  And Western culture has, for thousands of years, oscillated between favoring the overall relative dominance of each of the two hemispheres.  In recent centuries and decades, as in some other historical periods as well, we have become far too left-brain dominant, with very negative consequences, according to the author.  Not only does the left not really know what the right is doing, but at least half the time the left doesn't even know what the left is doing!  The left brain has thus essentially hijacked society, and that in turn leaves us "increasingly incapable of grappling with critical economic, environmental, and social issues, ones that shape our very future as a species", as the documentary would put it.  I am largely oversimplifying what he said, of course, but that is the basic gist of it overall.

One obvious reason for this excessive left-brain dominance could be due to poorly-designed education, of course.  But another could be that the left brain is faster in terms of processing speed than the right, and the pace of life is undoubtedly much, much faster nowadays than even the recent past.  Though the latter would be more of a chicken-or-the egg question. 

(And to all of the political conservatives and reactionaries who try in vain to shoehorn all of this into their silly left-wing vs right-wing political spectrum, like that one guy on The Daily Sceptic did recently, please get your own ideas.  This book, by a renowned Oxford scholar, truly thoroughly transcends such a naive interpretation of politics.)

A-ha!  That really explains a LOT!

Clearly, the USA (and a good chunk of the world as well, but especially the USA), has only gotten more, not less, left-brain dominant since roughly 40 years ago.  We as a society have been reactively lurching from crisis to crisis, moral panic to moral panic, trend to trend, fad to fad, idol to idol, and propaganda to propaganda, throwing at each whatever left-brained nostrums seem like a good idea at the time without really thinking it through.  But try as they may, the map is NOT the territory.  And their reductionist "solutions" invariably affect not just this thing over here, but also that thing over there, and that other thing all the way over there, and so on.  Oops!

One thing's for sure:  As the late, great Buckminster Fuller famously said, you cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that got us into that problem in the first place.  Unfortunately, not nearly enough people have gotten the memo, it seems.

UPDATE:  Looks like McGilchrist has a sequel to the aforementioned book, titled The Matter with Things, as well.  Food for thought. 

A brain divided against itself cannot stand.

A Long Overdue Idea Whose Time Has Come: Vitamin-Enriched Alcohol

With the pathophysiology of the dreaded COVID-19 (including Long COVID) now looking increasingly linked to nutritional deficiencies, including but not limited to thiamine (Vitamin B1), all while America is drowning in the bottom of a bottle, it underscores a fortiori the urgency of adding vitamins to alcoholic beverages.  Various foods are fortified with thiamine and other nutrients, but not alcohol despite it being one of the lowest-hanging fruit ways to prevent such a deficiency resulting in beriberi, "wet brain" (Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome), and likely a good chunk of what is being labeled as COVID-19 today.

(Of note, thiamine is, along with intravenous Vitamin C and a corticosteroid, in fact a key component of the time-tested MATH+ protocol for hospitalized patients from the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.  That combination was most likely inspired by a much older, pre-COVID protocol known as HAT therapy, often used for sepsis and septic shock.)

Americans seem to think that thiamine deficiency was eradicated long ago, but the truth is that it still exists to this very day, and not trivially either.  The average American in fact eats and drinks lots of thiamine blockers/depletors or anti-nutrients, such as sugar, refined carbohydrates, coffee, tea, some OTC and prescription drugs, and, of course, alcohol.  Especially now during the pandemic under varying degrees of panic, quarantine, isolation, and lockdown, with all the stress, anxiety, boredom, and gnawing loneliness they create.  Lack of sunlight exposure from staying indoors also adds Vitamin D deficiency to this mix.  And this ubiquitous "anxiety/isolation/vitamin deprivation syndrome", as vitamin guru Bill Sardi would call it, only worsens actual viral infections and can even in the absence of the virus cause "pseudo-infections" with rather similar symptoms as COVID, that can fool even the very best of physicians.

This is not the first time that beriberi, "the great masquerader", was confused with a viral infection, and certainly is not the first time it (and other nutritional deficiencies) increased susceptibility to and exacerbated an actual one either.  But if we really wanted to, we could ensure that it will be the last.

And the saddest thing about this situation is that (unlike a wild virus which is largely out of our control, despite illusions to the contrary) such vitamin deficiency is easily 100% preventable, yet it is still occurring due to politics and lack of empathy.

Thus, one of the lowest-hanging fruit measures to improve public health is to fortify alcoholic beverages with thiamine (Vitamin B1) and perhaps other vitamins known to be depleted by alcohol such as niacin (B3) and folate (B9).  This can be done very easily through targeted tax incentives for alcohol manufacturers to add such vitamins to their products.  Anti-alcohol advocates of course may not be the biggest fans of such an idea, since they lobbied against it back in the late 1970s when the idea was first floated.  (They tend to reflexively dislike and oppose anything that makes alcohol look even remotely good or healthy.)  But since they were strange bedfellows with the alcohol industry on this issue, it follows that using tax incentives to sweeten the deal for the industry, combined with some good old-fashioned ridicule for the opposition, would effectively triangulate the dry lobby's silly and paternalistic opposition to such a promising (and rather libertarian) public health measure.

Fortifying coffee, tea, and soft drinks with such B vitamins should also be next, and also joining Canada and the Nordic countries by fortifying various staple foods like flour and bread with Vitamin D as well. 

So what are we waiting for?  Let's dust off and put this 40+ year old idea to good use, yesterday!

ADDENDUM: TB or not TB? That is the question, since a good chunk of what is being labeled as COVID may actually be tuberculosis, and that was in fact suspected back in March if not earlier.  A highly contagious, airborne, nasty, and deadly bacterial lung infection, TB can quite easily be confused with an influenza or coronavirus infection, and millions of Americans are thought to have latent (dormant) TB right now (and before the pandemic), just waiting to be reactivated by nutritional deficiencies and the stress/isolation of lockdown.  Interestingly, the BCG vaccine against TB also seems to work well against COVID as well.  And the good news is that Vitamin D, along with Vitamin C, thiamine, and niacin, can apparently block that disease as well.

Latest Teen Brain and Cannabis Study More Smoke than Fire

The scary-sounding headline from a few weeks ago in USA Today reads, "Marijuana caused more damage to teens' brains than alcohol, study finds".  Yes, there was a study that claimed to find such results, but there is less here than meets the eye.

In other words, there's more smoke than fire.

The actual study itself is predictably behind a paywall, and we will not dignify such questionable research by paying for it, so we couldn't find the actual numbers and thus could not quantify any effect sizes or how long the reported effects lasted, but the abstract and several news articles summarize qualitatively the main findings.  The study, which involved nearly 4000 students from 7th through 10th grades in the greater Montreal area, longitudinally following them for those four years, asking questions about both alcohol and cannanis use and giving tests on memory and response inhibition.  Statistically significant correlations were noted between increased cannabis use and reduced performance on such tests, while interestingly for alcohol such correlations failed to reach statistical significance.

Again, no information about the size of such reported effects, and guess what?  SIZE MATTERS.  And so does duration.  Also, it say nothing about any such correlations beyond 10th grade, nor clearly distinguish between lighter and heavier use.  (The article did note that there were many more daily users of cannabis than alcohol, despite the fact that there were many more drinkers than tokers overall the sample.)  And it is very curious that the typically pro-21 mainstream scientific community are so willing to practically exonerate alcohol in such a study of teens--or perhaps they are simply alcohol supremacists.  And while the sample size and longitudinal nature of this study puts it head and shoulders about most other studies on the matter, given the aforementioned concerns it should still be viewed with caution in terms of causation.

Additionally, the study seems to be silent on the real "dark horse of drugs"--tobacco/nicotine.  Nicotine is a known neurotoxin, particularly during early adolescence, and is far more correlated with cannabis than alcohol use.  Thus, at least some of the reported effects in the study could in fact be due to tobacco, and/or perhaps other substances as well.

Keep in mind that the infamous 2012 study that reportedly found persistently reduced IQs among adults who used cannabis before age 18, was debunked by 2014 study that found no correlation between adolescent cannabis use and IQ or exam performance (though heavy use beginning before age 15 was associated with slightly poorer exam results at age 16).  This latter study did control for tobacco, alcohol, and a host of other factors.  So it is very likely that soon another study will come a long and refute the first study discussed in this article, or perhaps find that any such effects are limited to the heaviest users, particularly those who began before age 15 or 16.  In fact, a 2018 systematic review of 69 studies of adolescent and young adult cannabis use and cognitive functioning found that reported adverse effects were much smaller in size than the prohibitionists like to claim, and generally tend to be temporary rather than permanent, even for frequent and/or heavy use.  And interestingly, no correlation with age of onset, though the mean age of study participants in these 69 studies was significantly higher than in the aforementioned Montreal study.

Other studies as well cast serious doubt on the scary claims of cannabis neurotoxicity as well, and most studies find weed safer than alcohol.

So what is the best takeaway from such studies?  It would seem that while occasional or moderate cannabis use is basically a non-problem, heavy and/or daily/near-daily use (unless medically necessary) should probably be avoided at any age, but particularly for people under 18 and especially under 15.  And while delaying the onset of use, or at least regular use, for as long as possible is probably wise for people under 18 and especially under 15, there is no hard scientific evidence that cannabis is any more harmful at 18 than it is as 21, 25, or even 30 for that matter.  Thus, there is no good reason to keep it illegal or set the age limit any higher than 18.  And even for people well under 18, the criminal law is still far too harsh a tool to apply to something like this that more likely than not turns out to be a non-problem.

That Really Explains A Lot

An Alternet article titled "The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever", along with the related Grist article, "Science Confirms:  Politics Wrecks Your Ability to Do Math", sheds a great deal of light on why it is so hard to get people to accept the truth when it conflicts with their political views.  A recent study found that our political passions can easily (and unfortunately) undermine our most basic reasoning skills.  That is, no matter how good one is at math, one may get the answer to a math problem wrong if the right answer contradicts their political beliefs.  Worse, when people are misinformed, giving them facts to correct such errors only makes them cling to their erroneous beliefs even more.  And this is true no matter how smart someone is--in fact political passion appeared to trump reason even more so for those who were better at math!  A truly depressing discovery indeed.

All this explains why our movement in particular has had such a hard time convincing the opposition about the error of their ways.  For an issue as fraught and passionate as the drinking age, it seems that for many of our opponents, no amount of evidence is enough to convince them that their unscientific and pseudo-scientific positions really don't stand up to scrutiny.   A particular debate that our group's leader had with an otherwise intelligent and well-educated member of the pro-21 crowd (with a PhD no less!) comes to mind.  The opponent's "evidence" and faulty logic were refuted over and over again by citing the best studies on the matter, and yet he still refused to budge one bit, finding every conceivable reason to believe that our data were suspect.  This literally went on for weeks.  But eventually he just got tired of arguing and walked away with his proverbial tail between his legs, after which we proudly declared victory.

In other words, we really do have our work cut out for us, and more so than we ever thought.