Donald J Trump: The Dullest Knive In The Drawer (BUT - - -)

"But hold on. I ask myself: How could Trump have become president, and now clinch the Republican nomination for the presidency for a third time, if he doesn’t have something in the brain bank? Even if Trump doesn’t read, can’t follow a logical argument, and has the attention span of a fruit fly, I keep believing he must have some intelligence.

"Well, it turns out there’s another form of intelligence, called 'emotional intelligence.'

"Emotional intelligence is a concept developed by two psychologists, John Mayer of the University of New Hampshire and Yale’s Peter Salovey, and popularized by Dan Goleman in his 1996 book of the same name.

"Mayer and Salovey define emotional intelligence as the ability to do two things: 'understand and manage our own emotions,' and 'recognize and influence the emotions of others.'

"True, Trump hasn’t displayed much capacity for the first. He’s thin-skinned, narcissistic, and vindictive. As dozens of Republican foreign policy experts have put it: 'He is unable or unwilling to separate truth from falsehood. He does not encourage conflicting views. He lacks self-control and acts impetuously. He cannot tolerate criticism.'

"Okay, but what about Mayer and Salovey’s second aspect of emotional intelligence — influencing the emotions of others?

"This is where Trump’s brain outperforms the brains of ordinary mortals. He knows how to manipulate people. He has an uncanny ability to discover their emotional vulnerabilities — their fears, anxieties, prejudices, and darkest desires — and use them for his own purposes.

"To put it another way, Trump is an extraordinarily talented conman."

Click on the link below for the full picture of his stupidity:

Seriously, again, how dumb is Trump?

Should We Be Handwriting More?

"Do you still write by hand? Anything besides shopping lists? A new study looked at what happens in our brain when we write by hand or type on the keyboard, and it makes a really strong case for handwriting. I personally quite like handwriting and I am totally convinced it’s good for, well, something, so I should be extra sceptical of this finding. But let’s have a look."

Click on the link below for a 7-min video looking at this claim:

Handwriting Improves Brain Conductivity?

A Deluded Brain CAN Be Changed!

"Politics isn’t the first to cause structural changes in the brain. More than a decade ago, researchers used brain scans to show that London cab drivers’ gray matter grew larger to help them store a mental map of the city. There more time they spent on the road, the bigger their hippocampi, an area associated with navigation, became.

This implies that despite the political leanings seen through our brains, how we vote—and thus the cause of our political affiliations—may not be set in stone, Schreiber says.

“'If we believe that we’re hardwired for our political views, then it’s really easy for me to discount in you in a conversation. ‘Oh, you’re just a conservative because you have a red brain,’ or ‘Oh, you’re a liberal because you have a blue brain,' Schreiber explains. 'But that’s just not the case. The brain changes. The brain is dynamic.'

Study Predicts Political Beliefs With 83 Percent Accuracy

Heros, Empathy, Apathy, And The Brain

"Scott Pelley meets with Carnegie Hero Fund awardees and reports on a possible difference in brain make-up for those who commit heroic acts."

What makes up a hero? Who has what it takes to be one? Are all of us pre-programmed towards empathy or apathy in a life-threatening emergency? Click on the link below for a recent "60 Minutes" segment that presents the latest scientific findings attempting to answer these questions. 

What's in the heads of heroes?

I finish with a serious suggestion for research. Since it is clear to anyone paying attention that there is a huge difference between Democrats and Republicans regarding empathy, select samples of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans and brain scan them looking for the same findings presented in this "60 Minutes" segment. If there are significant differences, a second/repeat study could be performed on the same subjects after an appropriate educational process of critical thinking and scientific findings regarding the brain and free will.

Improving Brain Function

There are many ways of improving brain function, but advertizers like their marks to cut corners and just buy what they are selling regardless of the science (or lack thereof) behind it. These articles focus in on the problem:

https://www.truthinadvertising.org/how-amazon-promotes-profits-from-deceptively-marketed-brain-supplements/

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/dont-buy-into-brain-health-supplements