It's a well used concept in torture programs 2 and features prominently in military manuals 3 with detailed descriptions of how to induce the state where the "fear of pain or deprivation" is more useful than the actual beatings, electric shocks and other pain inducing methods. Although, the sadistic folks who undertake these jobs much prefer the latter to the former.
Learned Helplessness is also very useful in other contexts, not ones normally associated with torture chambers. Some High Tech companies specialize in embedding similar concepts into their software programs in order to "direct" the users into a specific set of behaviors: compulsive use of the programs and dread of not being able to use them.
Humans are very malleable and getting us to do X Y Z is much easier than teaching a dog to sit, stay, don't jump on people, don't run away. etc. etc. etc. Any one with dogs knows that one or more of these commands may not work, especially if you are not a professional dog trainer. Just open the front door and see how well your sit, stay commands work.
Humans though sit, stay, stare at the monitor and punch at the keyboard for hours and hours. We spend hours just "looking" or "checking" our phones. In the last week I've spent 5 hours just "looking" at my so-call smartphone, in case the "smart" part wore off and it failed to notify me of some ultra-important-trivial-item was collected and went un-noticed.
I play on-line video games MMORPGs 4 and I don't think anyone who plays regularly hasn't experienced the dread of "New Release Downtime". Just the thought of an announced 24 hour update period that morphs (ahem) into a 5 day outage is enough to make our control trigger fingers twitch even when off line. However, playing a game is not Real Life and a twitching fire button finger isn't the worst, unless you happen to pull an entire mob of NPCs including the Boss prematurely. The old 50 DPK Minus5 WoW raid video is still floating about showing what happens when things go pear shaped.
In our modern on-line world, High Tech companies work very hard to make sure we are permanently in a state of Learned Helplessness. It's all done subtly and packaged as convenience using social and cultural conditioning and our own mental processes to achieve the same outcome: to render us Unable to Function unless we are "allowed" by the High Tech software. It's more than just being reliant or dependent, it's the complete inability to do anything at all without it.
Recently a journalist tried to Not Google for a week 6. It was one to the saddest indictments of Learned Helplessness I've read. One can be horrified and revolted by the doings in CIA Torture Chambers and those of our Allies and even those of our Enemies but this surpassed the blood and gore by a long way. The man was completely unable to do even a few tasks without the High Tech sadist in his pocket telling him how, when and where to do to them.
The loss of knowledge about how to do anything without Google was condensed to:
You have to hope someone else knows what to do. 6a
The man was completely unable to think for himself, solve any problem, learn something on his own, experience adventure, discover new concepts or compete even trivial tasks.
It was sad reading.
All through his article, he describes how helpless he felt, adrift in a world where he had no fundamental ideas about anything that had not been imprinted by High Tech and worse yet, the inability to remember anything even when it was imprinted. He couldn't even find his way home.6b
It's a new form of dementia7: Googlezheimer's8
What's most sad is that common skills cannot be completed without a request to the Google Mind Monitoring System8.
Where to go, what to do, how to do it, what should I do, where am I, cannot be done without permission: Learned Helplessness.
Without Google, the issue was how to get the answer.
With Google, the issue is the answer.6c
And that's the problem. We don't know the answers anymore. We have lost the ability to think on our own. To solve our own problems.
The most subtle part of Googlezheimer's is that we don't even recognize when Google gives us the WRONG ANSWER.
Oh yeah...
Big Issue...
There are plenty of wrong answers to be presented. We have no real compass to gauge reality anymore. We cannot tell the fake from the real, the imaginary from reality or the repurposed designed to enhance our dependence. We are adrift and we don't even recognize it ... because Google didn't tell us.
There is so much that is good about technology and so much that is really not good. It's in the underlying structure of how we use High Tech. We are fed less and less of what's new and more and more of about what we already know until we are so crippled mentally we cannot even find our own homes.
You can turn a horse loose and he will find his stable.
You can turn a dog loose and he will find his way home.
Cats are notorious for Coming Back 9 too.
But not so with Googlezheimer's
As I read the continuing saga of this man's descent into the enormity of what's been lost to him, his main concern was getting back to his comfort zone, to a Googlezheimer's Dormant State8. He's not even that alarmed about his incapacity to do things because he's focused on getting back to using Google. There's no epiphany10 moment for him, no insight11 or Eureka!12 only a frightened human overwhelmed by what he doesn't know and has no way of finding out ... without Google.
For whatever knowledge he has acquired in his life, it matters only to the extent of his hidden ignorance. Once the ignorance is exposed, the results are devastating mentally.
Google is like an insect: highly specialized; narrow purposed. Humans have greater capacities, except Google won't tell you this ... it's not good for their business.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects."
— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love 1973 13
References
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
Learned helplessness is behavior that occurs when the subject endures repeatedly painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape from or avoid. After such experiences, the organism often fails to learn or accept "escape" or "avoidance" in new situations where such behavior is likely to be effective. In other words, the organism learned that it is helpless. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
In CIA interrogation manuals learned helplessness is characterized as "apathy" which may result from prolonged use of coercive techniques which result in a "debility-dependency-dread" state in the subject, "If the debility-dependency-dread state is unduly prolonged, however, the arrestee may sink into a defensive apathy from which it is hard to arouse him. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_and_CIA_interrogation_manuals
Details of what's in the public released documents about how the Army and CIA torture people. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are a combination of role-playing video games and massively multiplayer online games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual world. - ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtvIYRrgZ04
Published on Dec 8, 2007
Onyxia Wipe Animation
NOTE: Video and Animation contain Strong and Vulgar Language and Images.URL fractured to prevent autorun. - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/17/would-life-be-happier-without-google-i-spent-a-week-finding-out
Would life be happier without Google? I spent a week finding out
Tim Dowling The Guardian Wed 17 Apr 2019 01.00 EDT
a) “You just had to hope someone else knew”
b) "When I moved house two years ago, I started to rely on Google for navigation. Now, I am utterly dependent. I don’t just want to know the way – I want to know the best way, as of this minute. I can’t remember the last time I gave a thought to where anything was."
c) “Without Google, the issue was how to get the answer ... With Google, the issue is the answer.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer%27s_disease
Information about Dementia and Alzheimer's conditions. - My own definitions:
Googlezheimer's: Tech induced loss of knowledge.
Googlezheimer's Dormant State (GDS): A mindless gazing at screens, thumbing or scrolling though apps or screens of information without reading or comprehension or remembering anything about what's displayed. Seen everywhere at anytime except when sleeping or napping; the thumbing motion may still occur from long term habit.
Google Mind Monitoring System (GMMS): Any system that compels a continuous re-checking behavior. Such systems are based on compulsive behavior creation and are designed to maximize looking or checking of devices. Each access episode provides additional data points and market target details. A successful display will increase checking or viewing times and duration. Successful triggers are noted and used to tailor targeted stimulations. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Came_Back
"The Cat Came Back" is a comic song written by Harry S. Miller in 1893.
But the cat came back, he couldn't stay no long-er,
Yes the cat came back de very next day,
the cat came back—thought she were a goner,
But the cat came back for it wouldn't stay away.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(feeling)
An experience of a sudden and striking realization
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight
Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a specific context
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_effect
The eureka effect by Albert Einstein (also known as the Aha! moment or eureka moment) refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept.
-
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love
Quotation from Time Enough for Love 1973 by Robert Heinlein
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
