Well wattaya know, two adult humans both stupider than a gerbil, wow what a shock. Yaknow, he can convince them to humor him by saying they can tell him their original plan knowing he won’t be able to understand it just to taunt him, I mean their clearly stupid enough to just go along with it.
Also in their defense, I just assume that all field agents of Anasigma have repeatedly suffered head trauma/mind control/other things detrimental to cognitive function. If you don’t start out in the “nerves of steel or brain of jello?” category, you wind up there after a few years.
That’s rich, given how he seemingly felt it unnecessary to think too deeply about WWI (he was a staunch Pacifist and Isolationist) or about his own flagrant racism (he was a notorious Anti-Semite).
“Thinking” isn’t a single monolithic thing. There are different kinds of intelligence, with different levels of difficulty, which differ wildly based on who is doing the thinking.
You can be great at understanding things like numbers, patterns, engineering, economics, etc, and still be terrible at understanding things like art, literature, culture, people, etc.
Being a rocket scientist doesn’t make you a good brain surgeon, and vice versa. Not everyone thinks in the same ways.
“Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken: the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it. ”
One of my favorite stories of corporate pettiness is that the Dodge Brothers chose a six pointed star as their logo after Henry Ford staged a hostile buyout of their stakes in FoMoCo specifically as an F-you to Ford.
But if you change it from “10% of our brain” to “10% of our potential intelligence”, it becomes true depressingly often. (Or irrelevent. See the work of Geoffrey Miller. Or Arthur C. Clarke.)
All they proved is that all of a person’s brain is active, but that was never in question. Just because a person’s brain is active doesn’t mean they’re actually using all of it.
If all of a person’s brain is active they will die of it almost at once (it would be a really, really big grand mal epileptic seizure). It is questionable what “using” even means for a neural net. Wikipedia has a rather good article on it (“Ten percent of the brain myth”) going into the full tangled story of this thing’s possible origins way back in the 1890s.
A grand mal seizure happens when the brain is over-active (technically, when it’s abnormally active).
If the whole brain weren’t active, then the inactive areas would begin to die. It has to stay active (at least on “low power mode”, so to speak) simply to survive.
My niece is an MD, and was #1 in the country back when she finished medical school. I’d trust her any day over whatever wikipedia might say (and some days, I’d trust a frog more than wikipedia).
But don’t take my (or my niece’s) word for it. Scientific American did an interview a while back with a neurologist from Johns Hopkins and one from the Mayo Clinic, and they both said that almost all of the brain is active almost all of the time, even when you’re sleeping. The brain is only 3% of your body’s mass, but it uses 20% of your body’s energy.
Yeah, but these people didn’t mean “alive” when they said “active”. I mean obviously they’re maintaining membrane potentials etc (which is indeed really expensive). They meant “only 5% of the brain is firing and helping with thinking”, which… well, they all have a background firing rate, but the idea that they are almost all off most of the time is just as ridiculous as the idea that they can all be “turned on” and firing actual pulse trains at once. A network in which every node is active at once is not a stable network.
“But our plan was always to goad you into giving us free ideas by seducing you with the chance to show off how smart you are! Do you think your genius ego could ever resist the impulse to monologue?”. ^_^
Which is at least in part why we now have the “Bomb”. It was two graduate students working under Leo Szilard, a friend of Albert Einstein, who just had to brag that they figured out it was practical to build.
The other great motivator in the activity of producing incredibly deadly stuff is money.
Sounds better than “We didn’t actually have a plan, we’re just winging it”. It may be correct, too – Artie probably can’t comprehend that level of incompetence.
I’d have to look it up for the specifics, but when Helen was asked if she planned or just improvised, her response was “when you’re Mad, those are the same thing.”
Artie will always be Helen’s crowning achievement in evil. Mostly because he keeps deluding himself into thinking that he is the “good” one. I wonder if she designed that into him…
I suspect that is more a matter of learned survival skills. After all, no one is going to survive long near a mad scientist without learning to anticipate their next diabolical plan. If anything, Artie is used to over-achievers in evil; even Anasigma’s best falls far short of that apex of apocalyptic atrocities. Alpha Alpha and Bravo Echo are most decidedly NOT Anasigma’s best.
Artie did need to find out if they had done something with the information they had gathered.. He has his answer now, so his next step should be to neutralise the drone.
What At the has failed to consider is that these two never really had a plan other “sneak in with the rat drone”. Like Marvin the android, thinking down to their level gives him a headache.
I’ve seen this sort of thing play out before, and had to tell the intelligent and compassionate person to stop talking before the hate-filled imbecile trying to hurt innocent people accidentally comprehends something and gets any ideas.
Been thinking… we have a rodent who’s into humans and a human who’s into rodents. If it weren’t for the fact that Artie doesn’t bat for that team, I think I’d be shipping those two. 🙂
Artie is flexible enough, he mixed it up with Virginia. Besides, there’s Valiant waiting in the wings to save his fair Dulcinea’s virtue from the ruffian even at the risk of being robbed of his own. Who says this love triangle has to have a loser? I mean, apart from Echo Bravo. But he was born to be a rolling stone, leaving behind a trail of broken hearts like Tigerlily and Imogene’s.
Instead of rodent captive and interrogator, they’ll probably do human nurse and patient next. That would leave Valiant out of the action, squeaking helplessly but knowing only the greatest adversity can prove the purest and greatest of loves.
The tiny brains piloting the drone can’t comprehend their plan.
Could you draw us a map with the best invasion routes highlighted?
Well wattaya know, two adult humans both stupider than a gerbil, wow what a shock. Yaknow, he can convince them to humor him by saying they can tell him their original plan knowing he won’t be able to understand it just to taunt him, I mean their clearly stupid enough to just go along with it.
Just barely in their defense, Artie is a super-intelligent gerbil.
Also in their defense, I just assume that all field agents of Anasigma have repeatedly suffered head trauma/mind control/other things detrimental to cognitive function. If you don’t start out in the “nerves of steel or brain of jello?” category, you wind up there after a few years.
Artie must use nearly all of his brain, unlike humans who just use a small percentage. Except Echo Bravo who must use an even smaller percentage.
Didn’t he say he was chosen for his proven ability to take blows to the head?
Technically, that is a use.
Of his head, yes. But not of his brain.
That myth was debunked as soon as fMRI technology was developed.
While that is true, we sure do *act* as if we don’t really use it much of the time.
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”
Henry Ford
That’s rich, given how he seemingly felt it unnecessary to think too deeply about WWI (he was a staunch Pacifist and Isolationist) or about his own flagrant racism (he was a notorious Anti-Semite).
“Thinking” isn’t a single monolithic thing. There are different kinds of intelligence, with different levels of difficulty, which differ wildly based on who is doing the thinking.
You can be great at understanding things like numbers, patterns, engineering, economics, etc, and still be terrible at understanding things like art, literature, culture, people, etc.
Being a rocket scientist doesn’t make you a good brain surgeon, and vice versa. Not everyone thinks in the same ways.
“Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken: the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it. ”
Good ole René
One of my favorite stories of corporate pettiness is that the Dodge Brothers chose a six pointed star as their logo after Henry Ford staged a hostile buyout of their stakes in FoMoCo specifically as an F-you to Ford.
But if you change it from “10% of our brain” to “10% of our potential intelligence”, it becomes true depressingly often. (Or irrelevent. See the work of Geoffrey Miller. Or Arthur C. Clarke.)
All they proved is that all of a person’s brain is active, but that was never in question. Just because a person’s brain is active doesn’t mean they’re actually using all of it.
If all of a person’s brain is active they will die of it almost at once (it would be a really, really big grand mal epileptic seizure). It is questionable what “using” even means for a neural net. Wikipedia has a rather good article on it (“Ten percent of the brain myth”) going into the full tangled story of this thing’s possible origins way back in the 1890s.
A grand mal seizure happens when the brain is over-active (technically, when it’s abnormally active).
If the whole brain weren’t active, then the inactive areas would begin to die. It has to stay active (at least on “low power mode”, so to speak) simply to survive.
My niece is an MD, and was #1 in the country back when she finished medical school. I’d trust her any day over whatever wikipedia might say (and some days, I’d trust a frog more than wikipedia).
But don’t take my (or my niece’s) word for it. Scientific American did an interview a while back with a neurologist from Johns Hopkins and one from the Mayo Clinic, and they both said that almost all of the brain is active almost all of the time, even when you’re sleeping. The brain is only 3% of your body’s mass, but it uses 20% of your body’s energy.
Yeah, but these people didn’t mean “alive” when they said “active”. I mean obviously they’re maintaining membrane potentials etc (which is indeed really expensive). They meant “only 5% of the brain is firing and helping with thinking”, which… well, they all have a background firing rate, but the idea that they are almost all off most of the time is just as ridiculous as the idea that they can all be “turned on” and firing actual pulse trains at once. A network in which every node is active at once is not a stable network.
“But our plan was always to goad you into giving us free ideas by seducing you with the chance to show off how smart you are! Do you think your genius ego could ever resist the impulse to monologue?”. ^_^
Which is at least in part why we now have the “Bomb”. It was two graduate students working under Leo Szilard, a friend of Albert Einstein, who just had to brag that they figured out it was practical to build.
The other great motivator in the activity of producing incredibly deadly stuff is money.
Sounds better than “We didn’t actually have a plan, we’re just winging it”. It may be correct, too – Artie probably can’t comprehend that level of incompetence.
He spent five years working with pre-Mad Dave. He has experience with that level of forward planning.
It was honestly very hard for him to tell whether Helen was amazingly clever and very good at planning, really good at winging it, or just lucky.
I’d have to look it up for the specifics, but when Helen was asked if she planned or just improvised, her response was “when you’re Mad, those are the same thing.”
I like the continuing theme from Narbonic that Artie is frighteningly good at being evil, even when he’s trying to be good.
Artie will always be Helen’s crowning achievement in evil. Mostly because he keeps deluding himself into thinking that he is the “good” one. I wonder if she designed that into him…
I suspect that is more a matter of learned survival skills. After all, no one is going to survive long near a mad scientist without learning to anticipate their next diabolical plan. If anything, Artie is used to over-achievers in evil; even Anasigma’s best falls far short of that apex of apocalyptic atrocities. Alpha Alpha and Bravo Echo are most decidedly NOT Anasigma’s best.
Artie, Artie, Artie, how many times have the lawyers talked to you about talking.
Artie did need to find out if they had done something with the information they had gathered.. He has his answer now, so his next step should be to neutralise the drone.
What At the has failed to consider is that these two never really had a plan other “sneak in with the rat drone”. Like Marvin the android, thinking down to their level gives him a headache.
Thanks. Now I’m going to have a pain in all the diodes down my left side for the rest of the day.
This feels way too close to real life.
I’ve seen this sort of thing play out before, and had to tell the intelligent and compassionate person to stop talking before the hate-filled imbecile trying to hurt innocent people accidentally comprehends something and gets any ideas.
Been thinking… we have a rodent who’s into humans and a human who’s into rodents. If it weren’t for the fact that Artie doesn’t bat for that team, I think I’d be shipping those two. 🙂
They are on a date right now, after all.
Artie is flexible enough, he mixed it up with Virginia. Besides, there’s Valiant waiting in the wings to save his fair Dulcinea’s virtue from the ruffian even at the risk of being robbed of his own. Who says this love triangle has to have a loser? I mean, apart from Echo Bravo. But he was born to be a rolling stone, leaving behind a trail of broken hearts like Tigerlily and Imogene’s.
Instead of rodent captive and interrogator, they’ll probably do human nurse and patient next. That would leave Valiant out of the action, squeaking helplessly but knowing only the greatest adversity can prove the purest and greatest of loves.
Ah, the curse of the educator. Always taking the opportunity for a teaching moment.