Brain designer seems like a less interesting job than game designer, but it does have a certain ring to it. And let’s face it, your work is more likely to be described as “mind-blowing,” which is how I’d describe this TED talk from Rebecca Saxe, who studies the brain at the eponymous Saxelab at MIT.
The TED writeup emphasizes mind-reading. That’s all well and good, but that’s just the come-on. My takeaways from this stimulating (literally) demonstration are:
- Holy crap! Magnets can change the way you think!
- As we always suspected, judgmental people are mentally lazy. In fact, this research seems to indicate that a chronic lack of empathy is a physiological problem. Now we just need to strap a bulk eraser to the heads of inconsiderate people.
- The Pentagon is really calling Dr. Saxe about ways to use this research for military purposes. Greaaaaat. Shouldn’t it be NIMH calling instead?
