The first rule of human brains!

Rule 1 "New" brain regions help create peace and plenty. "Old" brain regions take control of war, strife and stress. Old brain regions are easyer to access then new regions.

When I talk about an old brain region I am talking about one we share basically share with reptiles or mammals. By new brain regions I am obviously referring to the cerebral cortex that handles the cognitive arts and separates us from creatures that have only the first two older types of brain. Even the brightest dolphins, and chimps are simply not in the human league when it comes to intelligence. Never the less these two older brains sit just underneath the cortex and cause trouble from time to time.

Different parts of the human brain become dominant, based upon the stressors or lack of them in the background environment. Or to put it in plain English: the majority of humans beings do predictable things. Now we have Magnetic Imaging Resonance scanners (MRI) that can tell which parts of the brain light up under any given experience. While there are differences on how male and female brains process data, it's still very easy to predict which part of the brain will light up when you're under stress or paranoid, as opposed to when you're playing with a pet or baby. Peering inside the brain while it's working has revolutionized our understanding of what parts become dominant, when and sometimes ?why?.

Long before MRI techniques, politicians have pressed peoples mental buttons, for often nefarious reasons. For simplicity sake the human brain can be divided up into its reptile, mammal, and cerebral cortex brains. The cerebral cortex is the part of the brain that separates us from the animals and makes us such geniuses, able to truly understand and manipulate our environment. The mammal brain allows us to empathize and experience emotion. The reptile brain controls our fight or flight response and voluntary muscles. Politicians love the mammal and especially reptile brains, because they can make large number of people do predictable things or vote in predictable ways.

To find out more about how the human brain works. I would strongly recommend the book Evil Genes by Dr. Barbara Oakley Ph.D. Why? Well she is the sort of person who is able to speak in plain English and tell good stories, despite being a P.h.D. Best of all she is refreshingly free of comforting political orthodoxy so fashionable in academic circles. (having first hand prolonged experience with evil will do that to a person.)

If you cannot understand irrational evil, you will not understand politics and the politicians that cash in on it all.

http://www.amazon.com/Evil-Genes-Hitler-Mothers-Boyfriend/dp/159102580X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213863576&sr=8-1