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https://scottsantens.substack.com/p/our-data-our-resources-our-terms-and-conditions-learned-control-ai-data-centers-ubi>
"In 1967, a young psychologist named Martin Seligman ran an experiment on dogs
that became one of the most famous in the history of psychology. Dogs were
placed in a chamber and given electric shocks they could not escape. Later,
those same dogs were moved to a new chamber where escape was easy. All they had
to do was jump over a low barrier. But the dogs that had previously experienced
inescapable shocks didn’t jump. They laid down. They accepted the pain. They
sadly whimpered and gave up.
Seligman called this
learned helplessness, and the concept shaped how we
think about depression, poverty, and human motivation. The idea was that
organisms who learn they have no control over bad outcomes stop trying, even
when the situation becomes changeable.
Most people who know anything about psychology know this finding. What most
people don’t know is that fifty years later, Seligman himself said he got it
backwards."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
