Wonderful RSA Animate, I am a fan…but please, let’s have more female characters! Given that the piece is about the lack of balance in our world it’s curious – although perhaps revealing – to be watching such a skewed version of reality.

How can we find out more about who makes the fantastic animations?

Dear RSA, 

This was a wonderful talk, and deserved to be given the RSAnimate treatment. However, I have found the recent Animate videos to be a little over-zealous in pace and content. Take, for instance, the large amount of text on screen- this tends to distract from the talk itself.

The best RSAnimate is in my opinion the David Harvey talk, as all the imagery actually helps to illustrate his points, rather than dazzle with clever effects.

I’m a fan of this series, but I would definitely prefer the animations to be a supplement to, and not a barrier to, the talk that underpins it.

Thanks!

The closing message in this presentation was especially encouraging to me.  I am an American, one who has many gifts.  I know all too well that the servant is honored – not just honored in America, but worshiped – and the gift is not just forgotten, but has been ostracized.

I think I chose to change my last name to Wolf in part because I feel as though I needed to be recognized as one who was ostracized as wolves have been (and are once again.)   I have, for example, recently discovered Kohlberg’s concept of Mental Maturity, and realize I may well be approaching Transcendental Morality.  In my mind, this gives me significant responsibilities for the kinds of things that the RSA itself tries to accomplish in society.  But Americans only see arrogance and how vastly different I am, and treat me accordingly.

Understanding ourselves and our brains is vital to society.  And given the overload of information shoved in our faces daily through every sensory channel available; it is difficult to sort through what is virtual, what is real, and what is patently false.  For that, I am grateful for these animations; but not only for their content and being information I know I can always count on as being useful and relevant; but also because I discovered the RSA through the RSAnimate video series.  In fact, I am going to try to become a fellow, as the work I do, rather in a vacuum as I reside in America (it’s much worse than I think most Brits imagine), is quite parallel to the missions of the RSA it its fellow.

I hope that these animation can continue, and that they can retain their original purpose and effectiveness.  I do agree that they have become a bit complex, and do advocate for a return to simplicity so that the message isn’t garbled.  But I am quite grateful to the animator and those who help put them together and hope that they can continue to enlighten, and hopefully attract people to the RSA and its missions.

For my part, thank you for this video and the series, and for the work you fellows do.

Yes, WHO indeed?!

I’m sure there are other elements that can cause ADD, some of them cultural, some biological, but yes, I think lack of parental participation is a key element for some kids.  Parenting in the world we live requires a huge amount of creativity and that is the missing ingredient.

I think it’d be awesome if you had the entire whiteboard once it’s finished available as a High resolution image file, I’d love to turn some of the RSAnimate talks into posters and stuff to decorate my office space with? Anyone think this is a cool idea?

What a novel way to present what is normally linear data. It got my right cortex involved in what would traditionally be sequential thinking.

As far as the content, you may or may not know that since the early 50′s (Sperry) and into the 60′s (Vogel and Bogen) and 70′s (Gazzaniga) data began to accumulate describing subtle changes in personality/consciousness associated with cerebral commissurotomy. Sperry received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his “split brain” research and it was anticipated that funding would flow from such a profound and fascinating discovery. However, the data was temporally diluted from an incursion into pop psychology and eventually finding its way into the common cultural lexicon.   

Although I am personally interested in its effect upon the field of evolutionary biology, I would expect it to have implications in the fields of medicine, mental health, psychotherapy, behavioral neurophysiology, cognition, artificial intelligence, psychology of religion and many other disciplines.

This just confirms what Adbusters has been telling us all along: our society is too narrowly focused, and is filled with paranoia and mindless loss of self among information overload as a result.  Thank you for this.