[2012-Nov-14]

[Mark v1.0]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2794#comic

I wonder if Zack has had the opportunity to smell dog feces twenty four hours a day, seven days a week . Can he stop breathing?
Does he know the sense of smell bypasses the cognitive brain, forcing the person who is smelling the feces to feel perpetual disgust/anger?
"This (sense of smell) pathway is directly connected to your limbic system (brain), the part of your brain that deals with emotions."bbc.co.uk

[GUTCHUCKER]

Rather than exploring why I feel this way or dismissing it, I will lampshade it in a wacky smbc comic!
Then somebody with no concept of titles will make an irrelevant and nonsensical post about it on my forum.

[Peon]

gutchucker you seem like quite the pleasant fellow

[GUTCHUCKER]

I make no excuses!

[Paradox]

Based on what the woman thought, I get the feeling that if she comes across enough people who don't clean up after their dogs, she herself is at risk of becoming a serial killer...

I'm pretty sure this wasn't what Zach was thinking when he made this, but I'm going to imagine that woman going on a massive killing spree because of this...
...
...

I think I may be some form of sociopath

[Mark v1.0]

Based on what the woman thought, I get the feeling that if she comes across enough people who don't clean up after their dogs, she herself is at risk of becoming a serial killer...

Not a serial killer, but a murder happened here.
http://westislandgazette.com/news/from- ... ng-victim/
"Funeral Thursday for Dollard des Ormeaux stabbing victim

They said Tremblay and Kozyra often quarrelled over how she failed to clean up after her pet when she took it for walks around the building."

and again I mention the sense of smell goes directly to the limbic system of the brain, so it is easy to lose your temper when smelling something unpleasant.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/ ... tion.shtml

[Guest]

Intellectually, we can consider the worst humanity has to offer and understand what causal influences made them do what they did. Poor upbrining, mental illness, trauma, etc. But contrasted with more immediate "IRL" scenarios, trivial inconveniences and annoyances (someone cutting you off on the road, trolling you in a video game, forgetting to clean up after themselves) can cause immediate, visceral anger and disproportionate rage.

I assume this is a common experience. It's something that has provided me with frequent amusement, because of the ridiculously disparate and inappropriately calibrated responses by the cerebrum vis a vis the lower, animal brain.

[Han]

Well, indeed the olfactory system skips some pathways that all other sensory systems do cross, but still the limbic system is connected with many other regions and will be controlled if necessary. And as with many neural systems, the olfactory system gets used to inputs. A new smell will deliver a strong response but - even under constant conditions - the neural activity for that smell declines fairly rapidly. To keep smelling the smell, the intensity would have to continually increase (which for example people don't really smell their parfume anymore after a couple of minutes, but if you smell the top of your shirt, you might still be able to smell it, since the intensity there is higher) The increase of course has its limits. In super high concentrations, the toxicity of components of the smell might start playing a roll and one could get intoxicated and at ultra high concentrations where all the air is replaced by the volatile molecules of the smell, one would be unable to breath.