Valuable membership in a "tribe"
shane...@ieee.org
substitute). I don't really belong to one since I quit the Jewish tribe
a long time ago (about 65 years ago!). But I do feel like a member of
the scientist pseudo-tribe. And my country, USA, is a sort of
pseudo-tribe in many ways. So is my extended family (kids, grandkids,
favorite in-laws, etc.).
The benefits are the following: you, a single, small, and perishable
being, can be part of a much bigger, more important, and longer-lasting
(maybe almost perpetual) entity.
By the fact that I published 2 textbooks and many articles, some of
which are still having some broad influence, my science pseudo-tribe
adds value to my own tiny life. If you look about 65% down this page,
you'll see my name, and the word "standard," which is an example of
what I mean:
http://www.sonydvdworld.com/sony_home_audio.htm . (By the way, the
companies that make vacuum tube amplifiers think I'm completely full of
baloney, or worse! But after all, tribes have enemies, too.)
For many people, it's the extended family (grandchildren, etc.), or if
you're very active in the Army, it's the whole country. For some it
might be political movement, like feminism, or socialism, etc.
I think this feeling is hard-wired into our instincts, since ancient
tribes would survive wars and famines if they had it, but not if
everybody feels completely like individuals.
Immortalist
The school of evolutionary biology, called Sociobiology, pioneered by
E.O. Wilson, has promoted the hypothesis that human behaviour has an
evolutionary basis and that this has ethical implications. In his book,
On Human Nature, Wilson argues that behaviours and cultural beliefs as
diverse as altruism, religion and hope can be explained by evolutionary
biology. Many of the examples of altruistic behaviour where one animal
seems to sacrifice itself for the survival of others is now thought to
be due to "kin selection", a variant of natural selection. This is the
term given to the behaviour of an animal which favours the survival of
another animal that shares a proportion of its DNA. Thus, a parent may
sacrifice for an offspring "knowing" that the offspring shares half the
DNA and has only to have two children to make the sacrifice genetically
worthwhile. Similarly siblings share 50% of their genes, nephews and
nieces have 25% and so on.
Kin selection seems to explain much of what Wilson calls "hard-core
altruism". This includes the song-call of birds to warn others of the
presence of predators, that would seem to put the singer at risk. It
includes the curious stotting of gazelles, whereby one will jump into
the air to warn the troop of an approaching predator. Colonies of the
social insects which are divided into one reproducing queen,
reproducing males and non-reproducing worker females presumably also
rely on the fact that the queen's DNA is identical to that of the
non-reproducing females. Closer to home, the adoption by chimpanzees of
orphans of near relatives is the prototype of much human "altruistic"
behaviour.
In addition to this " hard-core altruism", Wilson argues for a
"soft-core altruism" on the basis of reciprocal advantage. This
explains behaviour that seems to offer little immediate genetic
survival value but seems more like an insurance policy against later
possible risk.
Such reciprocal altruism seems to be evident in the behaviour of apes
but becomes most significant in the behaviour of humans. Blood
donations are the classic example. Human sacrifice for others not
genetically related does not always occur in circumstances where the
deed will be recorded so that praise and status will be accorded to the
family of the altruist.
shane...@ieee.org
of Wilson's work, in book reviews, and articles in the Scientific
American magazine, etc.
My suggestion (and I'm not sure how new it might or might not be) is to
crystallize these thoughts with the structures of extended family,
tribe, religion, country, and (in my case) profession. I claim that
these structures fit quite well into the more general sociobiol.
generalities, and I claim that improved understanding of human behavior
can be obtained by these "structure" concepts.
In fact, I used to recommend to my female grad students that they try
hard to get married and have kids, and that all female and male stu.
try to publish, and be active in various groups (sci. societies,
politics, etc.), for a sense of lasting satisfaction --- escpecially
for when they eventually get old.
Such thoughts are quite useful, IMHO.
Sir Frederick
complicating variations : for instance :
Having been born with a touch of autism, being raised
by a father cop/ex English teacher and ignoramus lesbian
crazy step mother, I turned out so odd that ALL 'tribes' have rejected
me. I defend by patronizing all and considering all insane.
Your 'tribes' may go to hell! If 'prayer' had any efficacy, your 'tribes'
would destruct.
As it is, they may still destruct through legacy anachronistic
limits. As the situation becomes more complex, your tribes will
become non functional. We see it today.
Martin
Immortalist
shane...@ieee.org wrote:
> Well, I (and probably other readers of this group) had read summaries
> of Wilson's work, in book reviews, and articles in the Scientific
> American magazine, etc.
>
Sociobiology has morphed into Evolutionary Psychology and is very
current, whereas Wilson wrote on Human Nature in 1978.
http://www.ptypes.com/sociobiology.html
http://human-nature.com/science-as-culture/dusek.html
http://www.personalityresearch.org/evolutionary.html
> My suggestion (and I'm not sure how new it might or might not be) is to
> crystallize these thoughts with the structures of extended family,
> tribe, religion, country, and (in my case) profession. I claim that
> these structures fit quite well into the more general sociobiol.
> generalities, and I claim that improved understanding of human behavior
> can be obtained by these "structure" concepts.
>
Actually the science of Evolutionary Psych merely notes these things
and provides what support can be attained for the 200 or so noted
instincts of human nature;
APPENDIX Donald E. Brown's List of Human Universals
THIS LIST, COMPILED in 1989 and published in 1991, consists primarily
of "surface" universals of behavior and overt language noted by
ethnographers. It does not list deeper universals of mental structure
that are revealed by theory and experiments. It also omits
near-universals (traits that most, but not all, cultures show) and
conditional universals ("If a culture has trait A, it always has trait
B"). A list of items added since 1989 is provided at the end. For
discussion and references, see Brown's Human Universals (1991) and his
entry for "Human Universals" in The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive
Sciences (Wilson & Keil, 1999).
abstraction in speech and thought
actions under self-control distinguished from those not under control
aesthetics
affection expressed and felt
age grades
age statuses
age terms
ambivalence
anthropomorphization
antonyms
baby talk
belief in supernatural/ religion
beliefs, false
beliefs about death
beliefs about disease
beliefs about fortune and misfortune
binary cognitive distinctions
biological mother and social mother normally the same person
black (color term)
body adornment
childbirth customs
childcare
childhood fears
childhood fear of loud noises
childhood fear of strangers
choice making (choosing alternatives)
classification
classification of age
classification of behavioral propensities
classification of body parts
classification of colors
classification of fauna
classification of flora
classification of inner states
classification of kin
classification of sex
classification of space
classification of tools
classification of weather
conditions coalitions
collective identities
conflict
conflict, consultation to deal with
conflict, means of dealing with
conflict, mediation of
conjectural reasoning
containers
continua (ordering as cognitive pattern)
contrasting marked and nonmarked sememes (meaningful elements in
language)
cooking
cooperation
cooperative labor
copulation normally conducted in privacy
corporate (perpetual) statuses
coyness display
crying
cultural variability
culture
culture/nature distinction
customary greetings
daily routines
dance
death rituals
decision making
decision making, collective
directions, giving of
discrepancies between speech, thought, and action
dispersed groups
distinguishing right and wrong
diurnality
divination
division of labor
division of labor by age
division of labor by sex
dreams
dream interpretation
economic inequalities
economic inequalities, consciousness of
emotions
empathy
entification (treating patterns and relations as things)
environment, adjustments to
envy
envy, symbolic means of coping with
ethnocentrism
etiquette
explanation
face (word for)
facial communication
facial expression of anger
facial expression of contempt
facial expression of disgust
facial expression of fear
facial expression of happiness
facial expression of sadness
facial expression of surprise
facial expressions, masking/modifying of
family (or household)
father and mother, separate kin terms for
fears
fears, ability to overcome some
feasting
females do more direct childcare
figurative speech
fire
folklore
food preferences food sharing
future, attempts to predict
generosity admired
gestures
gift giving
good and bad distinguished
gossip
government
grammar
group living
groups that are not based on family
hairstyles
hand (word for)
healing the sick (or attempting to)
hospitality
hygienic care
identity, collective
incest between mother and son unthinkable or tabooed
incest, prevention or avoidance
in-group distinguished from out-group(s)
in-group, biases in favor of
inheritance rules
insulting
intention
interest in bioforms (living things or things that resemble them)
interpreting behavior
intertwining (e.g., weaving)
jokes
kin, close distinguished from distant
kin groups
kin terms translatable by basic relations of procreation
kinship statuses
language
language employed to manipulate others
language employed to misinform or mislead
language is translatable
language not a simple reflection of reality
language, prestige from proficient use of
law (rights and obligations)
law (rules of membership)
leaders
lever
linguistic redundancy
logical notions
logical notion of "and"
logical notion of "equivalent"
logical notion of "general/particular"
logical notion of "not"
logical notion of "opposite"
logical notion of "part/whole"
logical notion of "same"
magic
magic to increase life
magic to sustain life
magic to win love
male and female and adult and child seen as having different natures
males dominate public/political realm
males more aggressive
males more prone to lethal violence
males more prone to theft
manipulate social relations
marking at phonemic, syntactic, and lexical levels
marriage
materialism
meal times
meaning, most units of are non-universal
measuring
medicine
melody
memory
metaphor
metonym
mood- or consciousness-altering techniques and/or substances
morphemes
mother normally has consort during child-rearing years
mourning
murder proscribed
music
music, children's
music related in part to dance
music related in part to religious activity
music seen as art (a creation)
music, vocal
music, vocal, includes speech forms
musical redundancy
musical repetition
musical variation
myths
narrative
nomenclature (perhaps the same as classification)
nonbodily decorative art
normal distinguished from abnormal states
nouns
numerals (counting)
Oedipus complex
oligarchy (de facto)
one (numeral)
onomatopoeia
overestimating objectivity of thought
pain
past/present/future
person, concept of
personal names
phonemes
phonemes defined by sets of minimally contrasting features
phonemes, merging of
phonemes, range from 10 to 70 in number
phonemic change, inevitability of
phonemic change, rules of
phonemic system
planning
planning for future
play
play to perfect skills
poetry/rhetoric
poetic line, uniform length range
poetic lines characterized by repetition and variation
poetic lines demarcated by pauses
polysemy (one word has several related meanings)
possessive, intimate
possessive, loose
practice to improve skills
preference for own children and close kin (nepotism)
prestige inequalities
private inner life
promise
pronouns
pronouns, minimum two numbers
pronouns, minimum three persons
proper names
property
psychological defense mechanisms
rape
rape proscribed
reciprocal exchanges (of labor, goods, or services)
reciprocity, negative (revenge, retaliation)
reciprocity, positive
recognition of individuals by face
redress of wrongs
rhythm
right-handedness as population norm
rites of passage
rituals
role and personality seen in dynamic interrelationship (i.e.,
departures
from role can be explained in terms of individual personality)
sanctions
sanctions for crimes against the collectivity
sanctions include removal from the social unit
self distinguished from other
self as neither wholly passive nor wholly autonomous
self as subject and object
self is responsible
semantics
semantic category of affecting things and people
semantic category of dimension
semantic category of giving
semantic category of location
semantic category of motion
semantic category of speed
semantic category of other physical properties
semantic components
semantic components, generation
semantic components, sex
sememes, commonly used ones are short, infrequently used ones are
longer
senses unified
sex (gender) terminology is fundamentally binary
sex statuses
sexual attraction
sexual attractiveness
sexual jealousy
sexual modesty
sexual regulation
sexual regulation includes incest prevention
sexuality as focus of interest
shelter
sickness and death seen as related
snakes, wariness around
social structure
socialization
socialization expected from senior kin
socialization includes toilet training
spear
special speech for special occasions
statuses and roles
statuses, ascribed and achieved
statuses distinguished from individuals
statuses on other than sex, age, or kinship bases
stop/nonstop contrasts (in speech sounds)
succession
sweets preferred
symbolism
symbolic speech
synonyms
taboos
tabooed foods
tabooed utterances
taxonomy
territoriality
time
time, cyclicity of
tools
tool dependency
tool making
tools for cutting
tools to make tools
tools patterned
culturally
tools, permanent
tools for pounding
trade
triangular awareness (assessing relationships among the self and two
other
people)
true and false distinguished
turn-taking
two (numeral)
tying material (i.e., something like string)
units of time
verbs
violence, some forms of proscribed
visiting
vocalic/nonvocalic contrasts in phonemes
vowel contrasts
weaning
weapons
weather control (attempts to)
white (color term)
world view
---------------------
Additions Since 1989
---------------------
anticipation
attachment
critical learning periods
differential valuations
dominance/submission
fairness (equity), concept of
fear of death
habituation
hope
husband older than wife on average
imagery
institutions (organized co-activities)
intention
interpolation
judging others
likes and dislikes
making comparisons
males, on average, travel greater distances over lifetime
males engage in more coalitional violence
mental maps
mentalese
moral sentiments
moral sentiments, limited effective range of
precedence, concept of (that's how the leopard got its spots)
pretend play
pride
proverbs, sayings
proverbs, sayings-in mutually contradictory forms
resistance to abuse of power, to dominance
risk taking
self-control
self-image, awareness of (concern for what others think)
self-image, manipulation of
self-image, wanted to be positive
sex differences in spatial cognition and behavior
shame
stinginess, disapproval of
sucking wounds
synesthetic metaphors
thumb sucking
tickling
toys, playthings
> In fact, I used to recommend to my female grad students that they try
> hard to get married and have kids, and that all female and male stu.
> try to publish, and be active in various groups (sci. societies,
> politics, etc.), for a sense of lasting satisfaction --- escpecially
> for when they eventually get old.
>
It used to be said that the one with the most toys wins, but it
probably more like those with the most offspring win the game.
someone4
>I think this feeling is hard-wired into our instincts, since ancient
>tribes would survive wars and famines if they had it, but not if
>everybody feels completely like individuals.
The concept of tribes has some benefits, such as selfless actions by
members of the tribe, within and for the tribe. It also has downsides
such as selfishness against those not within the tribe. Individualism
encourages selfishness on the one hand, over the benefit for all, but
it also encourages selflessness to allow others the right to be
different.
Selflessness is being objective, rather than subjective.
Many see objectivity relating to science, and then feel free to apply
the materialist (which they think equates to science) approach to way
they lead their lives (thus objectivity becomes selfish).
Maybe we could look at the concept of selflessness as being the
benefit, the wisdom, and be objective, without being dispassionate.
As the Book of Tao says in the opening verse:
Oftentimes, one strips oneself of passion
In order to see the Secret of Life;
Oftentimes, one regards life with passion,
In order to see its manifest results.
The Book of Tao is not a materialist book, far from it, it is a book of
the wisdom of the selfless path.
turtoni
> What you say is mostly the way things are. There are
> complicating variations : for instance :
> Having been born with a touch of autism, being raised
> by a father cop/ex English teacher and ignoramus lesbian
> crazy step mother,
sounds like a difficult environment in which to have developed your
personality.
> I turned out so odd that ALL 'tribes' have rejected me.
it would seem more likely that you have rejected *ALL* the "tribes".
> I defend by patronizing all and considering all insane.
people frequently use defense mechanisms to rid themselves of anxiety.
> Your 'tribes' may go to hell! If 'prayer' had any efficacy, your 'tribes'
> would destruct.
since you believe that the "tribes" are insane.
> As it is, they may still destruct through legacy anachronistic
> limits. As the situation becomes more complex, your tribes will
> become non functional.
are you sure this isnt a projection?
> We see it today.
> Martin
turtoni - that would depend on what you're looking at.
someone4
>>I think this feeling is hard-wired into our instincts, since ancient
>>tribes would survive wars and famines if they had it, but not if
>>everybody feels completely like individuals.
>someone4 wrote:
>The concept of tribes has some benefits, such as selfless actions by
>members of the tribe, within and for the tribe. It also has downsides
>such as selfishness against those not within the tribe. Individualism
>encourages selfishness on the one hand, over the benefit for all, but
>it also encourages selflessness to allow others the right to be
>different.
>Selflessness is being objective, rather than subjective.
>Many see objectivity relating to science, and then feel free to apply
>the materialist (which they think equates to science) approach to way
>they lead their lives (thus objectivity becomes selfish).
>Maybe we could look at the concept of selflessness as being the
>benefit, the wisdom, and be objective, without being dispassionate.
>As the Book of Tao says in the opening verse:
>Oftentimes, one strips oneself of passion
> In order to see the Secret of Life;
> Oftentimes, one regards life with passion,
> In order to see its manifest results.
>The Book of Tao is not a materialist book, far from it, it is a book of
>the wisdom of the selfless path.
selflessness (objectivity) vs selfishness (subjectivity), it is your
choice (presuming a non materialist approach where the word makes its
original sense).
Publius
@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
> It's quite psychologically valuable to belong to a tribe (or to some
> substitute). [ . . .]
> I think this feeling is hard-wired into our instincts, since ancient
> tribes would survive wars and famines if they had it, but not if
> everybody feels completely like individuals.
You're quite right. We humans are tribal animals, as are all other
primates. Until the advent of civilization 10,000 years or so ago, all
humans lived in tribal bands comprised of 100 - 300 members, just as do
other primates.
There is an intimacy, a unity, among members of such groups, especially
if they are insular, which most of them strive to be. They avoid
interactions with humans from other groups, or if they cannot be avoided,
interact only via some formal process. Indeed, non-members of the group
are automatically regarded as enemies.
Tribal people have a tribal identity, embodied in manner of dress and
body art, dialect, pantheon of gods, rituals, lore, ways for doing
things. There is no individuality to speak of in these groups, because
all members have known and interacted only with each other since birth,
and they are locked into a resonance. There is no politics, no debate, no
alternate point of view on any matter --- and as a result, almost no
innovation. Tribal cultures can remain all but static for thousands of
years, with only a slight refinement in spear points to indicate any time
has passed at all. Australian Aborigines, for example, when encountered
by Europeans in the 18th century, were making didgeridoos
indistinguishable from those made 20,000 years earlier. In all that time
they never added another instrument to their musical technology.
That resonance, however, cannot be maintained in larger groups, because
the required intimacy is impossible. The group becomes too large for
everyone to know and interact constantly with everyone else; hence one
finds oneself in the company of strangers. And because they've all been
subject to slightly different influences, they begin to differ in various
ways --- differences in accent, different preferences in food, different
ways of doing many things.
In *Guns, Germs, and Steel*, Jared Diamond observed,
"Chiefdoms were considerably larger than tribes, ranging from several
thousands to several tens of thousands of people. That size created
serious potential for internal conflict because, for any person living in
a chiefdom, the vast majority of other people living in the chiefdom were
neither closely related by blood or marriage nor known by name. With the
rise of chiefdoms around 7500 years ago, people had to learn, for the
first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without
killing them."
The main factor in the breakdown of tribal culture was the advent of
agriculture. Agriculture requires permanent settlements to tend the
crops, and the increased food supply supports a larger population, who
are concentrated in large communities --- too large for a tribal
resonance to be established. People become individuated --- almost
everyone they encounter differs from them in one way or another, and all
are keenly aware of these differences. Innovation (and politics)
commence.
People can still forge tribal-like bonds in civilized settings, but they
are, to use your term, "pseudo-tribes." Membership in them is
discretionary, rather than mandatory and automatic. Affinities among
members rest only on a few factors, rather than one's entire lifestyle,
world view, and history. Members are all individuated, and so differences
among members create stresses even within the pseudo-tribe. And of course
the pseudo-tribes are embedded in a larger social context --- a society
of strangers.
But we remain, as you note, "wired" for tribal life. We long for it,
impossible though it may be. And often we try to recreate or or
substitute for it, by immersing ourselves in cults or joining in
totalitarian movements. The cult seeks to insulate itself from the
"society of strangers;" the totalitarian movement seeks to subdue it and
impose a tribal-like conformity, a synthetic common identity and purpose
--- usually resulting in much bloodshed.
No doubt our species will outgrow its tribal heritage eventually. But it
may take another 10,000 years.
turtoni
"Publius" <m.pu...@nospam.comcast.net> wrote in message
news:BeWdnc29gZq...@comcast.com...
that was an interesting read Publius.
turtoni
Day Brown
empowered if your tribe is just the nuclear family. Better yet
if you are divorced and single, and entirely dependent on these
larger organizations... which therefore promote 'nuclear family
values' in public while their courts destroy them in private.
googlegroups2sucks
perhaps the need for specialists amps this tendency.
i just saw national geo's "guns, germs and steel" and a few things come
to mind. 1) slick production! very nicely photographed. 2) diamond
makes a convincing case but there are some gaps, like psychology, for
instance. it continues to amaze me that while it's a given in other
disciplines that you can't study physics or calculus or engineering
without mastering basic arithmetic, people tend to study anthropology
or history or law or politics or government or war or whatever other
field of human endeavor without knowing the basics of psychology. in
fact, i think it's insane not to. it gives such enormously useful
frameworks from which to build on, and minimizes the
reinventing-the-wheel syndrome i see time and time again. 3) a lot of
diamond's work reminded me of what i thought about in 1991 because of
"civilization". lol.
"Sid brought "civilization" to gaming in 1991. In Sid Meier's
Civilization, the player began the game in 4000 BCE, in control of a
tiny group of primitive settlers. Over the course of the game the
player would create cities for the settlers to inhabit, determine what
technologies they learned, arm and train their military, and guide
their political development. At some point the new nation would come
into contact with other nations; it was up to the player whether his
people would greet the foreigners with open arms or drawn swords. The
player had to guide his civilization through the entire course of human
history - starting in the Stone Age, and ending in the Space Age. Once
again, Sid challenged his players on multitudes of levels:
city-planning, economics, education, military strategy and global
diplomacy.
In addition to being enormously popular and extremely addictive,
Civilization has also been recognized for its "stealth-teaching"
qualities: ever since its release educators around the world have been
using Civilization to teach students about history, science and global
politics."
good lord, what a game. (of course, it's now lost and i can't find
it.) what diamond appropriately stresses with his emphasis on
geography, i learned the hard way in civ. whenever i started a game on
some godforsaken island, i usually lost because i didn't have the early
access to trade or technologies from other societies that's available
on the eurasian or americas. however, easy access to the eurasian
landmass also meant easy vulnerability to powerful civilizations that
could roll right over you as well. there's a trade-off there that the
special didn't mention but should've, i thought.
all that diamond stresses, such as domesticated animals and crops, the
development of writing, guns, steel, etc., they were all technologies
in civ (except the importance of germs, i think). moreover, while
diamond covers his material and backs it up with solid scholarly work,
it still doesn't reach the breadth of meier's game with its implied
emphasis on leadership (afterall, that's the point of the game),
management of the economy (or how trade allows the exchange of
technologies as diamond would argue) and military and its naturally
inherent tensions (e.g. guns or butter), the importance of other basic
natural resources such as oil, and most acutely -- something that meier
didn't emphasize nearly enough as well -- cultures or traditions or
mores or values that allow the cream to rise in a genuine meritocracy.
lemme tell ya. if you think i'm good at blending and synthesizing and
strategizinig, you should interview the geniuses behind strategy games
like sid meier. i learned a lot from their games.
but i didn't learn psychology from them, and i think that's where so
many have been lacking.
Publius
news:1130285302....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
> lemme tell ya. if you think i'm good at blending and synthesizing and
> strategizinig, you should interview the geniuses behind strategy games
> like sid meier. i learned a lot from their games.
Heh. I'm an avid gamer also, but I never got to that one. Seems like there
would be a big market for an update, incorporating some complex adaptive
system insights.
Sir Frederick
Yes, the tribes have their ancient ruthless methods of selection and
rejection. I was rejected because earlier tribes failed. In the past
I would have died. This painful intersection of the past and the future
is a price we are paying today.
--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcn...@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill
*************************
Phrase of the week :
"If you mixed, say, two or three-day-old rotting flesh with manure you would get pretty close."
Jeremy Prentice, curator of Melbourne's Royal Botanical Gardens, describing the smell of the flowering orchid, Bulbophyllum fletcherianum (ABC News, 26 August)
:-))))Snort!)
**************************************
googlegroups2sucks
you should check it out, but be warned these games are super-complex.
to the point i don't play them because it sucks up too much time to
play it well. i actually find real-world politics and geopolitics much
more easier to deal with. lol. it's true, sad to say...
anyways, you get not only system insights, but civ is great at honing
high-altitude macro perspective skills, as well as zooming abilities
(going from macro to medium to micro in an instant -- which is sort of
a vertical variation of multi-tasking), but above all, it hammered home
the importance of integration and timing of said integration.
shane...@ieee.org
you various levels of belonging (and also relieves the boredom of daily
life). Often a hobby, done at a very serious level, can be a great
tribe to belong to, like ham radio operators (who usually have really
learned a tremendous amount of E.E.), or other amateurs who are at
usually-pro levels. Gamers (if serious) are tribe members, as are
philosophy-fanatics (have I used the right word?). [Hey,
philosophy-phanatics! Ain't that cool?]
My deepest thought for today: "Ain't" ain't in the dictionary, so I
ain't gonna use "ain't" no more. Ain't I a good boy?
(Good thing I retired from being an engineering professor --- some of
my present behavior could probably get me kicked out, even with tenure.
Like posing as a philosopher.) DanS.
P.S. --- While posing as a historian, I use Jared Diamond's "Guns,
Etc..." as a mental building block (at the 4,000 BC point) in my
http://historylist.blogspot.com .
turtoni
> Yes, the tribes have their ancient ruthless methods of selection and
> rejection.
you are a tribe of idea's. idea's you have selected and rejected.
> I was rejected because earlier tribes failed.
failure is the selection of rejection.
> In the past I would have died.
many of us would have died.
> This painful intersection of the past and the future
> is a price we are paying today.
"the definition of happiness is one of the greatest philosophical
quandaries"
turtoni
Day Brown
alpha males who put their bodies on the line to protect the rest
and their resource base.
So- what are the betas good for? Well to begin with in order to
perform on the line, the alphas most definitely do *not* "feel your
pain" as they murder what they perceive to be a threat. And to do
that, they lack the intuitive sense of what others feel and why they
do what they do. Aristotle discusses the 'evil doer' in much the same
terms, noting that they wish to feel good about themselves, and to that
end, forget what they have done to others. But in forgetting, they fail
to learn, and thus remain fools.
In field studies it was realized that it was the daughters of alphas who
abandoned and abused young. Alpha daughters are crummy mothers. Its the
betas to adopt and protect the orphans. When the ratio of betas is too
small, the survival rate of the young plummets, and when the alphas get
too old, there are too few to replace them. It was easy to identify the
alphas- the trait is handed down on the Y chromosome, and related to
different levels of seratonin, adrenalin, dopamine, etc.
Some hominid alphas who are intelligent enough to learn to perceive how
and why others do what they do, and in fact use that demogoguically to
become leaders. Most alphas have the drive to dominate; unfortunately
today, Smith & Wesson guarantees equal rights for women, and sheer size
is no longer adequate. Some cultures have more alphas and fewer betas,
and we see the domestic abuse and crime rates that result.
Some cultures have more betas, are more able to cooperate, and have as
a result, come to dominate the planet.