OT. a scary movie (gloomy fiction)

[Perseus]

I has seen the most scary movie ever. It is the new batch from the
series, Life After Humans.
It is called
AFTERMATH : Population Zero (Full)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkMXhKj0D4w

It touches about what would happen to this wonderful civilization once
humans would had disappeared.

Forget all that nonsense about zombies and vampires, and the nonsense
of Apocalypses. This is fear in its most pure state. How all our
mighty wonders and technology falls asunder. Pure scariness.

Perseus

[Richard Norman]

Just to be consistent with my criticizing the citation of a youtube
video about diatom speciation--- this is a good way of introducing a
youtube video for us. It describes something about the content and
talks to why we may be interested in viewing it. And it adds a
personal note of one person's reaction to the content. The post I
criticized had no commentary or discussion at all.

[wiki trix]

On Aug 8, 9:53 am, Richard Norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 01:37:47 -0700 (PDT), Perseus
>

That is your opinion. I prefer to have no spoiler info.

[Richard Norman]

Then don't read it.

That is what I was told about my complaint.

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 07:10:17 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by wiki trix
<wiki...@gmail.com>:

It's up to you whether you read beyond the YouTube link; I
for one prefer to have both the link and a synopsis so I can
make a semi-informed decision. As I've stated previously I
tend to avoid YouTube, but not entirely; occasionally a
subject sounds interesting enough that I watch the video.
--

Bob C.

"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."

- McNameless

[Perseus]

On Aug 8, 2:53 pm, Richard Norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 01:37:47 -0700 (PDT), Perseus
>

oh, dear, I do not know what are you telling me.
In youtube must be very diverse material.
Some can be interesting and other videos can be pure trash.

I do not know what video you are telling me. I do not remember of
criticizing any video, but perhaps I did. the Alzheimer is funning
fast on my heels. I can fell his breath blowing on my nape.

Perseus

[Perseus]

On Aug 8, 6:38 pm, nmp <addr...@is.invalid> wrote:
> Perseus:

>
> > I has seen the most scary movie ever.  It is the new batch from the
> > series, Life After Humans.
> > It is called
> >  AFTERMATH : Population Zero (Full)
> >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkMXhKj0D4w
>

> I saw that movie a few years ago. I remember it as mildly entertaining
> and interesting viewing, in a I-am-bored-and-there-is-nothing-else-on-TV
> sort of way. I would indeed recommend this for someone who might be too
> tired to read a book, who still wants to avoid the Olympic mania that
> infests the channels these days.
>
> The premisse (poof! all humans instantly gone) is a bit ridicluous but I
> believe the makers did a fairly good job speculating what would happen if
> such a ridiculous event nevertheless took place. In that, the movie seems
> plausible. Not that I have checked the science behind it, of course.
>
> There is also a Wikipedia-page, unsurprisingly:
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath:_Population_Zero>

>
> > It touches about what would happen to this wonderful civilization once
> > humans would had disappeared.
>

> Nothing happens to civilisation when humans suddenly disappear, because
> civilisation just disappears with us. Civilisation is that which happens
> in the interactions between people. All that remains if we disappear is
> what we built and made.

Oh, my! You are spinning too fine a thread. I said civilization, but
I meant the material works of this civilization. For the cultural
civilization of average humans are rather trashy.

> > Forget all that nonsense about zombies and vampires, and the nonsense of
> > Apocalypses.  This is fear in its most pure state. How all our mighty
> > wonders and technology falls asunder. Pure scariness.
>

> Funny (i.e., strange) that you should find the whole idea so fearsome and
> scary. I do not feel this way at all. Because if there is no one left to
> experience it, to whom would it be scary? Of course animals that depend
> on us would starve or otherwise be harmed, but in the long term their
> populations are better off without us.

It is scary for I never had dreamed of such a fast demise of this
civilization; sorry, the mighty works of this civilization.

I was dreaming of a sort of Reich that would last a thousand years.

So, after watching the other video, the "Aftermath, of a World Without
Oil", that was the last straw. I was watching the collapse of this
Reich. Sad and scary at the same time.

Aftermath: World Without Oil . HD 720p Eng
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC2QEz3LdbM&feature=related

Ok. Help yourself

Perseus


Perseus

[Richard Norman]

Age is indeed rapidly creeping up on all of us but you did nothing to
deserve criticism. I was praising your citation. It was somebody
else in a separate thread who just presented a link to youtube with no
commentary or text whatsoever. I criticized that because I wanted
information on what the subject material was and why I should be
interested in it. In turn, I was roundly criticized for asking for
that information.

[Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org]

On Wednesday, August 8, 2012 7:02:17 PM UTC+1, Perseus wrote:
> It is scary for I never had dreamed of such a fast demise of this
> civilization; sorry, the mighty works of this civilization.
>
> I was dreaming of a sort of Reich that would last a thousand years.

Er... like the ancient Romans? Otherwise an unfortunate choice of words.

Today we use the ancient Roman language, but we sneer at their lavatories.

> So, after watching the other video, the "Aftermath, of a World Without
> Oil", that was the last straw. I was watching the collapse of this
> Reich. Sad and scary at the same time.

Science fiction has some stories about rapid destruction of humanity.
BBC radio is currently giving daily readings from _The Day of the Triffids_,
in which only after an astronomical spectacle causes a presumable delayed
reaction of nearly everyone in the world being permanently blinded do the
walking carnivorous plants take over. _Terminator_ has another idea -
our intelligent machines one day decide that they no longer need us.
I don't rule that out, but Using up all the oil in the world arguably
requires /slightly/ less human stupidity than letting the machines slaughter
us. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a way for it not to happen. But do
learn to cycle.

Perhaps Star Trek, or a Trek-ish story from 1946 (!) by Arthur C. Clarke called
"Rescue Party", will serve as an antidote. It may or may not be out of copyright
where you are, and therefore online.

[Perseus]

On Aug 8, 6:38 pm, nmp <addr...@is.invalid> wrote:
> Perseus:
>

> > I has seen the most scary movie ever.  It is the new batch from the
> > series, Life After Humans.
> > It is called
> >  AFTERMATH : Population Zero (Full)
> >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkMXhKj0D4w
>

> I saw that movie a few years ago. I remember it as mildly entertaining
> and interesting viewing, in a I-am-bored-and-there-is-nothing-else-on-TV
> sort of way. I would indeed recommend this for someone who might be too
> tired to read a book, who still wants to avoid the Olympic mania that
> infests the channels these days.
>
> The premisse (poof! all humans instantly gone) is a bit ridicluous but I
> believe the makers did a fairly good job speculating what would happen if
> such a ridiculous event nevertheless took place. In that, the movie seems
> plausible. Not that I have checked the science behind it, of course.
>
> There is also a Wikipedia-page, unsurprisingly:
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath:_Population_Zero>
>

> > It touches about what would happen to this wonderful civilization once
> > humans would had disappeared.
>

> Nothing happens to civilisation when humans suddenly disappear, because
> civilisation just disappears with us. Civilisation is that which happens
> in the interactions between people. All that remains if we disappear is
> what we built and made.
>

> > Forget all that nonsense about zombies and vampires, and the nonsense of
> > Apocalypses.  This is fear in its most pure state. How all our mighty
> > wonders and technology falls asunder. Pure scariness.
>

> Funny (i.e., strange) that you should find the whole idea so fearsome and
> scary. I do not feel this way at all. Because if there is no one left to
> experience it, to whom would it be scary? Of course animals that depend
> on us would starve or otherwise be harmed, but in the long term their
> populations are better off without us.

About this las paragraph, it was mostly sad, than scary.
But I was watching also the "Aftermath: The world without oil".
It is this video that really scared me, for I had the idea that the
film was a little sugared. I mean, in case that thing would happen,
it would be a lot worse than painted in the video. So, by example the
case of a train that is giving food to people, with an armed guard.
Then you see an old man with some food he was given, was carrying it
in a hand cart of supermarket.
It occurred to me that this old man would not go very far with this
cart, for any stronger thug would rob him of the food he was
carrying.
Then, thinking about this nightmare of survival, I thought of lone
farmer in very far place, like a hidden valley, cultivating a little
garden with some vegetables, with a few pigs and some hens, was also
in mortal danger.
Any one would come prowling on the country and kill him, precisely
because he had some food. But even if he was armed and able to kill
any marauder that approaches the place, he would be taken by surprise
and be killed by another armed man, or a small group of armed men. It
would more or less like when the fall of the Roman Empire. For a
time, even the small chiefdoms, or little kingdoms, would had to be in
full state of alarm, posting watchers on the hills to warn of enemies
approaching. But any group of people coming into the place, would be
considered enemies. In such a situation you cannot expect the arrival
of any friends, would you.
Then, this was like a nightmare to me. Then one video affected the
perception of the other.

Perseus

[Perseus]

On Aug 8, 6:44 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 07:10:17 -0700 (PDT), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by wiki trix

> <wikit...@gmail.com>:

I had collected a lot of material from youtube.
Most of the videos are very interesting. Besides, I had a great
deficit of hearing material in English, and I had learned a lot by
hearing those videos. English is not my mother tongue.

Perseus

[Perseus]

On Aug 8, 9:00 pm, nmp <addr...@is.invalid> wrote:
> Perseus:
>
> > On Aug 8, 6:38 pm, nmp <addr...@is.invalid> wrote:
> >> Perseus:
> >> > I has seen the most scary movie ever.  It is the new batch from the
> >> > series, Life After Humans.
> >> > It is called
> >> >  AFTERMATH : Population Zero (Full)
> >> >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkMXhKj0D4w
>

> [..]

>
> >> > It touches about what would happen to this wonderful civilization
> >> > once humans would had disappeared.
>
> >> Nothing happens to civilisation when humans suddenly disappear, because
> >> civilisation just disappears with us. Civilisation is that which
> >> happens in the interactions between people. All that remains if we
> >> disappear is what we built and made.
>
> > Oh, my!  You are spinning too fine a thread.  I said civilization, but I
> > meant the material works of this civilization.  For the cultural
> > civilization of average humans are rather trashy.
>

> Oh, OK. Just a bit of misunderstanding then.
>
> [..]

>
> > It is scary for I never had dreamed of such a fast demise of this
> > civilization; sorry, the mighty works of this civilization.
>
> > I was dreaming of a sort of Reich that would last a thousand years.
>

> I never imagined our "civilisation" as you call it to survive another
> thousand years even with us to run things. But I admit I grew up with the
> fear of nuclear war, of Americans and Russians killing us all over some
> stupid argument. And although that specific scenraio has now been
> averted, I still think humanity will probably go kaboom! somewhere in the
> next few centuries.

Oh, my! How optimist you are! In the next few centuries! Oh, I
think this "global civilization" would not last more than a few
decades. I read, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" from Jared Diamond, and a
while later "Collapse", about how past civilizations had collapse.
More or less, all civilizations had collapse, for the were growing
till they arrive to a point in which a little turn of the clime for
the worse, push them into starvation. Any civilization grows on
resources. That means, rains, agricultural soil, and some mild
temperature. Not too cold, not too hot. Also, there have to exits
some woods, for firewood and other purposes, like building roofs, and
doors. If the population grows too fast for several decades they would
have serious problems, not only for lack of soil to cultivate, but
also, for excessive erosion of the soil.
In our present civilization, we had been braking all limits, thanks to
machines that run on fossil fuels. For a time, we could see ourselves
as invincible. You looked back to a little story and present
civilization was the best in several thousand years. All the hunger
that suffered the poors everywhere, till past the middle of twenty
century, seemed like a nightmare from past times. After the fifties,
all was like an eternal barbecue, or a party full of wine and roses.
To many, life is still a feast.

Then what would happen after oil? Are we prepared for a sudden
disappearance of the oil?
Nick Keighley said, oil would not disappear suddenly, it would show it
slowly and we would have time to find a solution.
But, I am thinking of the buying and selling of stocks in Wall Street,
for some 12 years, while the republican party was ruling, till the
crash of oct. 29 It occurred suddenly. Nobody was telling the
people, "beware of this shit of wall street, for this thing is gonna
fall like a ton over your head and ruin you". In fact a very limited
number of millionaires were creating this optimistic frenzy, while
selling them those stocks, even on credit. Then, those stocks that
value rather little were sold to ordinary people at a great price.

The same had happened with this crisis. After 12 years of ruling the
republican party, it occurred the present crisis. If you analyze in
depth this crises... and you remember anything about "exponential
growth" in high school, you will understand this phenomenon. "the
financial progress was so fast that the of the economy crashed
against a solid block of reality." There was not anymore to ruin.
Then, we suddenly realized we had a crisis.
Then, I imagine a similar scenario for oil. One day, you would raise
in the morning from bed, switch on the radio, and you will hear the
news: "There is not more oil. It is not a joke. We have oil just for
a next six months." It is like the present crisis. Was anyone
announcing this crisis? Well, me. But I do not count. Everybody
knew that I must be crazy. "What the fuck are you saying? Do you not
see this prosperity? Everywhere are building some new giant shopping
center. How would they build so many new shopping centers if it were
gonna be a fucking crisis?
Then, I replied, that was precisely the reason for the crisis. We are
the same people on this island, we are earning more or less the same
money as before. Why to build so many shopping centers? The
conclusion, I was crazy. I had not any sense of reality.
Perseus




> So perhaps that is why I don't think humanity just disappearing and
> nature slowly but surely taking over again is so shocking or scary. In
> fact, it would be preferable to the other option ;-)

>
> > So, after watching the other video, the "Aftermath, of a World Without
> > Oil", that was the last straw. I was watching the collapse of this
> > Reich.  Sad and scary at the same time.
>
> > Aftermath: World Without Oil . HD 720p Eng
> >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC2QEz3LdbM&feature=related
>
> > Ok.  Help yourself
>

> Thanks, I may watch that one, or download it to watch later.

[Perseus]

On Aug 8, 10:36 pm, "Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-

orig...@moderators.isc.org" <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 8, 2012 7:02:17 PM UTC+1, Perseus wrote:
> > It is scary for I never had dreamed of such a fast demise of this
> > civilization; sorry, the mighty works of this civilization.
>
> > I was dreaming of a sort of Reich that would last a thousand years.
>
> Er... like the ancient Romans?  Otherwise an unfortunate choice of words.
>
> Today we use the ancient Roman language, but we sneer at their lavatories.
>
> > So, after watching the other video, the "Aftermath, of a World Without
> > Oil", that was the last straw. I was watching the collapse of this
> > Reich.  Sad and scary at the same time.
>
> Science fiction has some stories about rapid destruction of humanity.
> BBC radio is currently giving daily readings from _The Day of the Triffids_,
> in which only after an astronomical spectacle causes a presumable delayed
> reaction of nearly everyone in the world being permanently blinded do the
> walking carnivorous plants take over.  _Terminator_ has another idea -
> our intelligent machines one day decide that they no longer need us.
> I don't rule that out, but Using up all the oil in the world arguably
> requires /slightly/ less human stupidity than letting the machines slaughter
> us.  In fact, there doesn't seem to be a way for it not to happen.  But do
> learn to cycle.

Oh, dear. Those stories of Trifids and Star Trek I never watched.
They look too childish material for me. Or Terminator. I could not
stand this movie not even on TV

Then, this story of the oil exhausted and nobody said a voice of
alarm, look too me rather likely, if I consider other precedents, like
the Crash of 29, and the present economic crisis. From a day to next,
the people heard that Wall Street prices crashed. In the present
crisis, they building like crazy a lot more buildings that could ever
be paid. Then, all of a suddenly, people started to hear "this is a
crisis!!" "The crisis has come!" There was not any slow approach to
realize that they doing something bad, and that the economy would
collapse.
Think another example, from Easter Island. They had let the
population grow out of any prudent consideration. Then, as there were
too many people, the only solution was to put the young people for
some years to carving those giant statues called "moais". Then, for
as long as young males would be carving statues, they would not be
making babies. The problem was, that the remedy came too late. They
needed to fell down the last remaining trees to make rails to carry
the statues at is place on the shore. When there was not any more
trees to cut, and the last rails were broken, they knew that this
adventure of the statues, had ended. People during the night began to
kill each other, they pushed down the statues of the rival clans, and
so. Everything collapse, the last vestige of authority disappeared,
and they all end eating each other to survive.
The problem is that the crisis are crawling underneath and nobody is
aware of the impending crisis. Jared Diamond call this phenomenon,
"crippling normalcy". It means the situation does not look as bad as
it is.

Well, this is not the place to argument this. Sorry.

Perseus

[Boikat]

On Aug 8, 3:37�am, Perseus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> �I has seen the most scary movie ever. �It is the new batch from the

> series, Life After Humans.
> It is called
> �AFTERMATH : Population Zero (Full)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkMXhKj0D4w

"Scary"? I saw a few episodes (it's a series) and was not even mildly
concerned.

>
> It touches about what would happen to this wonderful civilization once
> humans would had disappeared.
>
> Forget all that nonsense about zombies and vampires, and the nonsense
> of Apocalypses. �This is fear in its most pure state. How all our
> mighty wonders and technology falls asunder. Pure scariness.

Oh for Pete's sake, get a grip!

Boikat

[Paul J Gans]

nmp <add...@is.invalid> wrote:
>Perseus:
>> nmp:

>[..]

>>> I never imagined our "civilisation" as you call it to survive another
>>> thousand years even with us to run things. But I admit I grew up with
>>> the fear of nuclear war, of Americans and Russians killing us all over
>>> some stupid argument. And although that specific scenraio has now been
>>> averted, I still think humanity will probably go kaboom! somewhere in
>>> the next few centuries.
>>
>> Oh, my! How optimist you are! In the next few centuries! Oh, I think
>> this "global civilization" would not last more than a few decades.

>I do not like being accused of optimism...

>But I see I wasn't clear. By "kaboom!" I meant the full scale nuclear war
>that will finally throw humanity back so far back into regression that it
>will not even be funny. Somewhere around the Stone Age, probably. If
>anyone survives at all. Exactly when we cannot know, that's why I said in
>a few centuries or so. We have the machinery to bring about such
>catastrophe, we are not willing to get rid of that machinery, so it
>stands to reason that the worst *will* happen someday. It always does.

>But before that happens, yes, we will see oil running out, empires
>collapse, alliances fall apart, all sorts of wars and atrocities, a few
>nukes going off here and there.

>After that has happened a few times, there will be no going back.

I always like to remind folks that you do NOT go back to the
stone age. People know things. Like how to set up a generator
and how to make gunpowder, not to mention good old skills like
pottery.

They remember a good bit about medicine and health as well.

And there is plenty of rubble left. Hooking up an electrical
generator running off a windmill is the sort of things folks will
do.

[...]

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[jillery]

You're absolutely correct. However, there are more than one poster
who expressly declared their disdain for video cites regardless of how
they're presented.

[Glenn]

"Perseus" <leopoldo...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:fdd79942-e2a0-4a7b-b1a4
snip

> Think another example, from Easter Island. They had let the
> population grow out of any prudent consideration. Then, as there were
> too many people, the only solution was to put the young people for
> some years to carving those giant statues called "moais". Then, for
> as long as young males would be carving statues, they would not be
> making babies. The problem was, that the remedy came too late. They
> needed to fell down the last remaining trees to make rails to carry
> the statues at is place on the shore.

Why didn't they just put the young bucks to whittling Dixie all the day long so
they wouldn't waste so much wood?
Or just let them lay around all day under the trees and tell them not to mess
with the girls?
Or cut their peckers off and then make them carve gigantic statues all day?

[Perseus]

I am humbly... humbly-proud that you had commented my post.
You are one of the brightest names in this group. So, here I am
feeling like... enhanced or... if it is not enhanced is... sort of
astonished for... since I was 17 years old, in a provincial city of
the north of Spain, I had a lot of arguments, and discussions, about
heavens and earth, more about the earth, of course. I mean... the
phrase has become very large... When I was an adolescent I had a lot
of philosophical and political arguments with three guys of my age.
We looked for a tranquil tavern with not fans of soccer, and asked for
a bottle of read wine. And we talked and talked till the bottle was
empty. But we were drinking slowly, for a bottle of wine cost then
some 80 cents (8 pesetas). Then we had some slices of smoked cured
ham, and we were ready to talk for hours. As a bottle of wine is not
so much for four, sometimes we had money to buy a second bottle.
Since those golden years of my adolescence, to talk this way was
rather uncommon. People does not like to talk that much, except about
soccer.
Once I left this northern city and went to the army, I never had a
chance to talk with intelligent people again, but in these group.

Well, I said scary about this video, but it was a mistake.
I was being influenced by other video I had watched about oil
exhaustion.
Then, this concept of the Life after Humans, and watching how the
great works of man were eroding and falling down, only made me sad.
But as I watched my mind was mixing other scenes from other video,
"The World without Oil", and with material I had read in other
places. So, if you had read the "Theory of Olduvai", and the book
"Collapse" of Jared Diamond... well, then, the mixture made me feel
scared.
I mean, films usually go a little slow, and you had time to imagine
other concepts and scenes as well, you got from other sources. I mean,
I suffer a syndrome of mental hyperactivity. Not all people is so
lucky of being normal.

You have to read some books of Jared Diamond, about why in Eurasia
surged the greatest civilizations of the planet, I mean more advanced
than in other continents. I had this idea when I was an adolescent.
What are the origins of technology and civilization? I was thinking
about this. I wondered, was necessarily caused by a genetic
evolution? Or was it cause by a chance of geography? I mean, to
invent something, you need to be free of hunger stress. Even to be
free of some extreme weather conditions. You cannot think well under
extreme heat, or extreme freezing cold. Of course, with a very full
belly and a heavy digestion going on, you cannot think easily
either. Then, some relative abundance of food and animals that could
be domesticated, could also be a reason to have more opportunities to
think and to invent devices and artifacts.
Then, the slow process of evolution of humans, 40,000 years ago, was
mostly due, to problems of logistics. Life was to hard, and it only
occurred that they had a few lucky moments to invent something new,
like painting, carving a figurine, or inventing a necklace of with
perforated shells. Then, my idea is that the brain had long ago the
capacity to invent new things. It is not the extraterrestrials that
came to the earth to teach humans to knack a flint stone into a
cutting tool. If they do not invented things much farther, was due
mostly to problems with hunting, and an almost permanent hunger.

Coming back to the video. As I watched, I was sad that all of this
works of the man would disappear. Then, I could also imagine a group
of humans, naked and covered his backs with furs, running the
countryside with spears, trying to hunt something.
Then, if one is not passively watching the video, his mind is working
much faster, he can see all this I am saying or perhaps a little more.

Perseus

[Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org]

On Thursday, August 9, 2012 3:01:20 AM UTC+1, Paul J Gans wrote:
> I always like to remind folks that you do NOT go back to the
> stone age. People know things. Like how to set up a generator
> and how to make gunpowder, not to mention good old skills like
> pottery.
>
> They remember a good bit about medicine and health as well.
>
> And there is plenty of rubble left. Hooking up an electrical
> generator running off a windmill is the sort of things folks
> will do.

At first, yeah. But your generator requires metal, I think, and so does
whatever is powered from it. Come to think, generator-building is probably
a less popular leisure craft than pottery or even gunpowder making. So,
initially you recycle some metals, but, considering that nowadays goods are
mainly made in China -

[Perseus]

On Aug 9, 1:26 am, nmp <addr...@is.invalid> wrote:
> Perseus:
>
> > nmp:
>
> [..]

>
> >> I never imagined our "civilisation" as you call it to survive another
> >> thousand years even with us to run things. But I admit I grew up with
> >> the fear of nuclear war, of Americans and Russians killing us all over
> >> some stupid argument. And although that specific scenraio has now been
> >> averted, I still think humanity will probably go kaboom! somewhere in
> >> the next few centuries.
>
> > Oh, my!  How optimist you are!  In the next few centuries!  Oh, I think
> > this "global civilization" would not last more than a few decades.
>

> I do not like being accused of optimism...
>
> But I see I wasn't clear. By "kaboom!" I meant the full scale nuclear war
> that will finally throw humanity back so far back into regression that it
> will not even be funny. Somewhere around the Stone Age, probably. If
> anyone survives at all. Exactly when we cannot know, that's why I said in
> a few centuries or so. We have the machinery to bring about such
> catastrophe, we are not willing to get rid of that machinery, so it
> stands to reason that the worst *will* happen someday. It always does.
>
> But before that happens, yes, we will see oil running out, empires
> collapse, alliances fall apart, all sorts of wars and atrocities, a few
> nukes going off here and there.
>
> After that has happened a few times, there will be no going back.
>

> [..]

>
> >  It is like the present crisis.  Was anyone announcing this
> > crisis?    Well, me.  But I do not count. Everybody knew that I must be
> > crazy.  "What the fuck are you saying?  Do you not see this prosperity?
> > Everywhere are building some new giant shopping center.  How would they
> > build so many new shopping centers  if it were gonna be a fucking
> > crisis?
> > Then, I replied, that was precisely the reason for the crisis.  We are
> > the same people on this island, we are earning more or less the same
> > money as before.  Why to build so many shopping centers?  The
> > conclusion, I was crazy.  I had not any sense of reality.
>

> Island? Let me guess: Iceland?
>
> Of course the same thing happened in several places in the world.

I said "island", for I am living in an island, on the Canaries,
latitude 28, the same as Florida, Atlantic Ocean, West of Africa.

well, we cannot say our leaders had shown a great intelligence, as we
regard the present crisis. But I do not love totally the most simple
hypothesis. Perhaps they had a hidden agenda, as republicans say of
Obama. Perhaps this idiotic crisis is not idiotic at all. When I
feel happy with an idea, I love to turn back an idea and look for
reasons for quite the opposite.
Then, what if this crisis were not so idiotic, but a conspiracy, to
make all of us poorer, as a way to prepared them better for the crisis
of higher prices of oil, and a foreseeable exhaustion? Then, we would
not be prepared if were continuing to live with business as usual.
Well, one has to think that in general, people does only know some
shit about sports, and some gossip from the press and TV. Most
people, in spite of having gained 20 or 25 points in IQ since the
start of 20th century, is mostly idiot and rather ignorant.
Then, when the people that invested in Wall Street stocks in the
twenties, they were being driven there like cattle to the slaughter
house. A very small number of rich bankers were manipulating the
prices to enrich themselves while robbing ignorant people. The
procedure is very simple, even for me, that do not understand a shit
of economics. A group of bankers choose the stock of a company with a
low value and start to heat it by buying it slowly for a time. Then,
the price of this stock is rising in value, and the group let common
people to know the news and advice to buy this stock, for it is rising
so fast. Then, as people ask the brokers to buy this shit, the
bankers are selling back the stocks they had been heating previously.
In the process, they could had won like 30 or 50 % in a few months.
They they can try with another stock and so on. Little by little they
can go making rise the price of all stocks in Wall Street. Then,
there is like an herd migration, everybody want to become rich, for
the stocks are continuously rising. Then, what fucking knew, or had
any idea that this mechanism existed? I never heard talk about that!
If people would had been aware that this was all some artificial
manipulation made by a few rich bankers, nobody would had invested, or
borrowed money to buy stocks. I was watching yesterday a video about
the crash of 29. It last an hour.

Instead of that, people believed this was a progress, a golden age of
prosperity. people expended little fortunes in Las Vegas, or
traveling to Paris to dance, and watch the can-can dances, for they
were enjoying a never before seen prosperity, for their stocks of Wall
Street valued now double or triple. Groucho Marx lost all he had won
doing comic movies, and Wiston Churchill lost most of his family
fortune in Wall Street. He was in New York the same day of the
crash. He was invited to come inside, and he watched people slowly
and coolly offering a lot of stocks at a third of its former price,
but they could not find any buyer.

Summing up, we are mostly misled by our leaders. The relevant
knowledge are kept mostly a secret.

Perseus

[Glenn]

"Perseus" <leopoldo...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:a0707eff-0a97-4ad7-bcbe-

>
> Summing up, we are mostly misled by our leaders. The relevant
> knowledge are kept mostly a secret.
>

How do you know?

[Perseus]

On Aug 9, 3:01 am, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

I would like much to agree with you.
But in this moment I feel a little tired to start a sort of essay
trying to prove you that there is a possibility that all this
tinkering with generators and inventing back the black powder I was
making when I was 12 years old, could easily be vanished in just a
mere hundred years or a little more. Hundred and fifty years,
perhaps. All you need is to think for like ten minutes or so. Of
course, it would not be a truth whatever, but a reasonable
hypothesis.
Of course, we are not going back to stone age in a matter of a few
years. But perhaps, in hundred years or a little more, it is
possible. Think that the mother lode of all inventions is that you
have to eat daily. Then, who is going to eat daily on a sure basis?
The most warrior sort of guys, the most rapid guns west of the
Mississippi. Summing up, thugs and gun men. They would be
frantically looking for food, and any one that had managed to produce
any food would be killed. Then, the most intelligent people would be
the most vulnerable and easily killed. Then, in a matter of some
decades, less and less intelligent people would remain alive. Then,
others people had to be feeding the intelligent guys that should
invent again the black powder, or invent a generator, or an electric
bulb to produce light, etc. Well, it would not be easy to feed the
inventor, the intelligent guy, for to reinvent all this it cannot be a
fast operation. So, they probably get nervous with the failures of the
re-inventor, the guy who should bring back the lost technology. Think
also about the lot of marauders running the country in search of food,
and killing people like mad. Then, think that energy, other than
food, would also be very scarce. It could be a real scary movie think
about how many things can go wrong and sent us back to the stone
age.
Another day, I would tell more. I have now to go the grocer's and
later I would haver to cook if I want to eat something.

Perseus

[Perseus]

forgive him. He has some... surges of... temper.

Perseus

[Glenn]

"Perseus" <leopoldo...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:15c7d83f-dd4b-45a0-b4fa-

> Another day, I would tell more. I have now to go the grocer's and
> later I would haver to cook if I want to eat something.
>

What if she didn't want to cook?

[Perseus]

On Aug 9, 8:26 am, "Glenn" <glennshel...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "Perseus" <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote in message

there were 12 clans in the island, and they were prone to quarrels, I
suppose. Then, they had to achieve some sort of collective accord.
Any one can imagine how difficult is to achieve a collective accord.
Then, as people were breeding in excess, it was difficult to get an
accord. For the clans with less people do not want to breed less but
more. It is more or less the same logic that has sent us to become 7
billion people in this planet.
It in an inheritance from past times. In past times, the tribes with
more abundance of young warriors could defeat their neighbors and
robbed their cultivated gardens. Then, could also kill all adults,
and domesticate the children as slaves to do the hard labor of digging
the fields and carry heavy loads.

then, a culture does not disappear that easy, for we had invented
sophisticated machines that run on diesel, or rockets and spacecraft
that can go as far as to to moon or the planets.

If those guys were like they are today, they would think it was
demeaning to whittling another male, there were were a lot of girls
there unused. In the island of Topeka, in the Pacific, they achieved
a different solution to this problem. As the pigs, mostly a privilege
of aristocrats, were eating the same food as humans, they accorded to
kill all the pigs. Then, they accorded also to limit the breeding.
Not permitting any other male to breed but the first born. If someone
break the taboo, he was neutered or pushed over a cliff to kill him.
I suppose to whittling another male would had been authorized. This
was the theory of Plato about Cyprus, he said an ancient ruler
permitted that some males could marry another males, to avoid
overpopulation. In general, the well know proclivity of Ancient Greek
for make pairs of lovers, can have the same old reason. As properties
were small, they could not be divided. Then, the only males with the
right to breed were those than inherited the land from his father.
The rest would remain as soldiers or servants to other people. In
such circumstances, it is easy to understand that whittling would be
rather common.

Perseus

[Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org]

Perseus intended to write, "Later, I will have to cook", and not,
"Later, I will have her to cook". English is a stupid language anyway;
let's not degrade it further, by picking upon an obvious slip of the
finger when typing.

[Perseus]

On Aug 9, 11:06�am, "Glenn" <glennshel...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "Perseus" <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote in message

It was a common mistype. I wrote an r in excess.
I have now to go the grocer's and later I would have (r) to cook if I
want to eat something.

Why is so difficult to spot a common error?
Perseus

[Perseus]

On Aug 9, 10:34�am, "Glenn" <glennshel...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "Perseus" <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote in message

I do not know it. To know something happens only on banal subjects.
You have a glass of beer in your hand ans you say, this is a glass of
beer. A little kid learning to speak can say, this is a spoon, this
is a glass of milk, etc. And we, in our daily life, we can say, this
is my car, or this is a mountain, here it is the Mississippi, and so
on.

In one word, my statement is the product of a simple deduction. It
can be wrong, for any deduction can be wrong.
My I had done some shitty analysis on this matter about the hidden
knowledge.

Just imagine the crash of 29, more than 80 years ago. Who knew the
Wall Street would crash? Those that provoked the the damn thing.
They knew that shit. There is a Banker, someone called Paul Warburg,
that was called the Casandra of Wall Street after the crisis. He
predicted the fall seven months before the crash. He ordered all the
stocks of his bank to be sold. But even, if the real state of Wall
Street would had known a few years earlier, this would hastened the
crash of Wall Street, but not produced such a huge economic
catastrophe in the world.

Then, look at the present crisis. For most victims of this crisis,
they were caught on by it, as a total surprise. They had been misled
into believing they were driving on a wave of inexhaustible
prosperity. Then, they were misled. People cannot get misled unless
some relevant data were hidden to them.

I could put a few more examples, but I think it is enough for the
moment, unless anyone asked me for more.

Perseus

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 15:08:00 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Perseus
<leopoldo...@gmail.com>:

>On Aug 8, 6:44�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:

>> On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 07:10:17 -0700 (PDT), the following
>> appeared in talk.origins, posted by wiki trix
>> <wikit...@gmail.com>:

>> >On Aug 8, 9:53�am, Richard Norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:

>> >> On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 01:37:47 -0700 (PDT), Perseus

>> >> <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> >> > I has seen the most scary movie ever. �It is the new batch from the
>> >> >series, Life After Humans.
>> >> >It is called
>> >> > AFTERMATH : Population Zero (Full)
>> >> >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkMXhKj0D4w
>>
>> >> >It touches about what would happen to this wonderful civilization once
>> >> >humans would had disappeared.
>>
>> >> >Forget all that nonsense about zombies and vampires, and the nonsense
>> >> >of Apocalypses. �This is fear in its most pure state. How all our
>> >> >mighty wonders and technology falls asunder. Pure scariness.

>> >> Just to be consistent with my criticizing the citation of a youtube
>> >> video about diatom speciation--- this is a good way of introducing a
>> >> youtube video for us. �It describes something about the content and
>> >> talks to why we may be interested in viewing it. �And it adds a
>> >> personal note of one person's reaction to the content. �The post I
>> >> criticized had no commentary or discussion at all.

>> >That is your opinion. I prefer to have no spoiler info.

>> It's up to you whether you read beyond the YouTube link; I
>> for one prefer to have both the link and a synopsis so I can
>> make a semi-informed decision. As I've stated previously I
>> tend to avoid YouTube, but not entirely; occasionally a
>> subject sounds interesting enough that I watch the video.

>I had collected a lot of material from youtube.
>Most of the videos are very interesting. Besides, I had a great
>deficit of hearing material in English, and I had learned a lot by
>hearing those videos. English is not my mother tongue.

Good idea, and you did provide a synopsis of the content. My
response was to wikitrix.
--

Bob C.

[Perseus]

On Aug 9, 12:29�am, Boikat <boi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> On Aug 8, 3:37�am, Perseus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > �I has seen the most scary movie ever. �It is the new batch from the
> > series, Life After Humans.
> > It is called
> > �AFTERMATH : Population Zero (Full)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkMXhKj0D4w
>
> "Scary"? �I saw a few episodes (it's a series) and was not even mildly
> concerned.

I suppose you were not evenly mildly concerned, because you thought
this story was like a movie about vampires or a poltergeist.

Perseus

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 9 Aug 2012 03:35:02 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by "Robert Carnegie: Fnord:
cc talk-o...@moderators.isc.org"
<rja.ca...@excite.com>:

>On Thursday, August 9, 2012 11:06:41 AM UTC+1, Glenn wrote:
>> "Perseus" <leopoldo...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:15c7d83f-dd4b-45a0-b4fa-
>> > Another day, I would tell more. I have now to go the grocer's and
>> > later I would haver to cook if I want to eat something.
>>
>> What if she didn't want to cook?
>
>Perseus intended to write, "Later, I will have to cook", and not,
>"Later, I will have her to cook".

I disagree; the added "r" was obviously a wide-finger typo;
"her" wasn't the intent. IMHO, anyway.

> English is a stupid language anyway;

Perhaps. But I will be forever grateful that during the
couple of centuries it was the language of illiterates and
was essentially ignored by linguists it managed to lose the
idiocy of gender for inanimate objects.

>let's not degrade it further, by picking upon an obvious slip of the
>finger when typing.

Well, no, we shouldn't.

[Kermit]

On Aug 8, 7:01�pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

Much of the infrastructure will be gone. But if there *are people,
there will an understanding that somewhere, somehow, steel/iron can be
melted and forged into different shapes. With an iron technology
culture, and books, intact *somewhere, I think high tech will be quick
and easy to restore ***once all the darkness stops***.

By "darkness" I mean the fighting over rapidly dwindling resources.
But if there are people left who can feed themselves, then we will
have iron. With iron and books, the generator will not be far behind.

On the bright side, any electricity generated after this will be from
wind, sun (thermally, probably, from focused mirrors), or running
water. There will be no available oil and even the coal will be too
deep for nineteenth century-equivalent tech.

On the dark side, I cannot rule out complete extinction of our
species.

Kermit

[Perseus]

On Aug 9, 3:01�am, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

let's think such a simple thing as pottery. You need energy, that is
you have to have an abundant supply of firewood. If there is not as
much as abundance, nobody could let you to make a pot using fire.
It is relative. Metallurgy is also a great consumer of energy. Let's
figure you are living far from the woodlands. Well, some small wood
had probably been appropriated by someone, that would ask you some
food in exchange for some of his firewood. Then, perhaps you are near
some place full of metallic junk. This also has an owner probably.
Any piece of metal to had to be paid in food. Let's figure you need
to fuse some brass, or to do some iron smithing. You will need
charcoal, so you need some firewood to make charcoal. You would need
a lot of pounds of charcoal just to work a single pound or iron or
steel. An average intelligent guy could probably learn quite fast how
to work iron, but he needs time and a lot of charcoal. In the end, it
all depends on how much people exist in this world and how much
firewood they need.
You have also to figure how much would cost to cut a tree with an axe
and to transport and cut the branches to make firewood. It would be a
good sell, of course, but people with food had to pay dear for the
firewood. Then, how much farther back a human society can go, it
would depend on marauders that would be killing people in search of
good place to settle and to live in peace. I think with a population
of 700 million people, we can probably start a nice medieval age
anew. It will not be a hunter gatherer society but... this
possibility does not look so unlikely to me.

Perseus

[SkyEyes]

On Aug 8, 1:37 am, Perseus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>  I has seen the most scary movie ever.  It is the new batch from the
> series, Life After Humans.
> It is called
>  AFTERMATH : Population Zero (Full)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkMXhKj0D4w
>

> It touches about what would happen to this wonderful civilization once
> humans would had disappeared.
>
> Forget all that nonsense about zombies and vampires, and the nonsense
> of Apocalypses.  This is fear in its most pure state. How all our
> mighty wonders and technology falls asunder. Pure scariness.
>

> Perseus

Inasmuch as we wouldn't be there to see it, what's scary about it?

Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
skyeyes nine at cox dot net OR
skyeyes nine at yahoo dot com

[Tim Norfolk]

The big problem is that the easily-accessible raw materials are gone, until the crust recycles. It takes a lot of technology to keep current mines going.

[Mark Isaak]

> Much of the infrastructure will be gone. But if there *are people,
> there will an understanding that somewhere, somehow, steel/iron can be
> melted and forged into different shapes. With an iron technology
> culture, and books, intact *somewhere, I think high tech will be quick
> and easy to restore ***once all the darkness stops***.
>
> By "darkness" I mean the fighting over rapidly dwindling resources.
> But if there are people left who can feed themselves, then we will
> have iron. With iron and books, the generator will not be far behind.

If the darkness lasts more than 150 years, there will not be many books.
Yes, books can last longer than that, but only in good conditions (and
maybe not even then, depending on the paper). When the libraries' roofs
start leaking, the books are done for.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/10/12 3:48 AM, Perseus wrote:
>
> Then, look at the present crisis. For most victims of this crisis,
> they were caught on by it, as a total surprise. They had been misled
> into believing they were driving on a wave of inexhaustible
> prosperity. Then, they were misled. People cannot get misled unless
> some relevant data were hidden to them.

This is not true; people are quite adept at misleading themselves, even
with the relevant data blaring at them. Witness evolution and global
warming deniers.

[Boikat]

On Aug 10, 5:49�am, Perseus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 9, 12:29�am, Boikat <boi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 8, 3:37�am, Perseus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > �I has seen the most scary movie ever. �It is the new batch from the
> > > series, Life After Humans.
> > > It is called
> > > �AFTERMATH : Population Zero (Full)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkMXhKj0D4w
>
> > "Scary"? �I saw a few episodes (it's a series) and was not even mildly
> > concerned.
>
> I suppose you were not evenly mildly concerned, because you thought
> this story was like a movie about vampires or a poltergeist.
>

Do you have some sort of mental problem? It was nothing more than a
"What if?" piece. Get over it, already.

Boikat

[Boikat]

ZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzz.......

> Once I left this northern city and went to the army, I never had a
> chance to talk with intelligent people again, but in these group.

You poor sot!

>
> Well, I said scary about this video, but it was a mistake.
> I was being influenced by other video I had watched about oil
> exhaustion.
> Then, this concept of the Life after Humans, and watching how the
> great works of man were eroding and falling down, only made me sad.

I thought you saide it scared you.

> But as I watched my mind was mixing other scenes from other video,
> "The World without Oil", and with material I had read in other
> places.   So, if you had read  the "Theory of Olduvai", and the book
> "Collapse" of Jared Diamond... well, then, the mixture made me feel
> scared.

I guess you are the prime target for the marketing division of
publishers of those types of publications and films.

> I mean, films usually go a little slow, and you had time to imagine
> other concepts and scenes as well, you got from other sources. I mean,
> I suffer a syndrome of mental hyperactivity. Not all people is so
> lucky of being normal.

I suspected as much in my reply to your other post. Mental diarrhea
is a symptom.

>
> You have to read some books of Jared Diamond, about why in Eurasia
> surged the greatest civilizations of the planet, I mean more advanced
> than in other continents.  I had this idea when I was an adolescent.
> What are the origins of technology and civilization?  I was thinking
> about this.  I wondered, was necessarily caused by a genetic
> evolution?   Or was it cause by a chance of geography?  I mean, to
> invent something, you need to be free of hunger stress.

Um, actually, I think hunger stress would be a great motivation to
invent something, like a trap or weapon to take down prey.

> Even to be
> free of some extreme weather conditions.

That would also be a great motivator for inventing better fors of
shelter than a damp cave or a pile of tree branches.

> You cannot think well under
> extreme heat, or extreme freezing cold.   Of course, with a very full
> belly and a heavy digestion going on, you cannot think easily
> either.  Then, some relative abundance of food and animals that could
> be domesticated, could also be a reason to have more opportunities to
> think and to invent devices and artifacts.
> Then, the slow process of evolution of humans, 40,000 years ago, was
> mostly due, to problems of logistics.  Life was to hard, and it only
> occurred that they had a few lucky moments to invent something new,
> like painting, carving a figurine, or inventing a necklace of with
> perforated shells.   Then, my idea is that the brain had long ago the
> capacity to invent new things.  It is not the extraterrestrials that
> came to the earth to teach humans to knack a flint stone into a
> cutting tool. If they do not invented things much farther, was due
> mostly to problems with hunting, and an almost permanent hunger.

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZzzz.....

>
> Coming back to the video. As I watched, I was sad that all of this
> works of the man would disappear.

You might as well get over it. At some point in time, it will happen.
The sun will eventuall swell up into a red giant, and bake the Earth
to a crisp. But that's quite a bit off in the future. Long before
that, humans will either have discovered some way of moving out into
the galaxy, or will have been snuffed out by some event. Even then,
those far distant descendants ny not even be considered 'humans" by
our present definitions and usage.

> Then, I could also imagine a group
> of humans, naked and covered his backs with furs, running the
> countryside with spears, trying to hunt something.
> Then, if one is not passively watching the video, his mind is working
> much faster, he can see all this I am saying or perhaps a little more.
>
>

I see much ado about nothing.

Boikat

[Perseus]

It is easy. It is scary if you imagine that you are watching, a
little like a ghost or something, what is happening with world humans
had built.
I had to confess that I felt very sad, the first time I saw the pilot
video on this theme, "Life after People". I had collected all the
videos that came afterwards.

I was a little surprised at how fragile and perishable the works of
man were. It took me by surprise; it was a little shock.

Perseus

[Perseus]

well, iron is aplenty, even if for today standards most iron mineral
is poor. I think the real limit is firewood to make charcoal. Let's
suppose, that coal lasted more, a few decades more, but to save the
remains of our technology working, we would be burning coal very fast,
simply to maintain operating some trains, and that thing.
But as even coal started to get exhausted, a renewed batch of wars
could burst again. Let us say, the first war was for the oil
remaining. Then the next war would had been because of the scarcity
of coal. I even imagine a return of legal slavery in many countries
including the US. if they exist in fractions or so.

Then, this scarcity of energy, including woodlands, would push us even
farther back towards hunter gathering.

Perseus

[Perseus]

Think of all the fires burning houses and buildings, then the resulted
humidity getting into the buildings, and destroying with fungi all
books.
Then most of the bookish people that new something about technology
could probably killed in the troubles. They are very little people,
and not killed, they would be probably traumatized and more or less
deranged.

Perseus

[Perseus]

On Aug 10, 7:31 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote:
> On 8/10/12 3:48 AM, Perseus wrote:
>
>
>
> > Then, look at the present crisis.  For most victims of this crisis,
> > they were caught on  by it, as a total surprise.  They had been misled
> > into believing they were driving on a wave of inexhaustible
> > prosperity.  Then, they were misled.  People cannot get misled unless
> > some relevant data were hidden to them.
>
> This is not true; people are quite adept at misleading themselves, even
> with the relevant data blaring at them.  Witness evolution and global
> warming deniers.

They are not misleading themselves. They are unable to analyze any
controversy.
They simple hear some people saying one thing, like global warming,
and on the other hand they are unable to understand why they say
that. Temperature looks quite normal. In the summer there is a lot
of heat and in the winter there is a lot of cold. It is not like in
those catastrophic movies of Hollywood, that when the end of world
starts, starts real clearly.
Then, on the other hand, there is a lot of people around them that do
not understand this either, or others that are telling the opposite;
this global thing is a fraud. The republicans that are wooing the
most ignorant people of the nation is telling this, global warming is
a fraud.

In general, common people disregard of school and science like
statements for they never understood any science.
Sometimes, even people with a degree from some technical college are
mostly illiterate in matters of science. I recall about a guy that
when he got a sort of tittle in technology, told me, "at last I
finished this damn career. I would not read any book in the rest of my
life!"

Then, people only understand the shitty matters of everyday life.
Anything not closely connected with his daily life, is rubbish.

Then, they are not deluding themselves, they simply do not understand
what some people are telling them. It is what I said about language
in another post. Language can be a very complex matter, for most
people only understand a little fraction of the language. They had
not been properly trained to understand complex messages, not even in
common language. An abridged dictionary contains about 80,000 words.
Half the people do not understand more than 10,000 words. The average
for this lower have can be something like 5 or 6 thousand words.

Perseus

[Perseus]

mental problem? No, that I am aware of.
I was imagining myself watching like a ghost how the works of man
deteriorate. And it is rather sad. I was not expecting any of this.
I imagined they would had lasted for many centuries, not to decay so
fast.

Perseus

[Boikat]

Are you related to Nando?

Boikat

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/10/12 3:06 PM, Perseus wrote:
> On Aug 10, 7:31 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote:
>> On 8/10/12 3:48 AM, Perseus wrote:
>>
>>> Then, look at the present crisis. For most victims of this crisis,
>>> they were caught on by it, as a total surprise. They had been misled
>>> into believing they were driving on a wave of inexhaustible
>>> prosperity. Then, they were misled. People cannot get misled unless
>>> some relevant data were hidden to them.
>>
>> This is not true; people are quite adept at misleading themselves, even
>> with the relevant data blaring at them. Witness evolution and global
>> warming deniers.
>
> They are not misleading themselves. They are unable to analyze any
> controversy.

What about the people who *do* analyze controversies for a living, and
still mislead themselves? Linus Pauling on vitamin C, for example.

For all people, including you, emotions determine how decisions are
made. Some people's emotions tell them than detached analysis is nice,
so they use detached analysis. But even then other emotions are lurking
around, possibly waiting to sway them one way or another. This is
generally a good thing (without emotions, there would be precious little
motivation for anything) and in most cases works fine. But sometimes
the emotions can be overpowering to the point of making bad decisions,
such as buying snake oil to cure your mother's cancer, or hoping to
score big in the get-rich-quick plan that was just presented to you.

In other cases, the role of emotion is less obvious, but still there.
Often it is crafted by other people, many of whom, such as advertisers
and political advisers, have learned arts of manipulation. One of those
tricks is to associate certain areas as inherently evil, so people are
emotionally primed to dismiss them out of hand. I hear this a lot from
both creationists and global warming deniers -- "Since you say
speciation took place, you must be an atheist, and nobody should bother
with what you say", or, "That climate data came from a university, and
you can't trust those liberal organizations."

The people are perfectly able to analyze the data. They *do* analyze
the data that supports their side. But they are unwilling to look at
all of it, because it is emotionally unpleasant for them to do so. And
that is (one way) how people mislead themselves.

[Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org]

On Friday, August 10, 2012 10:44:30 PM UTC+1, Perseus wrote:
> Then most of the bookish people that new something about technology
> could probably killed in the troubles. They are very little people,
> and not killed, they would be probably traumatized and more or less
> deranged.

Here is a web page about how intelligent people survive the failure
of civilisation.

http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2009/11/22/how-to-prepare-for-the-apocalypse.html

The bald man is the intelligent one, and the creator of that comic strip.
"Basic Instructions" has the style of a guidebook of practical advice -
or a description of how to use a newly purchased tool, or the furniture that
is sold as parts that you have to assemble together yourself - while the
actors in the story supply the comical events and conversation.

[Perseus]

On Saturday, August 11, 2012 3:27:38 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 8/10/12 3:06 PM, Perseus wrote:
>
> > On Aug 10, 7:31 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote:
>
> >> On 8/10/12 3:48 AM, Perseus wrote:
>
> >>
>
> >>> Then, look at the present crisis. For most victims of this crisis,
>
> >>> they were caught on by it, as a total surprise. They had been misled
>
> >>> into believing they were driving on a wave of inexhaustible
>
> >>> prosperity. Then, they were misled. People cannot get misled unless
>
> >>> some relevant data were hidden to them.
>
> >>
>
> >> This is not true; people are quite adept at misleading themselves, even
>
> >> with the relevant data blaring at them. Witness evolution and global
>
> >> warming deniers.
>
> >
>
> > They are not misleading themselves. They are unable to analyze any
>
> > controversy.
>
>
>
> What about the people who *do* analyze controversies for a living, and
>
> still mislead themselves? Linus Pauling on vitamin C, for example.
>

Of course. Including me. This bring us both, you and me, to the following question, "what are our certitudes made of?"

I mean, "what sort of magic metamorphoses a simple statement into a truth?"

"Could the perception of a truth have any causal relation with 20,000 repetitions?"


There are people that believe things like god X is true. You can consider any other question, even in science matters, or in pseudo sciences.

How can we discern if some theory is valid or not? Are we obliged to accept them as a matter of faith?

Have we had done at least a minimum effort to determine... the validity of at least a theory?
I had been calculating the amount of carbon we had burned in the last 100 years. I even took the pain of calculating the enthalpies and the capacity to story heat of carbon dioxide molecules. I had been doing some other calculations that tell me that global warming can be more close to being true than to being false.

I had also contemplating some aspects of the problem of heating of the atmosphere, and I am mostly a believer in global warming. Can I be wrong? Perhaps. But I had made an effort to understand this matter.
I had read all arguments of the "Skeptical Environmentalist" Lomborg. I paid a lot of attention to his book, reading it carefully. Not everybody does this.

Nevertheless, I worry a lot more for the exhaustion of oil than for global warming.
I think that exhaustion of oil would catch us sooner than global warming by a few decades. It would be one after the other.
Well, even this... the idea of the exhaustion of oil is not a certitude either. But a reasonable prediction. I had studied this theme also.

Then, certitudes, I have only banal certitudes. Some elemental certitudes, like if something is inside a box cannot be outside the same box at the same time. Either is in or is out, not both.
If I am waiting for a train in the station and it does not come in time, either my watch is very fast, or the clock of the station is also fast, or even the watches of some people waiting are also wrong. But as this does not look so likely, the most logic is to think the train is late; has not arrived yet.

These are banal certitudes. They come to us by mean of our senses, and the experience. But we had heard that some people had deliriums and see images not other person sees, or he hear voices, not other people hear. Then, even the certitude of my senses is a little... it is not as perfect, as they could be when we consider the delirium and visions of some people.
But we cannot doubt of everything. There most exist banal certitudes that have to be safe from doubts. We count on the senses of other people for that.

What is more prone to be wrong is the result of our reasoning, or the results of other people reasoning. Then, here things are not 100% true.

In the question of sciences and pseudosciences, we are confronted with a dual problem.

a) We have to search for the validity of all science statements.
b) We have not time to control all scientific statements.

For our time, as well as our energy, is limited.

Then, we can see many people accepting some dubious theories without a winking or a shred of a doubt .

Why I mentioned dubious theories?
Well, I had said something here that are considered dubious theories bu others.

And people here has said some statements that come from what I consider dubious theories.

Then, in science it is not a question of democracy, or which theory could have more votes of confidence. For many stupid theories were considered sound science in the past. Not such a remote past.

A few days ago, I was watching a video about the life of President Lincoln.
After he was in bed with a mortal bound, as many as 5 physicians entered their fingers into the bullet hole of the president.
I suppose it was not a mere whim, or a nervous tick of them, but a valid medical concept of their time; "when in presence of a wounded person with a shot it is advisable to enter a finger into the hole of the wound."

In other video I saw about writer Alan Poe, he was ill in a city he had arrived and that was affected by cholera. Then, the narrator tells what sort of medicine he was drinking to cure his illness, it was probably cholera. The flask with a drink that contained mercury. This was also some piece of science.

I could had pointed to many other details, but it is waste of time. If you have not any reason to believe that exist some dubious theories in "putative sciences", I am not going to argue any more.

> For all people, including you, emotions determine how decisions are
> made. Some people's emotions tell them than detached analysis is nice,
> so they use detached analysis. But even then other emotions are lurking
> around, possibly waiting to sway them one way or another. This is
> generally a good thing (without emotions, there would be precious little
> motivation for anything) and in most cases works fine. But sometimes
> the emotions can be overpowering to the point of making bad decisions,
> such as buying snake oil to cure your mother's cancer, or hoping to
> score big in the get-rich-quick plan that was just presented to you.

Summing up, you are telling me, that our analysis can be a shit? Yes. They can. Most often than knot, specially in questions that are not easy to measure, i¡or in questions that some pretend are objective and measure, but it was a simple trick to mislead people.

You are write. It is not so much our emotions as you said, but "our certitudes".
And have to come back at the question "what our certitudes are made of"?

using the jargon of behaviorism,
"a certitude is the result of an operant conditioning"
And that do not tell us if the certitude is valid or not. It is just a certitude.


Perseus

[Boikat]

On Aug 10, 5:09 pm, Perseus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 10, 7:31 pm, Boikat <boi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Aug 10, 5:49 am, Perseus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Aug 9, 12:29 am, Boikat <boi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > > On Aug 8, 3:37 am, Perseus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > >  I has seen the most scary movie ever.  It is the new batch from the
> > > > > series, Life After Humans.
> > > > > It is called
> > > > >  AFTERMATH : Population Zero (Full)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkMXhKj0D4w
>
> > > > "Scary"?  I saw a few episodes (it's a series) and was not even mildly
> > > > concerned.
>
> > > I suppose you were not evenly mildly concerned, because you thought
> > > this story was like a movie about vampires or a poltergeist.
>
> > Do you have some sort of mental problem?  It was nothing more than a
> > "What if?" piece. Get over it, already.
>
> > Boikat
>
> mental problem?  No, that I am aware of.

In a previous post you said, "I suffer a syndrome of mental

hyperactivity. Not all people is so lucky of being normal."

> I was imagining myself watching like a ghost how the works of man
> deteriorate.  And it is rather sad.  I was not expecting any of this.
> I imagined they would had lasted for many centuries, not to decay so
> fast.
>

What possible difference would it make?

Boikat

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/11/12 2:49 PM, Perseus wrote:
> On Saturday, August 11, 2012 3:27:38 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 8/10/12 3:06 PM, Perseus wrote:

>> [...]

>>
>>> They are not misleading themselves. They are unable to analyze any
>>> controversy.
>>
>> What about the people who *do* analyze controversies for a living, and
>> still mislead themselves? Linus Pauling on vitamin C, for example.
>
> Of course. Including me. This bring us both, you and me, to the
> following question, "what are our certitudes made of?"
>
> I mean, "what sort of magic metamorphoses a simple statement into
> a truth?"
>

> [...]

My thoughts on the matter are online, in "Is That So? The Art of
Evaluating Information,"
http://www.curioustaxonomy.net/home/claims.html

>> For all people, including you, emotions determine how decisions are
>> made. Some people's emotions tell them than detached analysis is nice,
>> so they use detached analysis. But even then other emotions are lurking
>> around, possibly waiting to sway them one way or another. This is
>> generally a good thing (without emotions, there would be precious little
>> motivation for anything) and in most cases works fine. But sometimes
>> the emotions can be overpowering to the point of making bad decisions,
>> such as buying snake oil to cure your mother's cancer, or hoping to
>> score big in the get-rich-quick plan that was just presented to you.
>
> Summing up, you are telling me, that our analysis can be a shit? Yes.

> They can. Most often than not, specially in questions that are not
> easy to measure, or in questions that some pretend are objective

> and measure, but it was a simple trick to mislead people.
>

> You are right. It is not so much our emotions as you said, but

> "our certitudes".
> And have to come back at the question "what our certitudes are
> made of"?
>
> using the jargon of behaviorism,
> "a certitude is the result of an operant conditioning"
> And that do not tell us if the certitude is valid or not. It is
> just a certitude.

Operant conditioning is much too simple and limited to explain why we
believe what we believe. It is a part, for sure, but only a part.
Social factors are another huge part. Genetics is a part. There are
surely other parts unknown.

In fact, operant conditioning can have the opposite effect from what's
intended. If someone tells me often enough, "This is true," I start to
think, "Why does he need to say it so often? Perhaps because he is
trying to convince himself, or he is trying to convince me but
repetition is the best argument he has. So it probably isn't true."
In another example, I got dozens of robo-calls telling me to vote a
certain way in an election. I voted the opposite way for no other
reason than because I was sick of the interruptions.

[Perseus]

On Sunday, August 12, 2012 2:21:22 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 8/11/12 2:49 PM, Perseus wrote:
>
> > On Saturday, August 11, 2012 3:27:38 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
>
> >> On 8/10/12 3:06 PM, Perseus wrote:
>
> >> [...]
>

You had not much of an idea of what is behaviorism.

> Social factors are another huge part.

Social factors are a part of the operant conditioning.
The problem with social factors is that sometimes, the social agents turn inside out, for some unexpected interactions. For example, most disobedience of children has been conditioned bu their own parents, without being aware of it.
This also an operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is done by the people around the kid, or the boy. Then, operant conditioning determine some results, but not always the results the parents or the teachers wanted.


> Genetics is a part.
This is a common assumption. The problem is to prove it. But there is something that cannot be rejected, all humans had a human intelligence, not a chimp intelligence, or a crocodile one. Then human intelligence is genetic at least in this sense.

> There are
> surely other parts unknown.

many things can be unknown. All the problem is... if some parts are unknown... how we know them?

>
>
> In fact, operant conditioning can have the opposite effect from what's
> intended. If someone tells me often enough, "This is true," I start to
> think, "Why does he need to say it so often? Perhaps because he is
> trying to convince himself, or he is trying to convince me but
> repetition is the best argument he has. So it probably isn't true."

In general, repetitions are the mother lode of people's thinking. People fear not to go with the herd, by thinking differently.

But sometimes, a person strays out of the collective thinking, due to some particular "operant conditioning". For not all people is conditioned in the same manner. By example, the operant conditioning that produces a good pianist in a boy of 8 or 10 years, is quite different to the one that produces a boy the same age than is very good playing tennis. And also very different to a boy that is middle of the road, or a boy that is put in a remand home, or that goes on the street selling drugs.

But you can keep sure that the conditioning that made a boy pianist is very similar to another boy that is also a good pianist.

And you can consider, the the conditioning that produces a boy that plays very well tennis, is very similar to one the produced other boy that do the same.

Then, operant conditioning is "what happens" not what one would like to happen.

The boy does behave as he was conditioned, not as they wanted the would be. Most parents would like to have intelligent studious children, but the operant conditioning they are doing does not work as they would like. That is the main reason most parents are rather disappointed with their children.

Then, operant conditioning is not an intention, it is a mechanism very little understood by parents and teachers.

> In another example, I got dozens of robo-calls telling me to vote a
> certain way in an election. I voted the opposite way for no other
> reason than because I was sick of the interruptions.

This only proves that you are mostly skeptic in politics. Not that they had failed with you. All politicians try to win the vote of people. But at most they only win the votes of those that are already sympathetic of his party. The game is trying to win as many peripheral voters as possible, without alienating the faithful voters.

Perseus

> --
>
> Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
>
> "It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
>
> honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
>
> pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume

This guy was subversive

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/12/12 3:25 PM, Perseus wrote:
> On Sunday, August 12, 2012 2:21:22 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:

> [...]

>> Operant conditioning is much too simple and limited to explain why we
>> believe what we believe. It is a part, for sure, but only a part.
>
> You had not much of an idea of what is behaviorism.
>
>> Social factors are another huge part.
> Social factors are a part of the operant conditioning.

No. Consider social modeling. Operant conditioning involves external
reinforcement of a behavior. With social modeling, the modeler often
never interacts with the learner at all.

And social modeling is a huge factor in determining what people believe.

>> Genetics is a part.
> This is a common assumption. The problem is to prove it.

Twin studies do that. I don't remember particulars, but genetics is
more important than most people think. Whether a person is conservative
or liberal, for example, has a genetic component.

Birth order is another factor with some influence.

>> There are
>> surely other parts unknown.
> many things can be unknown. All the problem is... if some parts
> are unknown... how we know them?

The important thing is to keep reminding ourselves that we do not have
all the answers.

>> In fact, operant conditioning can have the opposite effect from what's
>> intended. If someone tells me often enough, "This is true," I start to
>> think, "Why does he need to say it so often? Perhaps because he is
>> trying to convince himself, or he is trying to convince me but
>> repetition is the best argument he has. So it probably isn't true."
>
> In general, repetitions are the mother lode of people's thinking.
> People fear not to go with the herd, by thinking differently.
>
> But sometimes, a person strays out of the collective thinking, due to
> some particular "operant conditioning". For not all people is
> conditioned in the same manner. By example, the operant conditioning
> that produces a good pianist in a boy of 8 or 10 years, is quite
> different to the one that produces a boy the same age than is very
> good playing tennis. And also very different to a boy that is middle
> of the road, or a boy that is put in a remand home, or that goes on
> the street selling drugs.
>
> But you can keep sure that the conditioning that made a boy pianist
> is very similar to another boy that is also a good pianist.

> [...]

>
> Then, operant conditioning is "what happens" not what one would like
> to happen.
>
> The boy does behave as he was conditioned, not as they wanted the
> would be. Most parents would like to have intelligent studious children,
> but the operant conditioning they are doing does not work as they would
> like. That is the main reason most parents are rather disappointed with
> their children.

Have you never heard of families with multiple children who get the same
upbringing, but who turn out totally different? I know of a family
where one sibling became a research scientist, one became a millionaire
in the carpet business, and one became a prostitute. And often the
parents will tell you that the differences were apparent from an
extremely early age. Operant conditioning, even the unintended bits,
cannot account for such difference.

[Perseus]

On Monday, August 13, 2012 2:26:33 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 8/12/12 3:25 PM, Perseus wrote:
>
> > On Sunday, August 12, 2012 2:21:22 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
>
> > [...]
>
> >> Operant conditioning is much too simple and limited to explain why we
>
> >> believe what we believe. It is a part, for sure, but only a part.
>
> >
>
> > You had not much of an idea of what is behaviorism.
>
> >
>
> >> Social factors are another huge part.
>
> > Social factors are a part of the operant conditioning.
>
>
> No. Consider social modeling. Operant conditioning involves external
> reinforcement of a behavior. With social modeling, the modeler often
> never interacts with the learner at all.

There has been a lot of talk about social modeling. But even if a model that has been successful can produce some sort of... I wanna be rapper singer, or I wanna be a great football player, etc. This roles had not any force in itself to produce any results. This role model theory is mostly a myth and has not any influence. The only way to make a boy to become such or such great something... is not to have a poster in his bedroom, but to have some one who would be able to put him at training since an early age. Then, the most a person trains for something, the greater the capacity to succeed in the intended goal. But in general, not any boy trains alone by himself. At least not in their first 10 thousand hours of training.

>
>
> And social modeling is a huge factor in determining what people believe.

Social models are models we envy when we are boys. We all want to be some kind of superheroes, or some James Bond, Rambo, or Bourne. When Mark Spitz won 7 gold medals swimming in year 72, they sold some millions posters of Mark in bathing custom with the seven medals.
This would not be enough argument to make you a swimmer champion.

>
> >> Genetics is a part.
>
> > This is a common assumption. The problem is to prove it.
>
>
>
> Twin studies do that. I don't remember particulars, but genetics is
> more important than most people think. Whether a person is conservative
> or liberal, for example, has a genetic component.

This argument had been repeated thousands of times as to be believed. This could not be different to say, that a billion people believe in Jesus is a god, or that Mohammad is the prophet of god, or that Krishna is that and that manifestation of god, etc.

And I am not impressed for you tell me that conservatives and liberals believe the same on this point. Society does not run on equality, not even a communist society. Then, it does not look absurd that a communist society would accept that people are born with great differences of intelligence since they are born. And this is true, but not in the same sense, as related to intelligence. Some people are born blind, or with circuitry wrong, or some other fault. But the crucial difference, apart these faults, occurs in the early years of childhood, when the brain starts to get wired by learning some shit or other. The differences in this period would determine the rest of his life.

>
> Birth order is another factor with some influence.

If you would know some "operant conditioning" you would be able to imagine why.

>
> >> There are
> >> surely other parts unknown.
>
> > many things can be unknown.

> > All the problem is... if some parts
> > are unknown... how we know them?

>
> The important thing is to keep reminding ourselves that we do not have
> all the answers.

Ok, that is a good reason to explain why we have superstitions, and false theories. If you read a little bit of history about medicine, or even physics, you will see a lot of silly theories, and superstitions.

>
> >> In fact, operant conditioning can have the opposite effect from what's
>
> >> intended. If someone tells me often enough, "This is true," I start to
>
> >> think, "Why does he need to say it so often? Perhaps because he is
>
> >> trying to convince himself, or he is trying to convince me but
>
> >> repetition is the best argument he has. So it probably isn't true."
>
> >
>
> > In general, repetitions are the mother lode of people's thinking.
> > People fear not to go with the herd, by thinking differently.
>
> > But sometimes, a person strays out of the collective thinking, due to
> > some particular "operant conditioning". For not all people is
> > conditioned in the same manner. By example, the operant conditioning
> > that produces a good pianist in a boy of 8 or 10 years, is quite
> > different to the one that produces a boy the same age than is very
> > good playing tennis. And also very different to a boy that is middle
> > of the road, or a boy that is put in a remand home, or that goes on
> > the street selling drugs.
>
> > But you can keep sure that the conditioning that made a boy pianist
> > is very similar to another boy that is also a good pianist.
>
> > [...]
>
> >
>
> > Then, operant conditioning is "what happens" not what one would like
> > to happen.

>

> > The boy does behave as he was conditioned, not as they wanted he

> > would be. Most parents would like to have intelligent studious children,
> > but the operant conditioning they are doing does not work as they would
> > like. That is the main reason most parents are rather disappointed with
> > their children.
>

> Have you never heard of families with multiple children who get the same
> upbringing, but who turn out totally different? I know of a family
> where one sibling became a research scientist, one became a millionaire
> in the carpet business, and one became a prostitute. And often the
> parents will tell you that the differences were apparent from an
> extremely early age. Operant conditioning, even the unintended bits,
> cannot account for such difference.

Of course I had read this, but there is some faulty description of the situation.
What means the same upbringing? They can have the same parents, and they could had been living in the same house, but they had not had the same upbringing for they are so different. As English is not my mother tongue, I had to consult the dictionary to be sure. The Conc. Oxford says, upbringing is bringing up a child, or education.
Then, I could not believe the same education can bring different sort of people like a millionaire, a search scientist, or a prostitute.
This is just a sort of mantra, or a charming spell. This cannot be a good argument to explain differences among people.

Perseus

[eridanus]

Well, I do not see how this comic story can have a serious relation with the aftermath of this civilization.
Of course, those in charge would be the armed warriors, and we would witness some sort of medieval "game of thrones". Warlords warring each other, and common people providing them with food and some clothes and armor.
Well, this must be much later on, way after all ammunition had been exhausted, and there was not any long distance trade to bring more; or even considering that ammunition factories had stopped for lack of raw materials.
It all depends now on long distance transportation. And that transportation would be the first thing to break down. Trucks if any still running, would be captured and robbed. Then, transportation would collapse.

it is very difficult to make predictions. But if the most important factor is food, there can be considered different scenarios. Small scale scenario in which the owner or resident of a little garden in a remote valley can be killed by anyone to get this valuable land. And a while later, this one can be killed again by another new arrival and so on.

In a greater scenario, a great extend of agriculture land, can be taken and controlled in a sort of medieval style. Here, the problem is also the firewood. How much is around the place at least for cooking. Then, as far as some blacksmith working would be needed, the amount of firewood able to make some charcoal is a limiting factor. Then, this sort of energy could become very dear, and the rulers could enforce some serious limitations on the use of firewood for cooking. Then, winters had to be freezing above a latitude of 45 or 50 degrees.
The movie game of thrones do not show a likely scenario of medieval life. It must be much harsher than than the film shows.

Then, if we go farther back in time, there would not remain anyone who would know how to rebuild a civilization anew. Remember that most people that knew how to make things manually had already died. Or the few that are still alive would be death matter in a few decades.
Have seen this film, Idiocracy, a futuristic American? When I watched it I was looking a sort of allegory, or a parody, of the present world, not just in US, but also in Europe as well.
With the increasing cybernetic in industry, humans had become more and more redundant. There is not anymore a need for people to haven an intelligence. They can kill 90% of present humans, and things would ran smoothly for rich people as well. They would have not any scarcity of common people to lick their asses. For rich people is well below 1 percent.

Eridanus

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/15/12 1:42 PM, Perseus wrote:
> On Monday, August 13, 2012 2:26:33 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 8/12/12 3:25 PM, Perseus wrote:
>>
>>> On Sunday, August 12, 2012 2:21:22 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>
>>> [...]
>>
>>>> Operant conditioning is much too simple and limited to explain why we
>>
>>>> believe what we believe. It is a part, for sure, but only a part.
>>
>>> You had not much of an idea of what is behaviorism.
>>
>>>> Social factors are another huge part.
>>
>>> Social factors are a part of the operant conditioning.
>>
>> No. Consider social modeling. Operant conditioning involves external
>> reinforcement of a behavior. With social modeling, the modeler often
>> never interacts with the learner at all.
>
> There has been a lot of talk about social modeling. But even if a
> model that has been successful can produce some sort of... I wanna
> be rapper singer, or I wanna be a great football player, etc. This
> roles had not any force in itself to produce any results. This
> role model theory is mostly a myth and has not any influence. The
> only way to make a boy to become such or such great something... is
> not to have a poster in his bedroom, but to have some one who would
> be able to put him at training since an early age. Then, the most
> a person trains for something, the greater the capacity to succeed
> in the intended goal. But in general, not any boy trains alone by
> himself. At least not in their first 10 thousand hours of training.

I never said anything about becoming a rock star or Olympic swimmer. In
one classic experiment, when the subject (young children) saw an adult
punching a toy, they were more likely to punch toys themselves. Operant
conditioning had nothing to do with it -- the subjects were neither
rewarded nor punished for anything they did. Aside from watching the
adult that one time, they never had any other contact with him in any
way. And the result is easily replicated under a variety of conditions.

>> And social modeling is a huge factor in determining what people believe.
>
> Social models are models we envy when we are boys.

You are thinking of something completely different. Social models are
every person around us, sometimes even people we never see. If you are
in an area where you can see that others have littered, you are more
likely to litter yourself. That is social modeling. And I think you
can see that envy has nothing to do with it.

>>>> Genetics is a part.
>>
>>> This is a common assumption. The problem is to prove it.
>>
>> Twin studies do that. I don't remember particulars, but genetics is
>> more important than most people think. Whether a person is conservative
>> or liberal, for example, has a genetic component.
>
> This argument had been repeated thousands of times as to be believed.

Especially in experiments on mice and other animals, but also with
evidence applying to humans. To me, repeated data makes something more
believable, not less.

> This could not be different to say, that a billion people believe
> in Jesus is a god, or that Mohammad is the prophet of god, or that
> Krishna is that and that manifestation of god, etc.
>
> And I am not impressed for you tell me that conservatives and
> liberals believe the same on this point.

I did not say that. I said that your genes have a small part in
determining your political views.

Benjamin et. al, 2012, "The genetic architecture of economic and
political preferences." Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 May 22; 109(21):
8026-31.

>>
>>> The boy does behave as he was conditioned, not as they wanted he
>>> would be. Most parents would like to have intelligent studious children,
>>> but the operant conditioning they are doing does not work as they would
>>> like. That is the main reason most parents are rather disappointed with
>>> their children.
>
>> Have you never heard of families with multiple children who get the same
>> upbringing, but who turn out totally different? I know of a family
>> where one sibling became a research scientist, one became a millionaire
>> in the carpet business, and one became a prostitute. And often the
>> parents will tell you that the differences were apparent from an
>> extremely early age. Operant conditioning, even the unintended bits,
>> cannot account for such difference.
>
> Of course I had read this, but there is some faulty description of
> the situation.
> What means the same upbringing? They can have the same parents, and
> they could had been living in the same house, but they had not had the
> same upbringing for they are so different.

You are assuming your conclusion. People who grow up together in the
same house can be that different. Of course, their environments would
not be exactly the same, but differences in the people are (in that
case) far greater than differences in their environment.

Spend some time browsing PubMed yourself, and you will find several
studies showing genetic influence on behaviors.

[eridanus]

In this experiment, you are confusing "imitation" that is found in many animals, like in chimps and a lot other, with role model.

When the child grows into a boy, he can see a lot of models around. Some more frequent than others. Then, in absence of other variables, the most normal for a boy is to follow what their brothers and friends in school are doing or thinking. This do not happen sometimes with some boys that could become alienated, and become contrary to the group. If a group harasses another boy for whatever reason, the boy harassed can become alienated and rejects the values of the group, if not openly, in a secret way. As most kids need to harass some minorities to feel superior... then, there are some ranks of harassing, I mean there is a leader, or alpha male, and there are the followers of the alpha male.

>
>
> >> And social modeling is a huge factor in determining what people believe.
>
> >
>
> > Social models are models we envy when we are boys.
>
>
>
> You are thinking of something completely different. Social models are
> every person around us, sometimes even people we never see. If you are
> in an area where you can see that others have littered, you are more
> likely to litter yourself. That is social modeling. And I think you
> can see that envy has nothing to do with it.

As far as the model is a repeated model, all the boys that are followers, and feel good among the crowd of peers, would easily be like average. His intelligence would be about average, and so on. As the crowd diversify among a little different groups, there would exist the crowd of footballers, basketballers, or other.

But those that would learn peculiar subjects of interest, like scientist, to play the piano, to become a millionaire, to play chess, or tennis, with an aim of being a champ some day, This is another question. Here, a boy on one of those paths is not following the crowd or imitating a role model. A role model, it is never close enough to be of any help. It is like having a poster of a social idol on the wall of the bedroom. A million boys can have a poster or a rocker singer, or a champ of swimming, or a footballer, this only means that he "would like to be" like a social idol. But the presence of the poster is not miraculous enough to make the boy "to train properly" to become like his idol.

> >>>> Genetics is a part.
>
> >>
>
> >>> This is a common assumption. The problem is to prove it.
>
> >>
>
> >> Twin studies do that. I don't remember particulars, but genetics is
>
> >> more important than most people think. Whether a person is conservative
>
> >> or liberal, for example, has a genetic component.
>
> >
>
> > This argument had been repeated thousands of times as to be believed.
>
>
>
> Especially in experiments on mice and other animals, but also with
> evidence applying to humans. To me, repeated data makes something more
> believable, not less.

Other than common imitations, they had not observed any other shit.
They had not observed how a boy becomes a scientists, or a pianist, or a master chess player, or an opera singer, or a champ of swimming, or golf.

This only comes out as the result of some "specialized training". It is not any cheap imitation of a behavior.

>
>
> > This could not be different to say, that a billion people believe
> > in Jesus is a god, or that Mohammad is the prophet of god, or that
> > Krishna is that and that manifestation of god, etc.
>
>
> > And I am not impressed for you tell me that conservatives and
> > liberals believe the same on this point.

> I did not say that. I said that your genes have a small part in
> determining your political views.
>

I do not believe that. What is more probably is that if you are living in a conservative typical family, there exists a great probability, like 95%, to say a figure at random, of becoming conservative.
The same is valid for religions, or other familiar manias, like being a liberal.

On the other hand, when I was 17, I knew close enough to a couple of identical twins or my age. These twins I met them, with the help of a common acquaintance, and they were sitting on a lying trunk of an old tree, reading the same book of poetry. I had been in their home and they were living alone in a very old house, an aunt came home to do some cooking, and take all the laundry, and cleaning a little the house. I do not know well the family details, why both his dad and mum was not living with the twins, etc. The twins were sharing the same bed, and reading the same books. They had few friends, for I could remember. His friend were... the student (who was doing high school), the French one, and me. I never saw them with other people. But I only knew them for a few years.

I found them a few times sat on a bench reading the same book. Each one was holding the book from his own side. It looked to me the classical and topical concept about identical twins. They also looked physically identical.
We become relative friends. We went together hiking on mountains, sleeping in mountain cabins to keep cows, and store the summer grass, etc. We were many times, with another guy, the French one, talking a lot about religion, politics, and other matters that could be called as philosophy.
Well, these identical twins were at that time becoming different already, even if they had both the same friends. A number of times I was engaged in an argument with both twins and... well, it was only one of them, who was doing most of the arguing. After tiring of the argument that was heating, I had a few occasions to speak with silent brother, "then, what do you think?" He replied, "my brother is like this. He never gives up." Then I asked, "But what do you really think?" "I am favor of your thesis, but shut up, here he comes back."
Then, I was amazed to see that in spite of all the shitty theories about the genetic determinism, here I had an example on how two identical twin brothers were different. One was dominant and the other was submissive (well, a "fake submissive".
Some years later they had diverged politically as a conservative (the dominant guy) and a liberal. The dominant one choose to learn English, and enrolled for a time as parachutist in the army. The other chose French and enrolled in the French Army. One married and had 8 children, the other never married, and had become... "a lonely bachelor". He died by drawing while swimming very far off in the sea. As he was not an athletic swimmer, there exist the hypothesis that he was swimming that far with the aim of suicide.

Then, we are here before a case of identical twins, that were living together, and became very different. There, not even the "intuition" of people that loosely speak about "environment" can explain this shit.

But from a point of view of behaviorism, it could be easily explained as a sort of interplay among the brothers. The brothers were living quite isolated from common people, to receive much "reinforcements" for looking so much alike.
Then, other than in the public school, they could not received much reinforcement for this reason. Then, in front of their peers in school the were like allies, to defend each other from external harassment. But it was mostly one, the conservative that was doing all the fight. He was the fighter.
This it was not a personal observation, but it was told to me by a friend that knew the twins they were in primary school.

Then, this cannot be explained by genetics, and cannot be explained by the influence of an outside environment. It can be only explained as result of some classic fight for rank. Both sides wanted to be alpha to the other, but only one could succeed. How it happened? We do not know. I can only speculate that one day, one the brother, hit the other, a little harder than usual. From this point on... it is my hypothesis, one became established as alpha and then other was a beta. One was dominant, and the other was subordinate; at least in appearance. For deep down, the subdominant do not shared the same ideology, and embraced a liberal ideology.

I think I can smell this dichotomy among people conservative and liberal attitudes. Conservatives are aggressive, and love wars; are in favor of the dominant class, and so on.
Liberals are mostly pacifist, and liberal leaders had serious problems to mobilize them to protest for a shit or another.
I you consider something like Soviet Union, you could see that conservative people was in favor of government, and liberals were those that opposed the communist ideology. Then anything that pissed Soviet authorities was the true thing, religion, capitalism, democracy. freedom of the press, etc. Even some people that do not believe in god, like in Poland, made the sigh of the cross just to piss off communist authorities.
But in general, their attitude was mostly passive, not defiantly. For the punishments were very harsh, and most people were not ready to risk ten years in the gulag working in mines or other on Arctic lands.

Eridanus

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/16/12 3:55 AM, eridanus wrote:
> On Thursday, August 16, 2012 7:38:56 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 8/15/12 1:42 PM, Perseus wrote:
>>> On Monday, August 13, 2012 2:26:33 AM UTC+1, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>

>> [...]
>>>> No. Consider social modeling. [...]

>>>
>>> There has been a lot of talk about social modeling. But even if a
>>> model that has been successful can produce some sort of... I wanna
>>> be rapper singer, or I wanna be a great football player, etc. This
>>> roles had not any force in itself to produce any results. This
>>> role model theory is mostly a myth and has not any influence. The
>>> only way to make a boy to become such or such great something... is
>>> not to have a poster in his bedroom, but to have some one who would
>>> be able to put him at training since an early age. Then, the most
>>> a person trains for something, the greater the capacity to succeed
>>> in the intended goal. But in general, not any boy trains alone by
>>> himself. At least not in their first 10 thousand hours of training.
>>
>> I never said anything about becoming a rock star or Olympic swimmer. In
>> one classic experiment, when the subject (young children) saw an adult
>> punching a toy, they were more likely to punch toys themselves. Operant
>> conditioning had nothing to do with it -- the subjects were neither
>> rewarded nor punished for anything they did. Aside from watching the
>> adult that one time, they never had any other contact with him in any
>> way. And the result is easily replicated under a variety of conditions.
>
> In this experiment, you are confusing "imitation" that is found in
> many animals, like in chimps and a lot other, with role model.

No, I am not. I never mentioned "role model." I went out of my way to
point in the opposite direction from "role model". Role models are a
small, tiny, itty-bitty special case of social modeling. Forget about
role models entirely, and the subject of social modeling still looms
over you.

>> You are thinking of something completely different. Social models are
>> every person around us, sometimes even people we never see. If you are
>> in an area where you can see that others have littered, you are more
>> likely to litter yourself. That is social modeling. And I think you
>> can see that envy has nothing to do with it.
>

> As far as the model is a repeated model . . .

Repeated? I said nothing about anything being repeated. You are going
off on your own topic again, one which has nothing to do with what I am
saying.

>> Especially in experiments on mice and other animals, but also with
>> evidence applying to humans. To me, repeated data makes something more
>> believable, not less.
>
> Other than common imitations, they had not observed any other shit.

That's not what the observers say. Here are some references pertinent
to mouse behavior:

Belzung C, Griebel G (2001) Measuring normal and pathological
anxiety-like behaviour in mice: A review. Behav Brain Res 125(1–2)141–149.

Ohl F, Roedel A, Binder E, Holsboer F (2003) Impact of high and low
anxiety on cognitive performance in a modified hole board test in
C57BL/6 and DBA/2 mice. Eur J Neurosci 17: 128–136.

Laarakker MC, Ohl F, Van Lith HA (2008) Chromosomal assignment of
quantitative trait loci influencing modified hole board behavior in
laboratory mice using consomic strains, with special reference to
anxiety-related behavior and mouse chromosome 19. Behav Genet 38(2)159–184.

Clément Y, Guisquet AML, Venault P, Chapouthier G, Belzung C (2009)
Pharmacological alterations of anxious behaviour in mice depending on
both strain and the behavioural situation. PLoS One 4(11)e7745. [PMC
free article]

And on behavior, or aspects of behavior, which human twin studies have
found to be genetic:

Agrawal A. et al. The genetics of addiction--a translational
perspective. Transl Psychiatry. 2012 Jul 17;2:e140. doi:
10.1038/tp.2012.54.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3410620/?tool=pubmed

Fisher A, van Jaarsveld CH, Llewellyn CH, Wardle J., Genetic and
environmental influences on infant sleep. Pediatrics. 2012
Jun;129(6):1091-6.

Fowler T, Zammit S, Owen MJ, Rasmussen F. A population-based study of
shared genetic variation between premorbid IQ and psychosis among male
twin pairs and sibling pairs from Sweden. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2012
May;69(5):460-6.

Hayiou-Thomas ME, Dale PS, Plomin R. The etiology of variation in
language skills changes with development: a longitudinal twin study of
language from 2 to 12 years. Dev Sci. 2012 Mar;15(2):233-49.

>> I did not say that. I said that your genes have a small part in
>> determining your political views.
>
> I do not believe that.

Tell these people:

Kandler C, Bleidorn W, Riemann R., Left or right? Sources of political
orientation: the roles of genetic factors, cultural transmission,
assortative mating, and personality. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2012
Mar;102(3):633-45.

Hatemi PK et al. The genetics of voting: an Australian twin study.
Behav Genet. 2007 May;37(3):435-48.

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/16/12 12:45 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> [...]

> And on behavior, or aspects of behavior, which human twin studies have
> found to be genetic:

To clarify, that should say, "... which human twin studies have found to
have a genetic component".

[eridanus]

El jueves, 16 de agosto de 2012 20:45:44 UTC+1, Mark Isaak escribi�:

Then we are in accord on this point, except a little shit. Theres exists a "social conformity" that is conditioned on children and last most of the whole life. The experiment of Solomon Asch on social conformity proves this point.
This social conformity explains a lot of things, like the stability of religions and some fake science theories that can persist for centuries.
Only a few persons can get out of this social conformity by being exposed to a different sort of operant conditioning. They can become different sort of persons, like a pianist, a scientist, a painter, a person training to become a tennis player or a World Master of chess.

Then, we had come back to the "operant conditioning", either explain very common behaviors, either to explain individualistic and rare behaviors, as I mentioned in my last paragraph.

>
>
> >> You are thinking of something completely different. Social models are
>
> >> every person around us, sometimes even people we never see. If you are
>
> >> in an area where you can see that others have littered, you are more
>
> >> likely to litter yourself. That is social modeling. And I think you
>
> >> can see that envy has nothing to do with it.

Of course; it exists a rather common imitating tendency. In its origins, is an "respondent behavior" as can be observed in nature with animals. it can be observed in babies, replying to smile with an smile, and to words with some imitating sounds of reply.

But this imitation, in the case of humans, is strongly "reinforced" in most people, thus imitation among humans is a very common trait. This "conditioned and reinforced" imitation is the bases for cultures, religions, and it can be even be observed in stadiums, thousand of people shouting and rising up from their seats at the same time. You can watched this also in churches, people rising or sitting, or kneeling, or singing at the same time. On processions, on manifestations, etc. Social animals present a great deal of communal behavior, with a lot of people doing the same thing at the same time.

> >> Especially in experiments on mice and other animals, but also with
>
> >> evidence applying to humans. To me, repeated data makes something more
>
> >> believable, not less.
>
> >
>
> > Other than common imitations, they had not observed any other shit.

> That's not what the observers say. Here are some references pertinent
>
> to mouse behavior:
>
>
>
> Belzung C, Griebel G (2001) Measuring normal and pathological
>

> anxiety-like behaviour in mice: A review. Behav Brain Res 125(1�2)141�149.

>
>
>
> Ohl F, Roedel A, Binder E, Holsboer F (2003) Impact of high and low
>
> anxiety on cognitive performance in a modified hole board test in
>

> C57BL/6 and DBA/2 mice. Eur J Neurosci 17: 128�136.

>
>
>
> Laarakker MC, Ohl F, Van Lith HA (2008) Chromosomal assignment of
>
> quantitative trait loci influencing modified hole board behavior in
>
> laboratory mice using consomic strains, with special reference to
>

> anxiety-related behavior and mouse chromosome 19. Behav Genet 38(2)159�184.
>
>
>
> Cl�ment Y, Guisquet AML, Venault P, Chapouthier G, Belzung C (2009)

>
> Pharmacological alterations of anxious behaviour in mice depending on
>
> both strain and the behavioural situation. PLoS One 4(11)e7745. [PMC
>
> free article]
>
>
>
> And on behavior, or aspects of behavior, which human twin studies have
>
> found to be genetic:
>
>
>
> Agrawal A. et al. The genetics of addiction--a translational
>
> perspective. Transl Psychiatry. 2012 Jul 17;2:e140. doi:
>
> 10.1038/tp.2012.54.
>
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3410620/?tool=pubmed
>
>
>
> Fisher A, van Jaarsveld CH, Llewellyn CH, Wardle J., Genetic and
>
> environmental influences on infant sleep. Pediatrics. 2012
>
> Jun;129(6):1091-6.
>
>
>
> Fowler T, Zammit S, Owen MJ, Rasmussen F. A population-based study of
>
> shared genetic variation between premorbid IQ and psychosis among male
>
> twin pairs and sibling pairs from Sweden. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2012
>
> May;69(5):460-6.
>
>
>
> Hayiou-Thomas ME, Dale PS, Plomin R. The etiology of variation in
>
> language skills changes with development: a longitudinal twin study of
>
> language from 2 to 12 years. Dev Sci. 2012 Mar;15(2):233-49.
>

Ok, I do not need to read any of this shit about mice, for humans are in the animal kingdom, the animals with a greater component of "learned behavior".

Even if on the outside, humans behave much like herd animals, underneath this apparent animal behavior exist a lot of learning. People had learned a language, some social dialects, like ebonics, or some other special jargon, about sports, music, science, etc. Then, they could have learned very complex patterns of behavior, as can be seen as you watch someone typing on the keyboard of a computer, or writing by hand on a piece of paper, or solving math problems in examen of high school, or a college. Why you watch some playing the clarinet or a piano, or having a philosophical argument, like we are doing here, or playing chess, etc, All this shit calls for a previous situation that is called learning. A light level of learning is very common to all humans, including deficient people like autistics, or people with Down Syndrome, or mental retarded.
All common people can learn more or less, of a complex behavior, that you cannot teach to other animals but in a minimal degree.

>
> >> I did not say that. I said that your genes have a small part in
>
> >> determining your political views.
>
> >
>
> > I do not believe that.
>
>
>
> Tell these people:

I do no need to tell any one. Faith is to relay in authorities, or to trust some authorities or other.
As an amateur scientist, I had learned that there is a lot of shit rolling around in papers, and books. Most of these suspicious thesis are in direct confrontation with others.
Then, people interested in knowledge tend to choose, in the sense, that they compare different thesis among them, and had to decide what thesis is bunk, or what thesis has a suitability to be in accord with others you have already accepted.

So, to me, there exist a lot of bunks material in relation of social sciences.

I had already made my own decision, and I had rejected most thesis that postulate intelligence or behavior to genes. Other than physiological needs, like feeding, drinking, breeding, resting, sleeping, etc. Most other behaviors are learned.

Eridanus

[eridanus]

El jueves, 16 de agosto de 2012 21:21:56 UTC+1, Mark Isaak escribi�:

> On 8/16/12 12:45 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>
> > [...]
>
> > And on behavior, or aspects of behavior, which human twin studies have
>
> > found to be genetic:
>
>
>
> To clarify, that should say, "... which human twin studies have found to
> have a genetic component".

Researchers can make a thesis out of some dubious data, even when not concocting fake data to defend a thesis.

For all the arguments I had read about IQ, and correlations, and all that arguments, they are simply misleading readers to believe in some conservative doctrine.

Most people, when reading some bunk data about correlations ignore that this is mostly bunks data, trash data, that do not prove anything. They are talking about worthless data, to contradictory, and are talking as if the data were reliable and be proving their thesis.

It is a little like this news that commented archaeologists had found the city of Edon, and that proves that the Bible was right.

Eridanus

>
> --
>
> Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
>
> "It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
>
> honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
>
> pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume

El jueves, 16 de agosto de 2012 21:21:56 UTC+1, Mark Isaak escribi�:

[Mark Isaak]

On 8/17/12 4:21 AM, eridanus wrote:
> [all the science snipped, since it does not matter]

>
> I do no need to tell any one. Faith is to relay in authorities,
> or to trust some authorities or other.

It is also called "learning".

> [...]

> Then, people interested in knowledge tend to choose, in the sense,
> that they compare different thesis among them, and had to decide what
> thesis is bunk, or what thesis has a suitability to be in accord
> with others you have already accepted.
>
> So, to me, there exist a lot of bunks material in relation of social
> sciences.

Of course. Bunk is especially common if all that is required for it to
be bunk is that one label it so.

> I had already made my own decision,

Yes, I see that now. I apologize for attempting to influence it.

> and I had rejected most thesis that postulate intelligence or
> behavior to genes. Other than physiological needs, like feeding,
> drinking, breeding, resting, sleeping, etc.

Fine. Do not try to convince me of that, though, unless you can refer
to non-bunk research to support your position.

> Most other behaviors are learned.

You still don't realize that "learned" and "genetic" are not mutually
exclusive. That's okay; others do.