Theories of defects

[aehchua]

Maybe a wierd request.

I'm looking to be guided to a theory/framework/structure which
explains how one copes with DEFECTS in nature. Normally, defects get
weeded out. But there are all kinds of defects that stay. For
example, vertebrate eyes have a blind spot, sickle cell anemia
confers survival traits against malaria, etc.

The context of this is that I am studying governance in
organizations. As with natural things, governance tends to change
incrementally, and sometimes governance mechanisms don't work, or are
partly faulty. Yet, we continue with these governance mechanisms.
Similarly, sometimes we have a governance mechanism originally used to
control X that we adapt to control Y. I'm just trying to see if there
is a parallel in evolution, and if so, whether some theory can be
transferred or adapted to the organizational environment.

I was hoping for something along the lines of, "Something that creates
an evolutionary disadvantage will remain in the gene pool so long as
one of the following conditions are true..."

Cecil Chua

[alextangent]

... (1) that it's good enough, hence it's not an evolutionarily
disadvantage. Fitness is the concept you're seeking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_%28biology%29.


>
> Cecil Chua

[John Harshman]

You can think of fitness as a surface with hills and valleys. Mutations
move the genotype a short distance along the surface. If a mutation
moves the genotype up (increasing fitness), the selection moves the
population in that direction. And so selection acts to climb the
closest, steepest hill. There may be a taller hill somewhere else, but
there may be no way to get there from here, if the population only moves
up hill. We get the best genotype that the population can get to, not
the best genotype possible.

And so we have a blind spot, because our eyes evolved with the nerve
connection on the forward side of the retina. We're on top of a local
hill, and there's no good way to reach another, taller hill from here.

Sickle trait is something else. In a heterozygote, it confers
considerable resistance to Malaria without much of a downside. In a
homozygote, it tends to kill young. So it's both good and bad,
depending. In such conditions, the frequency of sickle trait reaches an
equilibrium that balances the number of people saved against the number
killed.

There are other ways in which disadvantageous alleles can be preserved:
an allele that's deleterious only in a homozygote can hide for a very
long time at a low frequency, since it becomes visible to selection only
in that homozygote. A slightly deleterious allele can persist purely by
chance, and what "slightly" means depends on the population size; small
populations can allow more deleterious alleles to persist by chance,
while large populations eliminate less deleterious ones. A deleterious
allele can persist if it's linked to a more strongly beneficial one. And
of course what's deleterious or beneficial can change with environment,
in time or space.

There's no single story.

[Free Lunch]

On Mon, 7 May 2012 15:31:09 -0700 (PDT), aehchua
<aeh....@auckland.ac.nz> wrote in talk.origins:

Most of the "evolutionary disadvantages" that you are talking about are
not really disadvantages. The blind spot in the vertebrate eye survives
because it is good enough and no better eye came along to displace it in
the developing vertebrate groups. Nature does not optimize. It had no
way to transfer the genes for a squid eye to a vertebrate.

Sickle cell for some is the cost of health for many. I suppose we might
imagine a better solution to protect against malaria, but natural
variation never did offer such a better solution.

Unlike governance, evolution only has a limited choice of "better".
People can make significant changes in their government, though they
rarely do, nature can only select from modest differences.

[Burkhard]

In terms of theory of organisations, that sounds a bit like historical
institutionalism.

[James Beck]

On Mon, 7 May 2012 15:31:09 -0700 (PDT), aehchua

That's an awfully big question. There is a large and growing
literature in evolutionary economics and evolutionary game theory. If
you want to stay in the general equilibrium framework, you might look
at: Marco Lehmann-Waffenschmidt, Economic Evolution and Equilibrium
Bridging the Gap, Springer, 2007. There's also quite a bit on the
behavior of decision-making units vis-a-vis fitness frontiers
available via Google Scholar.

A short answer might be something like: for a given state a flawed
mechanism can continue to exist as long as there is slack in the
system. Slack may be due to other inefficiencies like ongoing
subsidies (deliberate or inadvertent), 'natural' monopoly,
intellectual property rights, barriers to entry, and so forth.

For dynamic states, the system as a whole will be characterized by
proportional hazard and decision making will be dominated by
heuristics, so it doesn't follow that the 'flawed' mechanism is
particularly 'bad,' in the sense that it underperforms in all (or
most) states. Under the theorem of the second best, it also doesn't
follow that fixing the flawed mechanism would lead to better outcomes
anyway; it might be the best you can do. Pick your windmills
carefully.

[John Harshman]

How so? I know nothing of theory of organisations, or what "historical
institutionalism" means.

[Alan]

"aehchua" <aeh....@auckland.ac.nz> wrote in message
news:befc104c-af7c-439a...@sm6g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...

Think in terms of cost/benefit ratios. The cost of improving the human eye
(for example) is greater than the benefits to be accrued. The human eye is
"good enough". It relates to John Harshman's fitness landscape. When
nearly all the way up a hill, the costs of going back into the valley in the
chance of hitting the big one are much greater than maintaining the current
trajectory. And natural selection can't plan either. It can only work with
what it starts out with.

Alan

[Garamond Lethe]

On Mon, 07 May 2012 15:31:09 -0700, aehchua wrote:

> Maybe a wierd request.
>
> I'm looking to be guided to a theory/framework/structure which explains
> how one copes with DEFECTS in nature. Normally, defects get weeded out.
> But there are all kinds of defects that stay. For example, vertebrate
> eyes have a blind spot, sickle cell anemia confers survival traits
> against malaria, etc.
>

A few other defects for your list:

1) A defect in cell division led to multicellularity.
2) A defect in opacity led to light-sensitive behavior and eventually
sight.
3) Several defects in the shape and growth of fins ultimately resulted
in opposable thumbs.

Et cetera.

The difficulty with thinking about evolution in terms of defects is that
you have to have some defect-free platonic ideal against which to
compare. If you're a computer scientist and you've mistaken the error
function of your evolutionary algorithm for the fitness function this is
a really easy mistake to make.

> The context of this is that I am studying governance in organizations.
> As with natural things, governance tends to change incrementally, and
> sometimes governance mechanisms don't work, or are partly faulty. Yet,
> we continue with these governance mechanisms. Similarly, sometimes we
> have a governance mechanism originally used to control X that we adapt
> to control Y. I'm just trying to see if there is a parallel in
> evolution, and if so, whether some theory can be transferred or adapted
> to the organizational environment.
>

The feature that makes evolution "evolution" is the unguided nature of
changes that are introduced. The type of changes you're describing are
intentional, even though there are unintended consequences and
adaptability.

It might be interesting to model organizational changes *as* *if* they
were unintentional, but then you've got to figure out what to do with the
idea of heritability.

> I was hoping for something along the lines of, "Something that creates
> an evolutionary disadvantage will remain in the gene pool so long as one
> of the following conditions are true..."

There's a large body of math that describes exactly that. Try looking
for "population genetics", particularly "genetic drift" and "neutral
theory". Chapter 6 of Durrett's _Probability Models for DNA Sequence
Evolution_ has formulae that describe fixation probability and time to
fixation for mutations of a given fitness and work just fine where that
fitness is negative. (Keep in mind that "fitness" here is a term of art
meaning "number of offspring").



>
> Cecil Chua

[aehchua]

Hi all,

Thanks for a number of interesting replies. To expand a little bit,
what I've got is a field site where I've cataloged various governance
mechanisms and what they do/ don't do. I'm looking for a nice
qualitative lens to try to understand them. What I'm thinking of is
using a particular technique called metaphor. Some stuff I see
reminds me of things evolving.

For example, the field site has a no alcohol policy. That works in a
lot of cases (e.g., when people operate heavy machinery). It doesn't
work for others (e.g., building social ties at parties on Friday at
4:00). I see it like sickle cell anemia- it works out for the overall
good, but sometimes the mechanism makes life difficult for you.
Similarly, every organization has bureaucracy that doesn't make sense
from an efficiency perspective, but makes sense from a historical one,
kind of like the eye's blind spot is a historical artifact (as opposed
to the crustacean eye).
Another issue is how people work around legacy governance, kind of
like vestigial limbs. A creature with vestigial limbs doesn't act as
if the limbs aren't there (accidentally breaking a limb is painful).
The idea that a defect can end up being advantageous is also to be
considered.

In order to use metaphor, I have to take the next step and be able to
say "Here's the universe of ways defects can succeed." I then see if
everything appears in my data. Or if things DON'T map in my data, to
try to explain why.

I'm kind of thinking and exploring at this stage, rather than coming
in with a concrete theory. So, the below is going to ramble a bit.

In replies to a bunch of people:

1) Fitness/economic efficiency. Yes and no. Clearly, some
organizations can get away with some bad governance, because they
otherwise obtain economic rents. In a perfectly competitive market,
it is the marginal organization that obtains only normal profit, not
economic profit. For other organizations, they can afford some level
of economic inefficiency. But that seems to be a cop out explanation
to me. What a fitness/economic efficiency explanation would argue is
that you can be inefficient in one way if you are efficient in another
way. So, an organization can have inefficient governance, because it
otherwise is making money. Somehow that seems kind of "flat" to me.
If you can fix your inefficiency, you get pure profit. We could
explain it as it is too costly to fix the inefficiency, but that's a
hills and valleys argument, so we can dispense with the fitness/
economic efficiency argument.
2) Hills and valleys. This would be a historical argument, which
would kind of work for me. It would suggest we look at governance not
just in terms of efficiency, but in terms of the legacy of the
organization. Someone mentioned people can change things
dramatically- not easily.
3) historical institutionalism- Kind of like where hills and valleys
is leading me. I might want to use a similar lens. However, I have
found that an institutional lens doesn't really work for me. This is
just a personal thing.
4) Evolutionary economics. Most of the work I am aware of is
quantitative, dealing with industries. The data I have is at the case-
site level.
5) Evolution is unguided. Yes, metaphors don't work 100%. This
comment kind of goes back to the whole fitness argument. But
organizations do all kinds of wierd things that are economically
suboptimal, but "make sense" from another perspective.

Sorry. I know, the above is rambling. But I'm trying to get my head
around an idea, and at this stage, the idea isn't well formed yet.

Cecil Chua

[Garamond Lethe]

On Mon, 07 May 2012 23:51:37 -0700, aehchua wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Thanks for a number of interesting replies. To expand a little bit,
> what I've got is a field site where I've cataloged various governance
> mechanisms and what they do/ don't do. I'm looking for a nice
> qualitative lens to try to understand them. What I'm thinking of is
> using a particular technique called metaphor. Some stuff I see reminds
> me of things evolving.

<snip>

You have now engaged the attention of several overeducated,
underemployed, easily-distracted academics. You're doomed....
doooooomed.....


In the "This is a really dumb idea" category:

"In his recent BJIPR article, Peter Kerr expressed modest ambitions for
the role of evolutionary theorising in the social sciences (Kerr 2002).
At the very least, he suggests that evolutionary theory can provide
useful metaphors for analysing political and institutional change. At the
most, he speculates that institutional change might occur in ways
strictly analogous to biological evolution.

"In this short article, I argue that the similarities between evolution
and institutional change are superficial, and that Kerr’s suggestions to
the contrary are based on misunderstandings of biological evolution.
Consequently, there is little to be gained, and much to be lost, from
using evolutionary theory as a metaphor in this context."

Oliver Curry, "Get real: evolution as metaphor and mechanism", British
Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 5, No. 1, February
2003, pp. 112–117.
http://homepage.mac.com/scottukgb/publications/currybjpir.pdf



Next up is Stahl. I find this paper annoying. Metaphors are a subset of
models, and model work precisely because they abstract away detail.
Pointing out that evolutionary metaphors abstract away ethical issues
means nothing more than evolutionary metaphors are probably a bad
metaphor for the ethics of ecommerce. Still, probably worth citing to
forestall reviewers suggesting it.

B. C. Stahl, "Evolution as Metaphor: A Critical Review of the Use of
Evolutionary Concepts in Information Systems and e-Commerce",
Evolutionary Psychology and Information Systems Research, Integrated
Series in Information Systems, 2010, Volume 24, Part 3, 357-375.
http://www.tech.dmu.ac.uk/~bstahl/publications/2010_evolution_springer.pdf



And finally (for now), this paper looks pretty sensible even though it
does score a little high on the buzzword meter. I've only read the
abstract, though.

"In this essay, I refine the classical evolutionary model from law and
economics by modifying git to accommodate three related concepts --- one
from chaos theory, another of path dependence, and a final one from
modern evolutionary theory. If I am successful, we will have a richer
understanding of what makes legal and business institutions.

"The thesis here can be seen as a group of overlapping metaphors,
beginning with a standard one from law and economics: economic evolution
selects out for extinction very inefficient results, and efficient
results tend to survive. This metaphor, however, is by itself not rich
enough to explain enough of what we see surving, nor is it rich enough to
explain fully how what survives survived. Within the looseness of
acceptable efficiency, what survives depends not just on efficiency but
on the initial, often accidental conditions (chaos theory), on the
history of problems that had to be solved in the past but that may be
irrelevant today (path dependence), and on evolutionary accidents ---
what might do best today could have been selected out for extinction in
the past. Although institutions that have survived cannot be too
inefficient, evolution-toward-efficiency constraints but does not fully
determine the institutions we observe."

Mark J. Roe, "Chaos and Evolution in Law and Economics", 109 Harv. L.
Rev. 641 (1995-1996).
http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?
collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/hlr109&div=33&id=&page=


[It's interesting that Roe brings in initial conditions and path
dependence as separate from and complementary to evolution. Both of
these ideas are well-established in the biological idea of evolution.]

HTH,

Garamond

[Burkhard]

It is an approach within sociology that emphasises the path dependency
of the development and change of institutions, which include
organisations. They reject the idea (associated with Weber, Marx,
Durkhein etc ) that social and political development is linear and
that certain institutional set ups are optimal independent from the
contingent environment they find themselves in, and independent of the
path that led to their adoption.

Typical case studies are e.g. the relative failure of colonial powers
to set up mirror images of European political institutions in Africa.
A HI would argue that our political system came abot uder very
specific environmental conditions, and grew through a slow process of
compromises and co-evolution with other institutions (e.g. the tribal
wars of the 16th century that left certain power structures in ruin,
which enabled the emergence of nation states, which in turn enabled
the emergence of new forms of loyalty, etc. ) Or the recent problems
with the Euro- that modern nation states typically have a single
currency and taht workks well does not mean we can simply reap the
benefits and impose them on entities that did not go through the
arduous process of adjusting step by step all other political
institutions so that it can eventually and incrementally ("gold
standard") give rise to state guaranteed money. According to HI,
you can't simply take the outcome of such a prolonged struggle and
impose it on a society that did not go through the same path - not any
more that it is possible for us now to develop wings. By the same
token, we sometimes realise that we are stuck with institutions that
worked well in an environment that gave birth to them but is long
since gone, but getting rid of them proves remarkably difficult - we
can't just "jump" to another trajectory (examples would be attempt to
get rid of the crown prerogative in the UK)

There is therefore not a single story, just lots of contingent paths,
"good enough" solutions at a given point in time and a given
environment - the opposite of the optimism of the enlightenment in
political thought, where people thought we can just sit back, think
what solution/institutional set up would be objectively and absolutely
the best, design them and then implement it everywhere.

some key texts: Charles Tilly. (1984). "Big structures, Large
Processes, and Huge Comparisons". and Theda Skocpol, A Critical Review
of Barrington Moore’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy.
Politics and Society, 4(1), pp. 1–34

[prawnster]

On May 7, 3:31 pm, aehchua <aeh.c...@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> Maybe a wierd request.
>

> [...]

> I was hoping for something along the lines of, "Something that creates
> an evolutionary disadvantage will remain in the gene pool so long as
> one of the following conditions are true..."
>

Ask and you shall receive:

Something that creates a "disadvantage" will remain in the gene pool
so long as the critter can live long enough to fuck, bear children,
and raise its children.

Doner.

All governance mechanisms are faulty. We live with them because we
have no choice. We must always choose among different faulty
governance mechanisms because of limited resources and/or man's
inherently sinful nature. Perfect king + perfect subjects = ideal
government.

[prawnster]

On May 7, 11:51 pm, aehchua <aeh.c...@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> Hi all,
[...]

> Another issue is how people work around legacy governance, kind of
> like vestigial limbs.  A creature with vestigial limbs doesn't act as
> if the limbs aren't there (accidentally breaking a limb is painful).
> The idea that a defect can end up being advantageous is also to be
> considered.
>

There are no vestigial limbs, only human ignorance. Lazy
pseudoscientists, secure in their Darwinist faith, snort and guffaw
that some critter has a "vestigial" organ, thus confirming evolution's
truth, but real scientists work hard, stay curious, and eventually
adduce that "vestigial" organ's function. Happens all the time.

People work around legacy governance by going through obsolete motions
just to keep the peace, just to keep certain people uselessly employed
pushing paper from one side of the desk to another. The cost of
eliminating these money sucks exceeds the cost of just putting up with
them, ergo they stay around. Once you give up on pseudonotions like
"vestigial" organs, you find there's no evolutionary analogy or
metaphor available at all: see above re man's sinful nature and/or
limited resources to answer you question in full.

[Mark Isaak]

On 5/7/12 11:51 PM, aehchua wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Thanks for a number of interesting replies. To expand a little bit,
> what I've got is a field site where I've cataloged various governance
> mechanisms and what they do/ don't do. I'm looking for a nice
> qualitative lens to try to understand them. What I'm thinking of is
> using a particular technique called metaphor. Some stuff I see
> reminds me of things evolving.

>[snip]

Another book you might find helpful is Petroski's _To Engineer is
Human_, which looks at something like your issue in the field of
engineering. Petroski's thesis (as best I remember) is that defects
come simply from human fallibility, and the lessons learned after they
occur make similar defects occur less often thereafter.

--
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

[Kermit]

On May 8, 5:43 am, prawnster <zweibro...@ymail.com> wrote:
> On May 7, 11:51 pm, aehchua <aeh.c...@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> [...]
> > Another issue is how people work around legacy governance, kind of
> > like vestigial limbs.  A creature with vestigial limbs doesn't act as
> > if the limbs aren't there (accidentally breaking a limb is painful).
> > The idea that a defect can end up being advantageous is also to be
> > considered.
>
> There are no vestigial limbs, only human ignorance.  Lazy
> pseudoscientists, secure in their Darwinist faith, snort and guffaw
> that some critter has a "vestigial" organ, thus confirming evolution's
> truth, but real scientists work hard, stay curious, and eventually
> adduce that "vestigial" organ's function.  Happens all the time.

There is nothing in the theory of evolution that requires vestigial
organs to stay useless. When their maintenance is irrelevant to
reproductive success, they deteriorate without natural selection
maintaining their structure. Sometimes they are co-opted for other
purposes.

In the meanwhile, perhaps you would care to explain the human
plantaris tendon?
And why do we have a broken gene for producing vitamin C?

>
> People work around legacy governance by going through obsolete motions
> just to keep the peace, just to keep certain people uselessly employed
> pushing paper from one side of the desk to another.  The cost of
> eliminating these money sucks exceeds the cost of just putting up with
> them, ergo they stay around.

Or because the institutions are already in place, and it would be
costly to make a major change, or since a certain process works,
people are too busy to rethink it, or there are government regulations
or other external forces preventing change, or...

> Once you give up on pseudonotions like
> "vestigial" organs,

What's "pseudo" about it? Our ancestors became running apes. Our feet
became optimized for upright, prolonged travel, and the opposable big
toe was incompatible with that structure, and the planatris tendon
became useless.

A structure which no longer contributes to a species reproductive
success is vestigial, although they are sometimes co-opted for other
functions.

> metaphor available at all: see above re man's sinful nature and/or
> limited resources to answer you question in full.

How does claiming that humans do not always obey the arbitrary
commands of an imaginary king help answer the question?

Kermit

[Kermit]

On May 8, 5:34 am, prawnster <zweibro...@ymail.com> wrote:
> On May 7, 3:31 pm, aehchua <aeh.c...@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>
> > Maybe a wierd request.
>
> > [...]
> > I was hoping for something along the lines of, "Something that creates
> > an evolutionary disadvantage will remain in the gene pool so long as
> > one of the following conditions are true..."
>
> Ask and you shall receive:
>
> Something that creates a "disadvantage" will remain in the gene pool
> so long as the critter can live long enough to fuck, bear children,
> and raise its children.
>
> Doner.

True enough, but the OP was asking, I think, for something more
useful.

>
> All governance mechanisms are faulty.  We live with them because we
> have no choice.  We must always choose among different faulty
> governance mechanisms because of limited resources and/or man's
> inherently sinful nature.  Perfect king + perfect subjects = ideal
> government.

But what happens when the alpha ape is imaginary?

Kermit

[Perseus]

On May 7, 11:56 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> aehchua wrote:
> > Maybe a wierd request.
>

------------

> You can think of fitness as a surface with hills and valleys. Mutations
> move the genotype a short distance along the surface. If a mutation
> moves the genotype up (increasing fitness), the selection moves the
> population in that direction. And so selection acts to climb the
> closest, steepest hill. There may be a taller hill somewhere else, but
> there may be no way to get there from here, if the population only moves
> up hill. We get the best genotype that the population can get to, not
> the best genotype possible.

There is a problem with the grow of a species. If a species is so
good that can grow and grow without any checks. They are bound to
have a shock, for they would exhaust the his very means of survival.
This is what is going to happen to humans, due to excessive growth.
Oil and other fossil fuels that had provided the triumph of industrial
civilization can crash suddenly after the said fuels would be
depleted.
Then, due to his intelligence human beings had discovered the use of
fire, and there derivatives, like steam engines and motors running on
gas or diesel. The increase in productivity was the miracle provided
by fossil fuels. The increased amount of food had multiplied by seven
the world population in 200 years. The average growth during this
period has been modest, 0.9% a year. But if this modest growth had
been possible since the times of Roman Empire, AD 1, the population of
the planet would had grow from being 230 million people to the
present, we would had a population of 150 trillion people. A
multiplication by 65 millions.

Perseus

[Perseus]

If you consider an economy based on slavery, it was self-sufficient
for a time. The trouble of being such efficient is that it do not
need to develop any serious industry. Then, any other economic system
can wage a war against an economy based on slavery and defeat it. For
machines are a lot more efficient than slaves at doing things.

But efficient economies based on industrialization can grow so fast
that soon would deprive themselves of the very fuels that made them to
run at such fast pace.

The organic systems can not last very long growing exponentially.

Consider the present population of 7 billion people.
The solid surface of the planet is about 150 trillion sq. meters. (1
sq meter is about 10 sq. feet) Then, at the modest rate of growth of
0.9% a year, in just 1,113 years the world population would be a
person per sq meter on the solid surface of the planet.
That is 150 trillion people.

Perseus

[RAM]

The ramblings of a goofball! Stay of drugs!

[Perseus]

the alfa male, ape or not ape, is nothing without some allies. Then,
a system like the ancient regime in France, beget the French
Revolution. The cripple state of the Russian economy during the WWI
beget the Bolshevik Revolution.
The crippled economy during 30's of past century gave way to WWII.

Then the present economic crisis can beget some other unexpected
change it the way the our economy is running. Is it real that we have
oil for the next 30 years? If true, you can imagine that something is
very wrong in our present way of life.

Perseus

[prawnster]

On May 8, 11:59 am, Kermit <unrestrained_h...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> [...]

> True enough, but the OP was asking, I think, for something more
> useful.
>

Mr. Chua is likely writing a term paper and is set on his thesis. I
would rather he find another topic, but it sounds like he's
committed. I'm sure his almost certainly insecure status-whoring
Leftist prof will approve of his thesis, though -- I wish him well,
and I hope he gives up on atheo-Darwinism the day after he graduates.

[RAM]

Troll.

[dav...@agent.com]

aehchua <aeh....@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:

>I'm looking to be guided to a theory/framework/structure which
>explains how one copes with DEFECTS in nature. Normally, defects
>get weeded out.

When we started suppressing measles, influenza, malaria,
tuberculosis, the defects were allowed to persist. So now
we have greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar disorder,
Lupus, Obesity, etc. And we're dumping debt & overcrowding
on future generations, because the combo of birth control &
life extension means fewer young workers to support a
growing number of elderly. Plus all kinds of fun new warfare
techniques, like cyberattack, forest fires, assassinations,
bombs hidden in people, pets, hard drives, etc. We need to
turn the clock back on the disease suppression, to control
the defects & population level. With less sprawl, we'll need
less oil, so there will be less cause for jihads & such.

[nick_keigh...@hotmail.com]

On Monday, May 7, 2012 11:31:09 PM UTC+1, aehchua wrote:
> Maybe a wierd request.
>
> I'm looking to be guided to a theory/framework/structure which
> explains how one copes with DEFECTS in nature. Normally, defects get
> weeded out. But there are all kinds of defects that stay. For
> example, vertebrate eyes have a blind spot, sickle cell anemia
> confers survival traits against malaria, etc.
>
> The context of this is that I am studying governance in
> organizations. As with natural things, governance tends to change
> incrementally, and sometimes governance mechanisms don't work, or are
> partly faulty. Yet, we continue with these governance mechanisms.
> Similarly, sometimes we have a governance mechanism originally used to
> control X that we adapt to control Y. I'm just trying to see if there
> is a parallel in evolution, and if so, whether some theory can be
> transferred or adapted to the organizational environment.

perhaps we need to ensure more corporate officers die when governance doesn't act in a satisfactory manner. Then we'll evolve corporate officers that are less prone to gaming the governance. :-)

[Kermit]

On May 23, 8:29 am, dav...@agent.com wrote:

> aehchua <aeh.c...@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> >I'm looking to be guided to a theory/framework/structure which
> >explains how one copes with DEFECTS in nature.  Normally, defects
> >get weeded out.
>
> When we started suppressing measles, influenza, malaria,
> tuberculosis, the defects were allowed to persist.  So now
> we have greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar disorder,
> Lupus, Obesity, etc.

This plus your posting history indicates that you think that
[not losing susceptible individuals to communicable disease]
leads to
"greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar disorder" etc.

Care to present any evidence that establishes, or even suggests, this?

> And we're dumping debt & overcrowding
> on future generations, because the combo of birth control &
> life extension means fewer young workers to support a
> growing number of elderly.

Agreed. Our apparent wealth is built on future debt.
I am less worried about us old folks starving or not getting medical
than I am about the immanent ecological disaster resulting from major
unsustainable practices such as fossil fuel generation of power,
overfishing, etc.

>  Plus all kinds of fun new warfare
> techniques, like cyberattack, forest fires, assassinations,
> bombs hidden in people, pets, hard drives, etc.  We need to
> turn the clock back on the disease suppression, to control
> the defects & population level.  With less sprawl, we'll need
> less oil, so there will be less cause for jihads & such.

You have not established that vaccines contribute in any way to our
problems.

>
> >But there are all kinds of defects that stay.  For
> >example, vertebrate eyes have a blind spot, sickle cell anemia
> >confers survival traits against malaria, etc.
>
> >The context of this is that I am studying governance in
> >organizations.  As with natural things, governance tends to change
> >incrementally, and sometimes governance mechanisms don't work, or are
> >partly faulty.  Yet, we continue with these governance mechanisms.
> >Similarly, sometimes we have a governance mechanism originally used to
> >control X that we adapt to control Y.  I'm just trying to see if there
> >is a parallel in evolution, and if so, whether some theory can be
> >transferred or adapted to the organizational environment.
>
> >I was hoping for something along the lines of, "Something that creates
> >an evolutionary disadvantage will remain in the gene pool so long as
> >one of the following conditions are true..."
>
> >Cecil Chua

Kermit

[dav...@agent.com]

Kermit <unrestra...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> dav...@agent.com wrote:
>> aehchua <aeh.c...@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>> >I'm looking to be guided to a theory/framework/structure which
>> >explains how one copes with DEFECTS in nature.  Normally, defects
>> >get weeded out.
>>
>> When we started suppressing measles, influenza, malaria,
>> tuberculosis, the defects were allowed to persist.  So now
>> we have greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar disorder,
>> Lupus, Obesity, etc.
>
>This plus your posting history indicates that you think that
>[not losing susceptible individuals to communicable disease]

>leads to "greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar" etc.
>Care to present any evidence that establishes or suggests, this?

And we can add alcoholism & drug addiction to the list.
Protecting alcoholics & addicts from consequences enables
their numbers to swell, just like the others.

[Kermit]

On May 29, 8:42 pm, dav...@agent.com wrote:

>  Kermit <unrestrained_h...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > dav...@agent.com wrote:
> >> aehchua <aeh.c...@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> >> >I'm looking to be guided to a theory/framework/structure which
> >> >explains how one copes with DEFECTS in nature.  Normally, defects
> >> >get weeded out.
>
> >> When we started suppressing measles, influenza, malaria,
> >> tuberculosis, the defects were allowed to persist.  So now
> >> we have greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar disorder,
> >> Lupus, Obesity, etc.
>
> >This plus your posting history indicates that you think that
> >[not losing susceptible individuals to communicable disease]
> >leads to "greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar" etc.
> >Care to present any evidence that establishes or suggests, this?
>

So you have no evidence linking any of this to vaccines. I thought
not.

> And we can add alcoholism & drug addiction to the list.
> Protecting alcoholics & addicts from consequences enables
> their numbers to swell, just like the others.
>

Do they reproduce more successfully (do they actually have more
grandchildren on the average than the population at large)?

My wife has an humane solution - allow adults full access to mind-
altering drugs, but lace them with birth control medication. I know
that the concept is far simpler than the application.(1)

Get stoned, fine.
Want kids? Clear your system over a prolonged period first.

Reduce the population growth somewhat and improve the stock, I
daresay.

>
>
>
>
>
>
> >> And we're dumping debt & overcrowding
> >> on future generations, because the combo of birth control &
> >> life extension means fewer young workers to support a
> >> growing number of elderly.
>
> >Agreed. Our apparent wealth is built on future debt.
> >I am less worried about us old folks starving or not getting medical
> >than I am about the immanent ecological disaster resulting from major
> >unsustainable practices such as fossil fuel generation of power,
> >overfishing, etc.
>
> >>  Plus all kinds of fun new warfare
> >> techniques, like cyberattack, forest fires, assassinations,
> >> bombs hidden in people, pets, hard drives, etc.  We need to
> >> turn the clock back on the disease suppression, to control
> >> the defects & population level.  With less sprawl, we'll need
> >> less oil, so there will be less cause for jihads & such.
>
> >You have not established that vaccines contribute in any way
> >to our problems.

(1) Perhaps drug use (including booze) could require age of majority,
and the insertion of a three year contraceptive capsule.

Kermit

[dav...@agent.com]

Kermit <unrestra...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> dav...@agent.com wrote:
>>  Kermit <unrestrained_h...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > dav...@agent.com wrote:
>>
>> >> When we started suppressing measles, influenza, malaria,
>> >> tuberculosis, the defects were allowed to persist.  So now
>> >> we have greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar disorder,
>> >> Lupus, Obesity, etc.
>>
>> >This plus your posting history indicates that you think that
>> >[not losing susceptible individuals to communicable disease]
>> >leads to "greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar" etc.
>> >Care to present any evidence that establishes or suggests, this?
>
>So you have no evidence linking any of this to vaccines. I thought
>not.

Maybe it's just a coincidence. Doesn't matter, anyway.
The main reason to stop suppressing some diseases is
to show consideration for the future, instead of
being so piggish.

[dav...@agent.com]

dav...@agent.com wrote:

>Kermit <unrestra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> dav...@agent.com wrote:
>>>  Kermit <unrestrained_h...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> > dav...@agent.com wrote:
>>>
>>> >> When we started suppressing measles, influenza, malaria,
>>> >> tuberculosis, the defects were allowed to persist.  So now
>>> >> we have greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar disorder,
>>> >> Lupus, Obesity, etc.
>>>
>>> >This plus your posting history indicates that you think that
>>> >[not losing susceptible individuals to communicable disease]
>>> >leads to "greater incidence of Autism, ADHD, Bipolar" etc.
>>> >Care to present any evidence that establishes or suggests, this?
>>
>>So you have no evidence linking any of this to vaccines. I thought
>>not.
>
>Maybe it's just a coincidence. Doesn't matter, anyway.
>The main reason to stop suppressing some diseases is
>to show consideration for the future, instead of
>being so piggish.

Then we'll get our longevity the old-fashioned way,...
we'll EARRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNN it.