Cherry Squeezings

I have commented previously that civilization can fairly well be tracked from the human aversion to eating of young. Combined with an article, [Link] this has led to some cogitation.

One of our givens is that humans are animals. Yes, I am aware that the religionists are in denial over this, at least some, but leave that for now. Anyway, there are numerous animals that eat their young during times of starvation so that they will not starve. If an animal starves, it’s young die also from lack of care and protection. The logic is eminently, simple, direct, and accurate. And humans avoid the logic.

The article is one in Lifehacker about new (?) findings concerning homo antecessor, a sapiens precursor, that practiced cannibalism preferentially among the young of the species. This latter makes sense as numerous English authors have noted since young humans are better foodstuff than older humans. Of course the archaeological data will not likely indicate whether these are young from other groups or the same.

One obvious question is whether the sapiens aversion is a result of this practice? Did stochastic, dispassionate Nature decide that not eating young is a better survival trait?

Regardless, the thought that arises is that if sapiens will not eat its young, then it will kill (and eat others?) for the sake of its young. This is the negative side, the if-I-kill-you-then-my-child-has-food theory that puts more value in future possibility than present actuality.

It also leads to wondering if religion is related to this. Almost all religions have some implicit communication means, often unilateral, with deity. Rules of conduct and behavior derive from this source, or are at least claimed to derive therefrom. The communication is varied, being direct, through chosen receptors, or via some form of resonance.

It strikes that this is akin to not eating young, another form of unsanity. Of irrationality.

But what is most intriguing is that given an enormous legal instrumentality and a discipline of psychology who defuse the unsane, why have they studiously and overtly ignored the patent unsanity of the religious? The answer almost has to be that religious unsanity is a component of civilization.

humans, behavior, sanity, law, organization, religion

High Score

I ran across this chart [Link]

and was greatly heartened by it. Almost a third of sample population responded that they had better things to do than the olympics. Of course, this is from a geek/nerd site. I suppose one can’t expect such sanity amongst bogs?

humans, behavior, olympics, sanity

Hostess Hysteria

I ran across this cartoon [Link]

yesterday, and was struck by how the second frame captured our natural disposaphobia. Or in this case, consumaphobia.

Ignoring for a moment the implications for the causation of survivalists, a somewhat larger idea advanced is that most forms of mental whackedness are matters of quantity and not quality. That is, taking this example as an archetype, we are all hoarders to some extent, tucking away food (e.g.,) for those days when the roads are closed due to weather, natural disaster, or government stupidity and incompetence. In moderation, this is considered normal and even prudent; in absence, foolish, stupid, or risky; in excess, madness.

Further, it becomes rather clear that the distinction between moderation and excess is almost entirely arbitrary, so what becomes intriguing and cognitive is the means by which they are distinguished. Two methods seem self-obvious: mob decision – democracy; and expert decision – autarky. Both have equally evil dark faces, the one witch burnings and expulsions, the other torture and perversion. Mental whackedness has come to be more the latter than the former in the years since Sigmund Freud except possibly in the realm of justicers. This ambiguity is undoubtedly the result of innate competition between ‘those who would direct all’ and ‘those who would rule all’. While this grinding uncertainty may be temporarily good for society, it is clearly not for the individual who will always suffer at the hands of either group.

Almost Denial

And lest we get too complacent, I ran across this cartoon [Link]

which almost makes a case that it’s all the evil of chaos. Don’t tell the religionists, they will decide that the universe is the anti-messiah and things will get very messy.

Qualification

Having observed the antics in thee Yankee congress over the past year or so I am entertaining the hypothesis that one of the requirements for being able to hold political office should be that one does not want to hold political office.

IOW, anyone who wants to be a Congress Critter (e.g.,) is disqualified from being such.

I shall not even comment on the idea that anyone with a degree in law or who has ever been a member of the bar – anywhere – should be disqualified from elected office.

Nerding + 2

Whew! Conference over. No ballistic fruit during or after my presentation.

The conference hotel, the Embassy Suites in Huntsville, needs to OD on phenolphthalein. Smiling and open palms are ubiquitous, especially by the management. Not recommended at all. In fact, counter-recommended. Accurately, they make Adam Smith and Mercantilism look like socialism.

Best statement heard:

“Information technologists are computate but seldom calculate.”

Best discussion:

A post-modernist economic psychologist (or psychological economist, not clear which but regardless the combination is more than a small quantity frightening and chilling) made the usual statements about scientists and religionsists being substantively indifferent, both being addicts of fanatical beliefs. That, of course, was not the best part, such garbage from these intellectual suicide bombers is the norm rather than the exception. What was useful was a discussion on how recent findings on the nature of consciousness, and in analogy with recent extensions of the old maths restriction that there has to be something assumed, that one cannot prove everything independently, to other disciplines led to a lively discussion of whether a certain inherent bit of mental assumption, a belief core as it were, is not only necessary but natural, ‘wired’ if you will into humans?

Following this, the post-modernist was packed off to discuss how to interpret the conference contract with the hotel management on the theory that one ongeblozzner deserved another and that if we were fortunate they might discorporate each other. The rest of us sallied forth on the difficult quest in Nawth Alibam of finding carbonated ethanol beverages of a quality above Milwaukee ditch water.

Most humorous event:

Watching each speaker in succession wrestle with getting his/her laptop to talk to the antiquated projectors vended by the hotel. A rough calculation indicated a time wastage of 0.1 doing this. Oh for the good old days when we used viewgraphs.

More Mythic Observance

In reviewing the left over articles in my reading queue, I again note several that are of a rather odd nature and in keeping with my efforts of the day to honor the Southron observance of whacked mentality, ………

The first one, possibly the best, is news [Link] that the sheriff of Chicago is threatening litigation against Craigslist unless it clamps down on sexual entertainment retailers. (How’s that for a mumbletypeg term for the world’s second oldest profession? And yes, I do count being a priest as first because after all, it was the priests who invented prostitution to make themselves wealthy? And, of course, this raises the question of whether priest and pimp are synonyms or antonyms?)

What makes this appropriate is twofold. First, there is the matter that Craigslist has just recently reached some voluntary self policing agreements with several governments on this very matter, including the state of Illinois. So this action by the sheriff of Chicago raises several questions of its own, like does the sheriff not communicate with the state justicers?; do the justicers of the state of Illinois not communicate with the sheriff of Chicago; indeed, is Chicago even a part of the state of Illinois?

The latter seems the more accurate and properly posed question. When I was attending the campus of the Boneyard the common view of my associates who were denizens, citizens in most cases, of Illinois, was that there was Chicago and there was the rest of Illinois. Not a geographic division like nawth and sowth, although this division was there largely because of Chicago but if one bothered to look closely one found out that south Illinois started about fifty miles away from Chicago, so the distinction was definitely Chicago and the-rest-of-Illinois.

That seems to still be the situation, as least as evidenced by this action by the sheriff of Chicago. But the second piece of this is the basic idea of litigating a web service. Does the sheriff of Chicago not know about the litigation in Sweden over this very matter, and how it is playing, and how all the other litigations of this nature have played? Oh! Never mind, after all this is a political officeholder in Chicago. Sanity, rationality, and common sense are antirequisites for such position.

But it is entertaining, rather like those chimps on skates that used to appear on the Dave Garroway television program. And about as dated.

And while we are on this tack, I see that MegaHard has built switches into Windows Seven (at least that is neutral, or at least more neutral in name than VISTA, which was rather foreshortened and warped,) that let you turn stuff off. [Link] Of course there is some uncertainty as to who “you” is, user or computer manufacturer? The latter makes sense in this period of ‘recession’. After all, those manufacturers need some source of revenue to make up for fewer sales.

From what I have read elsewhere, a knowledgeable user can also do this. So the relevant question is what constitutes a ‘knowledgeable user’? Apparently most geeks are such, but perhaps not bogs, and definitely not shlubs or shleppers. But what may be most entertaining is whether this feature can be locked down in a desktop dictator environment? And the question of whether this will be sufficient for the European Sociality to cease its colonoscopy of MegaHard over matters such as browser polyps?

And lastly, there is some, probably satirical, indication that the International Astronomical Union has declared February to be a ‘dwarf month”. [Link] The logic of this is obvious, after all, one may practice astronomy in februrary and thereby the iAU has regulatory jurisdiction. But it does raise the question if this is in reaction to the recent decision by the legislature of Illinois to return Pluto to planet status. After all, pluto may be observed from within Illinois – I know this because I spent a few too many nights at the campus of the Boneyard observatory out on the bottom Tartarus side of the plain – and hence the legislature has jurisdiction over planet status. This in turn raises the question of whether the sheriff of Chicago is a member of the IAU? If so, we may also inquire if he specializes in observation of Sol?

Anniversary

I note courtesy of an email from the Britannica folks that today is the anniversary of the beheading of Mary Stuart, then queen of Scotland, in 1587. [Link] The ostensible reason given for this act was that MAry, as a Roman Catholic, presented a clear and present danger to the protestant regime of England.

It is to wonder if the fact that Stuarts were more popular than Tudors was a factor? Also, this provides an excellent case study of how little nations really respect each others sovereignty.

And the act itself? Clearly ambiguous. A plus for the elimination of a tyrant; a negative that the elimination was the product of another tyrant. In brief, no sanity among the citizenry evidenced.