2 + 2 = 4

• 20120122

  The Evolution of Anti-Parasite Defence Systems

  Mounting an immune response consumes considerable metabolic resources, which may result in temporary fatigue even exhaustion while the parasitic infection is being fought. It has thus been suggested that animals evolved an additional system of defence: perceptual cues (appearance, odour, etc.) to detect the presence of infectious parasites in other things – including other individuals. In some animals – including humans – the detection of such cues may trigger aversive emotional and cognitive responses that motivate behavioural avoidance. This behavioural mechanism offers a first line of defence against disease-causing parasites and hence has been called the ‘behavioural immune system’…

  …there is evidence suggesting that the emotion of disgust evolved to serve as an affective signal of parasite infection. This line of evidence not only has implications for psychologists’ understanding and measurement of disgust, but also may help to explain why feelings of disgust influence moral judgements and interpersonal relations…

  The same logic applies to personality traits such as extraversion and openness to experience. These traits may confer specific kinds of benefits (contact with new friends and new technologies). But both are also likely to be associated with a specific kind of cost: greater exposure to parasites. These costs are greater in regions with a high prevalence of parasites. The implication, supported by empirical evidence, is that in regions characterised by a higher prevalence of parasites, people are less extraverted and less open to new ideas…

  Collectivism is defined in part by an emphasis on conformity to existing traditions and norms, whereas individualism is defined in part by a tolerance for deviance. Individualism therefore connotes a greater risk for parasite transmission. It follows that collectivistic value systems are especially likely to emerge and persist in regions characterised by a high prevalence of parasites, whereas individualistic value systems are most likely to take hold in regions with a relatively low level of parasites.

  We have focused here on how the human mind is adapted to minimise the threat of parasite infection and on the psychological consequences of those adaptations. Perhaps nothing is as humbling as learning that the most human of qualities – patriotic feelings, appreciation of beauty, sexual passion, cultural diversity – may owe their existence to tiny mindless disease-causing organisms. But by giving parasites their due attention, we are beginning to get a handle on some of the oldest questions and discovering that psychology is even more profound than it first appears.

  Parasites, Minds and Cultures by Justin H. Park and Mark Schaller

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  Phyles

  The word phyle was coined by science fiction author Neal Stephenson in his masterwork, The Diamond Age. It comes from the Greek, φυλή which means “tribe” or “clan.”But it would be at least as apt if they were called philes, stemming from the Greek word philia, which means “love”– the same root in the word “philosophy”. The basic idea is that man is a social animal, and we tend to prefer to run with others who are like us – or who love what we love. Birds of a feather flock together, in either case.

  More and more people are starting to sense that they don’t need a different government; rather, they don’t need a government at all. They see that the institution is just a scam for the benefit of some people: those who are in it, their friends, and those who act as parasites by using the state to live off others.

  I think we’re on the cusp of seeing new forms of social organization arise. That’s what Stephenson postulated, and I think he’s right. In the not-too-distant future, we’ll see more and more people grouping themselves in phyles. They’ll stop identifying themselves as Americans, or Russians, or Chinese – unless that accident of birth is really important to them. Racism and nationalism are the hallmarks of an unevolved, or even degraded, person. I have neither time nor patience for either of them.

  I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating: I have less affinity with my neighbors in Aspen than I do with friends in the Congo – even though we’re of a different race, religion, culture, and mother language. Why is that? Because those things are unimportant to me. What’s important to me is character, and the values one holds dear. So, sure, I think the advent of phyles is a very good thing.

  There would be phyles of all types, including those that value strict control, regimentation, and limitations. Groups like monks and nuns are proto-phyles, as are the Mennonites. A phyle can form around anything that’s most important to any group of people– and that could include everything from business, to hobbies, to religion, to culture, to philosophy. There are endless possibilities.

  Casey Research: Doug Casey on Phyles

  Also:
  Global Guerillas: Economies as a Software Service
  Kevin Carson: Daniel Suarez: Daemon and Freedom
  Daedalum Films: Human Flesh Search Engine 1/2

• 20120121

  Internet Piracy – Who Are the Thieves?

  Megaupload is just the latest corporation to feel the brutality of early 21st century state-run justice. The point, of course, (in our view) is not actually to provide “justice” so much as to make people fearful of using the Internet and sharing information that may someday be deemed “criminal.”

  In fact, copyright laws were developed by royalty to counteract the spread of information (in books) after the invention of the Gutenberg Press. The same tactics that applied then are being applied now. War, authoritarian legislation and copyright infringement are all tools of this particular elite that we have been saddled with.

  Most people cannot conceive there can be any other kind of justice than the current kind. But we have long argued that as entrenched as the dominant social theme is, it will come under increasing scrutiny as what we call the Internet Reformation proceeds. Just as the state’s other memes are coming under question – the fear-based promotions that frighten middle classes into giving wealth and power to global repositories – so the “state-justice” meme shall come under fire, sooner or later. In fact, we would argue the battle has already been joined on this issue of copyright infringement.

  We’ve also enunciated a practical perspective that we believe would resolve the issue in a pertinent and appropriate way. Let those who are OFFENDED by copyright infringement enforce their copyright themselves! Let them use their OWN assets to enforce their position.

  The Daily Bell: Internet Piracy – Who Are the Thieves?

• 20120117

  You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.

  — Henry David Thoreau

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  [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

  “What’s missing is curiosity about the lived experience of the Other … It tells me that you were not on the receiving end of empathy in that you don’t even know when it’s missing … You have a template called: No Curiosity About The Other …

  “Violence against an Other is a murder of the Other in your mind; it is an erasure of the Other in your mind. You can’t hurt someone you empathize with because you feel their pain … If you’re able to hurt someone, it is because they do not exist in your mind other than as a thing … You can’t hurt someone if they are alive as a person in your mind … Violence isolates, staggeringly, because you not only have to kill off people in your mind in order to hurt them, but you have to kill off people who might point that out – and that’s why people who are violent tend to end up in these circles of dead souls …

  “I wanted to point out what’s missing – not because I don’t think you can do it, but because I think you can do it – but you haven’t noticed what’s missing. And what’s tragic, of course, is that tells me … you’re surrounded by people who can’t tell you this, otherwise you would know…

  “You’re not alone in this – at all. This is the human template in the 21st century; it’s been the human template for all of human history. And the degree to which we’re able to notice this is the degree to which we’re able to make strides towards a reasonably decent and just and peaceful society.

  “Empathy requires two things which are both very complex and challenging; the development of empathy requires: exposure to empathetic behaviour, in other words it requires that the child receives empathy; but then it also requires that empathy be expected of the child … If you didn’t get empathy modeled towards you, there’s just no way that you would know this … In a dysfunctional household, empathy is punished because it shows vulnerability …

  “Please, please, please don’t start self-attacking for not learning the language of empathy when you weren’t taught it by your priests, you weren’t taught it by your teachers, you weren’t taught it by your parents, you weren’t taught it by your culture, you weren’t taught it by your artists, and you were punished if you were to show a shred of it…”

  Freedomain Radio #2068 Sunday Show Jan 01 2012 - Empathy

• 20120114

  “Intellectualism is a defence against inflicted falsehoods as a child. People get that morality has been used to control them as children, and as soon as they try to treat morality as morality and make it universal to their society as a whole, they’re attacked as immoral, as uncaring, as brutish and wrong… It’s crazy. People’s brains are fried… they have been crippled, mentally.” — How many fingers, Winston?

  Freedomain Radio: Mensa Statists and the Aneurysm of Truth!

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  Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

  — Søren Kierkegaard

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  What is to give light must endure burning.

  — Viktor Frankl

• 20120113

  It’s not enough to conquer; one must learn how to seduce.

  — Voltaire

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  If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will.

  — Benjamin Franklin

• 20120112

  We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.

  — George Orwell

• 20120110

  Philosophy is about prevention rather than cure.

  — Stefan Molyneux

• 20120109

  Many people seem to think that if you talk about something recent, you’re in favor of it. The exact opposite is true in my case. Anything I talk about is almost certainly something I’m resolutely against. And it seems to me the best way to oppose it is to understand it. And then you know where to turn off the buttons.

  — Marshall McLuhan

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  Defense Against The Psychopath

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  If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are non-existent.

  — O’Brien, Nineteen Eighty-Four