Religion

Refering especially to the religion depicted in the Old Testament of the Bible: Religion is a product of evolutionary biology, a way to organize the super-organism (the human collective). It's ironic that some religious groups claim that evolutionary biology isn't valid.

Pissing Off Women

The greatest amount of pissing off occurs when you say something logical that interferes with a woman's emotional belief (in her mind). Even if it doesn't really interfere technically - if she perceives that the statement will interfere with the answer she wants emotionally, she'll get pissed off. I've noticed this with discussions about biological evolution, natural brain differences between males and females, and abortion rights. This is also true with men in all likelihood, although I haven't explored it as much with men. So, you have to consider what the expected emtional interpretation of your statement will be.

Ironically, it's not the topics that she's totally sure about that will cause the most emotional respond. The topics where their conflict in her mind cause the most emotional responce. As if the extra emotion is necessary to overpower the other non-emotional voice in those conflicted cases.

Sexism

lets see, looking up sexist:
"discriminatory on the basis of sex (usually said of men's attitude toward women)"

Hmmm, there are some cases where I consider gender... like when deciding if I'm sexually attracted to another human, gender comes into play.

Are you suggesting that I'm using gender to make decisions in an inappropriate way? Mathematically, are you suggesting that I'm treating the gender "bit" incorrectly when unconsciously evaluating people or choosing actions? If yes, give me an example.

I will say that statistically, men and women tend to have differences, morphologically and psychologically. In fact the morphology of the brain (which is different between sexes) almost surely implies that their are psychological differences.

Regardless of this, if you want to see if a human is good at science, there are ways to check, like giving the human a science project and seeing what happens. This method can be used on anything, human, alien, robots, whatever - gender need not come into play. The are both men and women who will "score high." Men and women will have a wide distribution of score, some women higher than men and some men higher than women.

Keep in mind that evolution forked the brain architecture of humanity, probably for some reason. (Fork is my geek term for splitting the code base of a program into two distinct versions.) Men and women are running two different operating systems... and some people are actually in between. But just like operating systems, choosing one is often open to debate - the OS's have different strengths and weaknesses. Also, the installed applications (education) can make a bigger difference.

Gossip

Gossip has a bad rap, but it may have some function in the scheme of species development and evolution. I suppose that the compulsion to gossip is a mechanism evolved into human brains to encourage distribution of information throughout a society. As it often focuses on romantic relationships, maybe it's role is to distribute information and keep society up to date so that better relationship decisions can be made by individuals.

Analysis of Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun

On this note, it may be best for me to characterize what I'm doing as "having fun" to the outside world. That is what they call it.

Let's refer to Cindy Lauper:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIb6AZdTr-A&ob=av2e

At the beginning of the documentary (that's what I'll call the video), she's upset with her parents because they are restricting her access to the outside - ultimately limiting her access to DNA that will infuse her offspring with the characteristics that she wants- so that she can have a genetic impact and increase the strength of the species. (They do this because it's a (possibly accidental) holdover from their child-protective instinct, but that's another story I won't dwell on here.)

She calls her friends to "have fun." Which means in this case, form a collective social unit that will be more successful in attracting and evaluating mates. As they go out, they'll use group-reasoning to evaluate potential mates - and check on how the mates respond to the group setting (checking on social skills).

"some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the work" says Cindy. (An ape is depicted - referencing our evolutionary past which is out of scope to get into here, but interesting.) Point is, she wants to maximize her exposure to potential mates, not be hidden away. Girls expect to be approached and that will never happen unless they are spending time in reasonably social situations with peers.

Jewelry and clothing that Cindy and her friends wears is designed to attract attention (literally flashing - reflecting light that a human visual system to respond to dramatically) - to encourage the approach.

(Going play by play) OK, now the girls are dancing through a line of males - creating some attraction. Using dance - as most animals do - to demonstrate a degree of health, for the nervous system (and to identify the species - with spiders).

OK, now the girls have managed to coerce the situation to a co-ed party in the bedroom. Clearly setting the scene for possible genetic transfer with a carefully selected mate. And now... there's a kiss occurring, human nonverbal signal of consensual sexual attraction. But, with birth control - they're really just going to be activating reward pathways.

So that's "fun."

Analysis of Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun

On this note, it may be best for me to characterize what I'm doing as "having fun" to the outside world. That is what they call it.

Let's refer to Cindy Lauper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIb6AZdTr-A&ob=av2e

At the beginning of the documentary (that's what I'll call the video), she's upset with her parents because they are restricting her access to the outside - ultimately limiting her access to DNA that will infuse her offspring with the characteristics that she wants- so that she can have a genetic impact and increase the strength of the species. (They do this because it's a (possibly accidental) holdover from their child-protective instinct, but that's another story I won't dwell on here.)

She calls her friends to "have fun." Which means in this case, form a collective social unit that will be more successful in attracting and evaluating mates. As they go out, they'll use group-reasoning to evaluate potential mates - and check on how the mates respond to the group setting (checking on social skills).

"some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the work" says Cindy. (An ape is depicted - referencing our evolutionary past which is out of scope to get into here, but interesting.) Point is, she wants to maximize her exposure to potential mates, not be hidden away. Girls expect to be approached and that will never happen unless they are spending time in reasonably social situations with peers.

Jewelry and clothing that Cindy and her friends wears is designed to attract attention (literally flashing - reflecting light that a human visual system to respond to dramatically) - to encourage the approach.

(Going play by play) OK, now the girls are dancing through a line of males - creating some attraction. Using dance - as most animals do - to demonstrate a degree of health, for the nervous system (and to identify the species - with spiders).

OK, now the girls have managed to coerce the situation to a co-ed party in the bedroom. Clearly setting the scene for possible genetic transfer with a carefully selected mate. And now... there's a kiss occurring, human nonverbal signal of consensual sexual attraction. But, with birth control - they're really just going to be activating reward pathways.

So that's "fun."

Nature

Honestly I think that when nature took something away from my brain, that which would have made me learn all this stuff 20 years ago, it created an ironic situation where I become hyper aware - and analyze the stuff at a level that most people never would. I understand people in terms of evolutionary theory, that's what makes sense, the typical technique of just naturally feeling how everybody else feels barely applies to me. I'm not Autistic, but I'm like half-way there. It may actually be easier to just be straight up Autistic and not care at all what society is up to - maybe - though being straight up Autistic is extremely challenging in other ways from what I've heard.

Here's an analogy: I guy lost the nerves that tell his body how it's positioned. (The American Life or maybe Radio Lab episode.) He had to literally learn how to stand up, walk, etc. He had to use his eyes (rather than Proprioception) to tell where his legs were. That's me. There's something that isn't there, so I'm using the logical side of my mind to do it instead.

You could benefit from a lifting routine.

I suppose appearance may create sort of a shunting effect [on the sexual perception metric] so that it would be critical to have muscle mass at like 100% of normal rather than like 30% that I have now. All of my personality efforts are being multiplied by 0.3. Then at about 120% it's a bit better, and getting higher would eventually lead to diminishing returns on the time investment.

http://books.google.com/books?id=v62U-XJ4QioC&pg=PA729&lpg=PA729&dq=shunting+multiplicative&source=bl&ots=wLVoC6is5E&sig=dE99vb3J2Z1iL9xENlz-le52E3M&hl=en&ei=I-JKTtGHIqfWiAKL_Y2xBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=shunting%20multiplicative&f=false

Sally wrote:
> Dude, this guy started out as skinny as you.
>
> You should pick up lifting.
>
> http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/ivyvw/3_years_of_progress/

Bigfoot Documentaries

I'm starting to get interested in documentaries about things that are patently false, like big foot and aliens in ancient Egypt. Maybe it's because the creativity required to argue these points is so much higher - sometimes it becomes interesting. Also, the personalities of people who actually believe this stuff seems more entertaining that the legit scientists who are constrained to stating the truth.

Women, Men, and Instinct

A couple times recently now I've heard women talking about how they are looking for women friends - as if they aren't looking for guys. This is mildly bullshit. Women sometimes have a hard time admitting (even to themselves) that they are just looking for a guy. It's more likely that they're looking for a girlfriend to hang with so they can more comfortably find guys. But, think they consciously don't think of it like that. Women are like birds. They act instinctively. They have instincts designed to draw them to or away from men. They don't plan the result and assemble the actions to reach it. They just keep following the emotion and the instinct. And, if you ask them what they are really up to, you're likely to get something else - whatever they want you to hear basically.



Now just to be fair, I'm not saying guys in general are more or less logical than women, I don't know. I know that personally, I tend to set a goal and then arrange actions to support it. Recently I find myself doing a lot of things women just consider "fun" to reach the goal. So, it's pretty apparent that the women's instinct and emotion has already been tuned to make them find mates, whether they consciously care about it or not. They perform the actions of socialization/mate-finding out of instinct or instinctive drive, and I'm in the process of learning them.

Paternal

Why are humans often organized into paternal societies. Men are stronger on average. Apes fight to figure out who the leader is. So, the male would tend to win. The system has been passed down from our ancestors.

Alter Ego

Her drunken alter ego told me not to trust her sober self (who hides the truth) and her sober self told me the drunken alter-ego is not her. Her sober self lacked the memories of the drunken alter ego, which might mean that her drunken ego has an information advantage?

Pop Culture

I'm researching pop culture to infiltrate the society I live in. Couple of observations... One is that humans really are the weirdest hominids on the planet. Looking down as an alien, I'm not sure what I would think. Two, seeing plasticized Janet Jackson (I think) and Donald Trump together in one show is really disturbing at various levels.

Ren & Stimpy

So I'm cleaning my kitchen and I stumble upon my Ren & Stimpy shirt... decide to wear it to Salsa event today at the Queen Bee. I've seen lots of college kids there, so I figure they'll get it. However, tonight there's a live band, and it's not college kids. It's a bunch of serious Salsa people. And, I have an image of Ren affectionately holding Stimpy prominately displayed across my chest... when I run into a former dance teacher (older guy). He was thinking "what a poor shmuck" as I asked his step daughter to dance. As the dance ended, she said "you've really learned a lot" which is another way of saying "you knew nothing the last time."

Talking to Girls

Probably best to mix it up with: (a) some non-work-related stuff like jewlery and the environment around you and that she does for fun and (b) the "what do you do" question - which probably can come later in the interaction.

Lessons from Pussycat Dolls

After researching the (social/dating) game, I notice how hiphop songs are often stories relating to this field - maybe even insightful or educational. Wait a Minute by the Pussycat Dolls makes good points about the importance of body language for creating attraction (for both men and women). It also describes how attraction typically can't be bought directly with gifts/money - although that may help. Women really want a source of fun, not necessarily money.

Women Desire

Women desire a man who can access any woman - but only chooses one. They require that a man achieve a level of proficiency with picking women up. (Only then do they take interest.) This is like requiring that a house be doused in gasoline and that a match be held but never dropped.

Observation about Purpose of Enthusiasm

ok, so when guys do that thing where they make really obvious, boring, and or exaggerated comments, infused with hyper emotion and inexplicable enthusiasm, it's because most girls respond to that as an ice breaker or emotionally charged entry point of some kind (creating the prospect of further communication later on). i really just though the whole act was retarded, but apparently it is serving a purpose.

Thinking Out Loud

tonight was walking into a seemly vacated room and talking out loud to myself about how it smelt like burnt herbs. some dude addressed me - smoking if i remember correctly. i wonder if he thought i was addressing him. in any case, he seems alright, so it was fortuitous. mainly i'm just intrigued by the idea of walking around thinking out loud and waiting for people to respond. intrigued... but at risk of looking like a mental case, i probably won't try that out much.

Advice to Jaded Romance Movie Characters

(1) Love only lasts like 12-24 months in general:
Enzo Emanuele, Pierluigi Politi, Marika Bianchi, Piercarlo Minoretti, Marco Bertona, Diego Geroldi, Raised plasma nerve growth factor levels associated with early-stage romantic love, Psychoneuroendocrinology, Volume 31, Issue 3, April 2006, Pages 288-294, ISSN 0306-4530, DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.09.002.
So don't expect any more.

(2) Humanities professors might be fun to talk to but they typically have affairs with a student, and if not that - possibly become psychotic killers.

(3) Don't send a prostitute to seduce your husband to check his "fidelity." The test is way harder than real life, and you're going to end up with too much info. It's more reasonable to just hire a PI to figure out if he actually is cheating - PI's gladly do this for a living.

Body Language

Some youtube video talking about how to read a man's body language mentioned that the stuff a guy does do indicate disinterest is the same as what he does if he is just shy in general. If body language is so inaccurate or ambiguous, why use it at all... (yes I am shy in a sense and therefore particularly annoyed by this ambiguity) well I suppose actual language is pretty ambiguous too... the way that most people use it. They often say something polite rather than something accurate.

...body language evolved earlier than spoken language so it makes sense that people would pay attention to it in terms of attraction. In text, one must resort to emoticons - that's what people have said anyway.

Confidence

Women like confidence so much. I tend to distrust confident people - that's the natural tendency anyway. I'm more impressed with people who are correct than people who are confident. But, as usual, I'm willing to make an effort to adjust - learn to convey confidence.

I'm not totally sure why the women like confidence. I'm not immediately thinking of solid biological/evolutionary reason. I guess it's because people are sometimes pretty good at evaluating themselves and confidence (in those people) might be a decent metric.

Although with something like playing music, the emotion of being confident - or not freaked out - does make the music sound "right" - so maybe something like that is going on with speech also.

Bob:

Well... I think I know what you mean. The solution would be an android man that has what I'll call "pandora.com" personality. It would basically change every few days to something new, but still something that's likely to be interesting.

And, I want the "pandora.com" woman android. I want her to look different every few days also. That would be interesting.

Suzy:
> I mean like qualities you want in someone or the personality
> compatibility. Also, for me. I get bored easily.
>
>

Bob:
> which desires?
>
> are we talking specifically about you getting swept off your feet?
> that particular thing is going to be difficult because you already
> know the game that a guy would theoretically use to sweep you.
>
> if we are talking about guys - different story - considering they
> don't need to get swept off their feet to be fulfilled.
>


Suzy:
>
> even if you could pick up anyone, not anyone with fulfill desires.
>
>

Bob:
>
>
> how do you mean?
>

Suzy:
>
> what about the pickiness factor?
>
>

Bob:
>
>
> remember when i said girls are distracting to the
> point of
> messing
> up other stuff and you sort of disagreed... or at
> least started
> giving some kind of counter-examples.
>
> this is the thing. i think i have perspective now.
> if you have
> options, the one girl is not that distracting. she
> is never an
> emergency. she can always be replaced*. in fact, she
> knows
> this, and
> will not mess with you as much. but if you don't have
> options, the
> thought of her can really be destructive - maybe
> upsetting
> from fear
> of loss - maybe upsetting because she's not even right -
> she's just
> there.
>
> the game is not to get a girl. it's to alter the
> probability of
> getting all girls. specifically, alter your neural
> network
> in such a
> way that many girls are ok with you. this is what people
> call pick
> up or whatever - learning the game. it's really just
> being
> social.
> you already are a pickup artist (right down to the
> details, like
> talking to the guy who runs the snack stand), i find it
> interesting.
> if you were a man, you'd be set.
>

>
>
> *sort of - you know as well as i limits on what
> can/cannot be
> replaced so i won't think about that carefully here
>
>
>
>
>
>

Dating

Theoretically, I think I'm forming a clearer idea of what dating is. It is a meeting (that much is obvious). Different than a friendly meeting in the sense that there's an expected push and pull... and expectation for both to be challenged and checked. It's sparring. But it's not physical sparring and it's not intellectual sparring. There can be some banter, if it's acceptable form - probably some story mimicking reality - probably with sexual innuendo. But of course, innuendo at most, rather than literal speak of sex - as that is not sexy - ironically enough. And, maybe some building of rapport - more of a serious part of the conversation. Additionally, the man will be required to show confidence, some level of social assertiveness, financial stability (even if not rich), and an interest in taking care of the girl - pull her chair out for her or whatever. And then the girl will evaluate with something like "I had a good time" or some cryptic body language than indicates interest or disinterest. The guy will figure out if he's attracted to her - but lets get real - he already was before the date (unless it was the blind variety). Ultimately she will use this "date" to determine if he's fit, in the Darwinian sense. For a friend, she might just hang out or take care of the guy for whatever reason - with the date, she has to make sure he can take care of her. For a friend, it's good to relax, for the date, a certain amount of tension is inserted (one way or another), probably as a challenge. Once this dating is over, it's over. It's like the spider's dance. They only do it in an evaluation phase. After that the female might just mate (or not), then go ahead and eat him, or maybe let him go. Dating never comes up again.

I thought maybe smart girls wouldn't care much about this stuff as they would see through the game. But, I don't think it matters if the girl is smart or not. It's likely that the majority of girls (of all kinds) will want this game.

Modern World

i figure that long-lasting meaningful relationships are more difficult to achieve in modern industrial society because: they are not as necessary.

if you live in a tribe, in a jungle, the sequence is basically: fall in love when you are too young to know what you are doing - baby pops out - society "encourages" you to stay together with constructs such as marriage.

hopefully, you fell in love with a cool guy. if you didn't you are your children may actually die. it's extremely helpful if this guy has a social network of friends. when the cold winter comes, maybe something wipes out your food store - if you don't have friends, you are dead.

over the eons, women primates evolved the ability to measure (estimate) the chance that a particular man can do what's needed to keep her and her children alive. this became the very definition of sexual attractiveness. the women in the example most likely fell in love with a pretty capable guy - even if she had no conscious idea of why.

then there's the struggle - to just keep the kid alive. infant morality would be pretty high. the struggles would bond the family. these days, we don't really have the bonds of struggle. life and death. i actually watch life and death struggles on netflix instead - and i feel more intense emotion with those than most real life stuff.

Men Acquiring Women

> For centuries men sought to streamline the pickup and rig it so that
> powerful men were guaranteed a woman.

I was listening to a show about how non-human primates manage tribal relations, and it sounded just like the kings and queens of the middle ages.

> I think the women's rights
> movement has caused as much of a shift in evolution as anything. Giving
> women a choice puts a real kink in the male system. I think even women
> are kinda fucked by this change. Now women have to be active and cold
> and calculating about snagging a well-off man (if they have not chosen
> to go the professional female route). They cannot rely on the fixed
> marriage thing anymore.

I think the sadness that women often feel is because the standard mate selection, reproduction, and child bearing thing is what we evolved for, but not what we do (or need to do) anymore. Basically, what should happen: fairly young women falls in love, a baby pops out, and the deal is sealed. The child then creates the necessary love and connection. In the modern world where people do not reproduce - the relationship itself has to be amazing just to be sustainable.

(It makes sense that the Indian culture with its fixed marriages can produce some good engineers that end up imported to America. Removing the need to seduce a woman leaves much more time to work on other stuff - and engineering is like the opposite skill.)

>
> Maybe this will make it into a bit of dialogue in //.
>
>
>
> but 2? nobody will do that for you (you as in me). it is a skill.
> and it's not like riding a bike - that didn't take long to learn -
> it's more like learning to play jazz. the art of pickup. it's an
> improvisational art, and like any other, it's pretty involved. i
> think i finally respect it. and it's ultimately not just the girl
> thing - it the people thing.
>
> the fact is, this pickup game is what women care about greatly. it's
> really the whole social interaction thing. it's chimpanzee's. you
> can do really cool stuff... and well she might care... like if one
> achieves world fame *maybe*. even in that case, often it's the fame
> that she likes - it's not even the thing. it's the social
> verification. a little bit of social verification goes a long way.
> the actual skills and acomplishments... well many women don't really
> care. specifically i mean classic engineers are notoriously without
> girlfriends until somebody finally pegs them as a meal ticket. not
> so for salesmen, even the mediocre one will have a girl friend.
>

girl thing

this is an exaggeration or a simplification possibly but: yes, the girl thing is the most important.

i figure the priority list is basically 1) stay alive and healthy 2) the girl thing. this is based on emotion - but of course it lines up with evolutionary principles - survive and reproduce - it's what we have in common with bacteria and everything else.

i think that to truly fulfil (1), much higher technology will be needed. to put in bluntly, the human body is intrinsically designed in such a way that it will fall apart - it is likely the whole thing will just be replaced in the future with something more stable. when that is done, (1) will be achieved.

can i contribute to 1, well i can make a little contribution - but i notice that good ideas are nearly always replicated - therefore i don't need to worry about it too much. people are going to do what needs to be done. (often money is the real rate limiting factor.)

in some sense 1 is taken care of. for myself, i just need to make any contribution, and get somebody to pay me (so i can buy food), or extract money in any way from any source (so i can buy food).

but 2? nobody will do that for you (you as in me). it is a skill. and it's not like riding a bike - that didn't take long to learn - it's more like learning to play jazz. the art of pickup. it's an improvisational art, and like any other, it's pretty involved. i think i finally respect it. and it's ultimately not just the girl thing - it the people thing.

the fact is, this pickup game is what women care about greatly. it's really the whole social interaction thing. it's chimpanzee's. you can do really cool stuff... and well she might care... like if one achieves world fame *maybe*. even in that case, often it's the fame that she likes - it's not even the thing. it's the social verification. a little bit of social verification goes a long way. the actual skills and acomplishments... well many women don't really care. specifically i mean classic engineers are notoriously without girlfriends until somebody finally pegs them as a meal ticket. not so for salesmen, even the mediocre one will have a girl friend.

what about rock stars. with all the girls. theoretically, there is something there. it's a good field. one where there's a high probability that a girl may actually appreciate the thing itself. however, even tu-pac said: they were interested in the fame itself, not so much me - he said he'd go to a club and women would not give a shit about him until somebody actually recognized him as a star - then they were into him.

restating - a little bit of the pickup art can go along way, and it is extremely difficult to compensate for it in the eyes of women. being world class at some skill might help - but even so... efficiency would indicate that learning some pickup is highly valuable. it's way more important than anything taught in school. in fact... it's what a lot of smart (not gradewise) people do actually learn in school (rather than the actual subjects).

humans

i'm studying human social behavior. interesting, also bizarre. they've pretty much transferred what chimpanzees do into night clubs. there are tribes with dominant males that essentially protect territory. although everything is abstracted. power is not necessarily physical, thought it can be. the territory is not necessarily a plot of land - it's more like the vip room in a club. and the instincts implanted into females (natures attempt to insure that they procure the best genetic material) are the instincts that women use for mate selection - even though none are planning to reproduce. it's a very abstract game. almost like how chess is a battle, with knights and kings, but it's all played on a little board - and nobody really gets killed.

life

life is b.s. these aren't the over-dramatized snivels of a semi-depressed mofo. no. it really is a ruse. it's a game on top of a game on top of a game. continuous existence of the individual is almost an illusion - though it is sort of real. a game to squirt more dopamine into our own brains - or in general to activate circuitry of happiness. and like the ant that pushes a twig, waits for another to push the twig an opposite direction, and then pushes the twig again, accomplishing nothing, (we just keep having sex with condoms)*. in the ant's mind it's making since. nothing is happening, but the ant doesn't have the perspective to see it - the ant just feels like it's doing the right thing. i write this, because i think i'm going to strive to just push the hell out of twigs. left and right. i want my brain to feel the happiness of thinking it is doing something useful. i'm tired of being one any, looking out at a lawn mower and feeling that the whole hive is about to be blow away. i'm tired of being an ant thinking about how short it's own life is, how fragile. the most happiness must be in letting go of reality. and i wonder why evolution even gave me the ability to perceive reality or any global consequence - but i sort of know the answer - it's handy for engineering (and such) - however it's annoying in many ways.

*merely a metaphor

Have We Grown Too Fond Of Technology?

I'm listening to some lady talk to Ira Flato about "Have We Grown Too Fond Of Technology?"

I just have to vent my annoyedness here. First of all I'm just tired of listening to so many shows about communication technology, it's just a worn out topic. Secondly, she's trying to make an argument to regulate people as if sending too many text messages (instead of talking?) is dangerous. Dude, it does not matter. Verbal communication is a relatively new invention, it also does not matter - I mean it's not dangerous. It did change us, but it's not something we need to run away from. Human are pretty nuts as far as I can tell, and they were nuts before they used cell phones, and they will continue to be nuts after. They are basically slime mold on the planet, and they are wiring up a pretty decent nervous system with their internet and cell phone technology - taking it to the next level of super organism - again where the individuals have little or no concept of the whole.

Sci Fi Love Advice

there needs to be a love advice source (hotline, support group, whatever) for people in science fiction shows. the first thing they need to learn is to move on - if the sign. other is dead or has his/her mind permanently taken over by a parasite. the next major point: don't limit your social life to one-shot visits to *other planets*. visit places near by, the bar down the street, whatever. most people just aren't going to do interplanetary travel or complete cultural change just to be with you. maybe good for a fling, maybe ideal for a fling, but nothing more.

Depression and Housing Crisis Caused by Optimism

The Great Depression and the recent housing crisis where caused by excess optimism. I've heard arguments that either using gold-backed money or not using gold-backed money is what causes economic depression. I think these arguments miss the point. Even if money was gold-backed, banks could create notes that are guaranteed to have value in some way, and then they could run into problems if they promise more than they deliver. The essential problem is banks (or lenders of any kind) becoming too optimistic and creating "IOU's" of various forms that ultimately cannot be paid.

Love on Other Planets

Science fiction characters always fall in love with aliens while visiting other planets, but don't find anyone on there own. They just sulk about some lost lover when on their home planet. I think ther problem is that they are so busy exploring other planets that the fail to explore their own.

Why People Can Accept Religion

Sometimes religion doesn't make sense, but people often believe it anyway. There's a slot in (nearly) all human minds for religion or spirituality. If you lived 100,000 years ago, the slot was probably filled with tribal religion - like the volcano itself is a god of some kind. Even thought it's incorrect, apparently these tribal religious views (such as anthropamorphizing volcanoes) were useful. If it was not useful, it probably would not have evolved. Those with the "slot" in their minds for religion actually survived and reproduced better than those without it.

Today, the slot is typically filled in with a modern religion. I think that the slot is designed so that the human does not use logic to question the religion very much. So, even people who are capable of logic are able to keep the religion in a "separate place" and avoid criticizing it too harshly. This is somewhat similar to the way a parent will tend to appreciate good qualities of his or her children and overlook the bad.

Gold Backed Money

inflation is probably bad.

seems like gold backed money is a good thing. if there are N atoms of gold on earth, and N is pretty much constant, that gives us a good way to keep a certain number of thingies to trade with. they can't really be counterfeited (reasonably) because it costs more to make a gold atom that the atom is worth. i do wonder a bit: what would if there were globally not enough gold atoms or too many... i'm not sure if that would create practical problems.

also, i think that if banks made gold atoms loans, they could still create a form of inflation by allowing people to borrow more atoms than actually exist - i'm pretty sure banks do that with dollars.

anyway, it doesn't matter that much. savings can be kept in gold.

but in any case, i don't like the government's policy of maintaining inflation - it's similar to stealing a small percentage of money from everybody on a regular basis.

Songs are What People Want to Say But Can't

Songs what what people want to say but can't say to each other directly because of the obligatory veil of communication that people demand when talking to possible mates.

Examples:
Alanis Morissette - Head Over Feet
Outkast - Spread

Human Bottleneck

The human population experienced one or more bottlenecks where the population was reduced to only a few. It makes me wonder, what if the population went extinct at a bottleneck? One cannot answer the question, would things be better or worse. It's possible that some other more interesting species would have risen, and it's possible that a less interesting species would have taken over.

Sex Versus Dancing

Dancing may not be quite as fun as sex but it has several advantages: (1) You can walk up to just about any girl and dance with her in a social dance setting. You can't do that with sex. Just the shear number of women you can interact with is so much greater with dancing. (2) There are arguably more moves to explore with dancing. While it's true that sexual acts can be fairly diverse, the physical requirements put more limitations on the possible movements. Dance allows all sort of position, close, far, sideways, whatever. It might be said that sexual positions are a subset of dance moves. (Or it might be said that dance moves are a subset of sexual acts - maybe - but I will not argue that here.)

The Way That You Love Me

if you take "the way that you love me" (sung (or at least danced) by paula abdul) and invert all the the "it ain't" statements, you get a list of things that women are attracted to or enjoy, traveling, wealth, political connection, getting out of the house, etc. in this way, it's a pretty useful song.

on a slightly different note,
she claims is all about "the way you love me." ok maybe - once the selection has been made.... but in terms of mate *selection* this is not useful. unless women just copulate with ever man they see until they find one that loves them right - i have never witnessed such a selection process. seems interesting though.

Abstraction of Dancing

As the video below indicates, girls at clubs are "at Chucky Cheese." They aren't interested in thinking (using the neocortext). No neocortex should come into conversation. The whole point of drinking alcohol is to shut it off.

Dancing is so abstract that it's pretty much free from thinking. The moves aren't like an argument. They can look good or bad, sure, but still too abstract to be an argument.

Nerds are heavy neocortex users, which is probably why they don't always pick up girls on the dance floor - though I've read that some have learned how.

Irony of Evolution

The irony of Evolution vs. Religion is that spirituality evolved as a means for humans to ignore reality. We are biochemical machines, but it's not neccessarily a good thing to look at ourselves that way. Many people are happier and more productive believing that there's something spiritual beyond - that belief makes them perform better - that's why the belief evolved. It seems that some don't understand this when criticizing people for not teaching evolution (or the like). They don't understand that humans are probably programmed to reject the truth if needed - and accept explanations that don't cause depression.

Responding to the Food Question

standard motif: "how's your x" where x is the food you just got

this one's sort of like the forward basic, very common move

next time i'll be like, what metric shall i evaluate it by? nutritional value? probability that i'll have a headache in an hour? energy content? propensity to keep by brain's glucose level up? texture? response of the tongue to basic sweet/sour/bitter? or the subtler flavors that the olfactory system detects?

it's a complex question - usually i just say "good."

Metaphor - Dating/Dancing

i think that dating is like salsa dancing... and i'm thinking specifically in terms of the way the lead works... the guy is expected to guide and the girl can do her thing within that. possibly another correlation - use of standard motifs.