Pod Ideas

I have a 45 minute drive to work and a 45 minute drive from work. I have plenty of time to listen to podcasts of debates, interviews, talks, etc... Here are a few moderately controversial topics.

Economic Disparity
Health and mortality are strongly affected by poverty and income disparity
Low social status seems to cause a slew of health effects
Heart disease, obesity, early mortality
Adjusting mortality rates for income disparity in the US has a greater affect than curing all cancers
Perceived ability to control one's life is a deeper and more fundamental factor
Relative control (relative to those in your society)
Skills such as reading, writing, speaking, and socializing seem to increase the sense of perceived control
Happiness indexes correlate inversely with the size of the gap between rich and poor
Japan and France, despite heavy smoking, fatty foods, and/or drinking have low and falling rates of heart disease and cancer
High status non-human animals forced into a low status position showed the same health effects as low status animals (shows that status affects health rather than health affecting status)

Effects of Affirmative Action
Unprepared students in tough academic environments have a very high attrition rate – they are self-ejected out of future study
Diversity can be good and bad
Educational and enlightening for some
Stressful and discouraging for others
All girls schools
African-American schools
Social stigma
Study of employer responses in which 50% of resumes were assigned distinctly black names and 50% were assigned distinctly white names showed that education and employment history were almost completely insignificant

Global warming/ Climate change
What is the evidence that it is happening?
Ice cap melts
CO2 levels
Computer modeling
Can or will we do anything about it?
We will play lip-service, but we probably cannot actually have any effect
What do the experts estimate our capacity is to affect things at this point?
Should we try to help affected communities (coastal regions)?
Assuming climate change is occurring, wouldn't our money be better spent preparing for it rather than trying (futilely) to avoid it?

The US as Global Peacekeeper
The US has the most money/ largest economy
Effect of expense to US economy?
Opportunity cost for other programs (eg effective, reform oriented international aid)
Ingraining and further entrenching the military industrial complex (politically influential companies supplying military goods and services)
Has the highest military expenditures
The US is already playing this role by default, but can it, or should it, continue to do so?
The US is already over-extended
Unpopular in US for regions unrelated to US interests
Unpopular in rest of world for unilateral arrogance
Will further incite unrest and reactionary extremists
US lacks regional knowledge and diplomatic ties
The rise of China as a super-power will complicate any unilateral efforts by the US

Illegal Immigration
one side feels that stricter immigration enforcement is necessary
the other side feels that the laws need to be adapted to the reality of the situation
Numbers for how many illegals are living in the US today range from 7 to 20 million per year, but it is hard to say because they are undocumented.
In favor of stricter enforcement
Uncontrolled competition for low-skill jobs hurts the unskilled population
Having laws that are not enforced undermines the power of law
The drain on social services outweighs any benefit to the economy
Illegals create a criminal society
In favor of changing laws
Current laws are not enforceable
Current laws are inhumane
Current laws are against our economic interests
A disproportionate amount of money goes to protecting against illegal South or Central American immigration under the guise of Homeland Security – when no terrorist has been South or Central American – terrorist came through Canadian border by normal, legal means
Surveys show the percent of people who believe
immigrants are a burden because they take jobs and housing grew from 38 percent to 52 percent.
immigrants "strengthen the US with their hard work and talents" dropped from 50 percent to 41 percent.
"the growing number of newcomers from other countries threaten traditional American customs and values" has grown from 40 percent to 48 percent.
newcomers "strengthen American society" has dropped from 50 percent to 45 percent.

Aid to Africa
Does the current system do more harm than good?
What has been accomplished?
What failures or complications have arisen?
What reforms are needed?
Economy (banking system and fair trade), legal system, media,
Right to private property protected and enforced by law

Russia's Assertion of Power
Poisonings and murders of politicians and reporters
Human rights abuses – Chechnya
"If you are detained in Chechnya, you face a real and immediate risk of torture. And there is little chance that your torturer will be held accountable.", said Holly Cartner, Director Europe and Central Asia division of HRW
They are building modern nuclear submarines
They are opposing the US on many fronts, most notably in supplying Iran with nuclear technology

Democratization
Is it hypocritical to impose democracy by force?
Is democracy suitable for all cultures?
What do we mean by "democracy"?
a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
Life, liberty and justice for all through an enforceable legal system

Real Threats in the 21st Century
Disease – global epidemics (pandemics)
Nuclear weapons – more and more countries are acquiring nuclear weaponry
Terrorism
Climate change – rising sea levels causing economic and social stress
What is the global sensitivity to changes in the coastal economies?
Political Simplicity
Complex topics are hard to sell
"Let's kick some ass!" inspires more pride and nationalism than, "Let's continue negotiations"
Sense of international dominance is preferred to being a lackluster political player
Simple solutions frequently do not solve the fundamental problems and actually aggravate them

Problems with Democracy
How much time is required to make an informed decision?
How many people actually take time to research issues?
How does intelligence, as measured, for example, by IQ, influence decision making and voting?
Should "Get out the vote" campaigns be banned?
Encourages uninformed voters to pass their ballots
Increases the influence of sound-bite media messages

Normalcy

A thought reoccurred to me regarding bimodal versus normal distributions of personality traits... a little research show that personality traits are normally distributed.

Using the big 5 traits regarding our approach to work (C), our sociability (E), our tact (A), our reaction to stress (N), and our interests (O), and assuming you could be normal (+- σ), moderately exceptional (+- 2σ), or extraordinary (+- 3σ) for any combination of these traits, I did a quick analysis to determine the probability of being normal for various combinations.

As it turns out,

15% of us will be normal for all 5 traits, but only 0.3% of us will be outside of the norm for all 5 traits.

Most of us have one or two moderate to exceptional traits for each of the 5 factors: O, C, E, A, and N

In conclusion, we're all mostly normal, but most of us are not completely normal.

Fascinating, eh?

Wherein lies happiness?

My philosophy is that if a Zen Buddhist is not happy and a narcissistic westerner is, then let me be a narcissistic westerner.

So, the question becomes, "Wherein lies happiness?"

On a practical, realistic level, happiness is an emotional state. We cannot stay perpetually happy, but we can make happiness more frequent and attainable by increasing our self-worth and by being more active/extroverted.

The western flaw of narcissism is the practice of increasing self-worth through economic possession. Not everyone does this, but at least 50% of westerners do - they buy things for two predominant reasons: to feel the joy of possession, and to obtain status points in a group.

Other forms of improving self-worth include mental, artistic, spiritual, and physical competition.

These are all competition based - we are valuable and deserving because we are better than others.

If you suck, you can always create your own category and win - such as Mountain Bikers Over 200-Pounds, or spiritual leader of your own religion.

The second method of happiness (being more active/extroverted) has confirmation from several independent sources - active/extroverted people are happier than reserved/introverted people.

A more specific attack on Buddhism is the pointlessness of trying to make a supernova from a light bulb: it is the wrong tool for the job. The human brain cannot attain enlightenment.

Enlightenment is a vague concept, but for my purpose, I will define it as an extremely high level of intellectual and emotional understanding. More moderate forms of these two ingredients also are required for general consciousness - we cannot say something is conscious unless it has some degree of intellectual and emotional capacity.

Reality requires and is defined by consciousness. A universe without consciousness is meaningless and therefore not real. Events that do not affect my consciousness are not meaningful and therefore not real. Practically speaking, an entire physical universe needs to exist for my specific consciousness to exist within my physical body - the physics, the chemistry, the gravity, the biological evolution, etc, etc. Put another way, the degree to which something must be a certain way so that my consciousness exists is the degree to which that thing is real.

The problem is, our brains are the product of evolution. It's purpose is not enlightenment, it is reproduction. It is an appendage that falls into the same category as peacock feathers, bright plumage, and other appendages of sexual selection. There is no benefit to the enormous tail feathers of a peacock except that it attracts mates. It is sexy to peahens. The same is true for intelligence - beyond the power of a coyote brain, more power is pointless. Larger brains actually make us more vulnerable - larger head on infants cause birthing problems, the long development phase of the brain makes childhood very dangerous, and the complexity of the brain makes more room for errors. Nonetheless, men and women around the world prefer mates who have a good sense of humor and are enjoyable to be around. Being entertaining requires intelligence, and entertaining is sexy. Misfiring intelligence, however, is boring.

So, my point here is that we have evolved to be entertainers - to show off our worth through our intellectual abilities. Athletic intelligence included...

The entertainment industry is pushing the envelope of technology. Pornography was one of the hardest thrusters into the depths cyberspace. Video games drive the increases in computing power. People watch, on average 20+ hours of tv per week - that is half a work week... And that is just TV as an entertainment industry...

My grand conclusion here is that our biological craving for entertainment is the driving factor for the development of technology and, eventually, artificial life. Artificial life is the next phase of reality.

Soap Box

There is pretty strong evidence that being low on the social hierarchyis bad for your health, but what does this really mean? What is thesocial hierarchy for humans, and what kinds of health effects?
The health effects are easier to answer, I think, because I just heardabout the data – pretty much everything to do with stress: heartdisease, high cholesterol, obesity, nervous disorders, and, as itturns out, violence, impulsivity, recklessness, etc.
Social hierarchy exists pretty clearly for rats, dogs, birds, monkeys,apes, and humans, but what makes for a high status person? I've saidsome of this already, but I'll repeat myself, for lack of editingskills or conscientiousness…Intelligence and education, do – people with phDs live longer (4years), healthier lives than average.Income and wealth – adjusting mortality for income is more significantthan adjusting mortality for all cancers.Relative Income/wealth – Japanese and French people smoke, drink, andeat high fats foods, but have remarkably low rates of heart diseaseand cancer. They also have the lowest gaps between the rich and thepoor.Control over one's environment – city bus drivers have strictschedules and very little control, and they are rife with illnessesand absenteeism (sick days).
A lot of self-help books focus on leadership, making money, takingcontrol of your life, etc. These things make us feel good. Why?Because we live in a socially competitive, hierarchical society – wefeel better when we our sense of social status rises, eg when we feelwe have potential, when we perform well, or when people we like orrespect like us.Neurolinguistic programming – fake it until you are what you are faking.Positive thinking – your words determine who you are and how youperceive yourself and your situation.Self esteem - confidence and satisfaction in oneself – (this is theheaven, the nirvana, the holy-holy of my spin on secularhumanitarianism. )
Self-esteem does not have much to do with actual competence. It's allperceived and relative. This may be morally wrong, but isstructurally correct. So, if you can grow your self-image into afunctional delusion of greatness, you will be happy.
So, how do you fake it until you make it? How do you act until youare? Steal from the actors –Using the Method, an actor recalls emotions or reactions from his orher own life and uses them to identify with the character beingportrayed.Using Stanislavski's 'system', the actor analyzes deeply themotivations and emotions of the character in order to personify him orher with psychological realism and emotional authenticity.
Who is your audience? Yourself, the god/super-ego within you, peoplearound you? Who do you get the best feedback from – who matters themost in terms of feeling good about them feeling good about you?I am a celebrity – a delusional one with imaginary fans, but rockstar, a cultural icon, royalty, sick, schizophrenic, deranged, happilystuffed shirted, showing off for no body and everybody.
I'm on a soap box. It's time to get off.

Manifest

Greetings! I hope you're feeling well.

This blog is basically about existential angst.
I'm alive. I'm me. I supposedly have choice and the ability to direct my life. But I am not really all here. I am vaguely here, but more like the stereotypical concept of a monkey than of a free-choice human. I am tapping away at a laptop, blogging my thoughts because it is hip and trendy. I am a product of my culture and society. My thoughts, options, and self-direction are distilled from society around me. What free choice do I have? I don't really know, but I think about it through the lens and filters of ideas that have made their way into my head.

The point is not self-determination. The point is enjoying life. At least this should be the point, I think, but I am not really sure. Somebody said it or I read it somewhere. When it comes down to it, though, what I really care about is not being grouchy, not feeling depressed, feeling positive, being happy, feeling good about myself, enjoying the people I am around, laughing, having a good time, and all the other trees that make up the forest. To this end, I've gathered a couple of ideas on the philosophy and science of happiness.

To begin with, I am moderately interested in psychology, like a few billion other people. One idea from evolutionary psychology that deeply orients my thinking is that most of the characteristics we consider distinctly human - language, art, morality, strategic intelligence - are runaway sexual selection characteristics. That is, like peacock feathers, antlers, bizarre colorations and behaviors in monkeys, birds, and a hundred other species, there is no other purpose for these characteristics other than for mating. The runaway process takes a minor variation and blows it up into something major.
Cavewomen found artistry sexy and, boom, humans are bizarrely artistic. Like bauer birds.
I could go on, or you could read The Mating Mind by Geoffry Miller. These are all his ideas, and, I guess, a few dozen other evolutionary psychology theorists.

The second point, related to the first, is that a slew of physical and mental health problems are related to social hierarchy. (Big Ideas - Sick minds or sick society?) People, rats, monkeys, dogs, and just about every halfway intelligent animal that lives in a group is affected by social hierarchy. Those at the bottom of the hierarchy are more stressed and less healthy than those near the top.
I just heard about a study showing that mortality rates adjusted for the effect of income were more significant than adjusting for all cancers. That is, low income kills more people than cancer. In the US at least.
Everyone equally poor makes for a happier and healthier society than having a large gap between the rich and the poor.

So, as it relates to me, or to anyone wanting to be happy... Be intelligent, artistic, moral, have a rich and versatile language, and be high up on the social hierarchy. That's it! There you have it, the real, scientific secrets to happiness. Be better than everyone else and be well liked and you will probably be happy.