"Who's that behind those Foster Grants?"

 It occurred to me that sunglasses are a remarkable cultural phenomenon. When did they become popular?  And also, the psychology of concealing the eyes seems pretty extreme. While I grew up with sunglasses, they always struck me as being fake, showy, and somewhat obnoxious, but also useful and therefore forgiveable.

After looking up some of the history, I am even more impressed by the cultural phenomenon: from 1970 to 1980, they went from being used by the fringe and elite to being used by virtually every man, woman, and child in all socio-economic groups (of the US, at the very least).

To quote:
Early sunglasses served a special purpose and it wasn't to block the rays of the sun.  For centuries, Chinese judges had routinely worn smoke-colored quartz lenses to conceal their eye expressions in court. It wasn't until the 20th century that modern-type sunglasses came to be. In 1929, Sam Foster, founder of the Foster Grant company sold the first pair of Foster Grant sunglasses on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ.

Well-known fashion designers, as well as Hollywood stars, escalated the sunglass craze in the ‘70s with their brand-name lines. A giant industry developed where only a few decades earlier none existed. As women since ancient times had hidden seductively behind an expanded fan or a dipped parasol, modern women-and men-discovered an allure in wearing sunglasses, irrespective of solar glare.


http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/sunglasses.htm

Batman Costumes

Cars are like expensive clothes.
Tinted windows are like masks.

Dodge Chargers are like Batman costumes.

Seven Deadly Sins

While looking up a thing or two about the phrase "a nation of clerks", I came across a right-wing website with what I found to be a funny side bar link/comment:
---------
Liberalism’s Seven Deadly Sins
Sexism
Intolerance
Xenophobia
Racism
Islamophobia
Bigotry
Homophobia

A liberal need only accuse you of one of the above in order to end all discussion and excuse himself from further elucidation of his position.
---------
My reaction:
a) On a very superficial level, it almost seems to accuse liberalism of being guilty of these sins.

b) As more of an after-taste, it seems to suggest that it shouldn't be a problem to be guilty of one or all of these sins.

Try Bad Art

If you think some form of art is so bad that you could do it, you should try it. I think you will find the art is not so bad as you think.

Fear

Alain de Botton recently tweeted, "Fear of the right: laziness. Fear of the left: meanness."

To which, as a joke, I could add: Fear of libertarians: stupidity. 


Which could mean, if you have a "No Fear" sticker or label, you would be mean, stupid, and lazy.

Lounge Safely Through Existence

A passage in the beginning of Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad struck my interest.  In his description of the white men living in a far-east sea port:

There were two kinds. Some, very few and seen there but seldom, led mysterious lives, had preserved an undefaced energy with the temper of buccaneers and the eyes of dreamers. They appeared to live in a crazy maze of plans, hopes, dangers, enterprises, ahead of civilisation, in the dark places of the sea; and their death was the only event of their fantastic existence that seemed to have a reasonable certitude of achievement.
...[The others] - in their actions, in their looks, in their persons - could be detected the soft spot, the place of decay, the determination to lounge safely through existence.


This is a nice, poetic caricature of my own extreme states of mind.  The words "to lounge safely through existence" bump rudely against an existential angst I frequently feel. 

Creativity Fetish

I feel our contemporary culture has a strong fetish for creativity. This culture we live in seems to raise creatives to a very high level of praise, reward and envy.  Artists, writers, entrepreneurs, story tellers, film makers, scientists, tweeters, social media meme makers, etc - Oh what glory to be the One that comes up with the next big thing.

While bouncing around in an unfocused adhd manner, I passed through links on consciousness and the evolution of religious psychology to something about the fear of death that seems to resonate around the same note as that ringing sound I hear in regards to our culture's creativity fetish.

[I will not cite my sources here, because you can easily Google any unique string of words to find more primary sources.]

Death awareness became a highly disruptive by-product of prior adaptive functions. The resulting anxiety threatened to undermine these very functions and thus needed amelioration. Any social formation or practice that was to be widely accepted by the masses needed to provide a means of managing this terror. The main strategy to do so was to "become an individual of value in a world of meaning…acquiring self-esteem [via] the creation of maintenance of culture", as this would counter the sense of insignificance represented by death and provide 1) symbolic immortality through the legacy of a culture that lives on beyond the physical self ("earthly significance") 2) literal immortality, the promise of an afterlife or continued existence featured in religions ("cosmic significance").
-
Because cultural values determine that which is meaningful, they are also the basis for self-esteem. TMT describes self-esteem as being the personal, subjective measure of how well an individual is living up to their cultural values.
-

The terror of absolute annihilation creates such a profound – albeit subconscious – anxiety in people that they spend their lives attempting to make sense of it.  On large scales, societies build symbols: laws, religious meaning systems, cultures, and belief systems to explain the significance of life, define what makes certain characteristics, skills, and talents extraordinary, reward others whom they find exemplify certain attributes...

Naturalistic Fallacy

I frequently fall into the trap of the Naturalistic Fallacy - just because something is natural, or that we were "evolved for it", it is not necessarily good.  Generally, I avoid the trap for obvious examples such as xenophobia, but in terms of health, I struggle to keep in mind that there is probably no optimized diet, exercise, lifestyle, etc that we were "evolved for". Instead, different groups of people went through various phases of selection pressure that came and went and changed.  

In addition, evolution is a kludge process.

"Natural selection is not a perfect process; if an organism is “fit enough” to survive a particular environment and reproduce, its genes are passed on to the next generation."

Born to Run?

People run, as do many other land animals, but how well adapted are we humans to this activity?  Is it little more than a current cultural trend beyond quick sprints?
I was surprised to find that there is an abundance of research and thinking around the idea that humans had specific evolutionary selection pressure for endurance running.

...not only can humans outlast horses, but over long distances and under the right conditions, they can also outrun just about any other animal on the planet—including dogs, wolves, hyenas, and antelope, the other great endurance runners.  From our abundant sweat glands to our Achilles tendons, from our big knee joints to our muscular glutei maximi, human bodies are beautifully tuned running machines.

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/may/tramps-like-us
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

I am not convinced, however. I think, more than for hunting, we probably did something noble like trot over to the next tribe, wage war, steal women, and drag them back. 

Will to Truth

In a Twitter feed, I read a quote of something Nietzsche wrote, "Nothing is needed more than truth, and in relation to it everything else has only second-rate value."

I had reservations about this quote until I looked up the context. It struck me as a moral value statement - something very Western and far out in the the Aspy spectrum of thinking - but this is more or less what Nietzsche was writing about. His thinking was in regards to the faith of science. He went on:

Is it the will not to allow oneself to be deceived?
...
But why not deceive? But why not allow oneself to be deceived?
Note that the reasons for the former principle belong to an altogether different realm from those for the second. One does not want to allow oneself to be deceived because one assumes it is harmful, dangerous, calamitous to be deceived. In this sense, science would be a long-range prudence, a caution, a utility; but one could object in al fairness: How is that? Is wanting not to allow oneself to be deceived really less harmful, less langerous, less calamitous? What do you know in advance of the character of existence to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of the unconditional mistrust or of the unconditionally trusting?
...
...such a resolve might perhaps be a quixotism, a minor slightly mad enthusiasm; but it might also be something more serious, namely, a principle that is hostile to life and destructive.—"Will to truth"—that might be a concealed will to death?

Our faith is science... is still a metaphysical faith... that truth is divine.


-- From Aph. 344. How we, too, are still pious. The Gay Science

Too Many Smart People

Too much exposure to too many smart people can be a bad thing.
There is a science and an art to capturing the attention of as many people as possible. In the media, writers, artists, and video makers do everything they can to grab your attention and then to bend your mind to believe what they have to say is relevant, important, and meaningful.
Even if you are philosophically-minded and virtually immune to the cheap sensationalistic attempts at attention-grabbing involving sexuality, disease, death, and cute little cats and dogs, there are millions of intelligent individuals doing their best to pull you into their latest topic.

If, for example, you follow twenty intelligent people on Twitter, you will, every day, be exposed to very convincing arguments to think in certain ways, to read various books, study various topics more deeply, watch various films, go here, go there, do this, and do that. While it would be nice to read and study all the classic literature and philosophy as well as the thirty or more excellent books published each year in various non-fiction and fiction genres, as well as listen to all the new and old music, play an instrument, run a marathon, spend time with family and friends, travel to see some of the wonders of the world, and fight the good political fights to save whatever your particular values have latched on to, work, advance your career, and spend time relaxing... it is clearly impossible. Exposing yourself to intelligent and convincing people that want you to care about what they care about can be confusing and distracting. 

Which is Worse, Fruit or Table Sugar?

Isn't it strange that fructose (fruit sugar) and glactose (milk sugar) have "approximately ten times the glycation activity of glucose"?

Table sugar is 50/50 glucose-fructose; high fructose corn syrup is 45/55 glucose-fructose - not a huge difference.

"The high-fructose corn syrup used in most soft drinks and other sweetened beverages in the U.S. contains about 55% fructose and 45% glucose, compared to the 50/50 fructose-glucose ratio found in table sugar." 

 

To me, with my *fetishization of expertology*, the following Wikipedia excerpt is interesting:

 

Glycation is the first step in the evolution of these molecules through a complex series of very slow reactions in the body known as Amadori reactions, Schiff base reactions, and Maillard reactions; which lead to advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs). Some AGEs are benign, but others are more reactive than the sugars they are derived from, and are implicated in many age-related chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases (the endothelium, fibrinogen, and collagen are damaged), Alzheimer's disease (amyloid proteins are side-products of the reactions progressing to AGEs),^[7][8] cancer (acrylamide and other side-products are released), peripheral neuropathy (the myelin is attacked), and other sensory losses such as deafness (due to demyelination). This range of diseases is the result of the very basic level at which glycations interfere with molecular and cellular functioning throughout the body and the release of highly oxidizing side-products such as hydrogen peroxide.

Long-lived cells (such as nerves and different types of brain cell), long-lasting proteins (such as crystallins of the lens and cornea), and DNA may accumulate substantial damage over time. Cells such as the retina cells in the eyes, and beta cells (insulin-producing) in the pancreas are also at high risk of damage^{[citation needed]}. Damage by glycation results in stiffening of the collagen in the blood vessel walls, leading to high blood pressure, especially in diabetes.^[9] Glycations also cause weakening of the collagen in the blood vessel walls^{[citation needed]}, which may lead to micro- or macro-aneurisms; this may cause strokes if in the brain.

Red blood cells have a consistent lifespan of 120 days and are easily accessible for measurement of recent increased presence of glycating product. This fact is used in monitoring blood sugar control in diabetes by monitoring the glycated hemoglobin level, also known as HbA1c.

Geo-Hacking not so far fetched

Wars and financial crisis's seem to spell out a pretty consistent history that governments work by crisis management - nothing significant happens until a major event occurs. In my mind, this means one or more geo-hacking schemes will probably be implemented - we will probably be flying plane loads of sulphuric acid into the stratosphere in response to something which the general populace believes (or is made to believe) is because of global temperature rise.

De-Extinction

There is an effort by people to insert preserved dna from extinct species into the closest related species and thereby resurrect the species. While this sounds cool, it brings to my mind the following string of questions:

• To a living organism, does it matter if it is called a "banded pigeon" or a "passenger pigeon" by humans?
• Is there any value difference between a lion and a leopard, a rabbit and a squirrel, a hawk and a pigeon, a human and a hamster? There seems to be, but really, an owl is just as or more dumb than a mouse.
• Ecologically, it is a good thing, I suppose, but it is like someone painting a wall with fingernail polish while a dozen others smash it down with sledge hammers.

Worm Therapy

If ever you suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, asthma, ulcerative colitis, or Crohn's disease, please look into helminthic (worm) therapy. The logic is strong and the results are good; don't let the yuck factor ruin your chances of recovery.

www.helminthictherapy.com/

 

There is an epidemic of immune-mediated disease in highly-developed industrialized countries. Such diseases, like inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis and asthma increase in prevalence as populations adopt modern hygienic practices. These practices prevent exposure to parasitic worms (helminths). Epidemiologic studies suggest that people who carry helminths have less immune-mediated disease. Clinical trials show that exposure to helminths reduce disease activity in patients with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease. Patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) improve when exposed to whipworm.

 

Loss of natural helminth exposure removes a previously universal Th2 and regulatory immune biasing imparted by these organisms. Helminths alter host mucosal and systemic immunity, inhibiting dysregulated inflammatory responses.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17313951

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15687885
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15959781
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20054982

Dump Mining

I was wondering how long it will be before it becomes profitable to mine garbage dumps for things like rare earth minerals and copper?  Apparently is has already been done in some cases, needs to be done in other cases (old, leaky landfills), and could be done with others.

The concept of landfill mining was introduced as early as 1953 at the Hiriya landfill operated by the Dan Region Authority next to the city of Tel Aviv, Israel.[2] Waste contains many resources with high value, the most notable of which are non-ferrous metals such as aluminium cans and scrap metal. The concentration of aluminium in many landfills is higher than the concentration of aluminum in bauxite from which the metal is derived.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill_mining

Zombie Crossing

19 year old Franz Schopenhauer of Jacksonville, Florida was sentenced today to five years of federal imprisonment for hacking into a construction sign on Hwy 17 and displaying the message, "Caution: Zombie crossing ahead". While departing the courtroom, he was heard to proclaim, " If you want a safe compass to guide you through life, and to banish all doubt as to the right way of looking at it, you cannot do better than accustom yourself to regard this world as a penitentiary!"

Meaningless Entertainment

Is meaningless entertainment meaningless and oxymoronic?

Is entertainment meaningless? Not if it is entertaining - otherwise it would evoke no feeling or emotion, and would therefore go unnoticed. Is all entertainment the same? No. Entertainment that increases one's ability to be entertained rather than dulling the senses like a drug that requires higher and higher doses seems, in my way of thinking, to be a superior form of entertainment. A fine wine, for instance, is crap - you are thereafter unable to enjoy "lesser" wines. Fine literature, on the other hand, is more complicated: it can make you more appreciative of everyday life, and it can make you reject more poorly written works.

I believe Steven Pinker said something along the lines that music is cheesecake for the ears - extremely satisfying to certain senses that did not evolve for enjoying cheesecake. From an ignorant perspective, I am inclined to disagree with Pinker, thinking that heartbeats, walking
footfalls, and the universality of music in other cultures is a little too convincing to disregard so easily. I also believe music is sexy - a dynamic of sexual selection, like birds singing; it is an indication of reproductive fitness.

Sounds of Falling Trees

We are not alone in the universe! Radio astronomers have detected faint signals of intelligence from a star system 3000 light years away. This civilization was emitting radio signals at least 3000 years ago. Our signals will not reach them for another 2900 years.


Ok, what now? Has anything changed? Well, yes - we went from thinking there was a probability to being told by experts that it is a certainty.


Unfortunately, this is a fiction - as far as I know, we haven't detected any signals of intelligent origin, and we probably won't. Why not? Because the universe it very old, we haven't heard anything yet, there is no reason intelligence on other planets should develop anywhere close to our timeline, and there is no reason for intelligence to develop.


Why is there no reason for intelligence to develop? Because it is about as accidentally meaningless as peacock feathers. Intelligence is little more than a fitness display that got caught up in a process of runaway sexual selection. Oops, boom, brains develop to the point that birth is dangerous, metabolism is heavily taxed, and the kludge design is constantly breaking down.

All of this, I am just parroting from others. My question, in the end, boils down to why so many secular people seem to believe intelligence is an end-goal of the evolution of the universe. It seems a bit self-aggrandizing to me, but then again, what is reality without consciousness? And what is consciousness without intelligence?  The idea behind these questions has been around for a while: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

But the end-goal question... 

1000 x 1000

It should be obvious, but while zeros written on the end of a number look linear in print, it is a logarithmic increase in the value of the number.

The difference between 100 and 1000 is much less than the difference between 1,000 and 10,000.  

When numbers start getting large, I, for one, struggle to keep in mind that a million is a 1000 a thousand times.

betterexplained.com

Unified, there is only one top

It is fairly common for people to speak highly of a future where all countries are unified such as the European Union. But what of the adage of not keeping all your eggs in one basket? What if everyone thought the same,
went to the same schools, aspired to the same professions, and watched the same movies? Not only would this be boring, it would also dangerous and hopeless. It would be boring because of the monotony, but dangerous because any systemic weakness or shock would affect the entire system and hopeless because... how many winners can there be in a playing field of 7 billion? 

Some friends and I rode mountain bikes and, once a year, participated in a 24-hour relay race. (This is great fun if you enjoy exhausting yourself with four or five one hour bursts of hard riding separated by four hours of rest.) However, because it is a popular race with thousands of contestants, we would finish in the middle of the pack. Someone suggested that we form a Clydesdale division (average weight over 200 lbs) and suddenly we won (our
division) three years in a row. Similarly, how many writers, artists, musicians, or brand names could rise to the top if there is only one unified top?

Mathematical Filter

Why is the universe the way it is? 

Isn't it amazing that so many variables are precisely what they need to be to allow other variables to work? 

Well,imagine that there are an infinite numbers of universes, each with slightly different variables - which universes would exist? 

Simple answer: The ones where all the variables work out, like a giant math problem... If you wanted to sound funny, you could say Reality is mathematically filtered possibilities. 

Myth of Progress

Probably because I read Straw Dogs a couple of years ago, the idea of the Myth of Progress was probably already in my head, but I was surprised to find that John Gray has a new book out that directly addresses this idea. 

Notes from reviews of The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths
by John Gray

• The chief tenet of the Enlightenment is that the growth of knowledge is the key to human emancipation.
• Modern societies ... abound in new, short-lived religions, "flickering and fading", as J G Ballard has put it, "like off-peak commercials".
• We can't renounce technology, and the idea that we can is just hubris in another guise. 
• There is no power in the world that can ensure that technology is used only for benign purposes. Partly this is because we cannot agree on what such purposes are. Partly it is because even when enough people are agreed there is no power that can enforce the consensus.
• "Human uniqueness is a myth inherited from religion, which humanists have recycled into science."
• "The power of myth," Gray writes, "is in making meaning from the wreckage of meaning."
• As Gray insists, we are going precisely nowhere – and a good thing, too. The world is not a teleology, there is no grand end in view, just round the next revolutionary corner, just over the next mound of heaped-up corpses.

*

Straw Dogs is one of my favourite books, but I must admit, this review from the Guardian is not far from the truth:

His book is so remorselessly, monotonously negative that even nihilism implies too much hope.