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Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

#77: Dec. - Jan. 2010 (Non-Fiction)
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Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

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Please use this thread for discussing Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash.
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Re: Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

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What’s repurposing?
Hail,

I’m commenting on Howard’s second chapter here, and to do so I’ve begun re-reading this chapter. I got as far as the first sentence, which is a question.

When I read this the first time, it was as if the author spoke to me personally, like a friend who is sympathetic.

I happened to have recently undergone a significant personal boom and bust, and I had to repurpose. I know the answer to the question, and I know it intimately.

__________ Wed Jan 06, 2010 10:18 am __________

What is repurposing?

What is the purpose?
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Re: Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

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I sort of see in this book that he is often times talking about a cycle of life: birth, death, shortage, abundance. I think that this is a reality in nature and I can completely see that. I think that he is doing a little too much anthropomorphizing, however. For example, I would like to see some evidence that bees feel or have the same type of social interactions that human do. Bloom says:

"Think of how you feel when you show up at home with what you think is a hot piece of gossip and your mate listens to your first sentence, then turns his back on you. At the very least it depresses you. It does the same damned thing to a bee".

I don't believe that is true. I think that human social interactions and emotional reactions are pretty unique. From what I understand of ants, they are pretty rote. They just do what they do, instinctively. I would assume it would be the same with bees. It would be hard to see a bee pouting or suffering from a bout of depression because the unloaders stop needing water. I think this is a stretch.

I think that it is pretty hard to say that any form of economic or political structure is ordained by nature. As a friend of mine says, these structures are purely human. While humanity is definitely a part of nature we are a pretty unique part of nature. I think that Bloom is a very smart guy though. I am kind of waiting to see if he adds something to his argument.
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Re: Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

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I don't believe that is true.
seespotrun2008,

Thanks for the perspective, and I don't believe that the viewpoint is literally accurate. To say that bee's feel or that bee's can believe, on a level equal to human feelings and beliefs, is over the top. The elementary building blocks of feelings and beliefs may be what was on the mind of the author - the baby steps.

A political structure, where the species members falsify communications for gain, at the expense of their rivals (or targets), may be purely human, as your friend says, I can believe that, but that brings into my view a question. Is politics (the lying part) a species killer, a destructive mutation, or is there some other species sustaining purpose?
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Re: Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

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Thanks for the perspective, and I don't believe that the viewpoint is literally accurate. To say that bee's feel or that bee's can believe, on a level equal to human feelings and beliefs, is over the top. The elementary building blocks of feelings and beliefs may be what was on the mind of the author - the baby steps.
That could be. Maybe I need things more clearly spelled out. He is often asking us to think of how we would feel when it comes to the relationships between other species in nature. I take issue with that. I think that because our relationships and reactions are very unique, it is a stretch to ask us to think of our own reactions in reference to another species. Not that we are superior in any way, or that there is some hierarchy where we are on top, but we are very different.
A political structure, where the species members falsify communications for gain, at the expense of their rivals (or targets), may be purely human, as your friend says, I can believe that, but that brings into my view a question. Is politics (the lying part) a species killer, a destructive mutation, or is there some other species sustaining purpose?
I don’t necessarily think that political structures where manipulation is used for gain is unique to humans. Dawkins talks about manipulation between creatures in The Extended Phenotype. And animals definitely have political issues going on. Living with three cats has taught me that. :) I think that each species has complexities and limitations that are unique to its own, however. I think that when I read about some of these things that he is talking about (like the bee and rejection) I am going to automatically feel those things because that is how I react as a human. Asking me to think of a bee feeling that same thing (which Bloom clearly does) is asking me to think something that is not necessarily accurate, like you said. I think I like Dawkins because he is very much a scientist and he takes each species as its own unique entity while looking at similarities. I also feel that Dawkins is obviously trying to be objective. I expect more of that when reading about science. I don’t think that is what Bloom is doing. That's fine. It is just an observation on my part.
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Re: Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

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So many books, so little time...

I loved reading The Genius of the Beast, and this chapter was one of my favourites. I feel there is a contradiction within SeeSpotRun’s comments that humans are unique but not superior.

Language and global civilization definitely indicate a human superiority to all other animals, indicated in intelligence tests where even dolphins and whales rank as fairly stupid by human standards. However, this difference has been exaggerated and manipulated historically into one of kind rather than degree. Descartes said animals are machines, and the church said animals do not have souls. These attitudes have led to blind and cruel exploitation of animals. It seems bees may be reacting to being used as machines through their colony collapse disorder. Bloom shows the continuity between human and animal emotion, showing that even cells and bacteria provide a good model of the search and consolidate model of economic boom and crash.

This chapter inspired me to suggest Hive of BeeCraft as a computer game on the model of World of WarCraft, so that a person could actually take the real simulated perspective of a bee, flying around its environment and interacting with other bees in the hive, modelled on actual nature. People commented to me that this would be dull and boring, but that just illustrates their ignorant anthropocentric prejudices and assumptions. The way Howard Bloom describes a day in the life of a bee shows that emotion is a real driver of behaviour. The sense of rejection at failing to deliver and the highly evolved structures of the gatekeepers and the dance floor jive at the hive indicate that bee psychology is far more complex than people assume. There is a tendency (from Descartes and the Bible) to assume that animals are machines, but when we look scientifically at animal behaviour we find that there are very many similarities with human attitudes, showing strong instinctive continuity between all life.
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Re: Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

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I don’t necessarily think that political structures where manipulation is used for gain is unique to humans.


seespotrun2008.

My offering had to do with deceit, where the individual member of the species is employing deceit so as to gain at the expense of another individual member of the species.

To take the Bee species analogy: it would be like dancing the dance that sends other Bee’s on a wild goose chase at a rival colony, so as to reduce the power of that colony in surviving, and then dance the right dance at the home colony so Bee’s at the home colony are sent to where the actual food is.

My viewpoint tends to identify deceit as a particularly destructive, even species killing, adaptation in the march of life toward wherever it is going.

I’m remember a part in the book (perhaps not in this specific chapter) where some species of birds are known to kill off wounded individuals of their group. The presumption is that that adaptation is to avoid the possible group’s loss of power in the wasted effort to keep a dying individual alive – rather than spend scarce power on keeping living individuals alive and reproducing.

I offered my version of your version here:
I think that it is pretty hard to say that any form of economic or political structure is ordained by nature. As a friend of mine says, these structures are purely human.
I do not distinguish between politics and economy much; they are one and the same thing, along the lines of deceit and violence being one and the same thing, joined at the hip as told by Solzhenitsyn in his Nobel Lecture. Political/Economy so long as two human beings are involved into a group, connected by some link, where power is transferred between them is the connection between two human beings - a power struggle.

I don’t expect anyone else to see things my way; hence my fondness for honest, or accurate, communication/discussion; I can be shown to be in error, or supported when not in error.

If you offer a perspective that suggests that something is unique to the human species, then my reply is to suggest that an accurately identifiable unique trait may be the employment of deceit as a means by which individual members of the species gain power from other individual members of the species. Are there more unique traits? Is deceit equal to politics and economy is equal to accurate connections between invividuals without the deciet (or violence) during division of labor, specialization, etc.?

Suppose the bird example can play out this way:

Birds A,B, and C (three birds witnessing the accident that wounded bird D) decide not to attack and kill off the wounded bird after choosing not to help it, not to bring it food, not to cover it with sticks and insulating stuff, etc. – but they don’t do anything for the wounded bird whatsoever.

These birds don’t waste any time or effort either helping or further injuring the wounded bird - directly.

Birds A,B, and C, return to the group area and communicate to the other birds a false message concerning the still living wounded bird, they create a deception, they say that the wounded bird is dead, therefore no one else is inclined to help a dead bird.

One close relative of the bird may ask to see the dead bird, waste more time and effort on some strange new adaptation of homage paid to the dead bird, so the false story goes on to report that the dead bird was swallowed up by a whale - disappeared.

If the offering is to suggest that humans are unique in political economy then I’m going to turn that suggestion around to focus attention on precisely what is unique – if possible.

I’m specifically concerned about behavior whereby one individual member of the species employs deceit (or violence) to gain at the expense of other individual members of the species since to me that would be a species killing adaptation – taken to its logical conclusion. What would be the point of such an adaptation from a species perspective?

That harkens me back to the question concerning randomness, where life is random or life is something more than random, not accident, life is a process, a force, a quantity, and life has a purpose, that which is to be alive, to perpetuate, to survive, to reproduce, to continue.

If life were strictly random, it seems to me, it would be very difficult to explain perception, or anything else for that matter.

What is, for example, the perception that we call by the name “random”?

Is it an observable occurrence whereby the matter being observed is void of purpose? The matter being observed is not seeking anything, yet is moves?

Doesn’t gravity exist in all matter – or most of it? Is that not a purpose? What happens when lots and lots of matter are attracted into one group?

Here is where I restate an earlier observation: reading Bloom’s work is like having a queen handed to me by a teammate playing 3 way chess. I may waste the bounty, because the timer is clicking.

__________ Sat Jan 09, 2010 5:45 pm __________
Language and global civilization definitely indicate a human superiority to all other animals, indicated in intelligence tests where even dolphins and whales rank as fairly stupid by human standards.
Robert,

If you are not set against reading science fiction, and you have not yet read Orson Scott Cards Ender series, I suggest that you give it a try. The idea there was, among other things, to illustrate the extreme difference between human life restricted to the life span of one planet and human life expanded beyond the life span of one planet.

Dolphins are further away from reproducing on other planets compared to Humans, and by that measure, it seems to me, the word “superiority” is precisely quantified. If all species on earth die with earth’s capacity to support life, then by that measure all species are precisely equal.
There is a tendency (from Descartes and the Bible) to assume that animals are machines, but when we look scientifically at animal behaviour we find that there are very many similarities with human attitudes, showing strong instinctive continuity between all life.
What is the quality of life, the exact thing, which discriminates machine type animals from non-machine type animals? Where is that dividing point? I’m curious. Once that thing is identified, what is its purpose?
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Re: Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

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Sorry it took so long to respond to this. I broke my ankle and have not felt like doing a whole lot outside of work. I am feeling a ton better though. So I finally am getting a chance to respond to these comments.
I feel there is a contradiction within SeeSpotRun’s comments that humans are unique but not superior.

I disagree. You would not say a mammal and a reptile are the same. All life has some similarities but different creatures have different characteristics. I know that amongst human beings difference has generally meant inferior vs. superior. It does not have to mean that but it generally does. I am not sure why this is or if it can ever be different.

The problem that I have, though, with his writing about the bees is that he is asking the reader, with human reactions and thought processes, to place all of those things onto a bee. Since we do not ultimately know what that bee is thinking or feeling it is presumptuous to assume that the scenario that he suggests is what is actually taking place. He is also asking us to relate to the bee in the scenario the way that he is interpreting the scenario. He is asking us to assume that because he interpreted bee behavior in the way that he did, and because we can relate to how WE would feel in a similar situation….therefore bees are just one link in the chain that proves that capitalism is built into biology.

Throughout this book I have noticed that he puts his own values and assumptions onto culture, history, religion, and science. Many of his arguments are pretty surface. He does not go very deep into any of these subjects or observe or try to understand outside of his limited worldview. I do like his positivity and his ability to see the glass half full instead of half empty. From what I have been reading though it seems that he has an agenda and he is going to prove that agenda no matter what. Maybe we all do that but I feel that the goal of scholarship should be to try to understand and work to overcome assumptions. Not that it is ever possible to completely let go of assumptions, but it should be the goal. But maybe that is my own bias.
I do not distinguish between politics and economy much
But they are not really the same. They are at times intimately connected but I think that you can have politics without economics but not economics without politics. In fact I don’t think that you can really have any human endeavor without politics (unfortunately :) ). Like you said, a power struggle.
I’m specifically concerned about behavior whereby one individual member of the species employs deceit (or violence) to gain at the expense of other individual members of the species since to me that would be a species killing adaptation – taken to its logical conclusion. What would be the point of such an adaptation from a species perspective?
Good question. I am not really sure. Why are some species very territorial? We are very territorial. How does that benefit various species?
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Re: Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

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But they are not really the same.
seespotrun2008,

Of course they are not the same exact thing; but they are one and the same thing as a category of human behavior – deceit and violence like this:

Human Behavior

Or this:

Crime

I’m going to quote from Solzhenitsyn; to help convey the point being offered to you (since you appear to be disagreeing with something as yet misunderstood – by me):

nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/ ... cture.html
We shall be told: what can literature possibly do against the ruthless onslaught of open violence? But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE. At its birth violence acts openly and even with pride. But no sooner does it become strong, firmly established, than it senses the rarefaction of the air around it and it cannot continue to exist without descending into a fog of lies, clothing them in sweet talk. It does not always, not necessarily, openly throttle the throat, more often it demands from its subjects only an oath of allegiance to falsehood, only complicity in falsehood.

Here is my version (intending to convey a very similar viewpoint – if not the same exact viewpoint):
I do not distinguish between politics and economy much
For me to bridge the gap between the two separate things (Solzhenitsyn’s viewpoint and my viewpoint expressed with different written words) I’d need cooperation from you, not contention.
They are at times intimately connected but I think that you can have politics without economics but not economics without politics.
To my way of measuring reality the above is not true. It does not measure up. How can politics be defined so that politics can afford to proceed without economy – and visa versa?

From my view the phenomenon that is labeled as “politics” is a phenomenon that exists in the psychological realm of human reality – rocks and trees are not involved in politics; while economy is a phenomenon that involves physical reality – as perceived by human beings with their psychological perspectives – again rocks and trees are not involved in economy, as such.

The natural growth of a species of tree can be said (by a human being employing a human brain) to be an example of natural economy. The actual objective measure of the process of tree species life is either complete down to measuring exactly everything that occurs in the physical world, or some bias concerning what is assumed to be left unmeasured is chosen by the measurer who employs the measuring devices.

Perhaps the focus is on the linking mechanism between politics/deceit and economy/violence, or even the linking mechanism between assumption and bias.

What connects the two separate things into one thing?

I find this to be a very interesting point to ponder since your words (to me) appear to link “bias” and “assumption” into one thing.

Here:
Not that it is ever possible to completely let go of assumptions, but it should be the goal. But maybe that is my own bias.
Could that sentence mean the same thing (do you mean the same thing) if it were written as such:

Not that it is ever possible to completely let go of bias, but it should be the goal. But maybe that is my own assumption.

What connects the two?

What connects us two?

An assumption, it seems to me, could be someone, anyone, in time and space where a decision must be made, even if the decision is to avoid making a decision, then time moves on and certainly the space occupied by the person doing the assuming is measurably different (displacement).

That last paragraph may appear to be mystical; I have this ongoing perception of velocity working, so please entertain this side note for a moment.

If matter has been accelerating since the event known as the Big Bang, then human beings are now traveling very fast, unimaginably fast, and so the viewpoint of that velocity goes to an extreme by default – something along the lines of contemplating eternity. If, for example, a person were to stop traveling, while every other person kept going (at the present velocity, plus the rate of acceleration), how much distance would separate the one from the others in one second?

The answer is unimaginable; not quite like contemplating the national debt.
Good question. I am not really sure. Why are some species very territorial? We are very territorial. How does that benefit various species?
My question (good question) tends to produce data that measures criminal brains and compares criminal brains to non-criminal brains, such as the work done by Fromm in his book titled: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.

To suggest that my question is relative to life forms that are “very territorial” is to miss the point (it seems to me). I can go on and on with that explanation (from my viewpoint) and I’ll borrow from Solzhenitsyn in doing so, if that path is aggreable.

Here is my question (good question) again:

I’m specifically concerned about behavior whereby one individual member of the species employs deceit (or violence) to gain at the expense of other individual members of the species since to me that would be a species killing adaptation – taken to its logical conclusion. What would be the point of such an adaptation from a species perspective?

Some human brains have mutated, or so the measure goes, to be missing parts that are associated with specific brain functions common to thoughts and behavior that are said to be empathetic.

I’ll try to post this and see what happens, my computer failed to publish a previous response.
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Re: Ch. 2 (II): The Birds and the Bees of Boom and Crash

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nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/ ... cture.html
I like this essay. Very poetic.

So are you saying that politics and economy always involve some sort of violence or deceit?
From my view the phenomenon that is labeled as “politics” is a phenomenon that exists in the psychological realm of human reality – rocks and trees are not involved in politics; while economy is a phenomenon that involves physical reality – as perceived by human beings with their psychological perspectives – again rocks and trees are not involved in economy, as such.
So let me repeat in my own words what you said here, so that I am making sure that I do not misunderstand. You are defining “politics” as the psychology coming from inside the person and economy is a human beings relation to physical things outside of him or herself. Which you could technically say is a person's psychology to an outside stimulous. Is that correct?
Quote:
Not that it is ever possible to completely let go of assumptions, but it should be the goal. But maybe that is my own bias.



Could that sentence mean the same thing (do you mean the same thing) if it were written as such:

Not that it is ever possible to completely let go of bias, but it should be the goal. But maybe that is my own assumption.
I think that it does mean the same thing. I would agree with your quote here:
An assumption, it seems to me, could be someone, anyone, in time and space where a decision must be made, even if the decision is to avoid making a decision, then time moves on and certainly the space occupied by the person doing the assuming is measurably different (displacement).
An assumption is a decision, whether conscious or unconscious, to see the world a certain way. Here is the definition of assumption according to dictionary.com
1.
to take for granted or without proof; suppose; postulate; posit: to assume that everyone wants peace.

Here is the definition of bias:
a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.
What connects the two?
They are both an unexamined way of seeing the world. Scholarship is about examining those decisions; it is about bringing assumption or bias to the conscious mind and unraveling them.
What connects us two?
Probably booktalk. :D
My question (good question) tends to produce data that measures criminal brains and compares criminal brains to non-criminal brains, such as the work done by Fromm in his book titled: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.

To suggest that my question is relative to life forms that are “very territorial” is to miss the point (it seems to me). I can go on and on with that explanation (from my viewpoint) and I’ll borrow from Solzhenitsyn in doing so, if that path is aggreable.
Interesting. I have not read this book so I do not know what Fromm means by criminal vs. non-criminal. What makes someone a criminal? Are criminals only the people whose behavior is considered immoral by the rest of society? Which society? And people do not always consider violence criminal. Soldiers are not seen as criminals. Police who shoot someone in the line of duty are often not considered criminal. In many parts of the world and sometimes in our own culture violence against women is not seen as criminal.

I argue that in most if not all cases of violence there is some form of claiming territory. War is claiming territory over resources and over the bodies of the people in the culture you are claiming. Rape and murder is claiming territory over another person's body. Even in self defense your brain has decided that your life is more valuable than the life who is threatening yours.
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