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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (205381)	10/8/2006 9:15:39 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

You might find this of interest... www3.nationalgeographic.com jttmab

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (205381)	10/8/2006 2:14:06 PM
From: GPS Info	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Before I start, I want to correct my 70,000-year estimate to 60,000 years after reading jttmab’s website reference. hssn involves a LOT more than just intelligence. It's a personality issue too - amygdala and other functions… the cooperation genes obviously matter if cooperation is a key function. The amygdala provides an absolutely critical survival skill: it applies an emotional “tag” to specific memories. This is why we wince when we remember a particularly bad episode in our lives; there is an emotional “penalty” when we make a decision with a bad outcome. For example, if while hunting one of the members is killed because he too close to the target and didn’t have the support of the other tribal members, the survivors will (if they care about the loss) generate an “emotional tag” so that they’ll more easily remember not to make the same mistake themselves, or allow the younger and more inexperienced hunters to make the same mistake. In my mind, this is why military training uses high emotions along with rote physical mechanics - to make soldiers reactive to situations before they get into trouble. When soldiers “fall back on their training,” this actually means collapsing their reactions around the “tags” created by the amygdala during their training. Another critical aspect of military training is creating an esprit de corps. This is cooperation at a much higher level. From at least WWII and maybe a decade before, the military has understood that in the heat of battle, men do not fight for “freedom,” or “nationalism,” or “the greater good,” but instead fight for their friends who battle along side them. I’ve heard some men who have been awarded with the Medal of Honor say that they didn’t think they did anything particularly heroic; they were just trying to protect their friends from the enemy. In a tribal system we naturally cooperate because otherwise we would get kicked out of the tribe and have a much lower chance of survival. An esprit de corps doesn’t guarantee survival in war, but it increases the probability of survival substantially. Keeping a cohesive structure in tribal or advanced societies improves the probability that they can overcome the hardships that are associated with this planet. In Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, he shows many societies that failed due to some factor within their control, but also due unforeseeable factors as well. The best we can do is to improve the odds in our favor. The same gene-based need to cooperate in a tribal system also allows us to be “more like nodes in a web” as you say. We’re individual neurons firing messages back and forth within the world’s cyber-intelligence, hopefully not developing net-epileptic fits along the way. (Yes, it’s your word.) But we don't need to seek out famous "leaders" such as Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi and the Dalai Lama and we don't need their mystical muck. …their very "leadership" [and] their priestly ways…soon turns into autocratic priestly dominance hierarchy. I disagree: I think they speak directly to your point about cooperation and to the pointlessness of violence. The fact that these ideas were appropriated by societal/religious hierarchies does not preclude their value in a discussion of our violent and cooperative tendencies. I could spend all day on this, but to be succinct: Christ’s message is to be cooperative, and its highest form is unconditional love; don’t be greedy: know when you have “enough;” don’t be violent: try to find a peace with your enemies. If you’re interested, William Durand discusses the hierarchical changes to the Christian faith in his History of Civilization. A more complex topic to throw into the mix is the sex drive embedded in our DNA and dialed up or down with testosterone or estrogen. Talk about of the heat of battle. How well do our cerebral cortexes function during moments of procreation? What was I talking about…? Oh yes, the Mongols. As their empire expanded into Tibet, they threaten the monks with death, but the monk were not the least be afraid of being beheaded. The Mongols were shocked by this and asked why the monks didn’t fear for their lives. They offered to teach the Mongols the concepts of Buddhism in exchange for being spared, and the Mongols agreed. The violent nature of the Mongol conquest of Asia and parts of Europe must have spread over a large area via DNA replication processes, very probably without the consent of the mothers. What’s your guess about how much DNA diversified during times of war versus the same interval of peace, going back the last 1,500 years? I saw your reference about IQs and GDP so that one could determine which counties have higher IQs. I have a question: If we completely cut Japan off from all external resources, such as oil and raw materials for a period of 50 years, will they increase their IQs in this study or decrease them? Do you think they could maintain their university system and R&D capabilities and still be competitive after the 50-year period?