Friday, November 15, 2013

Behavioral Sink Behavior And Thermodynamics

You can't eliminate behavioral sink behavior unless you eliminate behavior sinks.

That means for one drug "addiction".

Addiction in a behavioral sink

The abortion/gestation question comes to mind.

Many [female rats] were unable to carry pregnancy to full term or to survive delivery of their litters if they did. An even greater number, after successfully giving birth, fell short in their maternal functions. Among the males the behavior disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to cannibalism and from frenetic overactivity to a pathological withdrawal from which individuals would emerge to eat, drink and move about only when other members of the community were asleep. The social organization of the animals showed equal disruption. [...]

Behavioral Sink
It is more than obvious that the two parties represent the two ends of the spectrum and you are not going to eliminate the behavioral sink party until you eliminate behavioral sinks. And efforts to change behavior by politics are for the most part useless. And I might add counterproductive.

The party that claims to be so in touch with natural law is for the most part ignorant of it.

Here is an article that discusses the issue from a thermodynamic viewpoint.

The Red And The Blue
What is my conclusion relative to politics? Both political parties are right about the proper way to live. In their ecological niches.

A look at the Weimar Republic:
What people leave out of the Weimar experience and IMO its foundation is the lack of men – killed in the war. We are doing something similar with our divorce laws. And our drug war on the Black Community.

And the 60s? Similar. Look up the M/F ratios.

When there are not enough men you get loose women. Culture dives when the M/F ratio is out of whack.

The Weimar Experience
If only the two parties had some understanding of each other politics might not be quite so rancorous.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Update: More discussion at Talk-Polywell

1 comment:

Badpainter said...

Some thoughts from Badpainter

The future and robots.

Possible outlier incidents like alien invasion, or the return of the Messiah, aside history does seem to follow a cyclical path that generally fits the thesis->antithesis->synthesis model. European history has an approximate 100 year cycle characterized by a 30 year war occurring in the first half of the century. Usually the war begins in 14th-18th year of the century. The war has three distinct acts: inconclusive opening conflict, intermission, and final conflict. The alignment of major opposing forces is largely unchanged in the two conflict stages, minor payers may switch sides. 

The remainder of the century is a consolidation of the wars outcome with new world order that becomes the new thesis which begins to break down at the end of the century. The first 14-18 years of the next century sorts out the alignment of the players for the next war and defines the antithesis. 

If I am correct we are in the period just prior to the next 30 year war. 

The weakness of the EU is becoming more apparent, and the proles are restless. The synthesis of the last century was to downplay nationalism and substitute a common politcal philosophy of social democracy. More importantly the management of the balance of power in Europe was taken over by the USA and the USSR who represented the two opposing ideologies that remained after the war. 

With the end of the USSR, and the slow withdrawal of the USA from European politics nationalism is coming back. First in the eastern former Warsaw Pact nations that were no longer subject to the unifying force of Soviet hegemony, and now in Western Europe where despite the intent of the EU it is clear the powers in Brussels intend to displace and dismantle European culture and national identity by diluting it with culturally antagonistic immigrants. 

So far this has resulted in occasional loud but powerless demagogues like Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands, the BNP in the UK, various neo-Nazis in Eastern Germany, and the Le Pins in France. What we see today is rise of grass roots nationalism in Germany of all places. The recent anti-Muslim protests and the slogan "Wir sind die Volk!" along with polling that indicates a majority of Germans support the idea of abandoning the EU's open border experiment spells potentially the end of the EU. The return of nationalism may not set the Germans and French to warring but it might set Northern Europe against Southern Europe, or all Europe vs. Russia, or against the Islamic world. Given the tenuous economic health of continent and the burden of the welfare states I could even see the France vs. Germany alignment reemerging. 

In short I expect a 30 war soon if my my reading of history has any predictive value. If nothing happens by 2025 then maybe a bullet has been dodged. 

Even if I'm wrong about that I don't see robots replacing the bulk of serious human labor in my lifetime. The economics just don't work at scale. When labor becomes so devalued by automation the price of humans becomes competitive again. As well the regulatory cost (taxes) coupled with the destruction of the consumer markets  (unemployment by automation) will reduce demand, and ultimately profits in aggregate. Unless the new tech creates decent wage jobs in addition to lower cost consumer goods there is little incentive to automate to that degree. 

Of course if we could restore marriage , get the women back to barefoot, and pregnant with decent cooking skills most of those problems go away by reducing the labor supply and by reducing the need to outsource domestic services. I know it's a crazy thought, but I am an idealistic dreamer.