Most nonhuman life is much less affected by the tragedy of the commons if it doesn't have humans to deal with. It balances itself out, and most nonhuman life protects its environment for thousands of generations into the future to ensure its survival. Humans, with their useless, nonthinking but ever scheming big brains, are much more like yeast in a barrel of grape juice or bacteria in a petri dish, or even an AIDS virus that kills its host. Humans destroy their environment as fast as they possibly can and they use resources as fast as they possibly can. That's thought to be programmed in genetically for short term survival. When resources, i.e., food, was scarce when we were little hominids, it was evolutionarily in our best interests to eat whatever we found as fast as possible and as much as possible. That's the reason given for the 20 minute lag between feeling full and feeling not hungry, so we could keep gobbling. So now when we see oil or water or top soil or granite countertops, we're programmed to gobble them up as fast as possible. Unfortunately, when you have 6.7 billion people gobbling a mile a minute, counterproductive is an understatement. Well, maybe half that many gobble a mile a minute; the other half live in abject poverty. Human ability to breed exponentially is another sore spot. It results in exponential depletion of resources while returning nothing to the environment except exponential pollution. I'm not kidding about the big brain being useful for designing weapons. It made us good hunters, gave us dominion, until now, among other things, we've fished away 90% of all the big fish in the oceans, and on and on. Those are just statements of fact. --- On Tue, 8/12/08, David Wright <wright@xxxxxxxx> wrote: From: David Wright <wright@xxxxxxxx> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: on the home front To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 1:46 PM Irene: Evolutionarily speaking I would think if being able to afford a big car ensured the best genes [...] So the evolutionary explanation doesn't satisfy. If so, what's the point of the cerebral cortex? To design better weapons... The effects of an uber-large cerebral cortex may not satisfy our ethical image of what it should, even could, produce psycho-socially. The survival of a trait is concerned exclusively with the survival of the genome. The tragedy, like that of the commons, is that all indications point to it being the font of our ultimate destruction. Perhaps if we were 'designed' to be more introspective, compelled to seek harmonious communities... lamenting the opposable thumb for the bonobos had it right all along, d. ----- Original Message ----- From: Andy To: "lit-ideas" Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: on the home front Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:27:18 -0700 (PDT) Be fruitful and multiply says the bible, so sex was on everybody's mind for a long time. Likewise the selfish gene's primary purpose is reproducing itself. But procreation isn't the point of sex nowadays, at least not in the markets expensive cars are aimed at. Is sex more public? I'm not sure that even that's the issue. In 'primitive' societies (and we're pretty primitive, we just like to think we're not, hence the quotes) sex is out in the open. Sex is a part of life, no doubt, but animals don't obsess about it. They don't even care about it. They reproduce, they raise their young, they're done. So what's going on? Does obsessing about sex as opposed to just passing along one's genes distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom? If so, what's the point of the cerebral cortex? To design better weapons and ad campaigns for cars, which of course they use sex to sell? Personally, I think humans are basically so tranced out after millennia of wars and bad child rearing and who knows what all, that they're in pain, and the pleasure chemicals in the brain are basically an endogenous mood altering drug. And it takes ever more stimulation to get the same high and so it keeps spiraling upward. In the meantime, the cognitive part of the brain is less and less used. It's too bad that if humanity has to obsess about something it doesn't obsess about improving collective life in some way instead of just distracting itself in what is ultimately a downward spiral. Money BTW is in the same category as sex. It's just another obsession. --- On Sun, 8/10/08, David Wright <wright@xxxxxxxx> wrote: Is the obsession escalating, or is it simply becoming more public? -- Be Yourself @ mail.com! Choose From 200+ Email Addresses Get a Free Account at www.mail.com!