That's what I read as the explanation for the 20 minutes. The stomach probably won't hold much more than what could be stuffed into it for 20 minutes. Also, I'm not sure about the richest, etc. I forget what Jared Diamond calls it, but it's the condition where in a collapse of civilization, such as with the Maya, the royalty are sheltered until the end. All that means is they're the last to starve to death. What's the point of survival at all costs anyway? Would you want to live in a Road Warrior type world? --- On Tue, 8/12/08, Paul Stone <pastone@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: From: Paul Stone <pastone@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: on the home front To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 3:06 PM Andy: 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. But only for another 20 minutes. Did you REALLY mean to say "that's the reason"? > 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. Maybe that's just our way of 'balancing things out'. It's really the only way we are going to 'solve' the problem -- by accident of birth. Lots and lots of people are going to die and there will be a few left. But it certainly won't be the meek who inherit the earth. It'll be the biggest, richest, most resourceful, meanest, shrewdest. Maybe that's the way it is supposed to be. Who knows. But when you think about it, "Charity" is exacerbating the problem. feeling uncharitable, p ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html