#2401  
Old 07-01-2018, 07:52 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

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Originally Posted by Kevlar View Post
I hate to admit it, but I have a history of reading Yahoo News, and usually for the comments. Over the years I have noticed a steady stream of professional trolls pretty much take over Yahoo. But compared to Twitter, Yahoo is fucking amateur hour. I'm amazed to watch these guys pop up on a fox news twit, zero followers, zero posts, then post something complete inane, and then they immediately get 100 likes and a thousand followers. A lot of the time, the English skills of the author are obviously wanting.
This is an interesting observation. Back around 2003-5 I'd go through the comments in Yahoo News with a guy in Norway. We'd be guessing at whether or not we were seeing sarcasm or hyperbole, of if we were seeing an actual crazy person. I suppose I could call them proto-Trumps now, but the overall 'ugly American' approach and attitude hasn't changed much.

Flash forward to today, the game has changed a bit. 'Deplorables' are as they've been but the game has been less of Is this person serious or sarcastic and more Is this a foreign agitator.

Also:
Watching bots switch over from automated mode to human operator once the bot starts getting replies to a post. (More grammatical errors.)
Watching a Deplorable start having a slow dawning realisation of horror at some bridge too far taken by the White House. (These people exist. Every last one of my American relatives fit this description. lolWisconsin)

As for satisfying trolling~




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  #2402  
Old 07-01-2018, 08:33 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

That 53%:

“Serena Joys, All of Them”: How The Handmaid’s Tale Gave Me Insight into the Mind of the Female Trump Voter

Watch for season 2 spoilers.
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  #2403  
Old 07-01-2018, 09:02 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump



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  #2404  
Old 07-01-2018, 10:11 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

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That 53%:
I don't think that's wrong, but I think they're missing the fact that a lot of women, especially socially conservative women, like the lowered expectations that come with benevolent sexism. (That's not just politically conservative women, just to be clear. A whole lot of progressives are very, very socially conservative, but the also politically conservative leaning ones are the ones who may have voted for Trump because of it.)

Don't underestimate how many women want to maintain their own status quo, including being sexualized and infantilized, for many of the same reasons people sometimes wish they could be kids again.
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  #2405  
Old 07-02-2018, 04:28 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

That Stuttering John guy who prank called the White House impersonating a Senator and got Trump to call him back? Secret Service wants to talk to him. He got himself a lawyer. Michael Avenatti.

Comedian who allegedly prank-called Trump says he has hired Michael Avenatti

Why did Jared Kushner connect him right away, and why did Trump call him right back? Add to the file of what the ever living fuck beside the Kennedy resignation and Deutsche Bank.
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  #2406  
Old 07-02-2018, 04:44 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

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Originally Posted by lisarea View Post
Quote:
That 53%:
I don't think that's wrong, but I think they're missing the fact that a lot of women, especially socially conservative women, like the lowered expectations that come with benevolent sexism. (That's not just politically conservative women, just to be clear. A whole lot of progressives are very, very socially conservative, but the also politically conservative leaning ones are the ones who may have voted for Trump because of it.)

Don't underestimate how many women want to maintain their own status quo, including being sexualized and infantilized, for many of the same reasons people sometimes wish they could be kids again.
I've been thinking about this all night off and on. (Bolding mine)

I'm thinking it all ties together with avoiding responsibility, 'don't make me think', and you said awhile ago the phenomenon of 'everything I don't understand is bullshit'. Am I on the right planet? How innocent is simple things like holding door? (Random thinking back to the most of the times it's treated as a normal civility and the once or twice I got yelled at for sexism. Maybe that belongs in the Gender 101 thrad.)

I'm thinking there might be something evolutionary in there to do with the conservation of effort/energy. If so, we really aren't that far removed from hunter-gatherers, are we?
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  #2407  
Old 07-02-2018, 06:43 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

Well, we didn't get nuked today, so that's good.
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  #2408  
Old 07-02-2018, 04:34 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

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Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann View Post
I'm thinking it all ties together with avoiding responsibility, 'don't make me think', and you said awhile ago the phenomenon of 'everything I don't understand is bullshit'. Am I on the right planet? How innocent is simple things like holding door? (Random thinking back to the most of the times it's treated as a normal civility and the once or twice I got yelled at for sexism. Maybe that belongs in the Gender 101 thrad.)
Yeah, I think it might. I don't 100% blame people who get caught up in it, because it's pretty pervasive. And it's not just women evading responsibility for being fully functioning adults, either. It's just that so much stuff gets unnecessarily gendered that a lot of kids grow up with very strictly gendered roles, and it affects their interactions and their abilities in ways they don't even realize. And a lot of them feel threatened by change, because it makes them feel like they're being left behind. There are tons of grown, seemingly functional adults who lack super-basic life skills just because they're so entrenched in their gender roles.

And worse even than skills, a lot of women have a whole lot of their self-worth invested in male approval. They actually feel validated by sexual harassment, like that lady saying she likes being groped. They just want to hang onto that status quo. They don't want to have to reevaluate that, and potentially lose what they think of as their status.

(And I have been yelled at for holding doors for men before, too. I've probably told this story before, but once, I was coming out of this thrift store, and saw a guy right behind me holding two big fragile looking glass vases, so I held up for just a minute to hold the door for him, and he got super mad and said he could do it himself.)

Quote:
I'm thinking there might be something evolutionary in there to do with the conservation of effort/energy. If so, we really aren't that far removed from hunter-gatherers, are we?
I hadn't thought of it like that, but that makes a lot of sense. It'd explain why people whose lives are too easy get so stupid, too. Like that aggrieved entitlement thing, where people get so used to having things just done for them that they think they're being wronged when something doesn't work out.
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  #2409  
Old 07-02-2018, 11:53 PM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

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Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
I'm thinking there might be something evolutionary in there to do with the conservation of effort/energy. If so, we really aren't that far removed from hunter-gatherers, are we?
There might be something to that.

I often hear people say truly ignorant things like, "The thing that separates humans from animals* is that only humans have a sense of morality and understand the concepts of fairness and justice." Bull.


For example, there have been many studies of non-human primates showing that many monkey and ape species have a well-developed and finely-honed sense of "fairness," and will punish any conspecific who seems to be hoarding food or otherwise being "unfair" in its behavior with respect to others.

This is highly species-specific, however. In highly social species where hierarchical behavior is the norm, it's typically the case that the dominant individuals will take the best food, the most desirable mates, etc. -- and this usually doesn't seem to engender a lot of "resentment," at least not overtly. Presumably, that's what's expected and is seen as "proper" behavior. [Though in these species, if a subordinate animal is caught "cheating" -- say, by taking some choice bit of food for itself -- it's likely to be harshly punished by its superior(s). Interestingly, other subordinate animals will often join in the punishment of a subordinate who "gets out of line" like this.]


But in social species that have less-obvious or apparently-nonexistent social hierarchies, individuals tend to become quite upset if any of them seems to be taking more than its fair share. As such, resources like food are generally shared within the group. For example, if one animal happens to find an abundant or high-quality food source, the typical response is to either gather as much as possible and then bring it back to the rest of the troop in order to share it; or to alert the other members of the troop, so that they can come and get their fair share. [That having been said, it's often observed that the one who comes across this food bonanza will take the choicest bits for itself, if (s)he isn't currently being watched by other animals.]



More to the point, perhaps, behavioral studies with captive monkeys and apes often show that if one individual consistently receives preferential treatment from its human minders, it tends to think of this as the "proper" way of things. If that individual stops receiving preferential treatment -- that is, it's not being treated unfairly; it's just no longer receiving preferential treatment -- it tends to become quite upset, and responds exactly as if it's being cheated.

This, of course, is especially likely to occur in species that generally live in hierarchical groups. Individuals that are used to getting the best stuff generally don't take it well if they suddenly find themselves being treated like any other member of the group.

Some researchers have claimed that this is especially true if the privilege was "unearned." What do I mean by that? Well, if the animal at the top of the dominance hierarchy is there because it earned its place by winning a fight, for example, then it generally seems to take it fairly well if eventually displaced by another animal that proves to be stronger, more clever, or whatever. [Jane Goodall has some amusing stories about how some chimpanzees win dominance contests not through brute force or fighting prowess -- but by clever use of their environments.] That's life.

But, if an animal is picked at random by its human minders and given preferential treatment, that animal tends to react quite poorly if that preferential treatment stops. In short, loss of earned privilege to a superior competitor doesn't seem to engender anywhere near as much outrage as does loss of unearned privilege.**



*Humans, of course, are animals; I get so tired of hearing people talking about humans as if we're somehow separate from and distinctly different from the rest of the Animal Kingdom.

**I should point out, again, that this sort of thing is highly species-specific. For example, how a Common Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) responds to a situation often differs quite remarkably from how a Pygmy Chimpanzee [Bonobo] (Pan paniscus) responds to the same situation. [Both species tend to be highly social, but Common Chimpanzees have far more prominent and rigidly-enforced social hierarchies than do Bonobos.]
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  #2410  
Old 07-03-2018, 12:47 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

Speaking of primate morality, there was a famous study done with Rhesus Monkeys some years ago. (Nowadays, this sort of study would likely be considered unethical.)


Okay, imagine a setup in which there are two monkeys, each in a separate cage -- but each can clearly see and hear the other. A container of food is placed such that each can easily reach through the bars of its cage and grab some. But, if a monkey reaches for some food, it receives a painful electric shock. Unsurprisingly, the monkeys quickly learn that trying to grab the food is a bad idea. Eventually, though, each monkey eventually gets hungry-enough that it will grab for some food. Apparently, it decides that the pain of receiving an electric shock is preferable to the pain of being hungry.

Nothing surprising there.


Now, flip things so that if Monkey A reaches for some food, Monkey B gets the painful electric shock. When this was done with Rhesus Monkeys, they quickly figured out that if one of them reached for some food, the other would get a painful shock.

So, what happened? Both monkeys sat in their cages and resolutely refused to reach for the food. They preferred going hungry to inflicting pain upon another monkey. [The researchers didn't continue the experiment long-enough to find out if the monkeys would starve themselves to death rather than inflict pain upon each other. Thankfully.]

I can't help but wonder how well most humans would do under such circumstances.
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  #2411  
Old 07-03-2018, 12:58 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

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I often hear people say truly ignorant things like, "The thing that separates humans from animals* is that only humans have a sense of morality and understand the concepts of fairness and justice." Bull.
Sometimes I am that ignoramus in thought experiments like 'Humans are the species that has the capacity to be malevolent'.

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Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger View Post
More to the point, perhaps, behavioral studies with captive monkeys and apes often show that if one individual consistently receives preferential treatment from its human minders, it tends to think of this as the "proper" way of things. If that individual stops receiving preferential treatment -- that is, it's not being treated unfairly; it's just no longer receiving preferential treatment -- it tends to become quite upset, and responds exactly as if it's being cheated.

This, of course, is especially likely to occur in species that generally live in hierarchical groups. Individuals that are used to getting the best stuff generally don't take it well if they suddenly find themselves being treated like any other member of the group.

Some researchers have claimed that this is especially true if the privilege was "unearned." What do I mean by that? Well, if the animal at the top of the dominance hierarchy is there because it earned its place by winning a fight, for example, then it generally seems to take it fairly well if eventually displaced by another animal that proves to be stronger, more clever, or whatever. [Jane Goodall has some amusing stories about how some chimpanzees win dominance contests not through brute force or fighting prowess -- but by clever use of their environments.] That's life.

But, if an animal is picked at random by its human minders and given preferential treatment, that animal tends to react quite poorly if that preferential treatment stops. In short, loss of earned privilege to a superior competitor doesn't seem to engender anywhere near as much outrage as does loss of unearned privilege.
But here, with the difference in behaviours between earned and unearned gains/preferential treatment, I'm entertaining the idea now that that is an expressive difference between 'good' and 'evil'. Where the Good monkey loses his top spot through fair and square means, and the Evil monkey loses his shit along with the top spot. And possibly a capacity for a sense of guilt? (We sure as hell know dogs can show remorse and guilt.) Guilt, shame, and acting out in rage intertwined? ...which brings us right back to the current occupant of the White House.
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  #2412  
Old 07-03-2018, 01:09 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

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Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger View Post
This is highly species-specific, however. In highly social species where hierarchical behavior is the norm, it's typically the case that the dominant individuals will take the best food, the most desirable mates, etc. -- and this usually doesn't seem to engender a lot of "resentment," at least not overtly. Presumably, that's what's expected and is seen as "proper" behavior. [Though in these species, if a subordinate animal is caught "cheating" -- say, by taking some choice bit of food for itself -- it's likely to be harshly punished by its superior(s). Interestingly, other subordinate animals will often join in the punishment of a subordinate who "gets out of line" like this.]
Indeed one of the things that frustrates me when people talk about 'alphas' is the use of alpha and beta to begin with. Rat colonies are very hierarchical and the top rat is better considered a Den leader. Sure they might get first choice of food, but it's also their job to make sure everyone else has food and is getting along. Most leaders don't get deposed because they aren't the biggest or toughest but because others don't feel they are running things right. Being too selfish or bullying in inappropriate ways was a great way to get challenged by underlings.

ETA: I have a hypothesis that humans aren't really that more advanced than animals and we see ourselves a bit too grandiose and animals as too simple. When teaching other primates many seem to hit a developmental block which keeps them developmentally around 4-6 in human. The hypothesis is that humans somehow pushed childhood mental plasticity a bit more which is why there are many humans that feel like they stopped developing in late elementary of highschool and after that you need to work to advance your mental abilities. Whatever organizational, language and maths we can grasp with one more step in development seems to be key. But it's only one more step.
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  #2413  
Old 07-03-2018, 01:54 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

In response to all of this, but particularly this paragraph:

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Originally Posted by Ari View Post
ETA: I have a hypothesis that humans aren't really that more advanced than animals and we see ourselves a bit too grandiose and animals as too simple. When teaching other primates many seem to hit a developmental block which keeps them developmentally around 4-6 in human. The hypothesis is that humans somehow pushed childhood mental plasticity a bit more which is why there are many humans that feel like they stopped developing in late elementary of highschool and after that you need to work to advance your mental abilities. Whatever organizational, language and maths we can grasp with one more step in development seems to be key. But it's only one more step.
How relevant might opposable thumbs be here? There are an awful lot of tools we’ve developed that, as I understand it, we couldn’t have developed or even used without them. I don’t fully understand all the relevant factors here, though; I’m sure TLR can clarify.

Overall, I definitely agree that we’re not as far advanced beyond other species as we like to fathom ourselves.
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  #2414  
Old 07-04-2018, 01:50 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

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Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
Sometimes I am that ignoramus in thought experiments like 'Humans are the species that has the capacity to be malevolent'.
Yeah, I understand all too well how easy it is to say something like "humans and animals .." as if humans somehow aren't animals, as if we're somehow different in kind from "mere animals." So I'm not criticizing, and hopefully, I'm not just being pedantic.

It's a habit I've made a conscious point of eradicating in myself, not just because it isn't true that we aren't animals, but because I think it's harmful to think that way.

It seems to me that thinking that we aren't animals and/or that there's something which fundamentally separates us from all other animal species is dangerous; it's one big reason so little attention is paid to our rapidly-degrading ecosystems. What so many people fail to recognize is that we, too are part of -- and dependent upon -- those ecosystems. It's foolishly short-sighted of us to ignore the fact that if the Earth's major ecosystems collapse, that will be disastrous not just for plants and "animals," but for us as well.


So far, despite all the (sometimes desperate) attempts to do so, no one has ever found anything that clearly distinguishes us from other animal species. It seems quite clear that the only differences between us and other species are in degree, not in kind.

For example, it used to be claimed that only humans make and use tools. Not so; plenty of other primates have been observed to do so, as well as other mammals and even some birds.

Then it was claimed that only humans have a sense of "self," and are capable of recognizing that the reflection in a mirror is a reflection of themselves, and not some other animal. But again, plenty of other primates and several species of cetaceans show awareness that the being in the mirror is just a reflection of themselves, and not another animal.

So, people started saying, "but only humans are capable of abstract thought." But again, other primates, some cetaceans, and even Ravens are clearly capable of abstract thought and of using abstract thought to solve novel problems that cannot be solved through trial-and-error learning.

People claimed that "only humans experience true emotions." Anyone who has a pet dog knows that's bull.

For a long time, the claim was that "only humans have true language capacities." But chimpanzees, gorillas, and orang-utans can become quite proficient in sign language, and dolphins apparently have quite complex "speech." (So much of the sounds that dolphins use for communicating with each other lie outside the frequency ranges that we can hear; this makes it difficult for us to study their language abilities.) Even some birds (notably, African Gray Parrots) have been shown to be capable of using human speech to convey abstract ideas.

So, I tend to get annoyed whenever I hear someone claim that humans -- somehow -- aren't animals, or whenever I hear someone insist that there's somehow that fundamentally sets humans apart from all other animal species.



Quote:
But here, with the difference in behaviours between earned and unearned gains/preferential treatment, I'm entertaining the idea now that that is an expressive difference between 'good' and 'evil'. Where the Good monkey loses his top spot through fair and square means, and the Evil monkey loses his shit along with the top spot. And possibly a capacity for a sense of guilt? (We sure as hell know dogs can show remorse and guilt.) Guilt, shame, and acting out in rage intertwined? ...which brings us right back to the current occupant of the White House.
Indeed, I think one could easily argue that a decent working definition of "evil" is: "expects unearned privilege, lashes out if (s)he doesn't have that privilege, lacks a sense of guilt regarding that behavior, and lacks empathy for others."


Quote:
Originally Posted by Ari View Post
Indeed one of the things that frustrates me when people talk about 'alphas' is the use of alpha and beta to begin with. Rat colonies are very hierarchical and the top rat is better considered a Den leader. Sure they might get first choice of food, but it's also their job to make sure everyone else has food and is getting along.
Yup. In quite a lot of social species, the principle function of the "leaders" (who are by no means always the biggest or toughest) is to ensure that others in the group are okay -- to ensure that everyone gets their fair share of food, to settle disputes between group members, that sort of thing. In some species, it's even the case that the most dominant individuals generally eat last -- that is, they only eat after they've ensured that there's enough for everyone else.


Quote:
I have a hypothesis that humans aren't really that more advanced than animals and we see ourselves a bit too grandiose and animals as too simple. When teaching other primates many seem to hit a developmental block which keeps them developmentally around 4-6 in human. The hypothesis is that humans somehow pushed childhood mental plasticity a bit more which is why there are many humans that feel like they stopped developing in late elementary of highschool and after that you need to work to advance your mental abilities. Whatever organizational, language and maths we can grasp with one more step in development seems to be key. But it's only one more step.
Yup, that's pretty-much the point I'm driving at. We're not so "advanced" over other animals as we like to think. And what differences exist are differences in degree, not kind.


This might seem like a diversion at first, but I'd like to talk about two phenomena -- allometry and neoteny.

Allometry refers to the fact that different body parts grow and develop at different rates. Regulatory genes regulate the rates at which body parts grow and develop. As such, a single, seemingly-simple mutation, if it is of a regulatory gene, can have a huge phenotypic effect.

In most other apes, the bones that make up the cranial vault fuse early in life, which limits how large the brain can grow. The facial bones continue to grow, however, and so form the distinctive muzzle. In humans, however, the growth of the facial bones has been drastically slowed, and the bones of the cranial vault don't completely fuse until much later in life.

This means that, compared to other ape species, our brains can grow to much larger size. What's more, our brains continue to grow and develop long past the point where brain growth stops in other apes. Indeed, our cranial bones don't fuse and become more or less immobile until we're 2 years old or so (and they don't fully fuse and become completely immobile until you're in your early- to mid-20's -- in some individuals, they don't fully fuse until you're in your 30's, 40's, or even 50's). Many studies indicate that the human brain doesn't reach full maturity until you're in your early- to mid-20's.

But we start out pretty-much the same. What do I mean? Well, take a look at the head of a juvenile chimpanzee, compared to that of an adult chimpanzee.


The chimp's brain and skull pretty-much stop growing very early in life, while the facial bones continue to grow for some time. This is why the shape of adult chimpanzee's skull is so very different from that of an infant chimpanzee's skull.


By the way, what does an infant chimpanzee's skull look like? Why, it looks very much like -- a human skull. What an interesting coincidence. That's what I meant by "we start out pretty-much the same."



Just a few changes in the growth rates of different skull bones gets you from this: (the skull of an infant chimpanzee):
to this:



Neoteny is the retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood. It's one of the most important of evolutionary processes, and can be driven by mutations in regulatory genes that drive the rates at which different body parts grow and develop.

In effect, humans are apes that have dramatically slowed down the maturation process, and so retain "juvenile" characteristics (rounded, relatively large crania containing relatively large brains; small jaws; flattened faces) into adulthood.



This may have been driven, in part, by our relatively weak muscles. Anyone who has a large dog or other such pet has probably noticed that -- even if you exercise regularly and keep in good shape -- that human muscles are weak. For instance, a chimpanzee that is about the same size and mass as a human is much stronger. In fact, comparison studies show that even human athletes are only about half as strong as a chimpanzee of the same mass -- even if the chimpanzee lives in captivity and gets very little exercise.


Why is this so? One hypothesis is that this is just an "evolutionary accident" of sorts. As hominins evolved to be brainier, and relied more on tools and intelligence to get their food and avoid predators -- rather than brute force or speed -- this meant there was less need to "waste" metabolic energy on developing strong muscles. So, there was little or no evolutionary "penalty" against individuals who were weaker than their peers.

According to this hypothesis, it's not that weaker muscles were advantageous, but simply that they weren't disadvantageous. Thus, a mutation that made the muscles weaker could spread through the population by chance alone.

Some people think that evolution is driven strictly by natural selection and "survival of the fittest." That's not at all true. Mutations can -- and do -- spread through populations through random chance. This is especially true in small populations, in which random genetic drift may be a much stronger influence on the population than is natural selection. Even mutations that are actually mildly harmful may spread through a small population and become fixed.

And the human population was pretty small in the not-too-distant evolutionary past. There's good genetic evidence to suggest that, roughly 70,000 years ago, the human population was reduced to perhaps 10,000 - 30,000 individuals. (The evidence suggest that our ancestors went through another such bottleneck about 3 million years ago.) Apparently, some 70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens was reduced to a few very small, semi-isolated populations.

With a population size so small, lots of alleles would have been lost due to random chance, and even deleterious mutations might have spread through the entire population and become fixed.


As an aside, this is one reason why I'm always bemused at those who make such a big deal about the differences between human groups. For such a [currently] numerous and widespread species, Homo sapiens has remarkably little genetic diversity. That's the result of surviving at least 2 brushes with extinction in our relatively recent evolutionary past.



In response to the "human muscles are weak, but it's just an evolutionary accident" hypothesis, it has been proposed that selection has favored reduction in our muscle strength. If you look at hominin evolution, there is certainly a very obvious trend: the brain gets rapidly bigger over time. The problem is that the brain is a hugely demanding organ. The human brain is typically about 2% of your body weight, but consumes 20% or more of the oxygen we use to power our metabolic processes.

The argument is that as our brains evolved to become larger and more demanding, selection favored mutations which led to weaker muscles. After all, resources that aren't being used to feed relatively unimportant muscles can instead be diverted to growing bigger, better brains.


This, it is hypothesized, coincided to some degree with our ancestors' discovery that fire could be used to cook food. Cooking their food gave our ancestors a huge evolutionary advantage. Cooked food is much safer (since the heat kills parasites and bacteria), and so if you're eating cooked food, you're wasting less energy fighting off infections and parasites. Cooked food is also much more nutritious and energy-dense, since cooking food ruptures the cell walls of plant-based foods (all plant cells are surrounded by cell walls of cellulose, which we cannot digest) and breaks down connective tissues while denaturing proteins in animal-based foods.

In short, cooking your food means that you're healthier and much better-nourished. Thus, you can afford to grow big, energy-demanding brains.


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How relevant might opposable thumbs be here? There are an awful lot of tools we’ve developed that, as I understand it, we couldn’t have developed or even used without them. I don’t fully understand all the relevant factors here, though; I’m sure TLR can clarify.
Of course, all apes and many monkeys have opposable thumbs, so it's nothing unique to humans. Still, it's hardly coincidental that primates are the best tool-making animals. Opposable thumbs give those primates that possess them the ability to manipulate objects with far more precision than can virtually any other animals.

Humans do have a bit of an advantage over other apes when it comes to construction of the hands. Gorillas, chimpanzees, etc. have relatively elongated metacarpal and finger bones that are somewhat curved. This helps them more effectively grip branches and is one reason why a chimpanzee or orang-utan has a far stronger grip than does a human of the same size.

But when our ancestors moved out onto the plains and adopted a more upright stance, our hands (and especially our feet) evolved in response to this new lifestyle. Our straighter and relatively shorter hand and finger bones don't give us the grip strength that other primates have, but we gained the ability to manipulate objects with a finer degree of control than even a chimpanzee can manage. This, doubtless, has contributed to our fantastic tool-making ability.
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Old 07-04-2018, 02:27 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

The thing that sets humans apart from other animals is how much time we spend wondering about what sets us apart from other animals.

And you know, the computers and stuff.
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Old 07-04-2018, 06:25 AM
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So I'm not criticizing, and hopefully, I'm not just being pedantic.

Absolutely not. In fact, the only times I've seen you get remotely snarky or belittling is when dealing with the willfully disingenuous, snake oil salesmen, and... a Nazi.
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Old 07-04-2018, 06:49 AM
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Huh, the Examiner, even:

Senate Intel concludes Russia interfered in 2016 presidential election, preferred Trump over Clinton - Washington Examiner
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Old 07-04-2018, 08:26 AM
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Lengthy thrad with lots of dirt on the child separation thing.




Happy July 4.
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Old 07-04-2018, 08:39 AM
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[url=http://thehill.com/latino/395326-indianapolis-church-places-mary-joseph-baby-jesus-inside-cage-to-protest-trump=Indianapolis church places Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus inside cage to protest Trump immigration policies - The Hill[/url]

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Old 07-04-2018, 03:33 PM
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With reports being that Trump is moving towards a deal with Russia on Syria wherein Iranian forces will be expected to stay away from Israel and Russia will not get in the way of Israeli attacks on Iranian forces if they don't abide...

Just noting that Watser seems to care mostly about Palestine Israel conflict and for some reason thinks siding with Putin goes along with those aims. Putin meanwhile doesn't give a shit about anything Watser cares about and laughs when the Western left defends him. He'll gladly side with Israel when it suits him.

That's amusing, as was his belief that somehow Trump's election would reduce chances of war with Iran... I guess by tearing up the Iran deal and hiring John Bolton.

On the plus side, it has been good for his murderous buddy Assad.
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Old 07-05-2018, 02:11 AM
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Default Re: Good King Trump

Quote:
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How relevant might opposable thumbs be here?
What he said!
One thing that I left out (that often gets overlooked) is fine motor control and dexterity. While we think of the brain as a thinking machine, a huge chunk of it is for spatial and motor control. There's a lot of little detailed things that humans have little problem with that other primates struggle. Arm and hand structure as well as muscle type make a big difference, with ape hand and arm strengths being much higher than humans but the fast twitch small movement muscles are often lacking.
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Old 07-05-2018, 02:46 AM
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First they came for the undocumented.

Then they came for the not quite properly documented.

Or maybe Donald's looking for a cheap way out of his marriage and looking forward to his new decade younger trophy bride.
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Old 07-05-2018, 04:28 AM
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With reports being that Trump is moving towards a deal with Russia on Syria wherein Iranian forces will be expected to stay away from Israel and Russia will not get :blahblah:
It would have been interesting to see how President Sanders would handle that pile of shit. Oh well, too late.
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Old 07-05-2018, 04:35 AM
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I think it would probably be less "interesting" to see how Sanders... or Clinton... or O'Malley... or Biden... or hell, even Chafee... would've handled, well, most things.

Reminds me of the apocryphal (and probably not actually Chinese) curse "May you live in interesting times."
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Old 07-05-2018, 07:31 AM
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Further evidence that Twitter is the pinnacle of achievement in social media:


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