How to Be a Human Animal, Chapter 26: The Magic of Tuna Acceleration and Workspaces

This is Chapter 26 of my advice to a hypothetical baby. And yes, what I'm really doing is acting out the time-travel fantasy of going back give myself some pointers on how to navigate life. If I only knew what I now know . . .  All of these chapters (soon to be 100) can be found here.

You are only 26 days old, but you will someday escape your crib and your room with the same aplomb with which you escaped your mother's womb. And at some point in your adventures as a bipedal ape, you might be lucky enough to see some fish. One thing that I always found amazing is how fast a fish can go from zero to some absurdly fast speed. It turns out that this was explained in Andy Clark's excellent book, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again (1998). I had the opportunity to take four graduate seminars with Andy at Washington University and he excelled at filled our heads with non-stop counter-intuitive observations and explaining them in clear English. Here's how fish can take off like rockets:

The swimming capacities of many fishes, such as dolphins and bluefin tuna, are staggering. These aquatic beings far outperform anything that nautical science has so far produced. Such fish are both mavericks of maneuverability and, it seems, paradoxes of propulsion. It is estimated that the dolphin for example, is simply not strong enough l to propel itself at the speeds it is observed to reach. In attempting to unravel this mystery, two experts in fluid dynamics, the brothers Michael and George Triantafyllou, have been led ro an interesting hypothesis: that the extraordinary swimming efficiency of certain fishes is due to an evolved capacity to exploit and create additional sources of kinetic energy in the watery environment. Such fishes, it seems, exploit aquatic swirls, eddies, and vortices to " rurbocharge" propulsion and aid maneuverability. Such fluid phenomena sometimes occur naturally (e.g., where flowing water hits a rock). But the fish's exploitation of such external aids does not stop there. Instead, the fish actively creates a variety of vortices and pressure gradients (e.g. by flapping its tail) and then uses these to support subsequent speedy, agile behavior. By thus controlling and exploiting local environmental structure, the fish is able to produce fast starts and turns that make our ocean-going vessels look clumsy, ponderous, and laggardly. " Aided by a continuous parade of such vortices," Triantafyllou and Triantafyllou (1995, p. 69) point out," it is even possible for a fish's swimming efficiency to exceed 100 percent." Ships and submarines reap no such benefits: they treat the aquatic environment as an obstacle to be negotiated and do not seek to subvert it to their own ends by monitoring and massaging the fluid dynamics surrounding the hull.

The tale of the tuna reminds us that biological systems profit profoundly from local environmental structure. The environment is not best conceived solely as a problem domain to be negotiated. It is equally, and crucially, a resource to be factored into the solutions. This simple observation has, as we have seen, some far-reaching consequences. First and foremost, we must recognize the brain for what it is. Ours are not the brains of disembodied spirits conveniently glued into ambulant, corporeal shells of flesh and blood. Rather, they are essentially the brains of embodied agents capable of creating and exploiting structure in the world.

This passage brings me to today's advice: Don't just "Do," as Yoda suggests. Prepare your workspace and then "Do" with apparent super powers! Tuna prepare the nearby water by setting up their own currents before tapping into them. Ka-Bang!  Reminds me of the acceleration technique of the cartoon Roadrunner, but tuna acceleration is not fiction.

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Michael Shellenberger Discusses The Origins of San Francisco’s Homeless Problem with Joe Rogan

This is an excerpt from a much longer discussion. Michael Shellenberger is discussing San Francisco's homeless problem with Joe Rogan. One of his conclusions is the well-intentioned attitude by many liberals that all homeless people are purely victims and that they cannot be blamed for any of their behaviors, including their uses of dangerous drugs.

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Aphorism 9: Talk is so Cheap, it is Often Nothing at All

I was discussing a social issue with a neighbor more than 10 years ago. I said something like "that really bothers me" or "I really care about that." He stopped me and said something like this:

"If you really cared about it, you would be doing something about it."

That stopped me in my tracks because the only thing I was doing was ranting. I think of this often when I hear the choruses of virtue signalers. They are almost everywhere. For instance, among those who Identify as Democrats, I constantly hear that the environment "is the most important issue" and that "it is an emergency situation" and that "no other issue comes close in importance."

This is what I hear, constantly, from Democrats whose life style is indistinguishable from the life style of the average Republican. They drive similar gas-guzzling vehicles. They go on gas-guzzling vacations. They live in fuel guzzling houses. They live far from their places of work. They don't car pool or (in my city) use mass transit or bike to work. They revel in getting take-out food and coffee sold by businesses that use single-use paper, plastic and foam wrappings. I'm still doing my research, but I found one 2013 study that concluded that Democrats generate only 5% less fossil fuel than Republicans per capita. They claim that this is an emergency situation but they don't act like it is an emergency situation. If you asked the average Democrat to turn their thermostat down 5 degrees in the winter and put on a sweater, they will look at you like you are insane.

Apparently, that gives them the right to claim that they "care" and that Republicans don't "care" about the environment.

The environment is merely one example of many. We are surrounded by virtue-signaling virtuosos of both political parties. But at least they all "care."

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National Crisis of Smartphone-Inflicted Loneliness Hurting our Teenagers

Jonathan Haidt and Jean M. Twenge warn that we need to separate teenagers from their smartphones:

Teenage loneliness was relatively stable between 2000 and 2012, with fewer than 18 percent reporting high levels of loneliness. But in the six years after 2012, rates increased dramatically. They roughly doubled in Europe, Latin America and the English-speaking countries, and rose by about 50 percent in the East Asian countries . . . All young mammals play, especially those that live in groups like dogs, chimpanzees and humans. All such mammals need tens of thousands of social interactions to become socially competent adults. In 2012 it was possible to believe that teens would get those interactions via their smartphones — far more of them, perhaps. But as data accumulates that teenage mental health has changed for the worse since 2012, it now appears that electronically mediated social interactions are like empty calories. Just imagine what teenagers’ health would be like today if we had taken 50 percent of the most nutritious food out of their diets in 2012 and replaced those calories with sugar. So what can we do? We can’t turn back time to the pre-smartphone era, nor would we want to, given the many benefits of the technology. But we can take some reasonable steps to help teens get more of what they need.

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Loud Noise at City Parks – Pro and Con

Can we agree on anything anymore? I often like to walk through Tower Grove Park, close to my house in St. Louis. On many evenings I like sit on a park bench and read and write. I've found it increasingly annoying that so many loud vehicles/motorcycles cruise through the park (some loud enough that you can hear their engines growling 1/2 mile away). Every night or two, somebody parks their vehicle, near a beautiful pond and garden area, opens their windows and blasts their music loud enough that you can hear it thumping 1/4 mile away. I see these two things as problems, so I called the park office and asked what we can do about this. I was told we can't do anything about the loud car engines, but I was given the park ranger's phone number in case someone "is playing their music very loud" or "blaring" their music.

I shared my concern on the Nextdoor.com website for my neighborhood and ten neighbors promptly "liked" the post. But I also received a long comment (liked by six people) who reminded me that it is a "public park," calling me "passive aggressive," suggesting that I am over-wrought and needing meditation and suggesting that I avoid the park during popular times. Ergo, we have two factions re loud park noise: Pro and Con.

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