Ubiquitous conspicuousity

At a park to weeks ago, a musician started singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” I was talking with an acquaintance, who immediately pulled out his smart phone, clicked on a few buttons and brought up the movie “The Wizard of Oz” to play on his 1 ½” screen. He explained that he loved the movie and that he could watch it wherever he wanted. Impressive technology? Of course, but watching “The Wizard of Oz” (or any movie) is never such an important thing that I'd need to carry it in my pocket. Was my acquaintance really trying to tell me about his love of "The Wizard of Oz," or was he subconsciously trying to communicate something else to me?img_8221 For many years we’ve been trying to convince ourselves that electronics manufacturers were right that we HAD to have their gadgets, including 50" screen HD TVs. For decades, we’ve been convincing ourselves that electronic audio manufacturers were correct that we “needed” to plunk down $2,000 for high-end audio components with thick copper cables lest the sound degradation would piss us off too much to enjoy our music. But here we are in an age where small is cool, and we’re somehow able to enjoy full length movies on tiny lo-res phone and iPod screens. And people are somehow surviving with small low-res youtube videos. And consider that the music almost everyone is enjoying on their mp3 players is sampled at a noticeably lower rate than CD-quality. And consider that CD quality sample rates are severely degraded compared to live music. But somehow we’re now OK with far less than perfect because small and convenient and high tech are cool. I’m in the process of reading Geoffrey Miller’s riveting new book, Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior. We’ve all heard of conspicuous consumption (originally coined by Veblen). Miller refines and extends Veblen's concept, setting out the differences between conspicuous waste, conspicuous precision and conspicuous reputation as signaling principles. Cars exemplifying these three principles would be the Hummer (waste), Lexus (precision) and BMW (reputation). Conspicuous precision “can be achieved only through time, attention, and diligence, while conspicuous reputation (brand names) reflects a “vulnerability to social sanctions.” Most products exhibit each of these three forms of “signal reliability.” Other signaling principles including conspicuous rarity (exotic pets or pink diamonds) and conspicuous antiquity (ancient coins). I find it interesting how much we fool ourselves about how much we “need” products based on these qualities. We “needed” large high-quality electronic audio and visual players until it became a much more impressive display to have extremely small portable electronics. It turns out that our “need” for things isn’t ultimately about need for the product’s qualities. It’s about trying to impress others with our ability to differentiate and afford various types of products. A few years ago, I was looking at stunning images of a coral reef on the big new HD TV sets at Costco. I asked my wife whether we should think about “moving up” to a HD TV set. She asked me: “How often have you been watching a movie on our 25-year old TV set when it occurred to you that you weren’t enjoying the show because the screen was not huge or high definition? I answered truthfully: never. We still have our quarter-century old TV set and I’ve never again been tempted to “move up.” But I also admit that if I were trying to impress people today, I wouldn't be able to do it by showing off my TV. I wouldn’t be signaling that I can notice and afford fine engineering tolerances. I might show off my TV nonetheless, to signal my frugality, but my old TV wouldn’t be impressive to modern-day Americans, given that it is not (today) an expensive signal in any sense—I could buy a TV like mine very cheaply indeed at a garage sale. Miller's book is a powerful reminder that our "need" to buy SO many things is often not about the things themselves, but about the need to tell the world something about ourselves in order to increase our social status or to attract mates. Miller has a lot to say about the differences among the types of conspicuosity. For instance, Aristocrats eschew conspicuous waste. They tend to hone in on conspicuous precision and reputation. For more on Miller’s theory, see this book review at the NYT.

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Verbing the net noun.

The word "texting" sounds harsh and garbled when it comes out of a speaker's mouth. A sentence where "text" is used as a verb, such as , "I texted him yesterday but he didn't text me back," instantly summons an image of a slack-jawed, gum-popping teenage girl- all ignorance and frivolity. The words just sound stupid. Don't blame me- some of us Gen-Yers fought off the term "texting" the same way we did bad fads like Crocs and Ugg boots. Even deep into the aughts, years after "texting", we still said "sending a text message" instead. "Texting" prevailed however, for the same reason that Crocs and Uggs became ubiquitous: aesthetics aside, it was damn comfy and easy. "Texting" might make for an ugly-sounding word, but it came out more smoothly and quickly than the correct "sending a text message".

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Want to know what I think?

That's why you're on the internet, cruising the interblargosphere. You're looking for things to read that you might not necessarily agree with but which spark your interest because you're always on the lookout for a new take or new point of view on something. It might even be something you already have a definite opinion on, but you read on because you like reading things that make you think regardless of whether you agree with them. You're all about soaking up as many differing viewpoints as you can, but you've no interest in entering a comment-battle so if you do object, you do so in silence (possible but unlikely). You may be looking for things to read that you already know you agree with and very little else (more likely). You may even be looking for things to read that not only contradict you but flat-out piss you off in order to inspire you to write a post for the blog you've been neglecting (if you have a blog, that's almost a given). I'll admit I’m one who trawls for material to inspire my personal outrage, vicious condemnation and inordinately long & verbose sentences, but it’s not a new addition to my activity budget. Long before the internet I was fond of writing essays, treatises, critiques, manifestos, poems (gah!) or comic strips about things which annoyed or intrigued me, or into which I'd put an inordinate amount of idle thought. They were many & varied: a convoluted comparison between the dangers of running red lights at a pedestrian crossing on my BMX with doing the same in a car; a detailed essay on the specific mechanisms of “clown evil” and the macro-karmic reasons for their hideousness; my pseudo-Freudian theories on why some men spend inordinate lengths of time reading in the toilet, delaying every other resident not currently using a colostomy bag and glorying in their own pungent stench; a series of unnecessarily graphic limericks featuring my best friend, a busty wench and zombies. Before 1994 and my first experience with electronic mail I'd fax (yes, fax), post or hand these missives to my friends and see what reactions I'd get. They ranged from “meh” to humouring me, the occasional laugh, occasional indignant defensiveness and – more often than not – sideways looks and quiet voicings of concern for my mental stability (especially when my letters were illustrated). I didn't know it then, but with my unsolicited opinionated ranting, arguments for or against things noone was actually discussing in the real world and blatant & ridiculous attention-seeking behaviour, I was in Gilbert & Sullivan’s parlance the very model of a modern major pain the arse. In today’s terms: a blogger. So, no, it’s not a new thing for me and certainly not a new phenomenon for humanity either, this public sharing of opinion with people who don’t care. Celebrated Protestant Original Gangster, Martin Luther, is famous for publicly posting his disagreements . . .

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Superorganisms take the limelight

In the Natural History's February 2009 article titled "Could an Ant Colony Read this Book," ecologist Robert Dunn tracks the long-term collaborative efforts of Edward O. Wilson and Bert Holldobler, leading up to their new book: The Superorganism. In their new book, Hölldobler and Wilson

. . . have breathed new life into a notion that intrigued scientists before World War I: that a colony of social insects is analogous to an individual. The concept of the superorganism—which compares a colony’s members to a body’s cells and sometimes its nest to the body’s skeleton—fell out of favor as research increasingly focused on the genes of individuals. Hölldobler and Wilson, building on new insights into the evolution and workings of insect societies, seek to bring it back. To them, “superorganism” is more than a metaphor; it is a unit in the hierarchy of biological organization, falling somewhere between an ecosystem and an individual. And, they argue, it is the most useful level of biological organization at which to examine how pieces are assembled to make a whole—be it an association of bacteria, a single creature, or a whole society—as well as to understand what holds all organisms together, even when the pieces struggle toward independent goals.

According to Dunn (and Wilson and Holldobler), ants and other highly social creatures (such as termites, and honeybees) offer a rare opportunity to study the process by which individuals meld into an unified organism. Other examples include the early symbiosis of mitochondria with an early form of bacteria, plant cells ("which arose when a eukaryotic cell . . incorporated a photosynthetic bacterium") and multicellular creatures in general (e.g., human beings). In each of these examples, individuals gave up reproduction "either partially or completely, to work for their overbearing mother." Wilson and Holldobler point to group selection (and individual selection) as a key component of the evolution of highly social species. "In group-selection models, evolution favors the groups whose member cooperate more effectively, regardless of whether such cooperation helps a given individual (or that individual's kin) reproduce." The key to allowing this process is "communication and the division of labor." Apropos for a book that was five years in the making by Wilson and Holldobler.

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Does evolution explain human nature?

"Does evolution explain human nature?" This is a typical Templeton Foundation question, in that it is laden with ambiguities. Only when one figures out the meaning of "evolution," "explain," and "human nature" can one really get to work. I suspect that the Templeton questions are drafted vaguely in order to invite a wide range of participants, who must often roll up their sleeves to define the component elements of the question as part of their answer. I don't mean to sound like a pedant here. The reason I am posting on this question is that despite the wobbly question, Templeton has once again done a good job of assembling a wide range of opinion on an important set of issues. You can read the many responses here. My favorites are Frans de Waal,

If we look at our species without letting ourselves be blinded by the technological advances of the last few millennia, we see a creature of flesh and blood with a brain that, albeit three times larger than that of a chimpanzee, does not contain any new parts. Our intellect may be superior, but we have no basic wants or needs that cannot also be observed in our close relatives . . .

Lynn Margulis

[R]eligion serves an obvious evolutionary function: it identifies, unifies, and preserves adherents. Admonitions to desist from the seven deadly sins inhibit behaviors that threaten group solidarity and survival. Greed, for example, privileges the individual in seasons of limited resources. Lust - the biblical coveting of the neighbor’s wife (in its male-centered perspective) - interferes with ideals for the nurture of healthy children and effective warriors. Prohibiting sloth enhances productive work intrinsic to survival and reproduction of the social unit. Anger, perhaps useful in battle, destroys family and other social relationships. Envy and pride promote individual interests above those of the larger social unit. The survival value of prohibiting sin seems obvious . . .

I disagree with neo-Darwinist zoologists who assert that the accumulation of random genetic mutations is the major source of evolutionary novelty. More important is symbiogenesis, the evolution of new species from the coming together of members of different species. Symbiogenesis is the behavioral, physiological, and genetic fusion of different kinds of being; it leads to the evolution of chimeric new ones.

Geoffrey Miller

My own research has been inspired mostly by good-genes sexual selection theory (the idea that animals choose their partners based on cues about genetic quality) and costly-signalling theory (the idea that only animals in good condition can afford seemingly pointless displays like extravagant plumage). These theories have proved enormously useful in understanding a range of human behaviors that have seemed to have no clear survival payoffs, like music, dance, art, humor, verbal creativity, conspicuous consumption, and altruism.

Robert Wright

What Darwinism tells us is how natural selection gave human life its distinctively rich texture of meaning. Darwinism can also give us guidance as we try to better ourselves and make that meaning richer still. What Darwinism does not tell us is why there is meaning at all.

David Sloan Wilson

Genes are only one mechanism of inheritance. Some immunological, psychological, and cultural processes also count as evolutionary. They too rely on the open-ended variation and selective retention of traits, but they are based on non-genetic inheritance mechanisms. People and cultures shaped by these fast-paced evolutionary processes no longer have the same "nature," any more than two bacterial strains that have diverged by genetic evolution. In this fashion, my simple and seemingly boring formula can be understood to say that humanity as a whole does not have a single "nature." Instead, each and every person and culture has its own "nature."

There's lots more to read (by these authors and others) at the above link

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