´óÏó´«Ã½

the bbc coverage has been the worst sort of propaganda providing support to a role gaming mindset that has a lot in common with an apartheid. must be stockholm syndrome.

is andrew marr royalty? has the bbc taken an oath to protect him from scrutiny?

People have gone potty where I live letting off fireworks, even my 78 year old mum came round with a cake announcing ' I baked a cake for the wedding' I had some, so clearly Ive gone potty as well.

The most interesting thing about King Charles the First, is that he was 5 foot 6 inches tall at the start of his reign......

@1 Definitely Stockholm Syndrome for some Jaunty!

If I want world news over the next couple of days, I shall be relying on aljazeera.

Congratulations Kate and Will. Have a wonderful day!

and thanks for giving us a wee break from the 24/7 media obssession with the Middle-East.

'discussing the events of the day and their impact'

Can't wait. Switched on my TV this morning to see what the news was in the UK and beyond, and it seems there is none. So Mighthavebeenight swinging in last with more of the same topped off with Congestion Zone chatterati ponderings will be a must-miss.

Appreciate the day off, mind. Hope the weather holds.

Marriage IMVHO is truly one of the joys of this ‘illusion’ we call life!

As with all and every couple that commit in this way I wish Catherine and William continued happiness and contentment. I hope that they always remember to hold hands whatever the physical distance that separates them. I also wish them more than sufficient strength to get through - together - the foibles that life throws at them.

But most of all .....

I hope they remain swans forever!


There .....

Enough of the wishy-washy, luvvy-dovey nicey- nicey .....

Back to the illusion that - for us ‘all in it together’ - is increasingly becoming a nightmare !

At last I understand!

How better to celebrate a British holiday than with Gilbert and Sullivan?

From Iolanthe: (March of the Peers)

"Loudly let the trumpets bray,
Tantantara, tantantara!
Proudly bang the sounding brasses,
Tantara, tantara,
Tzing, boom!

As upon its lordly way
This unique procession passes,
Tantantara, tantantara,
Tantara, tantara, tantara,
Tantara, tantara, tantara
Tantantara, tantantara,
Tzing, boom!

Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes!
Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, bow, ye masses,
Blow the trumpets, bang the brasses,
Tantantara! Tzing, boom!

Bow, ye of piteous condition,
Bow, bow, elected politcians,
Play the trumpet ye musicians.
Tantantara! Tzing, boom!

Bow, bow ye not so well connected,
Bow, ye who have to get elected.
Play the trumpet, as directed,
Tantantara! Tzing, boom! ....etc "

A week ago 'G' was just through 1500 its now 1562
The $ below 73

Well now what have we here -

[Listen up Crick this is important]

EU hits banks with CDS anti-trust probe:-



"At the same time, the Commission said it had opened proceedings against nine of the 16 banks and ICE Clear Europe, a CDS clearing house owned by exchange operator InterContinental Exchange, to examine whether preferential tariffs granted by ICE to the banks had hurt competitors."


I dont buy it; they are using CDS's to checkmate countries into bailouts

Well, we are a happy bunch of campers here in the Newsnight Blog.
Comments above read like something from a Channel Four drama about
a mental ward.

I THINK THEREFORE I ERR (#8)

The more I hear of neuropsychology, the more the madness of world politics seems to make sense. And the more I ponder the foregoing, the more I conclude that it has to be this way, because it is fundamental to mankind to be perverse. In less complicated times, we seem to have found ways to limit our perversity, strict taboos being one mechanism, but all that is behind us.

Human babies are born totally vulnerable, and in my view, programmed to mitigate that vulnerability whilst striving for control. Paradoxically, if these programmes are not modified or suppressed in the fully grown individual, without powerful cultural constraints being in place, the sort of runaway madness that we now see worldwide, must inexorably arise. Our massive capacity for manipulation, of both the outer and inner worlds, for survival and advancement, now runs rampant and destructively so. Highly driven individuals, whether engendered from nature or nurture, in the modern world of massive power residing in wealth or armaments or both, now rise rapidly to positions of near absolute authority and wreak havoc.

It is said that psychopaths are overrepresented in positions of power, and is also said that they are skilled practitioners of George Orwell’s doublethink. It would certainly appear so. In recent years, we have seen leaders of both America and Britain, behave very strangely, applying a mixture of oppression and subversion to their people, in launching righteous war, as they saw fit. The trend continues. Meanwhile, in both countries, all measures of civilisation are diminishing.

The problem with pondering such matters, is that one realises one’s own distortions, as well as those of source information impinge, and edge perception towards an Alice in Wonderland unreality which one must, necessarily, view from Alice’s perspective. A very odd perspective indeed! And should it all suddenly makes sense, there is a very real danger that the ‘sense’ is unique to oneself. This is no place to be if sanity is to be maintained! Looking for ‘validating purpose’ is clearly to no avail, so one might as well give up one’s life to an unknowable God!

It is presumably at this point, those with unconducive brain chemistry, cut off their ear, pluck out their eyes, or simply take an overdose. In this enquiry, I would not start from here.

Barrie, it's many years since I read Arthur Koestler's 'Ghost In The Machine" for the first time, and I think I must read it again. He came to the conclusion human psychology did not give us the equipment to cope with the world we have created for ourselves.

Koestler wrote this some years after "Darkness At Noon", a novel probably based on Bukharin, in which he describes the mental contortions of an old Communist official, who having been arrested in a purge, subverts himself and the last vestiges of his self-respect to make a false confession out of loyalty to the Party he no longer believes in. This in turn influenced Orwell when writing 1984.

In 'The Ghost In The Machine', Koestler wrote: "Our biological evolution to all intents and purposes came to a standstill in Cro-Mangon days. ... We must search for a cure for the schizophysiology inherent in man's nature, and the resulting split in our minds, which lead to the situation in which we find ourselves.

I believe that if we fail to find this cure, the old paranoid streak in man, combined with his new powers of destruction, must sooner or later lead to genosuicide. But I also believe that the cure is almost within the reach of contemporary biology."

Alas, I found the end of the book to be somewhat unconvincing, but perhaps it will make more sense upon re-reading. I hope so, but am not over-optimistic.

G'night :-)

Not many flourescent yellow bobbies on show, thankfully.

I didn't watch any of the wedding, but thought the spectacle (what the world expects of Britain) would be marred by these tooled-up yellow creatures.

THE KOESTLER YEARS (#14)

Be sure to post a synopsis Sasha. I had Janus on my shelves for years - only started.

The weirdest thing is the probability we will go back to the caves, post cataclysm, requiring all our adaptability to survive, and then do the whole erroneous progression again. Wipe-out would probably release our niche for the various 'wildmen', but if their birth-canal:head ratio is as dumb as that of HomSap, post-birth, 'foetal' brain wiring, without a handbook, will lead to another clever-not-wise bunch of planet wreckers.

Rickards talks about the future of QE and reviews the last few years of US Govt tactics :-



---------------------------

Effective complimentary colours the other night - looked good .

Barrie @16 I read most of Koestler's works when I was younger. Usually I had them out of the library, and then bought some of the ones I wanted to revisit. I didn't bother with Janus. It was Koestler's last major non-fiction book, and didn't really succeed in being "a summing up" of the evolution of his ideas, as he intended. I think he himself realised that he'd raised more questions than answers!

BTW I don't like the Wikipedia articles on his "big three": 'The Sleepwalkers', 'The Act Of Creation', and 'The Ghost In The Machine'. I feel that in all of them the author(s) have superimposed some of their own ideas rather than reporting his. For example, the article on 'The Sleepwalkers' discusses "paradigms", a word that Koestler did not use once in the book. The Amazon reviews are much more informative!

To me, the most important of those works is 'The Sleepwalkers'. It's biography of Kepler, based on a detailed examination of the original sources, was a very important text when I took the OU History Of Mathematics course a few years ago.

MY APE IS ARRESTINGLY CONFUSED (#18)

Thanks for that Sasha.

I am currently grinding to a halt as a result of too much awareness coupled with too little comprehension. 'Interesting times' - how I hate (that's rhetorical Blogdog) those ancient Chinese!

(:o)

Today I visited an exhibition of Portraits at the RBSA Gallery in Hockely Birmingham. Loved the drive there - great weather and lovely square. A chap was doing a demo with others looking on and all was very quiet - reminded me of being in the life class so many years ago with some technically outstanding students.

The good thing about the RBSA is that they have Open submissions through out the year so anyone can submit work - this is kinda rare in the art world (apart from exploitative competitions) and the amateur efforts - not to be sniffed at. Doing painting, drawing and other art work is good for the soul and very educational but to be totally honest a part of me can mentally scream 'oh gosh how awful' and then immediately tell myself to stop it and face up to my own judgmentalness and how that could lead me to discriminate in my behaviour towards someone. This is what I get returned to when I visit their shows, but not always.

Work in the craft gallery impressed me - Avril Farley and Jane Moore I noted down.

had to watch the wedding because I have daughters and a wife so you have to go along with the majority but if that man Andrew Marr fronts the AM show on Sunday after what he has done then the ´óÏó´«Ã½ will be guilty of craven hypocrisy....no less..

WAS MARR WEARING WHITE AT THE TIME? (#21)

No punisment too great stevie. (:o)

14 "Our biological evolution to all intents and purposes came to a standstill in Cro-Mangon days."

"People, including me, would rather believe that significant human biological evolution stopped between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, before the races diverged, which would ensure that racial and ethnic groups are biologically equivalent," he says.
It's an understandable position given the political implications of being wrong. And in one important sense Pinker is absolutely spot on: it's very difficult, if not impossible, to observe human evolution in action. But saying it isn't happening is an increasingly difficult position to defend scientifically.


"...some of the newly identified genes fall into categories not previously known to be targets of selection in the human lineage, such as those involved in metabolism of carbohydrates and fatty acids."


"Both genes and cultural traits that were adaptive in the context of past food scarcities play a role today in the etiology of maladaptive adult obesity."

[I would dispute the concept of a 'maladaptation' because proteins that retain fat do not concern themselves with whether the fat globules come from a 'natural' glut of mammoth blubber, or a 'cultural' glut of processed foods (and existential malaise).]

More evolutionary titbits:



16 "but if their birth-canal:head ratio is as dumb as that of HomSap"

The main problem is that, being bi-pedal, the perineum has the job of keeping the body organs from falling out, so getting something out is tricky. But we could solve the problem if we changed our belief that the archetype of the birthing mother contorting her face is 'natural'.


"Push!
When you start to feel the need to push, or when your doctor says you can, bear down as though you were moving your bowels. I know that sounds odd, but one of the biggest problems with pushing is that women mistakenly "push with their faces". They hold their breath, scrunch up their faces, squeeze all of their muscles, and push until their faces are purple. This type of pushing will only exhaust you! Push as though you were pooping instead."



Or even, let your body do the pushing -

"Basi

23. cont.

"Basically your body knows what to do, and will do it regardless. Even if you went into a coma your body would birth the baby without you. In fact it would do a pretty good job of it. So your role in the birth is actually just to not get in the way. You need to learn how to relax and surrender and breathe through it, and not hold back and resist and impede the progress."


When I had my second child both the GP and the hospital consultant refused to oversee a home birth but I was allowed one under the care of the midwives. My parents came to stay with me before the birth and the hospital consultant told my father that she thought I was foolish and then proceeded to ask him if he would take a tour around her neo-natal department and offer his valuable opinion of the facilities, which naturally, being the considerate man that he is, he did.

16 "we will go back to the caves, post cataclysm,"

Yes, but only the Khoisan could repopulate the earth with the same genetic diversity that exists today.

"The Khoi-san have the largest amount of genetic diversity in mtDNA than any other human population, having diverged from the evolutionary tree 100,000 years ago."

(And some pictures of me)

"30. At 06:08am 29th Apr 2011, wappaho wrote:

24 Mork, your arguments are the same as mine! The House of Lords has degenerated since we took away the hereditary element. As long as people are 'elected', there will be temptation not to use independent, unbiased thought processes. The same would happen with a presidency.

There is no intellectual or economic justification for removing the royalty. As with fox-hunting the republican position is just a sort of sour grapes winge."


umm, no. Actually, the quality generally went UP with the removal of the hereditaries, as most of the people left there did it because they believed in what they were doing, and respected the role. Plus, despite the impression you give, there were Lords given of PM patronage even then, and it is historic that many PM appointees are little more than hacks - at least at first. There is certainly an advantage in having a Second Chamber with different selection means than the Lower Chamber, but there would also be an advantage to having an elected Second Chamber that can be a check through equal legitimacy to the Lower. The worst of all worlds in one where the PM can (is) appointing vast numbers of new Lords to gerrymander the Chamber. Elections confer legitimacy, 'appointed respected citizens' confer stability, and a potentially non-partisan approach. So both have pros and cons.

as for "removing royalty being sour grapes by republicans" - no, such matters also have pros and cons, and i don't think all republicans are 'sour grapes' because they disagree with you on the topic.

#11 flicks: ""At the same time, the Commission said it had opened proceedings against nine of the 16 banks and ICE Clear Europe, a CDS clearing house owned by exchange operator InterContinental Exchange, to examine whether preferential tariffs granted by ICE to the banks had hurt competitors."


I dont buy it; they are using CDS's to checkmate countries into bailouts"

----

matters are far more complex, this is not a them v us situation, there is squabbling amongst the various elite groups, and they use law against each other. Don' get caught by oversimplifications. The enemy of my enemy can sometimes help me. - But it doesn't mean i have to trust them!


---------------

#13 Barry, there is nothing new in these "madnesses" you describe, i would strongly recommend a read of "Barbarians":



and i sincerely request the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to broadcast the show again, as i've only read the book, and it is magnificent.

point being, it can clearly be seen that much of "modern" behaviour can be found buried in the myths, stories and cultral relics of the Roman era, and can by found to be rooted in CULTURAL conventions, rather than any neurological or genetic elements. The treatment of Women, for instance, was as owned chattel in the West for almost 2000 years - this has nothing to do with genes, but patriarchal hegemonic ideas within Christianity, imported from Rome.


"The problem with pondering such matters, is that one realises one’s own distortions, as well as those of source information impinge, and edge perception towards an Alice in Wonderland unreality which one must, necessarily, view from Alice’s perspective. A very odd perspective indeed! And should it all suddenly makes sense, there is a very real danger that the ‘sense’ is unique to oneself."

how could it be otherwise than subjective experience? This was the insight of Einstein, almost 100 years ago!


"This is no place to be if sanity is to be maintained!"

sorry, but rubbish. If "sanity" is to be judged by "observing closely to Reality", then observed Reality should be somewat similar to the best philosophers of the day. Relativity and especially QM, have placed the subjective experience back into the "Enlightenment Objectivity", the Individual is once again important. This IS an expression of sanity!!


"Looking for ‘validating purpose’ is clearly to no avail, so one might as well give up one’s life to an unknowable God!"

its easy to find a "validating purpose", the hard part is trying to live up to all the "validating purposes" we find when we look. :/


psychopathology has far more to do with social factors than genes, barry.

#14: sasha, "Alas, I found the end of the book to be somewhat unconvincing, but perhaps it will make more sense upon re-reading. I hope so, but am not over-optimistic."

with the last line of the quote you gave, i wouldn't hope much either.


#16 barry, perhaps we just need a better handbook now?

Not the royal wedding



given the state take a personal oath of loyalty to one family and their privileges [like the ss did to hitler] and not an oath to protect the rights and freedoms of the people then it make sense that those who find the evidence of the the monarchist apartheid narrative style is offensive to human dignity are 'the enemy' while those who support apartheid narrative that is anti democracy and anti human rights for all are 'friends'?

the uk is still under norman monarchy model occupation. The reason the uk is littered with castles [like idf checkpoints in the west bank] is because they had to suppress the people with force. To make yourself royal you have to make others common. By force if necessary.

STYLE GOOD SUBSTANCE FAIR (#27 28 29)

Yo Mort! Are you in the schooling business at all? You tend to 'correct' the posts of others and point out 'errors'. Is this a window on the Mort-Mind? Must try harder (to be positively creative). Hey - this IS fun, isn't it!

Speaking of creativity: 'Yes' to a 'better handbook' (culture/philosophy/psychology); do you care to outline the content? There is the considerable problem that no half-brained newborn can access such - but we can work on that.

bravo to the brave lady reviewing the papers on AM show mentioning Marr's injunction....wonder if she will be invited back....

#31: mmmph. I would definitely add 'prometheus rising' by robert anton wilson to all 'A' Level curricula, for social/political/economic development i'd add 'The Transition Town Handbook', for religion/human development i would say:

dune series - frank herbert,
tao of physics - fritjof capra,

for 'inner space' exploration i would recommend:

Tibetan Book of the Dead - timothy leary,
a good manual/class on yoga/meditation.

the key is to avoid hacks who use a lot of "is", and more "can be thought of as", there is a great deal to be said for the perspective that Life is not about finding answers, but about finding good questions.

work on a good awareness of when people are being honest, try always to understand where the 'other person' is coming from in their thoughts, and remember that YOU ALSO used to have some silly ideas (so cut others slack), and aim for the highest morality possible. Behave well, but don't be fanatical about it. Reject racism, and any other kind of hatred based upon unchangeable characteristics. Try to give others the freedoms of action you yourself would (have) like(d).

then enjoy the fantastic complexity of Life. - Don't be a jerk. ;)


#23, St. Wappaho: "the Harvard-based evolutionary biologist knows where he stands. "People, including me, would rather believe that significant human biological evolution stopped between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, before the races diverged, which would ensure that racial and ethnic groups are biologically equivalent," he says. "

what?? Of course evolution is still happening, not only at the genetic and social level, but also the microbiological. And ALL human groups have taken part in that, equally, "diverged races" or not.

sounds like very muddled thinking to me.


""...some of the newly identified genes fall into categories not previously known to be targets of selection in the human lineage, such as those involved in metabolism of carbohydrates and fatty acids.""

he should look into the 'blood group diets' theory:



so clearly these are linked into basic gene groups as well. Interesting article though.


"Both genes and cultural traits that were adaptive in the context of past food scarcities play a role today in the etiology of maladaptive adult obesity."

[I would dispute the concept of a 'maladaptation' because proteins that retain fat do not concern themselves with whether the fat globules come from a 'natural' glut of mammoth blubber, or a 'cultural' glut of processed foods (and existential malaise).]"

as above. And i agree with you.


the last newscientist link is very informative, esp. liked this:



nice finds, sister, but always recall that scientists tend to regard their own speciality as being the 'most important', Think of your PC - software and hardware are BOTH essential. Bearing that in mind, genetics/neuroscience is a very interesting topic. :)

Can Kirsty Wark please stop interrupting interviewees when they are in the middle of saying something interesting? Can she actually listen to what they are saying instead of butting in with her pre-prepared interventions? I appreciate that it must be far more difficult to engage in a dialogue with an interview than simply to butt in, but could she please give it a try?
The discussions with Simon Schama and with Martin Bashir on Friday's programme well exemplified her poor interviewing technique.

Its all going to plan for Adrian :-

The Man who murdered Osama Bin Laden ??

Ted Butler writes an open letter April 28 2011 to Chairman and CEO of BlackRock



"Current reports indicate the most recent level of total short sales now exceed 36 million shares. This is an increase of more than 14 million shares from the previous reported amount."

There was a massive rise in the PM's on Friday but silver was singled out and attacked down. The higher it goes the more the shorts have to pay out and its in the tens of billions. On opening the PM's shot up again until the "announcement"

jbyeats view on things at the moment - 'this Yin and Yang going on'



'America is running around the world like a lunatic'

The Left appears to be distraught at Bin Laden's death:



Prepare yourselves for more vile apologists to crawl out from under the ever-increasing pile of bodies.

@39 Calm down - they make alot of it up!

30. "given the state take a personal oath of loyalty to one family and their privileges [like the ss did to hitler] and not an oath to protect the rights and freedoms of the people then it make sense that those who find the evidence of the the monarchist apartheid narrative style is offensive to human dignity are 'the enemy' while those who support apartheid narrative that is anti democracy and anti human rights for all are 'friends'?"

I think you are missing the point that the aftermath of Hitler was millions of dead people, whereas the aftermath of Kate and Wills' wedding was a few fashion faux-pas, a laughing policeman and a cart-wheeling verger. Hardly in the same league.

33 scientists tend to regard their own speciality as being the 'most important'

That may be true of anyone trying to convince themselves it's time to leave for work in the morning!

In Study 1, a main effect of serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR) genotype was associated with the impulsivity dimension of psychopathy. That is, individuals homozygous for the short allele evidenced more impulsivity than did those homozygous for the long allele.
In contrast, a gene–environment interaction was associated with the callous-unemotional and narcissistic features of psychopathy. Youths homozygous for the long allele exhibited callous-unemotional and narcissistic traits that increased as socio-economic resources decreased .
You [Broken URL edited and corrected by Moderator] ths homozygous for the long allele living in poverty are most lkely to be classified as psycopathic.

#43: yes! :)

social situations can 'aggravate' or increase the effects of biological tendencies, - or reduce them.

as a side note, the same is true of 'astrological tendencies', they are not absolutes but tendencies towards certain behaviours, that can be/are modified by experience and socialisation. Very often specialists are unaware of similar theoretical structures in other spheres, which is something to be aware of.

in short, the more you study, the easier it can become to sort out the 'chaff from the wheat'. :D

44. yes, but..Two salient points: 1. one trait associated with psycopathy is not affected by environment. 2. The trait that is affected is not created by the environment, the environment can only exacerbate the effect of the gene.

The gene comes first. Nature-nurture is not 50:50. Nurture can only amend or ameliorate the effect of nature, whereas nature just is.

In the severest of cases the required amelioration may just be too costly for it to be worth a society engaging in.

I don't believe in absolutes in neither good nor evil but I do believe in exceptional circumstances to generally valid policies. There is no point trying to rehabilitate people who admit that their urges are beyond their control.

I am not advocating the DP. Kind encarceration may be as good as releasing bewildered individuals into a world they cannot operate in.

I watched a prog about dog training. the dog was gorgeous but aggressive. By the end of the prog the owners had controlled the dog's behaviour in a very amicable way but they were cautioned by the trainer that the dog was aggressive by nature and therefore would need constant monitoring and maintenance.

A person could be rendered irreversibly aggressive by their childhood environment. Can a child who murders and then is mercilessly processed through the neo-liberal youth justice system and by adulthood is accessing illegal material, ever be rehabilitated? A similar case in Sweden never went to court and the community took a vow of silence. Incredible. We have much to learn about our genetics and our cultures that interpret our genetics.

Does the wedding feel in tune with the current mood of the country, or hopelessly out of step? A really good question!

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