Abuse of Information Technology?

Well, I'm on the fence but I'd like to see Ehrlich's ideas progress. But I don't know how possible that is, it would take an UNDERSTANDING of ANCIENT history of the human race to ever be precise and give sociobiology some serious competition. But perhaps, as usual, I'll side with both. I think that could make for more progress.

I think this is going to fall under sociobiology, but to me, it holds some face value because cultural evolution is intertwined in the end. Although most of the human race has left the "hunter-gatherer" stage of evolution thousands of years ago, our emotions and our bodies are still equipped for that former lifestyle. I was watching something on TV about the human brain and one thing that was discussed was how our brain reacts when we are in trouble. One example of which was what biologically happens when a young adult is lying under scrutiny... he gets defensive because his brain thinks he is under attack. Accordingly, our behavior, triggered by the brain is called the "fight or flight" response. They say we possess this defense mechanism (in hundreds of situations including life-threatening) because of our ancestors cultural environment thousands of years ago. Today's culture is piled high with laws and rules that naturally prevent one from following his/her natural inclination 'in living' that our ancestors posessed many many moons ago. And today? We are ribbed with clinical illnesses (depression, anxiety, anything that contributes to the rise of psychiatrists' help... which, in turn, shapes our culture accordingly) because we conform to modern-day society's laws and restrictions.

Hey kat--you raised several interesting things there:

1) Ehrlich & Cultural Evolution--I'm not sure I see problems with Ehrlich competing with sociobiology. I don't even know if you'd have to go back to ancient history, but if you did, there are plenty of records of cultures to mine for data. But even if you don't do that--I think the idea is that cultural change is faster than evolutionary change so you don't have to look at such a big chunk of time. For instance he suggests looking at the culture of doctors around dispensing of antibiotics, or culture of celebrity in the history of scurvy.

2) Sociobiology--I am admittedly biased here 'cause I was introduced to sociolbiology by going to a lecture when I was an undergraduate which kind of brought on one of my *ahem* rants (the kind where I turn green and bust outa my shirt). And I still hear my students voicing the same idea that was proposed at that lecture--which is that men are naturally polygamous and women are naturally monogamous because polygamy for men resulted in more progeny (who then carried the polygamy gene) while monogamy resulted in more progeny for women. So here's why I think that argument is completely nonsensical: the children who got the polygamy gene from their Daddies--were they only boys? what happened to the polygamy gene in the girl children of these polygamous Daddies? Oh...maybe it's only carried on the Y chromosone? Have sociobiologists done any experiments to show that? No? Huh? Well where do they think the gene is? What do you mean they don't even know if there is such a gene? Polygamy and monogamy are cultural behaviors (not like fight or flight)--can we even assign them to a particular gene or a set of genes? What about the fact that our definition of those things is cultural and not biological? OK--and those polygamy guys, who were they mating with--must have been those monogamous gals--and whose genes got passed down?

Hmmm, and could it possibly be that the culture the sociobiologists themselves are coming from--a culture which has always defined women in terms of the necessity of their monogamy in order to guarantee the legitimacy of children, could that possibly have anything to do with the way they are interpreting the data?

Gee....the years have barely put a dent in that rant...

3) In the last point you were making you were contrasting a natural way of living vs. today's culture in which we live with modern laws and restrictions 'causing depression, anxiety, etc. I guess I don't see a natural simple past vs. a complex cultured modernity. I think humans by nature have culture. In our urbanized culture we might look at a nomadic culture as being more natural--but I think they are equally natural.

(ETA Maybe they're actually not equally natural in that the nomadic culture might be in better synch with natural rhythms. But I guess my overall point is that in thinking about how to bring about cultural change it's important to look at the things in our nature, in our environment, etc. that led to the development of the things we're trying to change and not think of them as foreign to us somehow or imposed from without.)

I find it more helpful for myself to think of contrasting different cultures then and looking at why a nomadic culture might have less of that stress and anxiety, what kind of social structure did they have, what kind of economy, did they have laws, restrictions, taboos too? It's helpful to me because then there are ways I can imagine working to change what seems maladaptive in our culture--changing structures, economies, etc. But if I make that binary opposition of nature/culture, then change seems much less possible as we'd have to throw out everything that is (modern culture) to return to that natural past.

1. Well hmm, am I wrong here? I was under the impression that cultural evolution and sociobiology are more or less competing with each other (which I thought was stupid). Looking at the criticism this guy receives was my first hunch. He's proposing the route of memeticists, which focuses on the characteristics of the ideas or things that people choose. Other social scientists focus on the characteristics of the person making the choices. So combine the two and you have scientists seeing different things, different perspectives, and consequently making different discoveries... which my understanding is sociologists dispute natural science. So having two paradigms with misunderstandings of each other creates competing paradigms. Of course, I don't think they even need to compete... all that's really happening is what happens when anyone tries to digest information, they're going to digest the information that is useful to them, and ignore the rest. But if you take information from both paradigms and apply it to the preconstructed concepts and methods of the evolutionary phenomena, it'll fit. With a cognitive understanding anyway. I'm probably totally ignorant of something but I don't see why not. Perhaps Ehrlich's approach is a third paradigm though?

Ancient history - well, for educational purposes, there would need to be more concrete discoveries wouldn't there? The deeper you go down the rabbit hole, heh, that is, the futher down the evolutionary timeline, the more educated guesses will occur. Unlike bones, culture doesn't fossilize.

2. Heh, I don't mind the rant. It was quite awesome actually. Didn't know I was going to get drilled with the 50 questions, but whatever. Are... those genuine questions or do you know the answers to them? Has it been ruled out that monagamy and polygamy aren't carried in our genes?

I think your argument is valid... I don't have a firm position but, re: the Y chromosone - I think the polygamy gene is passed down only if it's a boy, and the monagamy gene passed down only if it's a girl. lol, that made me laugh. But seriously, do you disagree with the "gene programming" of certain behaviors? I think the understanding among sociobiologists is that if most humans are monogamous, then such a standard would be determined so by our culture. But if the behavior changes, then human nature would change too. So, if global societies lean more toward polygamy rather than monagamy - is this a result of the behavior being morally wrong - human nature? Or is it an evolutionary strategy? As it's highly recognized, society has tended to have a double standard in being more tolerant of sexual promiscuity in men than in women. But sociobiology has no emotion, it is not moral or immoral. It's a strategical theory that shows humans are baby making machines.

Here's an interesting quote about monagomy and polygamy:

Only 22% of societies are strictly monogamous. Almost no modern societies are polyandrous, in which one woman marries several husbands (although such societies have existed historically in the Canary Islands, the Himalayas, the Canadian Arctic, and possibly other places). Only 3% of mammal species in general are monogamous, although at least 15% of primate species are.

In historical terms, it is monogamy that is in need of explanation, not polygamy.

— Janet Bennion, Women of Principle (1998)

3. Well, I think as far as the lifestyles in an industrialized society compared to ancient society has brought problems for the human race. And laws, restrictions, taboos and whatnot - I do think a culture such as the one we live in that utilizes those methods of restriction does make for a contrasted view of ancient culture to todays culture.

You're right. So what needs to happen for cultural adaptation to take place? With todays culture that'll never happen. That's also a funny statement to make, heh. But there would need to be a valid classification of the emotional and physical problems of people (that's why it'll never happen - heh, in fact, I read some article today talking about internet addiction being classified as a mental illness, sigh). Or focus on the industrialized society to that of anthropological culture, promote education, promote awareness, and do something that never happens - share knowledge with the public.

"Cultural change is faster than evolutionary change." - And here's a good example...

But first, an excerpt - (riddled with Lost )

"Although our cultures has essentially left magical thinking behind, much of our thought is still rooted in mythological thinking, defined by a God-and-the-Devil outlook, where all issues are black and white, right and wrong, and there is no middle ground. It is the world we saw on television decades ago, where the good guys wore white and the bad guys wore black."

The Cultural Evolution of Consciousness

I'm just going by the brief description of the book linked but I see a couple problems in the basic assumptions. First, the definition of mythology seems odd to me as most mythologies that I know don't really have that kind of black/white structure. In particular, he seems to be talking about Christianity ("God and the Devil")? But again, that seems an inaccurate portrayal to me--more like a confusion between Christianity and the Manichean heresy (the dualistic version of Christianity in which evil is a force equal to and in opposition to God--if I have that definition right).

I'm not sure whether it's accurate to use the term evolution interchangeably with development either--as I'm not sure it has the same weighting of progress. And I don't think objective thinking is necessarily better than magical or mystical thinking.

1. Sorry--my wording there was confusing. I didn't mean they weren't competing with each other. I just meant that I didn't think Ehrlich would have any trouble competing with the sociobiologist view for the reason I thought you were stating (that he would need access to a lot of data from Ancient History). And I don't think that will prove to be a problem for him or for the idea of Cultural Evolution--I don't think Cultural Evolution needs to go that far back in time. As in his examples--he can just look at the evolution of what happens with, for instance, the discovery of how to deal with scurvy. 'Cause he's not looking at actual genetic evolution. Genetic evolution is just providing him the pattern--he thinks they are patterned the same way, but is not saying that it's genetics that is the cause of cultural change.

As for sociologists and natural scientists--I think they are coming together more--for instance there's that new field called sociophysics.

"Ancient History"--you said there would need to be new discoveries? We might need to define what we are referring to. By Ancient History I mean Ancient Egypt or Greece or Babylon, etc.

2. I think DL covered below much better than I could the reasons why the genetics-emotion, or genetics-cultural behavior correspondence doesn't really work.

One general point I'd make about sociobiology. It has always seemed to me to be just another version of an ideology which tries to say a certain status quo behavior (like the sexual double standard for men and women) is rooted in nature and therefore can't be changed.

And then about that particular example about monogamy and polygamy and why it doesn't make sense. What sociobiology claims is that by being polygamous men created more offspring and therefore passed down more of the polygamy gene (which is something they made up), while women needed to be monogamous to get one man to hang around and protect them and their children--so that monogamy for women resulted in more children surviving. Well that just doesn't make any logical sense--how could the men be polygamous and create more children, while the women needed to have the men be monogamous to create more children? If the men were being polygamous and creating more children then the polygamy gene would be passed down (but not the monogamy one). Whereas if the men were being monogamous and sticking around to protect the little woman and that's what allowed her monogamy genes to be passed down, then the polygamous genes wouldn't be.

3. Again, I think we may need to clarify what "Ancient History" we are talking about.

But generally my point is that I think the distinction between a simple past that was closer to nature and therefore better for us (less stressful etc.), and a present day that isn't is a false one. In other words--I don't think there's anything about the fact that we now live in an internet age which precludes our natural rhythms or our human nature from manifesting itself--I don't see anything about technology that is is antithetical to nature. Developing technologies is part of who we as humans are--part of our nature.

As much as I'm a fan of science in relation to studying DNA, I think we're losing our focus to be looking for a "cause" for every behavior in the human genome.  The further we burrow down into the rabbit hole of what we cannot see, the more personal the scope of the data we're gathering.  It's like explaining the mechanics of our planet by studying a single human cell.  Though we may be able to draw some relations and similarities that are useful in investigating related phenomenon - the information gathered is not applicable to all the science involved in the study of our planet in a direct/causal way.

To what end are we studying this?

It seems to me like people are digging deeper and deeper in a search for control over disease, the perceived gender differences that scare us - you name it. 

...because it seems to me that the stuff we're learning with this science is really just the mechanics of things that we already understand.

To be fair, I'm not sure I've ever met many men that were all that interested in having multiple wives. When you meet one that talks about it, you can be fairly certain they aren't truly desiring multiple concurrent long-term commitments.

Your Janet Bennion quote is interesting. I wonder what it takes to qualify for that 22% statistic, since it has that "strict" qualifier in front of it. I'm finding it a bit hard to swallow that 78% of the world in any timeframe endorses polygamy.

Can we really even have a predictable measure of polygamy or what "causes" it?  Even if we could bypass the social pressure that might cause a poll like that to be inaccurate - there's no possible way to take the scientific evidence collected and say with certainty "this causes that".

First - just a single human sample of DNA is so complex and the differences in any given allele and how that might interact with another allele ... it's incomprehesible.  If it were as easy as pinning down one gene - they would have found the cure for cancer now that they've mapped the human genome.  Then later consider how these alleles in combination might affect the hormones in a human being - that I believe to be the precursor to emotion ... that's equally complex.  Add to that the layer of how a person chooses to handle these emotions - and the chemicals/hormones in the brain that this choice involves, and how that impacts the hormones... and even changes the structure of the brain...  Add to that any environmental factors, including chemical pollution and the pesticides you eat with your food.  All this from the first moment an infant child is outside of the womb.

Let's even consider the scientific classification of human beings such as sorting by gender.  It's only useful to an extent.

Heck I was just reading today...

Nature's sex change 
The Intersex Society of America estimates that one of every 2,000 American children are born with an intersex disorder, so defined when one’s sexual anatomy does not fall neatly into the male or female category.

...and concerning the environment that may have an impact on this - we've been posting stuff about the drug in our drinking water that may affect this as well: 

Is anyone concerned with what causes gender?  ...or should our focus be simply how to live a healthy life in relation to gender?

People are more than just DNA
It's somewhat of an illusion to separate the human race by a set of distinct characteristics and then say that if someone falls in this classification and so this is predictably what they will do if presented with this given situation.  It's in fact, stereotyping of a sort.

Even if we had the technology to "prove" that a combination of genes with this pattern causes this hormone to be created in the individual, which on the norm causes a person to feel "happy, sad, aroused" or whatever... you still can't say with any certainty that the person will act on that emotion in any predictable fashion.

While it might be fun to trace it all back to the sociology, biology and whatnot to see from whence a certain behavior comes for any given individual... this sort of thing is way to complex to generalize and push out there as "normal" behavior - like some kind of standard that people will use to measure themselves and their children against and create a new set of neuroses the marketers can latch onto.

Do we really want this?
Drugs, Dollars & Diagnosis

Last I'd heard of its calculation method, that statistic has little value beyond shock. It was derived from obtaining divorces per annum by marriages per annum and resulted in a misleading, ultimately useless statistic.

Additionally, I don't see how the divorce rate has any relationship to whether or not a society endorses monogamy, polygamy, or perpetual bachelorhood.

I'm just struggling with the idea of 78% of the world saying "polygamy gud 4 yu yar!"

LOL

Hm... GC, maybe you should put up yer own poll and see what happens. 

I'd recommend Asimov's "The Feeling of Power", dealing tangencially with the article's author concerns.

Yeah, information technology is supposed to help, but in fact it's turning us into lazy chaps. What's the use on remembering anything, if you've got Google? Of course, the downside of it is you're remembering what someone else thinks you should remember...

About the "link" between knowledge and reasoning, well, it's out there. "Slippery-sloping" the aforesaid downside... what's the use of thinking about anything when somebody else already thought about that and uploaded their conclusions on the Net? Just Google it!

<edit>

Just a quick edit to note the irony of my post. I'm moaning about how us people rely in someone else's thoughts about whatever and, first thing I do is... forward you guys to Asimov! The nerve!

</edit>

A long while back I saw similar news of how teaching handwriting skills used to be "every day life" and is also on its way out... to be taken over by teaching keyboarding skills.

This article The Handwriting is on the Wall portrays the "so what" attitude of a few people quoted when discussing this topic.

It also mentions a possible link that handwriting has a positive impact on certain developmental skills.

"Writing, from its originating essence, is hand-writing. ... In handwriting the relation of Being to man, namely the word, in inscribed in beings themselves. ... Therefore when writing was withdrawn from the origin of its essence, i.e., from the hand, and was transferred to the machine, a transformation occurred in the relation of Being to man. ... In the typewriter we find the irruption of the mechanism in the realm of the word. ... The typewriter veils the essence of writing and of the script. It withdraws from man the essential rank of the hand..." - Martin Heidegger

I've always thought writing was artistic. My perception was that it gives a person a sense of individuality. So I can totally believe that handwriting serves a cognitive purpose and is probably essential for kids to learn. 

And as it does, technology evolves and with that we adapt. Maybe in order to accomodate advanced technology but not become monogamous to it in schools, instead of sitting a kid down in front of a computer or placing a pencil and paper in front of him, the schools could just simply provide the necessary tools and the kid can choose which way he/she prefers to translate their thoughts. Adapting their imagination to how each student wants to express themselves via typing or handwriting, not the other way around.

Not exclusive to poems and such, but I think by the way people express themselves, there is a sense of romantic association that we attach to writing... so maybe it'll be a little harder to let that completely go.

Hey don't be givin' Google all the credit; I was a lazy chap to begin with...

Again I don't think the causal agent is the technology--for instance, using Google requires remembering enough to put a bit of info into the search.  Before Google, I still had those bits of info, I just couldn't access the rest. so I think of Google as having enhanced my memory not limited it.

"What's the use of thinking about anything when somebody else already has?"

Well learning is always a tricky balance between received information and learning to process the information yourself; that's nothing new. What I see as a huge contribution to the failure of critical thinking is that the whole culture is geared toward empirical assessment, especially education at the moment. In order to prove students are learning we've designed a system which tests only their storage of received information, and so the whole educational system has been geared toward teaching them that. Much harder to measure critical thinking on a standardized test.

No, I don't think technology is the causal agent, but I see it as an aggravation. Anyway, I'll disagree with you on how to use Google ;-) You don't have to remember anything to search, you just have to listen to something you don't know about, and type it in.

But I see this tendency as the result of another --more dangerous-- habit of today's society. We are taught it's "cool" to achieve things without effort.

I stand corrected (heh, just wonderingif that phrase originates from having gotten a spanking and therefore needing to "stand corrected"--and thinking, hmmm, should I google that :-)

You're right--you don't have to use Google that way--but doesn't that say that it's not the technology but how it's used that's the more important? :-)

That's a cool point about "cool." Being cool seems to require at least the appearance of effortlessness--wondering why that is so much more prevalent today...

First of all, AWESOME comments...  

I've read other articles about her previous to this one where she does put herself in a more understandable light than she portrayed in this interview. Although I agree with her on the whole about the limited views of the American people, but the assertions she puts forth just don't hold any weight at face value. While the internet is chalk full of information at your fingertips, it can also be used as a "dumb-down" tool for people who want it, so I agree that it is sort of a shortcut. However, it's a moot point considering all the potential it has to the willful "googler".

And come on, the subject is so debateable and controversial.  I'm a stricter when it comes to polls and I don't agree that she basis her assessments on a fraction of Americans representing as a whole.  I had a sort of knee-jerk reaction she couldn't come up with better examples. How can she really expect anyone to take her seriously when she's contrasting knowing a location on a map to that of learning a whole new language? 

Though it may seem otherwise, I think anti-intellectualism and the desire to subvert mass of knowledge is really no more prevalent than it ever was. That is the problem. More so, intelligent people (geeks, nerds, whathaveyou) are branded strange and anti-social for building and participating in one of the world's truly revolutionary new cultures known as the World Wide Web.  The fact that Jacoby not only recognizes this but understands it, is a bit contradictive to me.

Overall, she is on the right track, I think, for the reasons Americans choose not to engage more... but that's not just a US problem, it's a global problem. Though I do think there is a "culture of achievement" present in some countries that is simply lacking in the US. But then, what do I know? It's not like I'm geographically experienced.

"Being cool seems to require at least the appearance of effortlessness--wondering why that is so much more prevalent today..." -- jaz

I'm afraid it's a sign of the times. I was raised to believe hard work would eventually pay. Unfortunately, it did, but not as much as I was told it would. In the meantime, you are witnessing how these "cool" guys get lots of money without any apparent effort...

So there you have. Next generation "learns" work doesn't really pay, while being "fresh" gets you almost anywhere.

Read an interesting article this morning about the advantages of being bored and disconnected:

"Paradoxically, as cures for boredom have proliferated, people do not seem to feel less bored; they simply flee it with more energy, flitting from one activity to the next.... [People] have more channels to be social; there are always things to do. And yet people seem oddly numb. They are not quite bored, but not really interested either.

That means steeping in uninterrupted boredom may be the first step toward feeling connected. It 'may take a little bit of tolerance of an initial feeling of boredom, to discover a comfort level with not being linked in and engaged and stimulated every second,' said Jerome C. Wakefield, a professor of social work at New York University and co-author of 'The Loss of Sadness.' 'There's a level of knowing yourself, of coming back to baseline, and knowing who you truly are.' " ("The joy of boredom")

I don't think this is so much a result of the technology--though the technology facilitates it. I think it's a result of a consumer driven economy that says that every desire has to be instantly gratified.

Ironically, I think those who get over their fear of boredom so that they can sit still for more than three seconds will find within themselves resources that will prevent them from ever becoming bored.  They'll never again feel the need to "flee from boredom"... they'll just stop experiencing it.

Because when one stops "flitting" he or she WILL momentarily feel as though they must be missing out on something that's going on somewhere... he or she will feel "disconnected".  But if one is quiet long enough one will realize that he or she is deeply connected to everyone and everything in the universe without having to do a thing.  And THAT connection will feel so powerful and real that he or she will never feel disconnected again.

Oo, interesting GC. I know just what you're saying but was wondering if you had more thoughts on that?

That article was great. Very insightful. I never really thought of boredom that way... that the things we do to escape the feeling of boredom derives from a fear to be in that state - feeling disconnected, unproductive, useless, or even borING.

I think while technology more or less facilitates our boredom now, that it still had a great impact in how humans have evolved with feeling bored. Before there were technologies that freed us momentarily from boredom, there were more innovative ways of experiencing the lack of stimulation whether it was by occupying ourselves in a more creative way, or becoming in our own and in touch with our feelings. Boredom can be aimless and cause no end of trouble, but for the right person, can lead to progress where it wouldn't otherwise exist.

Could this be the difference in the strict "religious" person than that of a "spiritual" one? When people don't have time for their thoughts, they often lack spirituality as well. In that respect, boredom is like direct access to finding our purpose in life. If we take time to meditate on why we are here, then we must have time alone, with our thoughts, to do so. Understanding in a different perspective or seeing through a "high resolution" lens.

Not bored but not interested either - alimenting the numbing feeling, as if we were sleepwalking through our lives. To experience boredom, perhaps in the most fluid way we are capable of is to experience realness - a real sense of enlightenment.

Reading that article reminded me of that "What the Bleep" film, in how humans are conditioned to accept prolonged sadness and anxiety as a disease that needs to be cured by medication. Health specialists, thank God, are questioning whether this is true. They don't go into it but I believe if they were, the What the Bleep film could be used as a good, visual example on how recurring emotions can have a "way of life" impact on humans. As people get older, parents and children demand more and more specific stimuli. How does someone without knowledge that the brain can actually "rewire" itself actually be "cured'? (I've noticed more people that I associate with than not have no knowledge of this discovery.) Medication rarely cures indefinitely (and I would argue the FTC doesn't want it to). But people believe that is what they need in order to flee from their emotions. All it really takes is knowledge to become "aware". And controlling our emotions and habits and "rewiring" the brain becomes a way of life instead. There's even a fancy word for it - "emotional intelligence". But even then, moments of boredom, it seems, was made for just this realization. And as a reminder to let go of the supernatural fast world and connect on a deeper and perhaps even spiritual level.

So there you have. Next generation "learns" work doesn't really pay, while being "fresh" gets you almost anywhere. -- DaBot

Wow... you just summarized the apparent worldview of my 14-year-old godson.

Your godson, unfortunately, is not the only one with that worldview. I know lots of twenty-sumfin guys, just arrived to the "job-world", that think exactly that way. They are born to manage, not to work.

My only lesson to them is this: think what will happen to you "fresh" guys when all of us "old-mules" stop working... who's gonna do the job that will pay your expensive cars, your expensive vacations on paradise islands, your expensive houses...? Huh? *wink-wink-nudge-nudge*

Well-thought out handling of it. I was agreeing with some of the problems she noted although I like your criticisms. There have definitely been changes in human thought patterns throughout the centuries and we can relate it to technology, but I think you've nailed it that she's fishing in the wrong streams. For instance, as a Christian apologist, I often have people pooh-poohing the Gospel accounts because they were all written some time after the Ascension. People today simply cannot believe that the Gospel writers would have remembered the events and dia/monologues so clearly. In response, we point to the fact that it was considered fairly normal for people to have a high-quality memory of entire speeches that they'd heard only once. Additionally, ancient philosophers feared the damage that ubiquitous literacy would have on the human mind. Their fears were largely realized as people who can write things down have a demonstrably harder time recalling things than people who cannot.

I do think she touched another problem, even if her assertions around it aren't that great. We definitely live in a "sound bite" society where we expect to be able to thoroughly understand a concept with only a sentence or two about it. Watching the Presidential debate coverages and seeing how the media selectively builds up or tears down candidates using only a short sound bite and the uncritical acceptance of those sound bites devoid of any contextual clues by the masses is a sign of the problems that she noted.