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Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Evolution and emotions
Healthy humans experience and express the entire range of emotions, from time to time. It doesn't matter whether they are single or coupled, wealthy or working class, busy or lazy, HOT or plain, old or young, disciplined or libertine. Why haven't humans evolved to be happy all the time? Isn't that what we all want, to live happily ever after? Heh, evolution doesn't give us what we want. Survival and reproduction require experiencing and expressing the entire range of emotions. People who are happy all the time aren't motivated to take care of themselves properly, they're just as happy regardless of whether they are successful at survival and reproduction. Ditto for people who are unhappy all the time. Without a cycle of positive and negative emotions, people won't make distinctions between good and bad, useful and useless, successful and failed. They won't change their behaviors in response to changing conditions. For example, if a person never felt pain, he wouldn't remove his hand from the stovetop, he wouldn't seek medical attention for food poisoning, he would let his teeth rot inside his head. If a person always felt pleasure, he wouldn't bother leaving the house, wouldn't seek relationships with other people, wouldn't diet or exercise, wouldn't need to have sex. As a healthy human, you can't avoid experiencing the entire range of emotions, from time to time. However, you can avoid expecting that you'll always be happy. You can avoid kicking yourself when you're down by expecting that you should always be happy. No, you shouldn't.
Written by Matthew Dominic Hunter @ 08:43 AM
The irrelevance of Ghandi
Ghandi is revered almost as a God for his views on nonviolence and the widespread belief that he was personally responsible for the liberation of India from British colonial rule. But many other former colonies & provinces liberated themselves during the 20th Century without the assistance of a charismatic, world-renowned, God-like leader. Perhaps this wave of devolution was caused by impersonal technological and economic factors, not inspirational and charismatic displays of principled nonviolence. Perhaps empires just don't last, they are inefficient methods of governance. Here is an incomplete list of countries that gained independence during the 20th Century. I got tired of typing ;-) Australia in 1901
Cuba in 1902
Norway in 1905
New Zealand in 1907
Bulgaria in 1908
South Africa in 1910
Albania in 1912
Finland in 1917
Iceland in 1918
Afghanistan in 1919
Mongolia in 1921
Ireland in 1921
Vatican City in 1929
Iraq in 1932
Lebanon in 1943
Indonesia in 1945
Vietnam in 1945
Jordan in 1946
Syria in 1946
India in 1947
Pakistan in 1947
Burma in 1948
Israel in 1948
Sri Lanka in 1948
Bhutan in 1949
Laos in 1949
Libya in 1951
Cambodia in 1953
Morocco in 1956
Sudan in 1956
Tunisia in 1956
Ghana in 1957
Guinea in 1958
Cyprus in 1960
Most of Fucking Africa in 1960
Kuwait in 1961
Sierra Leone in 1961
Malta in 1964
Botswana in 1966
Bangladesh in 1971
Bahrain in 1971
Qatar in 1971
United Arab Emirates in 1971
Bahamas in 1973
Papua New Guinea in 1975
Tuvalu in 1978
Zimbabwe in 1980
Belize in 1981
Saint Kitts and Nevis in 1983
Namibia in 1990
Armenia in 1991
Azerbaijan in 1991
Belarus in 1991
Croatia in 1991
Estonia in 1991
Georgia in 1991
Kazakhstan in 1991
Kyrgyzstan in 1991
Latvia in 1991
Lithuania in 1991
Macedonia in 1991
Marshall Islands in 1991
Micronesia in 1991
Moldova in 1991
Slovenia in 1991
Tajikistan in 1991
Turkmenistan in 1991
Ukraine in 1991
Uzbekistan in 1991
Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992
Eritrea in 1993
Slovakia in 1993
Palau in 1994
Written by Matthew Dominic Hunter @ 08:40 AM
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