Re: Yet Another Roswell Thread


Ian Parker wrote:
On 14 Jul, 22:45, eina...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Ian Parker wrote:
On 13 Jul, 17:39, eina...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
You are raising some very deep questions here. At one level memes
certainly exist and a very good example is natural language. I have
told you my background. Looking at French and Spanish you can enornous
simularities. The grammar is virually identical and so is a lot of
vocabulary and phrases like "todo el mundo" - "tout le monde". Now
evolutionary biologists say that branches occured at particular times,
purely because of genetic markers. The main mammalian groups were
divergent in the mid Cretaceous. We can say that in an "Eocene" period
the West Franks adopted the language of the Visigoths. The memetic
markers having identical maths to the genetic ones.

Mind you, after a consideration at a greater depth, I don´t see it
that way that memes clearly exchist. As far as I can see just about
everything memetics claims to explaine can be explained just as well
or even better by classical sociology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memes

I think I fundamentally agree with you. Except for one area Natural
Language where memes fit very well and where memetic markers (such as
"dormir" and "tojo el mundo") tell us how a language evolved and what
trading contacts were made in pre history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Paleolithic

One thing is clear, some kind of a transformation occured among modern
humans a bit ower 50.000 years ago, when the so called upper
paleolithic or late stone age began. It sound likelly that some
brakethrough on language might have been part of the reason. However,
nobody really knows. What appears clear that around that time homo
sapiens burst outwards onto the world and cleared the field in a few
thousand years. This transformation may have been in being for some
time before that period in Africa. But modern humans appear to have
been around for a surprisingly long time before that period or for
something in the range of around 200.000 years.

Mind you, one has to remember that all data is based on what has been
found so far, that creates a limitation. It´s possible that the data
is actually skewed, or in other words that known data has a built in
bias that we can´t know about. Modern humans might have in that period
like today preferred to live close to the ocean, in the lowland areas,
and ocean levels were far lower during the ice age, so it´s possible
that modern humans had already spread along the coastal areas at an
earlier date, all remains of which lye underneath the ocean wawes. So
the 50.000 years date may have to be taken with some cauthion, meaning
that the transformation might be a bit older.

Nobody really knows how language evolved. I really doubt that will
ever be known. But I find it plausable that it was a gradual
evolution, i.e. that varieties of extinct humans had more
communication capabilities than modern animals.

The thing is language must really be driven by the needs of the kind
of society humans live in IMO. Hunting/gathering trybes don´t really
have an absolute need for a very complex language, after all they are
living in fashion not really that far removed from say gorillas, that
at least is the case with primitive jungle tribes. When humans
expanded into different habitats, they found fresh challenges. However
so, humans appear still to have persisted long with very primitive
stone tools.

Personally, I have long been interested in the invention of primitive
fishing tools. It appears that many of the primitive versions of
those, i.e. the fishing spear, the most simple type of netting belong
to that period. You see, pryor to the invention of agriculture it
appears to me that the best chances for humans to create a
considerable population in any single plase, were close to rich
coastal areas. I suspect that the invention of primitive fishing gear
enabled the first population explotion which drove perhaps the need
for a better language. A hypothesis.

Ian Parker wrote:
Good point. Orthodox sociology tells us how opinions are formed and
what the influence of individual thought and group thought is.
Orthodox psychology tells us what sort of people are likely to be
influences by what influences. In fact psychology is the "micro" world
and sociology the macro world. One concept that othodox sociology has
not taken on board, so far at any rate, is the concept of a
"temperature" in a society, that is to say the extent to which
individuals correspond to group influences, and to what extent they
think for themselves. If people think for themselves this results in a
noise level in a socialogical level.

You can tell BTW that I am a physicist and not a sociologist. I think
perhaps a little bit of thinking from Physics might be helpful.

One word about "democracy". Democracy is not simply giving people a
vote, they must have the information available to them to make an
informed decision. Blair made great play of being democratically
elected - false! The CIA and MI6 created a false picture. They were
not elected. If the British people had had true information they would
never have agreed to the war.

Also you need a degree of freedom of thought both legally and in
practice. It is no use voting for a government if the voters vote on
ethnic and religious lines. I have a particular country in mind here.

Sociology, the Web and AI. Conjoint Analysis, finding relationships
between widely varying parameters is now mainsteam sociology (and
marketing). Latent Semantic Analysis is closely related to Conjoint
Analysis and will place a web page in the form of a set of vectors.
Google is now gathering quite a lot of personal information on us. I
just wonder whether it could be used for some form of sociological
analysis. We have our vectors, how do the vectors for individuals
relate.

If combating terrorism is, in the main, the understanding of human
behaviour then AI must surely have a major role.

It appears that throughout most of history societies were indeed
extremelly concervative. Think about it, you may be familiar with the
movie "300." But when the Greegs fought the Persians they found out
that theyr traditional shields were stronger, theyr traditional spears
were longer. That gave Greeg foot soldiers a clear edge over the
standard Persian foot soldier of the time. Decates later, that gave
Alexander the Great the confidence that a much smaller Greeg army
could defeat the Persian empire. In the meantime there had been no
change whatsoever in the Persian armoury. Just a litle example.

It appear to me that humanity would indeed have stagnated again for
long periods, like during the stoneage, if there haden´t been for the
periodic influx/invations of new people´s who replased the previous
ones. Innovation what happened appears to have often been driven by
such events.

In ancient times it appears people were really reluctant, far more
than can really be understood by the modern man, to change. They did
stay with what they knew, what theyr forfathers had used, and in most
cases it took the influx of a fresh group of people to make a change.

That doesn´t mean there was no communication, after all trading
relations were widespread and regular going right back to the late
stone age. Sometimes people did actually innovate but such events
usually were hundreds of years apars.


Something genuine has happened in Modern Times. A change as
fundamental as the change which occured between 50 and 60th. years
ago. Nowdays people are far, far more responsive to change, to the
adaptation of something new, that before and it´s such a huge change
that it needs to be called a transformation. It didn´t happen all at
once, one can trace the first seeds perhaps back to the 15th. century
Itali. But since the industrial revolution began in 18th. century
Britain the pace of change has been gathering steam and gathering some
more steam right since then and there appears to be no going back.

If we take this temperature analogy of yours, things have been
gradually heating up since the 15th. century in Europe, but by the
beginning of the industrial revolution and its voracious appetite for
innovation temperature has really, really picked up. After all, the
industrial revolution does not just drive competition between
individual firms, but it puts demand on the people as well, who must
compete for the jobs and hence need to stay competitive on the jobs
market. In order to do that they must develope theyr skills.


When people vote on ethnic or religious lines, that can create a most
unfortunate situation. Africa has seen many such cases, often ending
in tears. It´s a reason behind much of the instability there, i.e.
different ethnic or religious groups compete for the control of the
state organs, any way they can. When they gain control, they often
used that influence to enrich or benefit theyr own group, usually to
the detriment of the other groups. Typical in Africa is that an
election results in the rule of the largest single ethnic/religious
group, if there is another ethnic/religious group or groups with a
sizeable population(s), then what has number of times happened is that
members of that group engineer a hostile takeover of the gowernment,
i.e. a coupe. What then may follow is a series of coups and counter
coups, leading to either of the two: a) higly repressive despotic
police state under the control of a single ethnic/religious group or
b) civil war. Africa has seen a great number of coups, many repressive
despots and many civil wars.

Interesting is how blind the Bush' regime was to the fact that Iraq
had a similar history and hence was likelly to follow a similar
pattern over again. The regime of Saddam was one of the two logical
outcomes, now that Bush has ousted him the second logical outcome has
occured instead. Mind you, African history does also show that such
civil wars are not without end, but usually it takes years for them to
be resolved in some manner.

According to known civil wars outcomes most end with some sort of a
victory by one of the groups involved. If the civil war is directed
against a gowernment, the gowernment more often than not does win. If
the civil war is a communal one like that in Iraq right now, then more
often than not the largest groups wins. Sometimes though they end with
a settlement, maybe in 1/4 of the instances.

Ian Parker wrote:
I think people are inherently conservative. How change happens is an
area for sociialogical investigation.

That appears indeed most often to have been the case.

One theory is that what did drive Europe, was the constant competition
between different states. Many contrast Europe with China, which did
admittedly achieve many impressive ahcievements, but interesting is
how old most of them are. It´s like that the most productive period
was a long period of troubles which began during the latter era of the
Zhou dinasty. It lasted till China was reunified under emperor Qin in
the year 221 BC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_china

When unified Chinese authorities appear to have sought stability at
all costs which appears to have discouraged innovation. When China was
divided the needs of survival of the competing states appears to have
driven innovation, like when the Song dinasty was able to survive
among others due to some interesting technological innovations,
leading to battle victories. That period was ended by the Mongol
invation which unified the country for the final time. Perhaps not
surprisingly China stagnated under the unified rule of the succeeding
Ming and Qing dinasties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_china

So, I have allways liked the idea that Europe was driven towards
greater things by the constant wars, internal and external with the
varyous muslim empires. Europe´s rise coincided with the falling into
stagnation of the other great civilizations. I don´t think Europe
actually triggered the that stagnation, but it made it´s successes
easier.


All societies teach theyr young ones 'proper' behavior. Those who
behave 'not proper' tend to be punished in varyous ways, depending on
the severity of the offence as it is perceived by the others.

Sociobiologists do try to asses people's capacity for herd behaviour.
It is to a large degree about belief structures. People do tend to
adopt the belief structures of those around them.

People are tought also what to believe. In traditional societies being
tought the 'right' religious ways is part of the general teaching of
what is 'proper.'

To what extent do people follow these norms?

It appears that in older times they really were adered to pretty much
in general. In older times people lived the way theyr grandfathers had
done. People didn´t expect anything ellse.

The generational difference in ideas and life experiences that has
exchisted in the modern period is generally unique to that period.

Modern times are really, really very different...more like a
transformation of the human experience at quite a fundamental level.

Ian Parker wrote:


There is one question about free will and group behaviour which I
think we should bear in mind, and it is this. We may be free to make
our own decisions, but one person making a decision (unless they are
in an influential position) does not make much difference. Computer
programs are being devised, I can fish the references out if you like,
that attempt to model human behaviour and individuals are treated as
interacting bots. Quite clearly we need good sociological and
psychological research to make realistic models.

Sounds bit like the 'psychohistory' idea Asimov used in his Foundation
books.

People are capable of reason, even though it may not nearly allways be
practiced. However, as people's tastes do wary so greatly, what may in
each case be a rational choyse based on each individual taste may
still from distance seem like a random choyse.

yes but what influence does the herd have? What is the effect of
reason? Does a particular sort of person follow the herd? What sort of
person think for themselves? Everyone does not.

I think there is a paradox here. People in charge of the military ad
such things as homeland security on the whole like people to be
conformist. In fact society is safer, at least from terrorism, if it
is non conformist.

Nothing is for free. All these changes, all this pace, naturally is a
strain on society. That strain does understandably come to the surface
in some fashion, like anty globalization activism...well the al-Qaeda
can been seen in some ways as the most extreme form of that yet.
Still, would we really wish to return back to the simpler days?

Remember one thing, most people tend to focus theyr activities. They
develope theyr skills towards a greater depth in a single type of
endevour, tipically nowdays. That means they think at less depth on
other issues. It´s not necessarilly stupid or irrational to follow the
heard on some issues when it can safe your mental energies for other
things of greater personal interest.

Often nowdays it´s a challenge to achiewe people´s attension, that may
be due to them being distracted by theyr own interests. That could
just as well be an explanation for appearance of heard behavior and
people's inattension as alternate explanations like intellectual
laziness or stupitity.

Ian Parker wrote:

That is really the great difference between moder societies and past
societies. Past societies were conformist or in other words
'traditional'. It´s really not such a long time since western
societies were far more conformist than today, i.e. read about the
history of fashion, I mean of the 20th century. Nowdays, the Beatles
do not seem much but in the early 60s girls still wore skirts or
dresses, and boys cut theyr hair the way societal norms told them to.

Societies in the past had one view of groupthink. In modern sociities
some people think for themselves, but they form sub groups which are
conformist.

I think that 'conformist' group forming can be a way of saving mental
energy. It need not be thus an irrational strategy. Still, there does
lye a potential danger in latching onto someone ellse and to let that
someone ellse think for you. In a way it may be thought of as a kind
of outsourcing, i.e. "I don´t have time to think about this."

Ian Parker wrote:

Let us look at right/left. I find it odd that the right in America is
against immigration and globalization. I think there should be cheaper
rates of health insurance for Spanish speakers who are more able to
engage in "health tourism". The right is against that. Now it used to
be the case that the left was for the state control of industry -
wholescale nationalization.

I personally believe in free enterprise and globalizaton as the means
of raising living standards. I am quite a way to the left in terms of
foriegn policy. If you look at both questions rationally you will find
that they are simply not related. Yet they are obviously related
socialogically.

Both the right end of the spectrum and the left have got plenty of
internal divisions. Traditionally the left has been divited between
democratic and non-democratic forces. The right between concervative
and progressive or in other words liberal forces [liberal in the
classical sence], the latter being primarilly business interest
connected. The concervative aspect has long had a strong reactionary
tendency. That may now be surfacing temporarilly.

Ian Parker wrote:

About suicidal bombers, people who are yeat undecided about what
direction to take in life appear to be more vulnerable to
brainwashing. Have you ever heard about a suicidal bomber who was not
young? These people pray on young people who, like I said, are still
undecided about what direction to take in theyr life. In addition,
additional factors may play a part. Are they unemployeed? Are there
great many unemployeed like them around, making theyr prospects to get
a job small? Is it widespread the feeling around them that theyr
ethnic or religious is being treated in some unfair way? Have they
experienced personal loss, like say a family members being killed by
the perceived opressors? Factors like these appear to increase the
changes of a person becoming a suicide bomber.

An example of sociological viewpoint.

True we need to try and find out more.

Something has to be done about the poisonous propaganda of the jihat
sites that are leading to the creation of new terrorists all of the
time. The latest ones in Britain are a fresh worrying sign because
they were medical students who were working in local hospitalst while
theyr studies were still ongoing. They don´t fit any of the usual
stereotypes over potential troublemakers. However, during the Cold War
universities often were a breeding ground for extremism on the left
side of the political spectrum. It´s though new I think that they can
be a breeding ground for religious extremists of such a highly
poisonous brand.

It looks like that it has become necessary to orcestrate an organized
internet campaign to take down those poisonous sites.

Ian Parker wrote:

Now, remember Germany of the 30s. In 1928 the Nazi party only got 3%
of the wote. In 1930 they were the second largest party. The
difference, in 1929 the world depression began and in 1930 there were
millions of additional unemployeeds, creating a large pool of angry
dissillutioned people who demagouges could pray on.

Another example of seeing things through the sociolgical point of
view.

BTW - I find the rise of Hitler fascinating. How did he rise from beer
hall putsch to major threat to world peace? What backed him?
Ludendorff was a great backer of Hitler yet he was merely confortably
off. He could not have provided the vast sums required by the Nazi
party.

A strange combination of forces. To begin with Germans like Russians
today didn´t have as much believe in the inherent benefits of
democracy as say Modern Germans do. They were thus less alarmed by the
idea of being controlled by an authoritarian regime unlike how Germans
are likelly to feel today, but somewhat like what Russians of today
appear to feel. Notice the similarity, even though Putin is nowhere
near as bad as Hitler.

The Weimar republic was pretty ineffective on the whole, somewhat like
the regime of Yeltzin was in its own time, if perhaps not so badly so
in case of Germany. It went through crisis after crisis, not nearly
all which were of its making. But Germans experienced it as being
weak, somewhat like Russians today experience the years of Yeltzin as
having been years of weakness. Remember, early on Hitler was
genuinelly popular somewhat like Putin today is popular, as the
perception was in Germany early one somewhat like the perception is
today in Russia that he had brought back the strength of the country,
but most importantly he brought them back theyr jobs...remember Putin
´s Russia is experiencing an economic boom while human rights are
being cut back. Now Russians look back at the Yeltzin years as having
been years of failure, somewhat in the same way as I think Germans saw
the Weimar years during the early years of the Hitle regime.

The parallel is interesting don´t you think? I wonder what will happen
with Putin´s Russia? He appears to be set to step aside, yet I don´t
think that is certain to mean he´ll actually be going away. Those who
will take the precidency may maybe only become frontmen for his actual
continued power.

I must admit in light of certain intersting similarities with Germany
of the 30s I´m a bit worried about Russia. It does at the present
still look pretty weak, but so did Germany in 1933 and for some time
after. However, Putin is no Hitler, or rather there is no evidence yet
that he has any dreams of military conquest. But, Russia is still a
potentially dangerous country. It has a large military potential, a
large industrial base even though in number of ways bit obsolete
still.

Russia appears to have dreams of power. They want to regain theyr lost
position. At the present they have been seeking power through the use
of energy reources. But that hasen´t really been working very well.

Ian Parker wrote:

As far as I know the idea was to strike several flyes in one stroke.
The precense of American forces in Saudi Arabia had long been very
unpopular among muslims. The intension was to move them to Iraq,
permanently. A democratic greatful Iraq would be US's primary ally
within the Middle East. The expected economic suggess under US help
would draw in the others, show them that democracy and economic
freedom can drive dividents even in the Middle East. Iraw in other
word would become a positive example, acting as an ideal for others.
In addition to all of that, it was expected that there would be a
divident regarding the crisis in Israel with the Palestinians.
Palestinians no longer would get money from Saddam, which was expected
to weaken them considerably. And last but not least, it would be shown
to all that USA was a force to reckon with.

Last but not least. That to my way of thinking is an extremely cynical
argument.

There was a lot of cynicism to all appearances in neoconcervative
thinking. They apparently dreamt of the time when European powers had
the power to dictate terms to the rest of the world. Theyr favourite
precident is apparently Theodore Roosevelt, who took the Philippines
and Cuba away from Spain. Who was the first US precident to
participate in the infameous periotic great power meatings of the pre
WWI years during which literally the world was divided into zones of
interest. However, the neoconcervatives whished to make the entire
world the American zone of interest. Iraq kind of was intended as a
demonstration of the American so called 'Hyperpower,' the intension
being that USA would from hence forth follow its own interests, that
other would just have to go on with that. I wonder if you remember all
the strange talk which came from the neoconcervative crowd just after
Bush came into power about all these strings that had been tied to the
American Gulliver by all the others lilliputians. They were speaking
about the waried international agreements to which USA is a party to
and really do to a degree limit US freedom of action. They wanted all
these strings away, they wanted USA to redeem its freedom of action.
In other words, after the demonstration of power of USA, i.e. its
demonstration of its hyperpower status, USA would not be dependent on
any rules except for those it would set itself.

So there was a plan. But not like the extreme leftwing say about the
energy. It was not either a conquest of the world preciselly. Rather
an idea for the establishement of some sort of a hegemonic status
between USA and the rest of the world. Naturally, USA is and was
nowhere near being capable of actually establishing that against the
wishes of the world, so that plan wasn´t really ever realistic. But as
far as I can see, that was what the neoconcervatives had in mind. Mind
you, as they belong to the brand of US people who think USA is a good
power, that USA is a country whish is a force for good in the world,
they apparently did not see that US hegemony would be a force for bad.
It would make it possible for USA to do more good not less. In theyr
own way neoconcervatives appear to be idealists.

Ian Parker wrote:

If Germany of the 30s is the gaugche, then the best strategy in the
Middle East is to develope those societies, i.e. giving all of those
unemployeed people jobs.

Agreed. BTW in Iran the youth unemployment rate is 50%. To solve these
problems though societies will have to change. Force will in fact put
change back.


- Ian Parker

Hmm, in this light it´s perhaps not surprising how difficult it has
been to decrease Palestinian extremism. After all, Israelis have
clearly been going at it the wrong way. Think about it, they have
since the so called second Palestinian 'Intifada' began punished
Palestinian in ways which has been detrimental to Palestinian economy,
which has made the jobs situation ever more hopeless seeming.

As a result, it´s really not at all strange that instability and
extremism has been growing among Palestinians. As far as I can see
Israelis have been shooting themselves in the foot. The more they
punish the Palestinians, the more they destroy theyr lifellyhood, the
more extremist factions gain power. Yet, Israelis appear completelly
blind to that quite obvious thing, despite the parallel with Germany
of the 30s they ought not have forgotten.

Cheers, Einar

.

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