“14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
None from the sub-Saharan African continent.
13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.”
Favor.
And disfavor.

They point out Africans’ attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it’s applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.

The roots of racism are not of this earth.

Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals, so this nulified diversity of life claims on sub-continental Africa, zebras being a fine example.

god is a computer
And we’re all on auto-pilot.

Organizational Heirarchy
Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:

1. MUCK - perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as “god”
2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management –
3. Mafia (evil) aliens - runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere (”On planets where they approved evil.”)

Then we come to terrestrial management:

4. Chinese/egyptians - this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
5. Romans - they answer to the egyptians
6. Mafia - the real-world interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
7. Jews, corporation, women, politician - Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.

Survival of the favored.

Journal: 10 composition books + 39 megs of text files

Movies foreshadowing catastrophy
1986 James Bond View to a Kill – 1989 San Fransisco Loma Prieta earthquake.

To excerpt one question from it:

There are externalities—pollution, or the poor management of shared resources like water. But we devise rules to address even these. This seems so abstract as to be almost altruistic—some people “vote green” even though they have no immediate personal stake in the issue.

“Our rules for addressing externalities are of mixed effectiveness—some work well, but others amount to little more than pious injunctions that make us feel guilty without effectively coordinating our behaviour. One great advantage of price measures (such as charging for water) is that they give us a personal stake in conservation: We use water only if the benefits are really more important to us than the “opportunity cost” (the next most important thing we could do with it). They thereby also economize on our altruism, allowing us to focus our civic-mindedness on other areas where pricing measures are not feasible or don’t work well.”

An interesting way of putting it– to “economize on our altruism”.

Now the interesting question to consider is how a predisposition to overreaction and making errors of judgment could possibly have made the evolutionary “cut” as it were. Of course, as you suggest, some of our reactions which are counterproductive in the context of modern society wouldn`t have been so in hunter-gathering times, and thus for those reactions the detrimental effects wouldn`t have been detrimental long enough to have been a significant target of selective pressure. But there are many reactions which would have seemed equally overblown and unwarranted in any era, yet those (or rather, the traits which give rise to such reactions) haven`t been weeded out of the gene pool either.

This blog entry quotes psychologist Daniel Gilbert`s explication of the adaptive value of making errors. Basically, we`re programmed to operate on the “better safe than sorry” principle— ie, on average it`s better to be too anxious to avoid a bad thing than not enough (or, on the other side of the coin, to be so overly eager about a good thing that you`re willing to put in more work than strictly necessary, to make sure you get it).

So I would posit that your reaction to the pillar might be rooted in danger-
avoidance instincts (however little you were actually in), as much as social economics. Same even for the Germans. I think you`re right to point this out from the angle of people being oriented toward management of long-term relationships– but even in hunter-gatherer times, people would, especially while traveling, come across strangers they might never interact with again.

That would be a pretty dangerous situation since, in an era dominated by group-psychology, there`s a fair chance that if you came across a group of strangers you could be killed, not even for anything you`d done, but merely because you weren`t a member of their group (or, were a member of a group they didn`t like). So again, better “not to make any sudden moves”.

[As an aside, lately I`ve been reading a book on the evolution of human morals, and the earlier back in history you go, the more you find systems of morality where it`s okay or even honorable to treat an outgroup member in some way (say, eating them) that would be considered immoral to treat someone within your group. Despite continuing struggles in this arena (well, not cannibalism I mean, but having a dichotomous moral system), on the whole in modern times there`s been a drive away from "in-group/out-group" morality, and towards a universal concept of human rights.]

Now if your post had focused on some bit of valiant altruism you`d performed for these strangers, from whom there was little chance of garnering the benefits of future reciprocity, I think in that situation your “instinct for long-term relationships” hypothesis would be the primary explanation.

Anyway, very interesting!

(Speaking of German, there has to be a translation of “wanting to avoid someone feeling unhappy” that would render it as onecompactwordthatsoundslikeauthoritativescientificjargon).