May-July 2017

Biology

1

Gorillas hum and sing while they eat to say, “do not disturb” (Scientific American)

Just try for yourself singing while you chew. Is that why gorillas are vanishing? Choking themselves to death too many a time?

2

If intelligence is a factor in reproductive success, we’d expect the sex where success variation is greater to be more intelligent, as intelligent individuals then reproduce comparatively more there. Yet, as you [Milord Matt Ridley] state that women are as intelligent as men [Ridley’s point is that women are as intelligent as men though in their own different way], it means the sex that doesn’t need intelligence as much is as intelligent as the sex who needs it more. Which doesn’t make sense, evolutionarily speaking.

Yet do not daughters inherit their fathers’ intelligence? Let’s be straight: the biggest cavemen breeded more but their daughters weren’t as big as their boys.

If women are as intelligent as men, then intelligence has not been a factor in reproductive success.

Now, regardless of whether both sexes are equally intelligent or not today, Trivers-Willard effect will give an advantage to men in the future, in case the concept of meritocracy is accurate. [According to Trivers-Willard effect, high-status people have more male than female offspring; and the concept of meritocracy means a correlation between high status and intelligence.]

3

How the recessive trait blondism can be preferred in women and not disappear unless it gives an advantage to men too, is beyond understanding.

4

You [Dr Randolph Nesse] wrote that chewing gum might be medically prescribed some day in order to prevent the weakening of our jaws due to processed food. But what’s wrong with weak jaws if we are going to eat processed food anyway? On the contrary, maintaining strong jaws where they are not needed puts one at a disadvantage: cf cave animals, troglomorphy.

5

True altruism seen in chimpanzees, giving clues to evolution of human cooperation (TVOL This View of Life)

Altruistic chimps will soon be a threat to mankind.

From David S. Wilson, one gets it clear that individual altruism is the way a group becomes dominant among other groups.This is the reason why the Ancients saw no moral value in altruism; they were seeking ataraxy. Depending on scale, altruism is called nepotism, parochialism, nationalism, racism… Theoretical world-scale altruism would be… free competition. [See Tweet Anthology 4: Darwinian Altruism here]

6

Already before Darwin wrote, Schopenhauer explained how Kant’s philosophy was compatible with evolutionism (then Lamarckism). (The passages from Schopenhauer I am thinking of are from Parerga und Paralipomena, 1851: (*) original German quotes at the end of this post. Compare The Origin of Species, 1859.) Darwinian “revolution” is more like: You’re correct, Lamarck, but rather things happen this way, not that way. To be sure scholars acknowledge evolutionist works before Darwin, yet for some reason they seem to think those were in the creationist mold.

*

Freemasonry historically has been banned in authoritarian governments. (@KSigMason, reacting to my tweets in Tweet Anthology 4 here)

Secret societies have no place in transparent societies.

So you’re against the right to assemble? You’re against the right to privacy?

I’m for public personalities disclosing their membership in any society they belong to.

Unpleasant suspicions necessarily arise from the existence of secret societies, as from any lack of transparency; trust is undermined. In societies that allow free speech and freedom of opinion, every association is free to pursue its aims, so secrecy is all the more suspicious. Secrecy then conceals unsound practices, such as eviction of merit, prevailed upon by occult connections.

That’s an assumption. Secrecy = privacy, and is necessary for a free society.

In secular states Freemasonry has outlived its mission. If it wants to continue existing as a religious community, that must be aboveboard.

Freemasonry is a fraternity not a religious community. It has not outlived its mission.

As to authoritarianism, Masons have been consistent supporters of authoritarian Maximato regime in Mexico. Calles, the Jefe Maximo, was awarded a Masonic medal, according to opponent Vasconcelos, whose friends were decimated by the Maximo’s thugs. Source: José Vasconcelos’s memoirs, La flama. Los de arriba en la Revolución. Historia y Tragedia (1959).

*

“By way of the saloon I had escaped from the narrowness of women’s influence.” (John Barleycorn, Jack London)

In the absence of saloons, enforcing the purdah is necessary to emancipate man from the pettycoat.

*

I block all accounts the tweets of which Twitter promotes on my timeline. Exhilarating. Try it.

*

Jerry Perenchio had a big vision & a bigger heart – he always gave back. (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

A billionaire always gives back. You give him the finger, he gives you hell.

*

They say there’s an “underclass” of “permanently unemployed” people not skilled enough for any job. Then they hire unskilled wetbacks.

*

Artificial Intelligence

1

Sometimes AI tweeting bots can be naughty and impersonate you without your being asked:

People who were impersonated by anti-net neutrality spammers blast FCC (Federal Communications Commission)

Let’s make it clear, however, that MOST tweeting bots tweet in the name of people who gave their consent – to get more followers &c.

Do the people contracting such services have a veto on what the bots post in their name? I assume they can always delete the tweets –unless that’s considered a breach of contract– but do they allow each bot’s tweet ex ante on their timeline?

Deleting ex post a bot-generated tweet may be defined from start a breach of contract, in fact, as not a few of these tweets are advertising.

According to an informatician friend, for the time being many AI bots are people in the Indian subcontinent paid a mouthful of rice…

2

Program your tweeting bot to send your AI prayers to Tehran Attack’s and future attacks’ victims. Follow to know more.

Sign in for an AI prayers package! Each time Twitter buzzes with terror attacks, we tweet your prayers for you. So you can keep playing golf! Don’t be like a silly politician. Enjoy the day and send your prayers.

Of course we hope our bots won’t tweet your prayers to yourself some day! LOL

3

When you’re dead your AI bot will keep tweeting. If you were dull enough, no one will see the difference. #Immortality

This at the date of today. If you die 30 years from now and you were dull, people will see a difference, as ALL your tweets will now be so brilliant.

4

Who’s afraid of the robo-journos? Since The Associated Press adopted automation technology to write its earnings reports, “far fewer errors.” LOL

Automation. Step 1 robo-journos. Step 2 robo-politicos. #cooltech

5

Unilever has been hiring employees using brain games and artificial intelligence & it’s a huge success. (Nige Willson) (Article here)

US Supreme Court has declared IQ testing for recruitment unconstitutional. “Brain games” sounds very much like IQ testing, doesn’t it?

Let me qualify: “Employment testing is legal as long as a professionally-developed employment test is administered according to the test developer’s intended use.” Therefore: no general IQ testing, regardless of the fact that some say it’s the one best predictor of work productivity.

Now if you look at what Unilever gets from “HR service provider” Pymetrics (“AI screening”), it looks like general testing, does it not?

Is this outsourced AI screening through brain games professionally-developed (by branch) and developed for specific positions (by job)? No, neither one nor the other.

6

Bots have a really low # of followers, like 10, long number strings in their handle and joined relatively recently.

What the bots want you to believe…

*

The right to resist tyranny does not exist where the right to carry guns exists not. As if there could be no tyranny because of the ballot! Disarmed people can’t have their vote respected in case of electoral fraud.

*

Is nasal spray permissible [during Ramadan fast]? Sheikh Assim Alhakeem: If it contains a substance that would go down your throat, this breaks your fasting.

That seems to make swallowing rather than eating the object of Ramadan fasting. What about swallowing an object, like a marble, by accident, then?

I am walking down the street, a gnat enters my mouth and I swallow it by accident. Does it break the fast?

*

COeds’ Valium FEllatios on FEstering undead #covfefe

*

Do you support BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions]? Why don’t you boycott Israeli news media, then? Using Israeli media to fight Israel? Eating oranges from Israel will bring you vitamin C to fight Israel too!

BDS supporters don’t boycott Israeli media – as if that weren’t the first thing to boycott.

*

Mexico knows of walls already! “Defendiéndose de los aztecas, los coras fabricaron unas trincheras de más de 9 kilómetros” (F. Santamaría, Diccionario de americanismos)

*

Alien Covenant

The hero team’s uniform includes a Japanese WW2 cap hat. Reminder: 111,000 American casualties (dead or missing) in the Pacific war.

The exterminated civilization had Buddha statues. Read: Buddhism is irrelevant.

The evil android is a fan of Wagner, whose music is boycotted in Israel. So everything’s all right, baby!

*

Vogue Arabia just made history by gracing us with Halima Aden, making her the first ever hijabi model on a Vogue cover!!!! Women of colour are rising. Women of modesty are rising. And will continue to flourish even in the westernised fashion world. Mark my words. (@plasticrouge)

Just when white people start realizing this kind of things is gross media sexploitation…

Just when white women start realizing there is no modesty in the fashion world… To think there is anything modest about this cover, one must be seriously disturbed. With his right hand the man’s directing a phallic object close to her mouth [a pocket mirror or makeup kit seen from the side]. Then there’s the phrase New Look: a well-known nudity magazine. [Picture removed Nov 2022,12, so ugly it was: to find it, google Halima Aden Vogue.]

*

In his penultimate album Michael Jackson sang the offensive phrase “jew me” (verb to jew) – then he was so ashamed of himself that he died.

*

The next Thomas Edison lives in India’s slums? (101 East Al Jazeera)

“The next Edison”? The correct phrase is “the next Einstein.” Okay? Be careful.

*

My read of the evidence is that more investment (time, money, effort, accountability) in education helps. (Erik Brynjolfsson)

Money investment may yield poorly. ‘International ratings on investment’ ratio shows that France is throwing her money away with good conscience.

*

‘’It seems likely that when many first encounter the Black-White IQ gap, they think it environmental in origin because Blacks have faced horrific oppression and discrimination. The high Jewish IQ, however, immediately casts doubt on this intuition (as do copious data, which we have and will discuss) because Jewish people have also faced appalling discrimination throughout much of 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th centuries (and well before, of course).’’ (Getting Voxed: Charles Murray, Ideology, and the Science of IQ, by by B Winegard and B Winegard with B Boutwell and TK Shackelford, published online, quillette.com, June 2, 2017 here)

Jews had a monopoly on money lending due to Christian interdict, whereas Blacks were slaves. Discrimination against the former did not include prohibition to acquire wealth, contrary to slavery in America – contrary to what was the lot of American slaves, and actually contrary to what was the lot of most European Christians under serfdom. So the environmental factor could well be cogent, once you look closely at what each “discrimination” entails.

*

#ThingsThatLeaveBritainReeling [After terror attacks in UK British Twitter users reacted with this hashtag to a newspaper article that used the phrase ‘’Britain left reeling’’ or something like that.]

When French boys come for linguistic courses and find the girls so easy the English boys can’t imagine.

When a British couple honeymoons in France and the woman tries to spot her deflorator in crowds.

*

Qatar for years positioned itself as a mediator of regional conflicts, now it is Qatar that is in need of mediation. (Kuwait & Oman may help) (Sultan Al-Qassemi)

The Clinton Foundation may help too. [See Tweet Anthology 1 here]

*

How anti-Chinese Berkeley students prevented Panda Express restaurant to open at their snobbish university: Berkeley students decry proposed Panda Express (SFGate, March 2009, article here)

*

Contemporary History. December 2012. When the journalist said the NEWS that day was HER OWN RAPE. Tahrir Square gang rapes (Egypt).

*

French small-business owners complain about Chinese businesses’ competition. Yet that’s free enterprise 101: Be a communautarist, you win.

*

Trump’s best ally against terrorism gives him the finger:

Saudi Arabia footballers ignore minute’s silence for London attack victims (The Guardian)

*

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 aims at dismantling the greatest welfare state in the world; it will create a huge toil shock and thousands of terrorists. It overlooks the robots coming: Make it from oil rent to robot rent, don’t create a nasty toil shock. Vision 2030 wants to transform Saudis into Irish migrants to US: white slaves, downtrodden and fueled by whiskey.

*

What is dystopian to you is utopian to me. Rather robots ruling than those rich pigs and their politician minions.

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Retweet if you want to restore death penalty for corrupt politicians.

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Tired of Facebook? Try FaceBoko Haram.

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Buy ISIS in Chains’ latest album Chainsaw the Miscreants.

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Why ISIL rather than ISIS? Because Isis is also an Egyptian goddess and that creates noise for CIA bots’ searches.

Imagine the nightmare for CIA bots if Osama Bin Laden had been called David Smith or Pepito Garcia!

*

Commuters (London Subway), by Robert Doisneau Jr. #LondonBridge #artphotography

*

Burger King delivers in Britain. At the same time their French website says they don’t deliver here in France as their policy is to serve products in the best condition…

*

The economy has grown enormously in the past 35 years, but not everyone has shared in the prosperity. (Erik Brynjolfsson)

Even if everyone shares, it’s enough that some share more than others to make growth an aggravating factor. Cf ultimatum game.

With growth, even if everyone is better off in absolute numbers, those who benefit less are worse off in relative terms.

In a competitive system, opportunities depend on the relative terms.

Here you have the ultimate cause of the ultimatum game – of people refusing a net gain, seen as detrimental (consciously: insulting) to them.

*

Those who have read nothing are used to quoting Einstein.

*

Hillary Clinton used black prison labor: “Some of the black prisoners worked in their [the Clintons’] kitchen.”

She doesn’t even need the wetbacks. Except for their vote.

*

The Invisible Poor. Today the city poor is born in the city, not in the countryside; he dwindles in city environment chameleon-wise.

*

Given the taxes he pays, a bachelor can’t afford to keep a mistress. For that, one must be a married man.

*

Radical Muslims are serious about preventing cuckoldry, whereas Westerners are somnambulists.

*

Clones are not identical persons, yet they share the same genes. What do my genes have to do with me? Know thyself.

We need to clone more animals to study personality differences between individuals with identical sets of genes.

*

Wow what a blast from the past! I subscribed to Minitel when I lived in Paris 30 years ago – long before the internet. (Steve Gye)

Oh yeah memories, 3615 code Ulla, poster ads for “Minitel rose” (pink=porn Minitel) in every street and corner of France!

*

Remember how all the Hollywood stars used to stand up in public against apartheid South Africa? Silence in Hollywood re apartheid Israel…

Apartheid Boers used to say Israel was their model. Only they lacked Hollywood Boers, I guess.

*

#MyAlienAbductionStory

Very embarrassing and even painful: no restroom in the saucer.

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By legalizing porn our legislators have given to entrepreneurs whom none of them would dare call honorable the opportunity to become our aristocracy.

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Discrimination in Employment in Saudi Arabia (Saudi Gazette)

Don’t discriminate against robots for they’re the future.

*

It’s summer, scholars have stopped tweeting.

*

Once Dominant, the United States Finds Itself Isolated at G-20 (New York Times)

NYT mourns over USA’s dominance like funky jingos.

And yet Macron said he didn’t quite agree with Merkel’s de facto endorsement of Trump’s stand on climate. Le Parisien, 9 juillet 2017, I translate: “Personally I would have done no more than take note of American withdrawal.” Whereas Merkel agreed to mention America’s endeavor toward “cleaner use of fossil energies” = endorsement. Once dominant, the US stays dominant thanks to their Merkel stooge.

But wait, that makes perfect sense: Just look at coal’s share in German energy mix! US and Germany hand in hand to keep coal burning.

*

Be warned. After years of anonymity on the Web you’ll find out there are no credentials on your real name nor on the real you.

July 2017

(*) ‘’Im Grunde jedoch sind alle jene Vorgänge, welche Kosmogonie und Geologie (als lange vor dem Dasein irgendeines erkennenden Wesens geschehn) vorauszusetzen uns nötigen, selbst nur eine Übersetzung in die Sprache unsers anschauenden Intellekts aus dem ihm nicht faßlichen Wesen an sich der Dinge. Denn ein Dasein an sich selbst haben jene Vorgänge nie gehabt, sowenig als die jetzt gegenwärtigen; sondern der Regressus an der Hand der Prinzipien a priori aller möglichen Erfahrung leitet, einigen empirischen Datis folgend, zu ihnen hin: er selbst aber ist nur die Verkettung einer Reihe bloßer Phänomene, die keine unbedingte Existenz haben.’’ (Paralipomena, Kapitel 6: Zur Philosophie und Wissenschaft der Natur § 85)

‘’Die allem Leben auf der Erde vorhergegangenen geologischen Vorgänge sind in gar keinem Bewußtsein dagewesen: nicht im eigenen, weil sie keines haben; nicht in einem fremden, weil keines dawar. Also hatten sie aus Mangel an jedem Subjekt gar kein objektives Dasein, d.h. sie waren überhaupt nicht, oder was bedeutet dann noch ihr Dagewesensein? –  Es ist im Grunde ein bloß hypothetisches: nämlich wenn zu jenen Urzeiten ein Bewußtsein dagewesen wäre, so würden in demselben solche Vorgänge sich dargestellt haben; dahin leitet uns der Regressus der Erscheinungen: also lag es im Wesen des Dinges an sich, sich in solchen Vorgängen darzustellen.’’ (Ibid. § 85 note F)

‘’Wir haben aber diese Steigerung uns zu denken nicht als in einer einzigen Linie, sondern in mehreren nebeneinander aufsteigenden. So z.B. ist einmal aus dem Ei eines Fisches ein Ophidier, ein andermal aus dieses seinem ein Saurier, zugleich aber aus dem eines andern Fisches ein Batrachier, dann aber aus dieses seinem ein Chelonier hervorgegangen, aus dem eines dritten eine Cetacee, etwan ein Delphin, später wieder hat eine Cetacee ein Phoka geboren und endlich einmal eine Phoka der Walroß; und vielleicht ist aus dem Ei der Ente das Schnabeltier und aus dem eines Straußen irgendein größeres Säugetier entstanden. Überhaupt muß der Vorgang in vielen Ländern der Erde zugleich und in gegenseitiger Unabhängigkeit stattgefunden haben, überall jedoch in sogleich bestimmten deutlichen Stufen, deren jede eine feste, bleibende Spezies gab, nicht aber in allmäligen verwischten Übergängen; also nicht nach Analogie eines von der untern Oktave bis zur obersten allmälig steigenden, folglich heulenden Tones, sondern nach der einer in bestimmten Absätzen aufsteigenden Tonleiter. Wir wollen es uns nicht verhehlen, daß wir danach die ersten Menschen uns zu denken hätten als in Asien vom Pongo (dessen Junges Orang-Utan heißt) und in Afrika vom Schimpanse[n] geboren, wiewol nicht als Affen, sondern sogleich als Menschen. Merkwürdig ist es, daß diesen Ursprung sogar ein Buddhaistischer Mythos lehrt, der zu finden ist in Isaac Jakob Schmidts >Forschungen über die Mongolen und Tibeter< (S. 210-214), wie auch in Klaproths >Fragments Bouddhiques< im >Nouveau Journal Asiatique< (1831, mars), desgleichen in Köppens >Die Lamaische Hierarchie< (S. 45).’’ (Ibid. § 91)

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