Observe, Observe, Observe Perpetually - 0

The greatest of all gifts from Max. He knew so much about his surroundings without a single word spoken. It blew my mind way. 

I became his disciple to learn that skill. I got better than I was before Max was born. The onus was on me to hone it constantly. I tried and will try as humanly as possible until my last breath. 

What are some of my observations which most miss?

I will capture those here as long as I can. 

Every cell in my body tells me these observations are accurate but who knows? I might be wrong - prove it to me outside of anomalous cherry picking. 

These are statistically relevant not by sheer number of data points. They are relevant for a single person to observe data points in first person and second hand by reading. Most importantly, I have observed these consistently over decades and kind of have a Lindy Effect. 

I will also add most likely causal reasons behind those observations. The observations and causal reasons are separate entities. I am more likely to be wrong in my causal inference than observations. 

In machine learning, there is a concept called Transfer Learning. When there is not enough data to learn for one task, the model can learn from another task. Most humans suck at transfer learning. This problem is grossly underrated. 

Humans overfit or under fit constantly. 

I wrote this within four weeks of Max passing away:

No one is capable of thinking about death constantly. I see Memento Mori as a struggle between virtue and vanity. 

How to be virtuous when we all know its all vain and how to sprinkle vanity when the body feels strong and virtuous (or more complicated term for this is "catalepsis" which was coined by Martha Nussbaum -  "a condition of certainty and confidence from which nothing can dislodge us.”). 

Some days the former take the forefront and somedays the latter but most days, I hope to get a balance between both.

The trick is to have a healthy balance between virtue and vanity every moment without too much effort. 

Everything I write might be wrong & that gives me something new to learn.

Meta Value - 23

I never even dreamt that an academic paper would not only make it my value system. Plus, I think about this paper almost every time I interact with a human. 

Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory by Hugo Mercier & Dan Sperber have definitely reduced my probability of dying soon because of high blood pressure. 

Abstract 

Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. 

Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given the exceptional dependence of humans on communication and their vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of evidence in the psychology of reasoning and decision making can be reinterpreted and better explained in the light of this hypothesis. Poor performance in standard reasoning tasks is explained by the lack of argumentative context. When the same problems are placed in a proper argumentative setting, people turn out to be skilled arguers. Skilled arguers, however, are not after the truth but after arguments supporting their views. This explains the notorious confirmation bias. This bias is apparent not only when people are actually arguing, but also when they are reasoning proactively from the perspective of having to defend their opinions. 

Reasoning so motivated can distort evaluations and attitudes and allow erroneous beliefs to persist. Proactively used reasoning also favors decisions that are easy to justify but not necessarily better. In all these instances traditionally described as failures or flaws, reasoning does exactly what can be expected of an argumentative device: Look for arguments that support a given conclusion, and, ceteris paribus, favor conclusions for which arguments can be found.

Along the similar lines, Clay Christensen's wise words helped me understand humanity better: 

Questions are places in your mind where answers fit. If you haven’t asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go. It hits your mind and bounces right off. You have to ask the question – you have to want to know – in order to open up the space for the answer to fit.

The value is not to waste time arguing and reasoning with humans. 

For example, I don't talk to adults about eating non-human animal dead bodies for pleasure and causing immense pain and suffering. There is no way on earth they will change their mind. 

Instead, I focus on kids. They are more open minded, they have unanswered questions in their mind.  If they change their mind, then an entire generation to come via them can stop killing animals. 

As far as adults, they will not kill animals only after they die. Sad but that is the reality. 

Meta Values - 22

I am not special. 

I am equal to any living being on this planet. No less nor more. 

My life isn't so special that my non-human animal brothers and sisters such as rats, pigs, monkeys, dogs, or cats are experimented on and suffer immensely just to save me someday so that I get extra time. Nor kill them for my gastro intestinal pleasures. 

My life is not special in any unique way when compared to all other living beings.  And more importantly, I cannot exist without them - in a literal sense. Humans would have never existed without other living beings.

The possibility of life in any universe is so rare and impossible that all lives on this planet are special.

Max lived his life for 13 years. The same goes for me. 

I will bid adieu someday in future with immense gratitude for this opportunity to share time and place with other living beings.

Very Good Sentence On Cooking & Eating Vegetables

There were so many things I didn’t think about Chinese food until I read it in Fuchsia Dunlop. Her new book Invitation to Banquet is organized around 30 dishes to explain every aspect of Chinese cuisine:

Cantonese sashimi, for example, to discuss knifework; and Mapo tofu to talk about the intense flavors that comes from fermenting the bean. 

Fuchsia raises the questions I have: “Where is the creativity, where the delight, in simply roasting a chunk of meat and serving it with bald potatoes and carrots, as the English like to do?” 

And I feel like she is speaking for me when she is lamenting the poor use of leafy vegetables in western cuisine: “either overcooked or served brutally raw as some strange kind of virtue,” compared to the Chinese greens, which are “more generously portioned than the apologetic little dishes of spinach served on the side… and cooked as carefully as anything else.” 

I wish that there was a book like this for every cuisine to introduce techniques and traditions through personal stories.

- Dan Wang's 2023 Letter

The Tiny Ant and the Mighty Lion

Talk about complex systems and inter-connectedness of all living beings in this beautiful planet! 

Read this and train your organs to be humble and not hurt any living being.

This real-life fable begins with the iconic umbrella-shaped acacia tree, also known as the whistling thorn tree. Graceful and resilient, the acacia tree dominates the savannah landscape and often provides most of the tree cover for thousands of square miles. Hidden in the branches of this tree are great numbers of tiny acacia ants, which make their home there and act as protectors. With their painful stings and bites, the ants ward off large herbivores such as elephants and giraffes, and allow the trees to thrive.

But lately, the trees have come under the growing influence of a globe-trotting intruder: the big-headed ant. Named for its large heart-shaped head and thought to have originated on the island nation of Mauritius, this aggressive ant has quickly spread across the savannah over the past 20 years, outnumbering and, in some places, eradicating the acacia ant. 

Here’s where the lion comes in. As an ambush predator, the lion is heavily reliant on the cover provided by the acacia trees. The trees’ branches and foliage serve as a hiding place from which the lion can sneak up on its favored prey, the zebra. Without the acacia ant, the acacia trees are susceptible to hungry passersby. When elephants extract the nutrients in the bark and roots with their trunks, the acacia trees are stripped and often left broken. As more and more of these trees are consumed, the landscape has radically changed, becoming open and bare.

Conservationists, noticing the change in tree cover, have worried lions might struggle to capture their prey and feed themselves and begin to die. With nowhere to hide, how would they get their dinner?

Recently, an international team of biologists set out to answer this question. They collected data about ant invasions; tree cover; zebra, elephant, and giraffe populations; and the behavior of lions and their prey across the 300-square-kilometer Ol Pejeta Conservancy in northern Kenya. What they found surprised them, says Douglas Kamaru, a University of Wyoming Ph.D. student and the lead author of a new paper about their study. 

Kamaru and his colleagues expected lions to starve and their populations to shrink, but that’s not what happened. “The lion population was stable,” says Kamaru. In areas invaded by big-headed ants, the lions simply changed their diets, swapping out zebras for African buffalo. The buffalo aren’t as skittish as the zebras, so the lions are less reliant on stealth and surprise.

In 2020, zebra kill occurrence was nearly three times lower in areas invaded by big-headed ants. Zebras also accounted for less than half of total prey kills that year, down from about two-thirds in 2003, while buffalo accounted for 42 percent of all prey kills, up from zero. These changes were unrelated to zebra or buffalo densities, which remained unchanged from 2014 to 2020.

[---]

The ant and the lion offer a dramatic example of the ripple effect—how a seemingly diminutive change in a web of relationships can fundamentally alter an entire ecosystem. The tiniest creature can upset the mightiest beast on the land.

Meta Values - 21

A powerful writing has a wonderful awakening power to change one's life for good.  Ever since I read these lines, I try to evaluate myself everyday and try to change myself with time. 

And this happened yesterday. For 18 years I was always home for Max's birthday on March 21st. This year, I am scheduled to travel for work on his birthday. 

I can refuse to go and follow the pattern for the rest of my life. But I need to change with the situation. 

I have become Max and he has become me. Where it starts and where it ends is blurry to say the least. 

Home is where Max is and I am Max. 

So for the first time in 18 years, I will not be home for his birthday and I will treat my mind as a river. 

Mind as a River

Understand: the greatest generals, the most creative strategists, stand out not because they have more knowledge but because they are able, when necessary, to drop their preconceived notions and focus intensely on the present moment. That is how creativity is sparked and opportunities are seized. Knowledge, experience, and theory have limitations: no amount of thinking in advance can prepare you for the chaos of life, for the infinite possibilities of the moment. The great philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz called this "friction": the difference between our plans and what actually happens. Since friction is inevitable, our minds have to be capable of keeping up with change and adapting to the unexpected. The better we can adapt our thoughts to the current circumstances, the more realistic our responses to them will be....

Think of the mind as a river: the faster it flows, the better it keeps up with the present and responds to change. The faster it flows, also the more it refreshes itself and the greater its energy. Obsessional thoughts, past experiences (whether traumas or successes), and preconceived notions are like boulders or mud in this river, settling and hardening there and damming it up. The river stops moving; stagnation sets in. You must wage constant war on this tendency in the mind. 

- The 33 Strategies of  War by Robert Greene

 

Good Bye Steven M. Wise

Steven, founder of Non-Human Rights Project passed away. 

You have done the foundational work for future animals to be free from human animal. Thank you sir.

You have made a huge impact on how I live rest of my life. 

From NhRP email: 

We’re heartbroken to share the news that Steven M. Wise–our founder, president, and friend–passed away yesterday. 

No words will be sufficient to describe the immense sadness and sense of loss we feel with his passing. Steve inspired us every day with his relentlessly cheerful determination in the face of any and all obstacles, his fearlessness, his utter clarity on the injustices nonhuman animals endure, and his vision for a world where nonhuman rights are recognized alongside human rights. Steve spent almost every waking hour for the last four decades thinking about the struggle for nonhuman rights. Among lawyers and legal scholars, he was one of the greats–a true visionary, pursuing fundamental change with an awe-inspiring breadth of knowledge of law, history, science, and social justice. 

Whether walking into court together, digging into a court decision with the team on Zoom, or just checking in at the end of a long, difficult workday, working with Steve was always energizing because everything he said and did was infused with his unfailing optimism and his total commitment to the Nonhuman Rights Project. In our fight against human tyranny over nonhuman animals, he also brought a self-deprecating sense of humor and a deep sense of care for the individual well-being of our staff–knowing, from his years of experience, that we’d need both in order to stay strong and keep going. 

As a result, our small, close-knit team has a sense of purpose and solidarity we know will carry us through this extraordinarily difficult moment. 

Steve, we will miss you. We’re grateful beyond words for everything you did to make the world a better place for everyone during your 73 years on earth, and we’re honored to be able to carry on this work in your memory–for as long as it takes. 

 

Is AI Anti-Animal?

I am in the field and stupid me,  I missed this. 

The data behind training the models are created by humans. And humans look down on animals. This is not good for the future of animals. We need a way to minimize this biased data. 

In general, AI should go beyond data but we are not there yet. So we are stuck with "cleaning" the data to remove bias (and good luck with that). 

It should come as no surprise, then, that AI is also a replicator, perpetuator, and normalizer of speciesism.  

We need to work with big tech to eradicate this bias before it spreads into the future this anti-animal virus infected human brains. 

Speciesism – or “the belief that a mere difference in species justifies us in giving more weight to the interests of members of one species (usually our own . . . ) than the similar interests of members of other species” – is a prejudice, similar to sexism and racism” that underlies all human exploitation of other-than-human animals, including inside laboratories. 

Unlike other forms of human-on-human discrimination like sexism and racism, however, speciesism is not “widely accepted” to be “wrong”, and its “biased views and actions [] are shared, accepted, and performed by a large majority of society”. As a result, its elimination from AI is not a “high priority” (if it’s even on the list at all…):

“Massive efforts are made to reduce biases in both data and algorithms to render AI applications fair. These efforts are propelled by various high-profile cases where biased algorithmic decision-making caused harm to women, people of color, minorities, etc. However, the AI fairness field still succumbs to a blind spot, namely its insensitivity to discrimination against animals.”

[---]

To spark change ourselves, all we have to do is change the world (something we in the animal rights movement were already planning to do anyway, right?!)!

At present, “none of the major AI companies [] have any mention of animals in their ethical guidelines, and they’re not instructing data workers to consider how responses affect animals”. This means that speciesism will continue to be “hardwired into algorithms running our lives”.

And, this means that those of us in the animal rights movement must remain vigilant in our opposition to oppression in all of its forms – for changing our machines’ reflections of our world requires changing our world itself; and changing our world itself requires each and every one of us taking action. 

Obelisks - Virus-Like Entities in Our Gut

Another example of epistemic humility; we have not even scratched the surface of knowledge (leave alone humans who act like they have passed the end of knowledge). 

Viroids are small, infectious, and circular RNA molecules that are distinct from typical viruses. Unlike viruses, viroids do not possess a protective protein coat. They were initially discovered in plants, causing various diseases, and were later identified in fungi. Viroids are known for their ability to replicate autonomously within host cells, co-opting cellular machinery for their own reproduction.

Initially believed to exclusively infect plants, recent research suggests viroids may extend their reach to other hosts, including animals, fungi, or bacteria. In the current study, researchers delved into the genes of microbes inhabiting the human body, exploring the potential existence of viroids in this domain. They termed newly found viroids “Obelisks” due to their predicted 3D structure resembling a thin rod when they fold onto themselves.

[---]

Recently discovered Obelisks appeared to include instructions for replication enzymes, rendering them more intricate than previously described viroids. However, akin to most viroids, they still lacked directives for a protective outer shell. The impact of these viroids on human health remains uncertain, although they could potentially influence the human microbiome by infecting bacteria. Additionally, ongoing discussions surround the evolutionary relationship between viruses and viroids — fueling the debate & questioning whether viruses evolved from viroids or vice versa.

In essence, these recent discoveries not only add layers to our understanding of human anatomy but also underscore the ongoing process of discovery and refinement in the field of medical science. The impact lies in the potential to enhance our ability to diagnose, treat, and prevent various health conditions through a more comprehensive understanding of the human body’s intricate workings. 

How To Live a Resilient Life - Nassim Taleb

I love to listen to this once in a while to evaluate myself at a given point and time. Plus it gives me insight about myself which I was unaware of. 

Today, I understood why I moved away from so many "friends" :

Tell people what you do not what they should do. 

When I talk about things I do and act on; I think it irritates and intimidates those people. They prefer talking abstract bullshit or signaling topics. 

I prefer not do those mating dances. 

Next one: 

If something is nonsense... say it!

This one is more elegant. People who can digest that fact I am calling their "bullshit, are more open minded and have an ability to change their mind. Plus they are mature enough to understand that I can be trusted and I will be a shoulder they can rely on.

This has been my technique to weed out crappy humans out of my life.  It not only saved me time but helped me avoid unwanted psychological drama. 

Here's Taleb's 11 rules: 

1. Do not disappoint your 18-year-old self. 
2. Sacrifice for others
3. Seek self respect
4. Do not read newspapers (or consume news) 
5. If something is nonsense... say it!
6. Be most respectful to manual workers
7. Avoid things that bore you
8. Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you
9. Start a business
10. Tell people what you do not what they should do
11. I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist. If that saying doesn’t convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will.

Things to avoid completely: 

• Muscles without strength
• Friendship without trust
• Opinion without risk
• Change without aesthetics 
• Age without values
• Food without nourishment 
• Power without fairness
• Facts without rigor 
• Degree without erudition 
• Militarism without fortitude
• Progress without civilization 
• Complication without depth
• Fluency without content
• Religion without tolerance

Non-Human Animal Talk

It is clear that some animals have the potential to use language in the sense that we understand it. This is not realised in the wild because it would not give a selective advantage. African grey parrots are the obvious example. One famous African grey, Alex, lived in Professor Irene Pepperberg’s lab. Every night, when she left for home, he said to her, ‘You be good. I love you. See you tomorrow.’ That’s not particularly impressive: the parrot could simply have been copying her. But Alex could do much more than that. He knew that words related to concepts, which is probably a defining element of any true language. If presented with a tray of objects of different shapes and colours and made of various materials, he would accurately answer questions such as ‘How many triangles?’ or ‘How many red squares?’ or ‘How many wood?’ And he learned not just the associations of words, but their meanings too. He looked into a mirror and asked, ‘What colour?’ That was how he learned the word ‘grey’. This has been described as the only known example of a non-human asking a direct question. Alex, says Kershenbaum, had ‘the core of what is necessary for language’ – and probably ‘that’s an understatement’.

‘Do animals have language?’ is a bad question. They talk, concludes Kershenbaum, but not in the way we do. We are pathologically linguistic. We chop the world up into propositions and, if we’re not careful, examine those rather than the world itself. The behaviourist Temple Grandin speculates that non-human animals might rely on mental images rather than something tantamount to language to conceptualise ideas (as people like her, with autism spectrum disorder, do). We can’t know, but Kershenbaum is sympathetic to the notion. 

Kershenbaum no doubt sees Why Animals Talk as a book about biology. I prefer to see it as a humble, genial, scholarly, impeccably clear meditation on our own Umwelt. He challenges us to consider that there are ways of being in the world other than ours. Our old instinct is right: if we learn how to listen properly, animals really can tell us something significant about the world that we wouldn’t know without them.

- Review of the book Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication by Arik Kershenbaum

From A Recent Study - At Least 65 Species Of Animals Laugh

Many people were surprised when they saw Max laugh! I have seen my Max laugh almost everyday. I miss his smile and his kisses. 

This is a slap in the face of sapiens who look down on animals. Another reason to treat our fellow non-human animals. 

Researchers at UCLA have identified 65 species of animals who make "play vocalizations," or what we would consider laughter. Some of those vocalizations were already well documented—we've known for a while that apes and rats laugh—but others may come as a surprise. Along with a long list of primate species, domestic cows and dogs, foxes, seals, mongooses and three bird species are prone to laughter as well. (Many bird species can mimic human laughter, but that's not the same as making their own play vocalizations.)

[---]

The UCLA researchers shared that the study of laughter in animals can help us better understand our own evolutionary behavior.

“This work lays out nicely how a phenomenon once thought to be particularly human turns out to be closely tied to behavior shared with species separated from humans by tens of millions of years,” Bryant said, according to UCLA.

“When we laugh, we are often providing information to others that we are having fun and also inviting others to join,” Winkler said. “Some scholars have suggested that this kind of vocal behavior is shared across many animals who play, and as such, laughter is our human version of an evolutionarily old vocal play signal.”

I knew about Rat's laughter since Max was a puppy. 

And we treat them horrible with animal testing. Wake up humans!

Last-Chance Pets & The People Who Rescue Them

This is a moral area I fail miserably. 

Rescuing old pets and seeing them die will kill me daily. I know who I am,  what drives me and what kills me. 

I will be emotionally drained. I don't know if this is an excuse to protect myself. 

One thing I know about myself is that I do change everyday. I hope I become stronger to give these beautiful animals one last chance soon or work ways that this horrible fate doesn't happen to any animal. 

This piece is about my human heroes who rescue them. I bow in front of you. Thank you. I hope your acts will change my mind.

In a car on the way back from an animal shelter, with a 12-year-old chihuahua on his lap, Steve Greig felt peace. For months, since the death of his dog, Wolfgang, he had been inconsolable. “I couldn’t make sense of it,” he says. Wolfgang had been hit by a car. Greig had the idea that he could adopt a dog that nobody else wanted, to give an animal a last chance of a loving home. The chihuahua, whom he named Eeyore, was the oldest dog in the shelter and had a heart murmur and four bad knees. Eeyore spent that car journey looking out of the window, tail wagging. “It was not a no-kill shelter, so his future didn’t look that good, but he had a new lease on life,” says Greig. “I’ll never forget it. It felt like Wolfgang had a hand in letting this dog live and it was exactly what I needed.”

It was so rewarding that he soon adopted another old dog – “and one turned into another”. He now has 11. Every so often, a shelter calls him with news of a dog that might be put down and he can’t resist. “The problem with seniors in shelters is they’re the last that are looked at. If you have a senior with health problems, they’re the last of the last.” Greig lives in Colorado, but most of his dogs have been rescued from other states – from “high-kill shelters” where dogs who are elderly, disabled or can’t find homes are euthanised.

Being older – the dogs, not Greig, although he recently retired as an accountant – means they are easier to handle, he says. “It’s not like I’ve got 11 puppies running around. They, like myself, love a routine.” The oldest is 19 and the youngest is eight, but since she is an Irish wolfhound it is as though she were a centenarian. Greig gets up early, takes them out – five can walk without problems; the others usually sit in a wagon – then back for medication and breakfast. Some need more care – one of his dogs is diabetic and has stomach problems. This means boiled fish for his meals and insulin at the same time each day. “I have to plan around that. Others are on special diets as well. A couple are blind, so they won’t go out by themselves; I have to place them outside and bring them in.” Sometimes, he says with an affectionate laugh, they get lost.

[---]

As for the inevitable, everyone goes into it knowing this. “It’s just the idea that you’ve made a difference for a short time to an animal’s life,” says Kennedy. Williams has no idea how long Libby has left, “but every day is a delight”. Crockett says he will mope around for a while once Tia goes, “then reach the conclusion there’s another poor old cat out there who needs a home”. Lewis thinks that, for Sheba and Teddy, “whatever time they’ve got left, they deserve some love”.

For Greig, going through mourning periods fairly regularly has given him an appreciation for life. “I don’t take things for granted. I constantly see how fleeting life is. I see them happy and doing well, usually much better than when they came in, and I feel like I’ve given them the best of whatever time they have left. I don’t mean to say that it’s not hard, but I comfort myself knowing how their lives could have been.”

His last-chance dogs have taught him a great lesson, he says. “The advice I always have if you want to make your life better? Realise that it’s not about you. The people I have seen that are most unhappy think everything is about them. Once you realise that almost everything isn’t, which is what these dogs have taught me, life is so good.”

 

The Cognitive Foundations of Fictional Stories

Abstract

We hypothesize that fictional stories are highly successful in human cultures partly because they activate evolved cognitive mechanisms, for instance for finding mates (e.g., in romance fiction), exploring the world (e.g., in adventure and speculative fiction), or avoiding predators (e.g., in horror fiction). In this paper, we put forward a comprehensive framework to study fiction through this evolutionary lens. The primary goal of this framework is to carve fictional stories at their cognitive joints using an evolutionary framework. Reviewing a wide range of adaptive variations in human psychology – in personality and developmental psychology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary biology, among other disciplines –, this framework also addresses the question of inter individual differences in preferences for different features in fictional stories. It generates a wide range of predictions about the patterns of combinations of such features, according to the pattern's of variations in the mechanisms triggered by fictional stories. As a result of a highly collaborative effort, we present a comprehensive review of evolved cognitive mechanisms that fictional stories activate. To generate this review, we listed more than 70 adaptive challenges humans faced in the course of their evolution, identified the adaptive psychological mechanisms that evolved in response to such challenges, specified four sources of adaptive variability for the sensitivity of each mechanism (i.e., personality traits, sex, age, and ecological conditions), and linked these mechanisms to the story features that trigger them. This comprehensive framework lays the ground for a theory-driven research program for the study of fictional stories, their content, distribution, structure, and cultural evolution.

- Full Paper Here

Archaea, Horizontal Gene Transfer et al.,

Since the late 1970s, there have come three big surprises about what we humans are and about how life on our planet has evolved.

The first of those three surprises involves a whole category of life, previously unsuspected and now known as the archaea. (They look like bacteria through a microscope, but their DNA reveals they are shockingly different.) Another is a mode of hereditary change that was also unsuspected, now called horizontal gene transfer. (Heredity was supposed to move only vertically, from parents to offspring.) The third is a revelation, or anyway a strong likelihood, about our own deepest ancestry. (It seems now that our lineage traces to the archaea.) So we ourselves probably come from creatures that, as recently as forty years ago, were unknown to exist.

One of the most disorienting results of these developments is a new challenge to the concept of “species.” Biologists have long recognized that the boundaries of one species may blur into another—by the process of hybridism, for instance. And the notion of species is especially insecure in the realm of bacteria and archaea.  But the discovery that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) has occurred naturally, many times, even in the lineages of animals and plants, has brought the categorical reality of a species into greater question than ever. That’s even true for us humans—we are composite individuals, mosaics.

It’s not just that—as you may have read in magazine articles—your human body contains at least as many bacterial cells as it does human cells. (This doesn’t even count all the nonbacterial microbes—the virus particles, fungal cells, archaea, and other teeny passengers inhabiting our guts, mouths, nostrils, and other bodily surfaces.) That’s the microbiome. Each of us is an ecosystem.

I’m talking about something else, a bigger and more shocking discovery that has come from the revolution in a field called molecular phylogenetics. (That phrase sounds fancy and technical, but it means merely the use of molecular information, such as DNA or RNA sequences, in discerning how one creature is related to another.) The discovery was that sizeable chunks of the genomes of all kinds of animals, including us, have been acquired by horizontal transfer from bacteria or other alien species.

How could that be possible? How could genes move sideways, between species, not just vertically along ancestral lineages? The mechanisms are complex, but one label that fits most of them is “infective heredity.”  DNA can be carried across boundaries, from one genome to another, by infective agents such as bacteria and viruses. Such horizontal gene transfer, like sex, has been a source of freshening innovation in otherwise discrete lineages, including ours—and it is still occurring.

This is an aspect of evolution that was unimagined by Charles Darwin. Evolution is trickier, far more intricate, than we had realized. The tree of life is more tangled.

[---]

These discoveries should not merely complicate our magisterial human self-image, but also help lead us toward a wiser and humbler understanding of our place—collectively and as “individuals” within the “species” Homo sapiens—in the story of life on Earth.

It’s a story in which we humans are important protagonists but not the ultimate and predestined heroes. It’s a story in which heredity has moved sideways as well as vertically and all the conventional hierarchies and boundaries have proven more imperfect, transgressible, and leaky than we had supposed. But these revelations don’t diminish our responsibility, as humans, to respect and preserve the diversity of living creatures, with all their own mosaic genomes and tangled lineages, who cohabit the planet with us. On the contrary, I think. All this should make us only more amazed, respectful, and careful. Life on Earth is wondrous precisely because it’s so complicated.

- More Here

The Longevity Bottleneck Hypothesis: Could Dinosaurs Have Shaped Ageing In Present-Day Mammals?

Abstract

The evolution and biodiversity of ageing have long fascinated scientists and the public alike. While mammals, including long-lived species such as humans, show a marked ageing process, some species of reptiles and amphibians exhibit very slow and even the absence of ageing phenotypes. How can reptiles and other vertebrates age slower than mammals? Herein, I propose that evolving during the rule of the dinosaurs left a lasting legacy in mammals. For over 100 million years when dinosaurs were the dominant predators, mammals were generally small, nocturnal, and short-lived. My hypothesis is that such a long evolutionary pressure on early mammals for rapid reproduction led to the loss or inactivation of genes and pathways associated with long life. I call this the ‘longevity bottleneck hypothesis’, which is further supported by the absence in mammals of regenerative traits. Although mammals, such as humans, can evolve long lifespans, they do so under constraints dating to the dinosaur era.

[---]

While fast ageing species can be found amongst reptiles, birds, amphibians and mammals, the slowest ageing species are non-mammals. Indeed, examples of amphibians, fishes and reptiles exhibiting negligible senescence have been reported, but no mammal. 

- More Here

Doomsaying Can Become A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Taleb once said: 

Ingratitude is the most potent information about someone's future. 

I've never see an ingrate who did'nt end up a bitter *loser*. 

Lack of gratitude, mindless individualism  plus insatiable appetite for pleasures (a.k.a pleasuring ourselves to death) are a deadly trio. These are some of the causal reasons for the mass neuroticism. 

In the last five years - I have seen three people die of this neuroticism and one bed ridden. The crazy thing is I predicted it was going to happen and even told those folks more than a decade ago. 

Those three causal reasons are eradicated from my life.

• I wake up kissing Max with a big gratitude for being in my life. I have immense gratitude for having hot / running water, tooth paste, coffee - all this within 10 minutes of waking up.

• Everything I have is because of so many other lives that crossed my path (some even before I was born) and helped me become who I am now.

• Yes, on Oct' 4th 2019 my desires ended but I don't follow that for the sake of following it. 
• Naughty Neo licking my face, Max's sister independent miss Fluffy completely trusting me and Garph's elegant nap on my chest - when these beautiful little actions help me melt into that moment, why the heck I would desire anything more?

I have been reading David Brooks for over 2 decades and learned a ton on human nature from his writings. He is one of the sane political voices. Reading his piece felt like he is reading my mind. 

Today’s communal culture is based on a shared belief that society is broken, systems are rotten, the game is rigged, injustice prevails, the venal elites are out to get us; we find solidarity and meaning in resisting their oppression together. Again, there is a right-wing version (Donald Trump’s “I am your retribution”) and a left-wing version (the intersectional community of oppressed groups), but what they share is an us-versus-them Manichaeism. The culture war gives life shape and meaning.

In this way, pessimism becomes a membership badge—the ultimate sign that you are on the side of the good. If your analysis is not apocalyptic, you’re naive, lacking in moral urgency, complicit with the status quo.

This culture has produced a succession of prophets of doom across the ideological spectrum, people who established their moral courage by portraying the situation as negatively as possible.

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The prevailing culture nurtures these attitudes. But there is a giant gap between many of these negative perceptions and actual reality. 

For example, since the mid-1970s the number of women who have earned college degrees and graduate degrees, and taken leadership positions in society, has risen dramatically; women’s wages are also much higher than in previous generations. Yet, as the psychologist Jean Twenge shows in her book Generations, teenage girls today are more likely than teenage girls in the ’70s to believe that women are discriminated against. Surely that’s partly because successive waves of feminism have raised women’s awareness of ongoing discrimination. But women are doing meaningfully better by these measures, and yet young women are feeling worse.

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Human relationships have come to be viewed through a prism of power and exploitation. Institutions are assumed to be fundamentally illegitimate, rigged. A friend who teaches at Stanford recently told me that many of his students would not assume he had gone into teaching to serve his students, or to seek their good; rather, they see him as a cog in the corrupt system holding them down.

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Our most recent previous period of apocalyptic collectivism was the McCarthy era. During that time, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr noticed that his fellow anti-communists were constantly demanding “that the foe is hated with sufficient vigor.” It wasn’t enough to disapprove of communism; one had to engage in collective moments of group hate. Meanwhile, on the left, intellectuals warned of a looming age of American fascism. 

This mode of escalating indignation led to what Niebuhr called “apoplectic rigidity,” an inability to see the world as it is, but rather only those nightmarish elements that justify the hatred and rage that is the source of your self-worth.

Before long, apoplectic rigidity becomes the default mode of seeing things. This damages the ability to perceive reality accurately. One of the great mysteries of this political moment is why everyone feels so terrible about the economy when in fact it’s in good shape. GDP is growing, inflation is plummeting, income inequality seems to be dropping, real wages are rising, unemployment is low, the stock market is reaching new peaks. And yet many people are convinced that the economy is rotten. These are not just Republicans unwilling to admit that things are going well under a Democratic president.

[---]

Believing in vicious conspiracy theories can also boost your self-esteem: You are the superior mind who sees beneath the surface into the hidden realms where evil cabals really run the world. You have true knowledge of how the world works, which the masses are too naive to see. Conspiracy theories put you in the role of the truth-telling hero. 

Paranoia is the opiate of those who fear they may be insignificant.

The problem is that if you mess around with negative emotions, negative emotions will mess around with you, eventually taking over your life. Focusing on the negative inflates negativity. 

As John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister note in their book The Power of Bad, if you interpret the world through the lens of collective trauma, you may become overwhelmed by self-perpetuating waves of fear, anger, and hate. You’re likely to fall into a neurotic spiral, in which you become more likely to perceive events as negative, which makes you feel terrible, which makes you more alert to threats, which makes you perceive even more negative events, and on and on. 

Moreover, negativity is extremely contagious. When people around us are pessimistic, indignant, and rageful, we’re soon likely to become that way too. This is how today’s culture has produced mass neuroticism.

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I am not saying that America doesn’t have real problems—Trump, climate change, racial injustice, persistent income inequality, a rising tide of authoritarianism around the globe. In our age, as in every age, there are things to protest and things to be grateful for. 

What I am saying is that the persistent gaps between how things are and how they are perceived are new, maybe even unprecedented.

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We have produced a culture that celebrates catastrophizing. This does not lend itself to effective strategies for achieving social change. The prevailing assumption seems to be that the more bitterly people denounce a situation, the more they will be motivated to change it. But history shows the exact opposite to be true. As the Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman demonstrated in The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, social reform tends to happen in moments of growth and prosperity. It happens when people are feeling secure and are inspired to share their good fortune. It happens when leaders can convey a plausible vision of the common good.

[---]

The old late-20th-century culture of rampant individualism had to go. It liberated individuals but frayed the bonds that formerly united people. Somehow, our new communal culture needs to replace bonds of negative polarization and collective victimization with bonds of common loves and collective action. 

 

On Ideas

Our relation to ideas is an inextricable symbiosis, like that between plant and pollinator, a mutualism in which neither can survive without the other. At the dawn of civilization, a covenant was made between humans and these alien entities which inhabit our minds—honor and respect each other and all will flourish beyond their wildest dreams.

Ideas will help us if we help them. This is why the growth of knowledge depends on certain moral values—freedom, openness, honesty, courage, tolerance, and humility, amongst others. Those cultures that respect these values provide ideal habitat for ideas, and where ideas thrive and multiply, so do humans.

The converse is true as well. When ideas are kept secret or willfully distorted, we suffer. When ideas are regarded as slaves, as mere tools that can be wielded for their owner’s benefit, the end is near.

Our treatment of ideas is at the root of all that ails us. The remedy: worship ideas like Wisdom, Justice, Equality, Peace, and Love as if they were Gods (because in fact they are, something the ancients recognized that we have long since forgotten), and follow one simple rule.

Do unto ideas as you would have them do unto you.

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A philosopher asks: what is it like to be a bat?

Tell me: what is it like to be an idea?

- More Here

Meta Values - 20

Remember: 

In democracy, politicians are our representatives not leaders in any sense. Representatives means they work for us.

Don't spend listening to them but observe which representatives listen to you, check if they act with skin in the game, and read the laws they pass. 

Eradicate the middle man from you and the representatives. Middle men are modern pimps whose job is to misrepresent. 

And yes, most politicians are corrupt.

Conversely, there are some politicians who deserve our immense respect. I mean, who is in the right mindset who opt to live in constant pandemonium? 

Never forget that there are some politicians who dedicate their lives for good.  Some are even mindful of the second order effects of laws and decisions. 

The trick is to identify them. Easiest filter is that they are never part of cable news pimps portfolio since usually they offer no sound bites and instead, focus on boring details. 

I salute those rare politicians past and present agnostic to their political leanings. My life is little better is because of them. I am grateful for them.

And they work for me. 

The Transformative Power of Nature on Children and Society

No democracy can long endure if its citizens are unable to tolerate different points of view, or to walk in another voter’s shoes. The political and cultural polarization of the United States can be blamed on universities, social media, Fox News, or the language police. But, for whatever reason, our society suffers from a severe empathy shortage.

How do we nurture empathy? Numerous studies have documented how relationships with pets and wildlife build empathy and compassion in children. Research suggests that nearby nature can reduce neighborhood and domestic violence. Greener communities and learning environments, including the presence of animals in schools, also build empathy and social capital — the glue that holds a society together.

For example, children in a natural play space are more likely to be inclusive and fair, as compared to a typical asphalt playground. They’re also more likely to invent their own games, which builds executive function: the ability to make one’s own decisions, to be entrepreneurial — still another economic benefit.

- More Here