[ExI] Dope was Re: state of conflict technology

[Keith Henson]

<spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

snip

[Keith]

>>...Got a pointer?

> Do you mean for the event?

No, to the writings or something about this Dr. Stock.  Couldn't tell
which one you were talking about.

 snip

? Keith you hit upon something important.  The limeys set us up for greatness:
they got the industrial revolution going in England with the coal power and
the this and the that, but there isn't much land on those islands out there
west of Europe, so a bunch of us bred-for-wealth-building English lads came
over to the colonies in about the 1700s where there was this big old
pristine continent in desperate need of industrialization and young men
seeking to make buttloads of money, these including all of my direct
ancestors, and I would just be letting them down if I failed to carry on the
tradish, ja?

I think your characterization of the colonization of the US is not
very accurate.  Most of population were farmers until late in the
game.  I also think you need to reread Clark.

>> Oh man, there just hasta be some way I can make a buttload of money
> from this.

>...You did.  Keith
_______________________________________________

> Well, OK sure there is that, but your idea really has my wheels spinning.  I
think you are onto something important, something which has a lotta
explanatory power.

> For instance, let me just offer a vague outline.  The notion of collecting a
pile of assets is universal

I really doubt this.  If you are a nomatic hunter-gatherer, what are
you going to do with such assets?  At the minimum a society has to be
sedentary for wealth accumulation to be practical.

> but there are different mindsets that appear to
be cultural.

Clark makes the case that it is mostly genetic.

> Consider the extremes: the understated style of the young
wealth-building English-ancestor guy.

Clark did his work in the UK, statistically analyzing many thousands
of probated wills.  The selection he found was indirect, the children
of the poor died in the frequent famines.  But it is clear that the
same selection was going on in most of north western Europe so German
ancestr;y doesn't hurt.  He specifically mentions the Chinese at the
end of the "genetically capitalist" article.  Though the selection in
China was less intense, it went on much longer.

> You and I met at least one at a
cryonics event (I think you were there) over at the Tied House in Palo Alto
about 15 yrs ago and I don't even remember his name, but he was one of the
local billllionehs.

I think I know who you mean.  If so, I might have been editing his
Wikipedia page recently.

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> Contrast that with the rap culture hip-hop star millionaire, the
style: jewelry, outrageous cars and so on.  Right up the hill in sight of my
house is an enormous estate built by one of them, MC Hammer.  He went broke
because he overdid everything, and doesn't live there now, but everything
there is so overstated, it is practically a museum.

One look at his Wikipedia page makes it clear that not many of his
ancestors were subjected to the kind of selection Clark found.

Which is why Clark gets in trouble.  It's not possible to say that
certain human groups were subject to harsh selection without implying
that there are differences between the groups.  This is reality, but
not PC.

snip

> It isn't clear if that observation goes anywhere near Stock's theory, but I
have some thinking to do on that.

Need that pointer so I can see what you are talking about.

Keith