[ExI] ai is the easy road

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai is the easy road

 

On Wed, Oct 14, 2026 at 10:29 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 

snip 

 >>…I visited some of the poorest areas of the country, if measured in dollars.  

 

>…You *really* do not groik EP.

 

>…The trip in our psychological traits depends on *relative* changes. Absolute poverty does not trip social unrest. Declining income or even the prospect of it does….Keith

 

 

Cool, this points to another success for evolutionary psychology.

 

The mindset is very different in rural America: they accept stasis.  You and I do not.  Our world requires growth.  A typical ROI is about 7% on average.  If we make 5% per year, we consider it a failure.  But in rural America, they don’t typically have a lot of money in the bank, nor a big stock portfolio.  So in that sense, growth becomes nearly irrelevant.  They aren’t bothered much if the rest of the world is getting unimaginably wealthy.  It isn’t their thing it seems.

 

But their standard of living is good, by their value system, and there is no reason to think that will change.  They tend to be OK with no growth at all.

 

Well OK then, consider a place where there is unrest, where the war memes have been triggered: France.  EP correctly predicts what is happening there, for they appear to be concerned about a bleak future.  We see war memes triggered in impoverished US cities.  Consequence: unrest is seen there.  But in rural America, the people seem content.

 

I understand this map:

 

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=map+showing+red+vs+blue+by+county <https://duckduckgo.com/?q=map+showing+red+vs+blue+by+county&atb=v135-1&t=chromentp&ia=images&iax=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fmediaproxy.snopes.com%2Fwidth%2F1200%2Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fmedia.snopes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F2024_election_map_image.jpg> &atb=v135-1&t=chromentp&ia=images&iax=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fmediaproxy.snopes.com%2Fwidth%2F1200%2Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fmedia.snopes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F2024_election_map_image.jpg

 

Places where humans are living way beyond the environmental carrying capacity understand how fragile is our civilization and how dangerous it is to live this way.  But not everyone lives in areas beyond the environmental carrying capacity, and do not see a bleak future.  These are (very generally) the red areas in the map above.

 

None of that explains why the current POTUS won two of the last three elections, however I feel I understand why that happened, as I have presented previously.  I notice very little push back on the notion.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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