<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>'I make a case that people have an<br>
evolved blindness to looking into their own mental workings.'<br><br></div>I cannot agree with that. Neurotics, who form some 30% of the population (depending on who you are quoting) dig and pick at themselves, cannot get enough of questioning their motives, and worry worry worry.<br>
<br></div>You can make a case that it is very difficult to get an objective view of oneself, given all the self-deception that we do. And then there is the unconscious, hard to get to by definition. (These are parts of Freud which will never die.)<br>
<br></div>Of course there are people who shun any and all inward looks (mostly extroverts), who often are the very ones who need to.<br><br>bill<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 9:18 AM, Keith Henson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:hkeithhenson@gmail.com" target="_blank">hkeithhenson@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 4:00 AM, Anders Sandberg <<a href="mailto:anders@aleph.se">anders@aleph.se</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
snip<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Forecasting trouble spots is generically useful,<br>
<br>
</div>That's something which was discussed almost 5 years ago on this list.<br>
I wrote a paper on the subject that is available here:<br>
<a href="http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/17/194059/296" target="_blank">http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/17/194059/296</a> and was picked up<br>
by an journal here:<br>
<a href="http://www.mankindquarterly.org/summer2006_henson.html" target="_blank">http://www.mankindquarterly.org/summer2006_henson.html</a><br>
<br>
It was based on previous work here:<br>
<a href="http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html" target="_blank">http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html</a> and extended on extropy<br>
chat into an model of how genes for the psychological mechanisms<br>
leading to wars under certain conditions were selected over genes to<br>
starve in place.<br>
<a href="http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2009-July/052083.html" target="_blank">http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2009-July/052083.html</a><br>
<br>
Other people, particularly military writers, have noticed the<br>
correlation between economic stress and internal civil disruptions or<br>
external wars. The _Pentagon's New Map_ by Thomas P. M. Barnett is<br>
just one that comes to hand off my bookshelves. The studied<br>
association between bad weather impacting harvest and subsequent wars<br>
in China gives strong empirical support.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> and they like to tell anybody in government who wants to listen about their findings. In practice of course plenty of people who ought to listen have other priorities.<br>
<br>
</div>To a considerable extent they don't _want_ to hear about it. It has<br>
this underlying theme that learning why other people make war may<br>
explain why _you_ are making war. I make a case that people have an<br>
evolved blindness to looking into their own mental workings. You start<br>
understanding why the "Arab Spring" happened and you begin understand<br>
why the US got into wars such as the one in Iraq.<br>
<br>
As you might recall, I was lambasted from the bench by a federal judge<br>
(Whyte) over talking about the human motivation for seeking status<br>
(and applying it to myself). Of course the judge himself was a first<br>
class example of how much humans seek status at great economic cost.<br>
<br>
The human motivation of seeking status is more accepted today, but<br>
back in the late '90s it was a hot button.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> Also, I have not seen any hints of methodology over there that looks much better than good futures study methods elsewhere: saying smart stuff about the future is *hard*.<br>
<br>
</div>If people really want to do this, they need good models of how humans<br>
react in tribal scale numbers and larger. That comes out of<br>
evolutionary psychology and while it will give a kind of situational<br>
awareness, it still isn't going to give detailed predictions.<br>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
Keith<br>
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