CryoNet #33014 - #33016

CryoNet - Mon 1 Nov 2010

    #33014: Re: Gateway president [David Stodolsky]
    #33015: Re: CryoNet #33007 - #33013 [Charles in Arizona]
    #33016: an incomplete analysis [Charles in Arizona]

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Message #33014
Subject: Re: Gateway president
From: David Stodolsky <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 11:19:44 +0100
References: <[email protected]>

On 31 Oct 2010, at 10:00 AM, CryoNet wrote:

>> 
>> Also, if he were really going to live forever, making more money so that he
>> can live in luxury longer also makes sense.  But in actuality, those years
>> he keeps struggling as president are years he will not get back, during
>> which he could have been lounging on the beach or whatever.  His decision
>> reduces the amount of pleasurable, luxurious things he will get to enjoy
>> before he dies, rather than increasing them.
> 
> That's not necessarily true.  Dr. Gregory Clark has rather strong
> evidence that some people's of the world underwent selection as
> intense as that that turned wild foxes into tame ones.
> 
> As a result people *like* to work, and the ones from the selected
> cultures work much harder than our hunter gatherer ancestors did.  The
> obvious reason that Clark found in probate records is that for at
> least 20 generations (same as the tame foxes) people who became at
> least modestly well off produced the vast majority of descendants.
> 
>>> From an individual perspective, our instincts are wrong.  What needs to be
>> done so that our memories and thought patterns live on is very different
>> from what our instincts tell us.
> 
> "Instincts," or evolved psychological traits, were optimized by
> reproductive success in a world without birth control.  Genes are
> immortal or potentially so, from the gene's prospective, we are
> throwaways.  You are absolutely correct on this issue.


An incomplete analysis. 

>> I once asked the
>> president of Gateway Computer why he didn't just sell all his stock,
>> take the money, quit the company, and live the rest of his life in
>> luxury, never needing to work again. Apparently no one had ever asked
>> him this. He had had quick answers to all my other questions, but now
>> he just stared at me. He had no answer at all. Then he said--"But
>> we've only just started here!" gesturing at his office and the huge
>> factory beyond. 



"Work" is a modern concept and as such could not have served as a factor in the Early Environment of Adaptation (EEA), which is the overwhelming source of genetic determination in Man. Regardless of popular science nonsense, such as the "Selfish Gene," humans and most animals manifest a group survival instinct, as well as an individual survival instinct. In fact, in most evolving systems it is possible to identify adaptations at the cellular, bodily, group, and ecosystem levels. 

What the Gateway Computer President is saying in the above quote, is that he considers Gateway to be his 'Group' and feels it is necessary to work for its success and survival. The reason that Dr. Clark's findings are limited to selected cultures is that these Cultures have made the connection, perhaps only implicitly, that 'work' is good for the success of the Group. So, the pre-existing group survival instinct is channelled into 'work' for the benefit of the Group.

Unfortunately, current marketing strategy, while recognizing the key role of the group through fee reductions for family members, fails to take advantage of this fundamental human instinct. The key to marketing success is to form self-identifying groups or find pre-existing ones, and to target an appropriate suspension offer to the Group as an entity. 


dss


David Stodolsky
[email protected]  Skype: davidstodolsky

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Message #33015
References: <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 08:40:44 -0700
Subject: Re: CryoNet #33007 - #33013
From: Charles in Arizona <[email protected]>

I ask David Stodolsky for some evidence, and he points me to a paper
that propounds a theory! Well, I guess I should have expected that, as
we enter the world of social sciences.

Since researchers probably don't go around inserting probes into the
brains of the elderly on a random basis as a means to measure their
happiness, I have to think that they rely on self-assessment by the
subjects. Contrary to David's suggestion that I am closed-minded for
not believing what people say, I think skepticism is the first duty of
anyone asking questions and listening to answers.

Skepticism is certainly my reaction when I find statements such as
this: "Over the years, the older subjects reported having fewer
negative emotions and more positive ones compared with their younger
days. But even with the good outweighing the bad, older people were
inclined to report a mix of positive and negative emotions more often
than younger test subjects."

This seems to suggest the elderly are ambivalent. But they say they're
happy. Well, are they? They are certainly likely to have more money
than younger people, which may help. And they have given up on many of
the unrealistic goals that tend to make some younger people
frustrated. But I don't see how any of this research can compensate
for self-deception. And, incidentally, do any of the happiness
researchers weight their results according to disposable income,
health problems, and similar obvious factors?

How about this for vagueness in the guise of science:

"In measuring immediate well-being - yesterday's emotional state - the
researchers found that stress declines from age 22 onward, reaching
its lowest point at 85. Worry stays fairly steady until 50, then
sharply drops off. Anger decreases steadily from 18 on, and sadness
rises to a peak at 50, declines to 73, then rises slightly again to
85. Enjoyment and happiness have similar curves: they both decrease
gradually until we hit 50, rise steadily for the next 25 years, and
then decline very slightly at the end, but they never again reach the
low point of our early 50s."

Again these conclusions were entirely drawn by asking people to rate
themselves. But this assumes that men and women, old and young, apply
the same meanings to words such as "worry" and "anger."

As for David's suggestion that a "cryonicist" would not have a circle
of friends who are in any way representative of the population at
large, I didn't get interested in cryonics until I was 45, but I still
have many of the same friends now that I had before I was 45. Did
those friends suddenly become unrepresentative of the world at large
when I became a cryonicist? That doesn't make sense. Therefore,
according to David, I must have always been a cryonicist without
realizing it. How many other people are in this interesting state, I
wonder? Does David take steps to filter them out when he is looking
for a representative sample?

--Charles Platt

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Message #33016
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 11:28:33 -0700
Subject: an incomplete analysis
From: Charles in Arizona <[email protected]>

David writes, "What the Gateway Computer President is saying in the
above quote, is that he considers Gateway to be his 'Group' and feels
it is necessary to work for its success and survival."

A sweeping deduction indeed, completely ignoring any
childhood/environmental factors. Can they be so ignored?

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