Fear is here to stay

As I walked on the beach just now I thought of evolution, as one does on a beachwalk. Is there an evolutionary logic to become more intelligent? In other words, does a mutation which increases intelligence have a better chance of becoming a dominant gene? I would think that this would be the case only if the environment changed. Then having slightly more intelligence would be a good thing in order to survive and continue to have offspring in this changed environment.

But without a change in environment, increased intelligence would matter little. If the species is existing within their environment quite nicely then intelligence offers no advantages. We only have to look at our ancestral cousins: the great apes, to see that evolutionary changes have been very minor throughout the millennia due to them being perfectly suited for their environment in the jungles. Humans, after our branching-off from the apes, must have had the need to become more intelligent probably as a result of the ice age or some dramatic change in environment which rewarded intelligence and allowed those intelligent beings to continue having offspring. The fact that, for example, we have little hair meant that intelligence ruled over natural protections which directly opposes that of apes.

But the real proof is the crocodile, which has remained unchanged for millions of years. There would have been countless mutations over the years which increased intelligence, but if the environment doesn't change and their tummies are full regardless, then there is no need for increased intelligence to become genetically dominant. It may become dominant, but it doesn't have to.

However, it is different with fear. It is evolutionary logical for animals to be fearful, or at least, for fear being a dominant gene. Regardless of the environment, there are predators and natural dangers such as storms, floods, poisonous plants, etc etc. So, for example, there was a very great need for the advent of the adrenal gland to secrete adrenaline in fight or flight situations. Of course, the 'fear' gene can't become so overwhelming that someone never leaves the cave (like the Dad in the Croods) or you would starve but fear serves a very important evolutionary purpose: to increase the probability of survival.

So fear, and all it's associated cousins such as anxiety, compulsiveness, shyness, phobias and so on are here to stay. It is not a case where the human species' intelligence will somehow supersede fear and thus relegate it to a non-dominant gene. In fact, it may be the opposite. If the environment changes enough, it may be fear that supersedes intelligence and turns the clock back on the increased intelligence we have been enjoying for the past millennia. The original mammals, which evolved at the end of the dinosaur period, were tiny little fearful creatures like meerkats existing ever vigilant for danger. It is only because the past few thousands of years have been relatively stable has intelligence been allowed to increase.

So unfortunately we are stuck with fear and it's cousins, and we have to live with it. But conversely, recognise that it only serves an basic evolutionary purpose. It resides in only the 2 bottom levels of Maslow's pyramid (survival/security), and our intelligence can get us to the next levels.

No one has a clue.

I don't know who this person is but she is correct when saying that no one knows what they are doing. But she should have left it at that because no one ever figures it out. We look at the successful or the extroverts and feel that they have it all together, that they are different from us or have some secret we are not privy to, and I can tell you that no one has the formula as to what it takes to succeed... because there is no formula. Nobody has a clue; we are all winging-it, and hoping that luck favours us.

Society has a survivor bias with the people who are deemed successful. The Jeff Bezos and Elon Musks of the world lead us to believe it was intelligence, grit, and determination that won the day, and society falls for this fallacy. What is not written about is the millions of others who are equally (or more) intelligent, gritty, and determined but who have failed. Why did those people fail and not Bezos/Musk? The answer is luck. There are 8 billion people on this planet and there will be people who end-up on the top of the pyramid because, statistically, someone will. Jeff Bezos is on top because someone had to. That's it.

No one has 100% of the information necessary to make a iron-clad decision and even if they can, the next day some event could happen totally destroying their carefully made plans. I can guarantee that everyone that has succeeded has had certain times where if things had happened slightly differently or later/earlier or not at all, they would have lost it all. And you would have never heard their name and someone else would be at the top trying to convince the world that it was their hard work that did it. I had a moderate success and this happened to me 2-3 times.

So what is the right thing to do in this ocean of uncertainty? The key is to give it a go. Try something, anything; in fact try something weird to try and separate your concept from the ordinary. Do not worry about the outcome as luck will be the main dictator of success, but do work at it and change things when it is necessary to change. If you fail, learn from it, and give something else a go. Conari persevera.

To illustrate my points, I will leave you with one of my favourite stories of thinking outside the box. Probably 15 years ago, this university student was thinking of ideas on how to make a buck as he was cash-strapped as all uni students are. He thought of a creating a website which was just a 1000x1000 pixel area where people could purchase a single pixel for a $1. He called it the Million Pixel Website (look it up). That's it. Without any real effort on his part, the thing went absolutely viral due to the originality. He was getting millions of views, publications were writing about it, and everyone wanted a piece of his virtual land. Even companies like IBM purchased a block. So he sold every pixel within a few months and made 1 million$. Nobody has a clue about anything.

Every young daughter's dream

The anxious little girl had told a Court family consultant it was her dream to be able to “love Mummy and Daddy at the same time”.

The fallacy of wartime honour

So let's just get this straight. The article writer is not concerned that the Australian soldiers are in another country trying to undermine the internal political processes just because we feel that 'bad' people are trying to take over, and are killing their soldiers whilst there.

No. The writer is concerned that once we illegally killed one of their soldiers that our soldiers stepped beyond what he considers 'moral' behaviour. An honourable soldier, after illegally killing a citizen of the country we are invading, shouldn't cross this arbitrary line. I mean you couldn't write a movie script more bizarre.

Once again, we are being told that there is morality in war. That there is some kind of line which separates honour, which includes the act of killing, from dishonour, like the act of debasing this kill. It's Ok to go through the pockets of that dead soldier to find anything valuable or interesting. Wow, a pocket watch. That's moral. But we can't supposedly mock this soldier we just killed. This logic goes past the ridiculous.

And now these soldiers are facing 3 struggles; the struggle to stay alive, the struggle to stay mentally sane, and the struggles to defend themselves against the keepers of the honour of war.

But the larger picture is we are being told that we have the moral right to kill others simply because our elected officials have stamped this action as moral. This is how a country acts to ensure that they have future generations of young men to use for killing others and allows the parents to begrudgingly accept sending their sons to war returning home as badly-damaged shells of their former selves.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/02/hundreds-of-photos-exist-of-australian-soldiers-drinking-from-dead-afghans-prosthetic-leg-court-told

How do you nurture the ultra-intelligent?

Today I was with an 8yo autistic boy who I will be spending a few hours a week with. He has autism and the usual companions, plus mild sleep epilepsy and some motor skill issues. But his intelligence was off the charts. During our car-trip, we started with riddles which he knew the answers to all my favourites. I then asked him what weighs more, a kilo of rocks or a kilo of feathers. He spent a little time rationalising it then said they are both equal.

Ok. I asked him if there was no air at all, and you went to the top of building and dropped a bowling ball and a feather, which would hit the ground first. Again, he thought about it and said they would hit the ground together because without air the feather would fall straight down. Just like a piece of paper would. Holy smokes. 8 years old. We talked about Galileo and the Sun and planets how they all thought everything revolved around the Earth.

I needed to up my game. So I asked him to add up all the numbers between 1 and 100 without actually adding 1 plus 2 plus 3 plus... I gave it to him as homework because Carl Gauss did this as a youngster when his teacher got frustrated because of the genius of Gauss. I'm sure he will come back to me with the answer.

Later I talked to his mother and he was evaluated at 99.9% in the cognitive tests.

How does one nurture a kid like this?

We live in an authoritarian state

We live in an authoritarian state. The police who we feel protect us do not. They serve the people that make the rules. I had my house broken-into. The cops came and dusted the doors/etc and then they told me that chances of finding the perpetrators is basically zero.

Ok. But there is a deterrent for criminals that they will be caught and end-up in prison. No. Only 2% of the charges result in imprisonment. So police can't help us pre-crime and then the post-crime statistics are even worse. So how are they useful? They aren't.

No, what the police do is to concentrate their efforts on the general public. They issue their speeding fines, and random alcohol/drug tests, the body searches of young people at festivals (the pieces of shit), or the poor sucker who didn't declare something on his taxes as the rich get away with billions. In other words, they concentrate on the easy low hanging fruit as the real criminals, the real shit of society are left to destroy lives with impunity.

The Cold Reality

Reading this article, I found this paragraph deeply troubling.

https://www.cbhs.com.au/mind-and-body/blog/leading-cause-of-death-for-men-in-Australia

"Depression and anxiety are not uncommon in men. Statistics show that suicide is the leading cause of death in Australian men aged between 15 and 44."

Not because of the statistic that suicide is the leading cause of death for men here because I had heard this elsewhere. But because of the first sentence. Because it shows a complete ignorance and an almost dismissal that men suffer. The paragraph starts with a trivialisation of men's mental health issues before, straight away, giving us the cold reality that men in their prime kill themselves more than any other cause of death.

It's like this first sentence was worthy of adding into the article to educate the reader. Oh, by the way, did you know that depression and anxiety was not uncommon in suicidal men?