Great post. But I think evolution may prefer a third model, as evidenced by the fact that babies put everything in their mouths. Basically: exposure to contagion is bad in every particular case but good overall. If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. And if you’re never exposed to contagion your immune system would fight itself.
I think the binariness of political affiliation in your country is to a considerable extent a result of its electoral system. I see a huge difference between how things are in my country of origin, which has a multi-party system, and how they are in my country of residence, which, like yours, has a two-party system.
Actually, strangely enough, here in Malta, right/left doesn't seem to be a popular dichotomy: everyone just identifies (strongly) with one of the two parties, and that identification doesn't have much to do with policies or with ideology.
In Sweden, the left/right dichotomy is still popular, but it competes with party affiliation, and e.g. recently the contagioned nationalist party was admitted into the right-wing bloc, which led one of the liberal parties to switch to the left-wing bloc, so party affiliation and left/right affiliation can be in conflict.
Jonathan Haidt discusses some issues related to this in his book The Righteous Mind, which is largely about the psychological foundations of moral and political thought.
On one hand, one of the Big Five, a set of psychological traits with high heritability, is Conscientiousness. This is associated with discipline, orderliness, and hard work, but it is also suggested to relate to cleanliness (note that one of the markers of obsessive-compulsive disorder is constant hand washing). The degree to which people worry about being clean may have a genetic component.
On the other hand, Haidt's list of basic moral values/dimensions includes Purity, which is the avoidance of things that are, or are felt to be, unclean. In Anglo-American culture, this tends to be associated with sexual conduct, but it also relates to rules for kosher or halal food, for example; and when I read Haidt's book, I was pleased to see that he at least mentioned in passing that environmentalism was partly driven by Purity, which I had thought of a while back. (In Victorian usage, one of the common meanings of "pollution" was masturbation, a usage we have almost entirely lost.)
One of the scenarios Haidt used to assess how strongly people valued Purity was a vignette about a brother and sister, travelling together in a foreign country, who decide one night that, since they are very close and get along well, they will try the experiment of making love. The sister is on the pill, and to make sure, they also use a condom, so there is essentially no genetic risk. Haidt takes the feeling that that's just WRONG to be an example of Purity.
I think you can see that Conscientiousness and Purity are plausibly linked to each other. And Haidt suggests, I believe, that both will tend to be stronger in a culture that is frequently exposed to foreign pathogens.
(I must note that I think Haidt's list of basic moral values is incomplete. For one thing, he never mentions Property; yet "mine and thine" is a moral intuition so basic that even a dog can understand it. While he tries to fit libertarianism into his schema, he's missing an idea that's basic to how most libertarians think.)
I think there is a tradeoff involved between the compute cost of "chemistry" aspect vs "worth of cashews". X is seen has high crime neighborhood though may be only 1% of its people be actually committing crimes. But it is much cheaper for me to decide that entire neighborhood is criminal and not go near it then assessing threat at individual level. But when a person from the same neighborhood comes for job interview, it makes sense to judge the individual on his own merits as he can be a really good candidate that I might otherwise miss on.
In some parts of India when you drop some food on the ground you quickly ask the person next to you "Raam (God) or Bhut (Ghost)". The person is supposed to answer it super quickly. If the other person says God you pick it up, if he says ghost you throw it in trash.
At surface level this is like a coin toss but it really isn't. It offers all the parties involved some kind of "plausible deniability" (that their choice of rational) if their choices are later seen as bad choices while giving flexibility to make a good choice.
I would never eat something that was on the floor! Women have a higher disgust sensitivity. I remember washing and sanitizing pump parts (for pumping breast milk) and my uncle-in-law laid his coat on top of my drying pump parts and I freaked out. Who does something like that?! His house was gross, he had no disgust sensitivity, and he died of an STD in his throat that gave him cancer.
“The pattern is older than cancel culture —it was also, on the opposite side of the political spectrum, Senator McCarthy’s approach to identifying reds.” Actually, this isn’t true. McCarthy was given a list by a double agent, he was correct in all his accusations. We found evidence after the USSR fell that they did have agents imbedded in the government and the list he was given was accurate. We should have listened to him but it was too late to stop the contagion, the communists had too much power in the media and to this day his reputation is defamed.
I dropped some peanuts on the ground just this morning. My thought process was "eh, they're probably fine, but peanuts are cheap" and so I threw them in the trash.
My gut feelings followed the chemical model. My actions followed the contagion model. Why? Because, as you say, binary rules are simple and easy. The mental effort of carefully evaluating the risk of floor food is costlier than a few peanuts.
It sounds like you followed the chemical model the whole way, but compared two continuous variables: probability they are fine and cost. A small risk might not be worth it for peanuts, but would be for say pralines. (Or cashews? I am cheap and only eat peanuts :D )
I pick them up, and if the floor isn't very clean, I'll blow off the germs. :-) We subscribe to the strong immune system theory, that the more you challenge yourself, the stronger you get. And we're pretty healthy these days.
Obviously, if there's some botulism lying around, I would throw them away. But that would never happen in my kitchen anyway.
Also, I'm enjoying your poetry in The Machinery of Freedom. It's good and it's interesting. I have to admit to skipping through the book and only reading the poems.
I have to finish reading the book. but next two days is a no electric holiday, so good chance I will. I like the one on Hobbes. My husband's also interested in cooking history, I hope it's okay I sent him the pdf.
I don't care how dirty the floor is. Cashews are expensive. That nut is not getting away that easily....
Great post. But I think evolution may prefer a third model, as evidenced by the fact that babies put everything in their mouths. Basically: exposure to contagion is bad in every particular case but good overall. If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. And if you’re never exposed to contagion your immune system would fight itself.
I think the binariness of political affiliation in your country is to a considerable extent a result of its electoral system. I see a huge difference between how things are in my country of origin, which has a multi-party system, and how they are in my country of residence, which, like yours, has a two-party system.
Interesting point. Describing someone as right or left isn't common and wouldn't convey much information?
Actually, strangely enough, here in Malta, right/left doesn't seem to be a popular dichotomy: everyone just identifies (strongly) with one of the two parties, and that identification doesn't have much to do with policies or with ideology.
In Sweden, the left/right dichotomy is still popular, but it competes with party affiliation, and e.g. recently the contagioned nationalist party was admitted into the right-wing bloc, which led one of the liberal parties to switch to the left-wing bloc, so party affiliation and left/right affiliation can be in conflict.
When today some people call anyone to the right of Stalin or the Jacobins "Far-Right"?
Jonathan Haidt discusses some issues related to this in his book The Righteous Mind, which is largely about the psychological foundations of moral and political thought.
On one hand, one of the Big Five, a set of psychological traits with high heritability, is Conscientiousness. This is associated with discipline, orderliness, and hard work, but it is also suggested to relate to cleanliness (note that one of the markers of obsessive-compulsive disorder is constant hand washing). The degree to which people worry about being clean may have a genetic component.
On the other hand, Haidt's list of basic moral values/dimensions includes Purity, which is the avoidance of things that are, or are felt to be, unclean. In Anglo-American culture, this tends to be associated with sexual conduct, but it also relates to rules for kosher or halal food, for example; and when I read Haidt's book, I was pleased to see that he at least mentioned in passing that environmentalism was partly driven by Purity, which I had thought of a while back. (In Victorian usage, one of the common meanings of "pollution" was masturbation, a usage we have almost entirely lost.)
One of the scenarios Haidt used to assess how strongly people valued Purity was a vignette about a brother and sister, travelling together in a foreign country, who decide one night that, since they are very close and get along well, they will try the experiment of making love. The sister is on the pill, and to make sure, they also use a condom, so there is essentially no genetic risk. Haidt takes the feeling that that's just WRONG to be an example of Purity.
I think you can see that Conscientiousness and Purity are plausibly linked to each other. And Haidt suggests, I believe, that both will tend to be stronger in a culture that is frequently exposed to foreign pathogens.
(I must note that I think Haidt's list of basic moral values is incomplete. For one thing, he never mentions Property; yet "mine and thine" is a moral intuition so basic that even a dog can understand it. While he tries to fit libertarianism into his schema, he's missing an idea that's basic to how most libertarians think.)
Tested among my twitter followers; slight correlation, not significant.
https://x.com/IsaacKing314/status/1802855241148158137
Doves and ostriches are both birds, but doves are birdier.
I work in a hospital. At home I eat them. At work they get pitched.
I think there is a tradeoff involved between the compute cost of "chemistry" aspect vs "worth of cashews". X is seen has high crime neighborhood though may be only 1% of its people be actually committing crimes. But it is much cheaper for me to decide that entire neighborhood is criminal and not go near it then assessing threat at individual level. But when a person from the same neighborhood comes for job interview, it makes sense to judge the individual on his own merits as he can be a really good candidate that I might otherwise miss on.
In some parts of India when you drop some food on the ground you quickly ask the person next to you "Raam (God) or Bhut (Ghost)". The person is supposed to answer it super quickly. If the other person says God you pick it up, if he says ghost you throw it in trash.
At surface level this is like a coin toss but it really isn't. It offers all the parties involved some kind of "plausible deniability" (that their choice of rational) if their choices are later seen as bad choices while giving flexibility to make a good choice.
I would never eat something that was on the floor! Women have a higher disgust sensitivity. I remember washing and sanitizing pump parts (for pumping breast milk) and my uncle-in-law laid his coat on top of my drying pump parts and I freaked out. Who does something like that?! His house was gross, he had no disgust sensitivity, and he died of an STD in his throat that gave him cancer.
“The pattern is older than cancel culture —it was also, on the opposite side of the political spectrum, Senator McCarthy’s approach to identifying reds.” Actually, this isn’t true. McCarthy was given a list by a double agent, he was correct in all his accusations. We found evidence after the USSR fell that they did have agents imbedded in the government and the list he was given was accurate. We should have listened to him but it was too late to stop the contagion, the communists had too much power in the media and to this day his reputation is defamed.
read Mary Douglas...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_and_Danger
I dropped some peanuts on the ground just this morning. My thought process was "eh, they're probably fine, but peanuts are cheap" and so I threw them in the trash.
My gut feelings followed the chemical model. My actions followed the contagion model. Why? Because, as you say, binary rules are simple and easy. The mental effort of carefully evaluating the risk of floor food is costlier than a few peanuts.
Thanks for the post.
It sounds like you followed the chemical model the whole way, but compared two continuous variables: probability they are fine and cost. A small risk might not be worth it for peanuts, but would be for say pralines. (Or cashews? I am cheap and only eat peanuts :D )
I pick them up, and if the floor isn't very clean, I'll blow off the germs. :-) We subscribe to the strong immune system theory, that the more you challenge yourself, the stronger you get. And we're pretty healthy these days.
Obviously, if there's some botulism lying around, I would throw them away. But that would never happen in my kitchen anyway.
If it didn't kill me, it made me stronger....
If it doesn't kill you it mutates and tries again later.
Yeah, but then you can make a movie about it with sequels...
Also, I'm enjoying your poetry in The Machinery of Freedom. It's good and it's interesting. I have to admit to skipping through the book and only reading the poems.
You might or might not be interested in my SCA poetry, which is not particularly political or philosophical. It's in the _Miscellany_.
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Misc10/Misc10.pdf.
Should I use one or more of my Machinery poems as substack posts? I was considering the one on Hobbes.
I have to finish reading the book. but next two days is a no electric holiday, so good chance I will. I like the one on Hobbes. My husband's also interested in cooking history, I hope it's okay I sent him the pdf.
Of course.
I pick them up, so the chemistry one. But I might rinse them in the sink.