Your Genes Want You To Drive A BMW

Given some of the mail I've received of late, perhaps its time to go back to basics...

Your genes want you to drive a BMW. They also want you to be thin, tan, and to have a lovely smile. Your genes want you to be the life of the party – perhaps a musician or an artist or a celebrity of some sort. “What?” you say. That’s right. Though you probably don’t realize it, humans are genetically inclined to be aware of who’s at the top of the social totem pole, and more importantly, to emulate whatever it is those people did to get there.

According to evolutionary psychologists, our genes build our minds to pursue status in social groups. This is because, long ago, when humans were still cave-dwellers, status meant the difference between life and death. Being among the best hunters and warriors was a sure way to obtain food when food was scarce. Therefore, Mother Nature, ever the tinkerer, discovered that humans who were genetically driven to pursue status would outlive those who were not. Thus was born the status-seeking gene, and it has been with us ever since. (In truth, it is a gross oversimplification to assert that there are specific genes for this or that attribute. It’s just an easy way to say that a trait is largely genetic.)

In any case, Robert Wright chronicled this and other insights into the evolutionary history of the human mind in his 1994 best-seller, The Moral Animal. As astounding as the book was, a decade has passed and most folks still don’t know anything about why they think and feel the way they do. This is a real problem, unless of course everyone can have a BMW, and assuming that having a BMW is really all it’s cracked up to be.

It breaks down like this. From a genetic perspective, modern humans have the minds of cavemen. As soon as humans could organize sufficiently to protect themselves from nature and other humans, and could consistently procure food in mass quantities, natural selection no longer had an easy task of separating the fit from the unfit. Fitness became more a function of luck or circumstance than strength or skill, at least when it came to living long enough to reproduce (which is the only real goal of our genes). The process that had been shaping the human mind for eons suddenly ground to a halt. This is believed to have happened somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 years ago. Since then, the genes that code for our minds have not changed significantly. They just get reshuffled again and again, generation after generation. And here we are, dozens of millennia later, mostly unaware of the degree to which the environment of our ancestors affects our day-to-day lives.

Seeking status in ancient times was a survival necessity. In modern times, it is a fool’s errand. This is because what counts for status today has nothing to do with survival. Who’s at the top of the social totem pole these days? Celebrities. Whether we’re talking about sports stars, musicians, actors, business tycoons, and even religious figures, one thing is certain – the masses are paying close attention to what they do, and, in many cases, they are following suit.

Those who get the most attention in our society are the role models, whether they like it or not. They set the cultural agenda. It has always been so. From Elvis’ sideburns to Madonna’s material girl get-up to the current obsession with “bling,” it is instantly apparent how much popularity equals status in our modern world. From shows like Entertainment Tonight and magazines like Us and People, we can see that America’s obsession with stars is a multi-billion dollar industry. But doesn’t anyone ever wonder why so many people across such a diverse land would share such a shallow proclivity?

As we learn more and more, it becomes clearer and clearer that it’s genetic. But that doesn’t mean we have to give in. As they say in the world of addiction, admitting that there’s a problem is half the battle. Like it or not, we currently find ourselves in a battle for sanity, or at least emotional stability. How many among us are dying to drive a BMW, not because it is a superior automobile, but because of how it will be perceived by friends and acquaintances? How many are depressed when they look in the mirror because they don’t resemble the celebrities they so desperately envy? More generally, how much of what we do is for show rather than for substance? It doesn’t have to be this way.

If we’re going to make any more progress as a species, we’re going to have to recognize that our minds are constructed from the genetic blueprints of our cave-dwelling ancestors, blueprints that were designed for a world that no longer exists, blueprints that are at work every day pushing us to obtain status in our social endeavors. That's our starting point. From there, the fix is within our reach. Indeed, many have overcome their genetic imperatives.

As a species, we have a long history of taming our genes. Birth control, monogamy, the rule of law, capitalism, and gene therapy are all examples of mankind overruling genetic influences in favor the conscious desires of human beings. A cursory look around reveals that there are many who have rationally concluded that society’s value systems are fickle at best, and demented at worst. Some folks have taught their genes not to want a BMW, at least not simply because the possession of a BMW means they’re somebody. They have deliberately concluded that wealth does not necessarily equate with value as a human being, nor does physical appearance or the ability to excel in sports or in the arts. Though any one of these things may (and often should) be admired by society, at the end of the day, none matters in and of itself.

John Kerry jokingly said during the campaign season that he and George Bush had “married up.” That a statement like this is categorically unremarkable is a testament to how much the awareness of and quest for status imbues our collective perspective. If we are to keep our genes from having their way with us, the time has come to start recognizing when our concern for status is getting in the way of our enjoying life. In other words, what do we have to give up so our genes can have a BMW? Asking questions like this is the first step in enlightening the caveman in all of us.

From the Mailbag - Taking Aim At The Caveman

Here's a comment that was posted to the site recently by a new reader. Without coming right out and saying it, this person pretty much disagrees with my entire Enlightened Caveman concept. So, I'll mount a modest counter-argument and leave it to you to decide. Keep in mind - my interest here is truth. If someone comes along and reasonably discredits these concepts, I'll pull the plug right away. But it'll take more than this offering, I can assure you of that. Here's his comment:

Just found this blog, so this is a response to your basic thesis and not the above article.
As a species, we are domesticated. The human cranium has decreased in size since "caveman" times. This is typical of any animal that has become domesticated. Dogs have 30% less brain size than wolves. Another trait displayed by domesticated animals is that they retain juvenile characteristics into adulthood. They really never grow up. The instincts disappear. Many of the attributes you are contributing to our "old" brain are actually the result of domestication. We're not nearly as intelligent as we used to be. Our sensory capacities are pitifuly lacking. We are no longer wild...or free. Evolutionarily, we are going down a one way street that's a dead end. Between the ages of 10 and later adolescence when the brain is done developing, a pruning of the neurons takes place. It's not our nature for that to happen. We are not recieving the complex stimulation that is necessary for complex neural systems to completely develope. Do some research on the behavior and the proper care of lab rats. The parallels to our society may surprise you. There are still wild undomesticated cultures surviving on this planet, preserving the precious genetics that have taken hundreds of thousands of years to perfect. We have not progressed. What other animal is stupid (or arrogant)enough to completely destroy the environment they depend on for survival? We live in cages, someone else feeds us, and we even have exercise wheels. We are conditioned to peck at the right buttons on the ATM and out comes our reward. Once domesticated, an animal's survival instincts are gone. It can't be reversed.

Let me start by saying that cranium size is a major red herring. It's irrelevant to any discussions of this type, mainly because no one (as far as I can tell) has been able to correlate minor differences with specific differences in mental ability. Here's what we know. The trend in hominid evolution has been toward larger and larger brains. However, following the last ice age, there has in fact been a decrease (albeit relatively minor) in cranium size, but not just for humans. According to William Cromie of the Harvard University Gazette (read more), "As the severe climate of the ice ages ended, the bodies and faces of most large animals have gotten smaller. In humans, chewing softer, processed food also has contributed to reducing face size by decreasing the largeness of our jaws and jaw muscles. " But again, even if we call Cromie a hack with an agenda (given his employer - it might be a safe bet), this shrinking human cranium has not taken place since we have been "domesticated." Ergo, it does not follow that domestication had anything to do with it. (Oh yeah and the softer food and jaw aspect probably explains the dog/wolf thing, too, even though it's also irrelevant.)

With the amateur stuff out of the way, let's get to the meat of this discussion. This reader seems to feel that our modern world has dulled our senses and left us less mentally able than our "wilder" ancestors. While I'll forcefully agree that our cultural evolution has become progressively kinder and gentler, I'm not about to assent to the notion that we are nothing more than genetic terriers when we were once wolves. This sounds absurd to begin with, and then the evidence offered confirms it.

We are not nearly as intelligent as we used to be? Uh. Pardon me? Come again? I realize that our society can come screeching to a halt if Nick and Jessica get into a tiff, but let's get real - we're smarter as a species than we have ever been. Not only do we simply know more stuff, but more of us actually know how to think than ever before. That's probably, and I'm guessing here, the defining trend in modern human cultural evolution - the march toward rationalism. Every year, more and more people choose science over superstition, evidence over revelation, and knowledge over ignorance. So, I'll vehemently disagree with that point.

A pruning of the neurons? It's not in our nature? This is where I started thinking maybe someone was playing a joke on me. If, by pruning of neurons, this person means that the number of brain cells decreases after the brain is fully developed, then my response is, "duh." It's called aging, and it IS in our nature, since our genes code for this process to happen exactly as it does. It has nothing to do with reproduction so, again, it's irrelavant to the original point, if there is one.

"We are not recieving the complex stimulation that is necessary for complex neural systems to completely develope. " (Spelling error that reveals disdain for proofreading - his.) OK, this one we can do something with. The consensus, from my reading, among evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists is that the dominating adaptations of the human mind over other hominids were socially oriented. This is to say that the complex stimulation necessary for our complex neural systems to completely develope (it's kind of fun to pronounce it like envelope) is interaction with other humans. It was the human ability to figure out how to play well with others that launched mankind to the heights to which he has risen. And it's true even today.

My son's pediatrician told me that in his first six months of life, the world alone was enough to wire and myelinate the synapses of his brain properly - he could just hang out in his crib listening, watching, smelling, tasting, and feeling his environment and his brain would put it together perfectly. So we just left him alone in his stroller for hours at a time and you know what, she was right. Just kidding. Seriously, from there, however, she said that it was critical that he get lots of human contact. If he did not, the future would not bode well for him. This is common sense and it's also anecdotal evidence that supports the idea that our mental focus is, first and foremost, on other humans, which is exactly what's causing us many of our problems.

"There are still wild undomesticated cultures surviving on this planet, preserving the precious genetics that have taken hundreds of thousands of years to perfect." Here's where this intrepid reader betrays his ignorance regarding evolution (and maybe even his allegiance to the sham of multiculturalism). To say that some "undomesticated" cultures are preserving genetics would seem to imply that the domesticated ones are not preserving their genetics. Hogwash. This is no way to think about evolution. It's simple - is there anything in the genome of any population on earth that is providing either a reproductive advantage or a reproductive disadvantage? If there is, then you can bet Mother Nature is on the scene making her cuts, getting ready for next season, but the answer is pretty much no. Sure, we still have some genetically-based childhood diseases that manage to persist due to their recessive nature. However, for the most part, anyone can reproduce. Or maybe it's better to say that not being able to reproduce is significantly less likely to be genetic than it is cultural. The bottom line, the most granular idea you'll find on this site, is that our genes have not changed significantly in tens of thousands of years. This is not my personal thesis. This is widely accepted by folks infinitely smarter than I (though I wonder how we'd compare in terms of cranium size - since that apparently matters now).

At the end of the day, I think I smell a socialist, or at least a multi-culti, anti-capitalist. "What other animal is stupid (or arrogant)enough to completely destroy the environment they depend on for survival?" Before I answer, please tell me the first animal to do this. It certainly isn't humans, considering the fact that there are more of us now than there have ever been. "Once domesticated, an animal's survival instincts are gone. It can't be reversed." This is operating on the flawed premise that our genetic survival insticts have disappeared. As I've said before, they're there, lurking beneath the surface. If we were to suddenly find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic era, you can be sure that they'd take center stage in short order.

The few survivors would band together and look after each other. Family members would form the tightest circles. Outside the family (even sometimes in the circle), those who betrayed trust would be ostracized. Also, a leader or leaders would emerge possessing the skills necessary to survive in the new harsh environment. All others would pay very close attention to (and defer to) the actions and desires of the leaders, for this would be their life line. Most would die. The ones that lived would be the best at keeping the group strong. This is caveman 101.

This site exists to make the point that even though our lives are comfortable and we are not in a bloody daily struggle for existence, our genetically-driven social tendencies are completely unaware of that fact. They still focus on status and appearances at the expense of practicality and reason. But it doesn't have to be this way. Sure, "domestication" is a factor, but only in so far as it indicates just how far we've come from needing the kinds of solutions our genes have to offer. We can either mount vapid arguments such as this one, insisting that doom and gloom are all the future holds (standard anti-capitalist rhetoric), or we can get to know ourselves and where we come from, and then deliberately decide what we want to be going forward. As I am an eternal optimist, I'll take the latter, thank you very much.

Thanks for the fodder, lefty.

Panamanian Economics - Corruption Versus Capitalism

I went to Panama last March on a fact-finding mission. A buddy and I had been hearing for months that there were real estate opportunities aplenty in cool areas like Bocas del Toro, Panama's Caribbean archipelago. So we flew into Panama City (not the one with Spinnaker's and wet t-shirt contests) and then made our way to the islands the next day.

One of the things I pay close attention to when I travel is the gap between the rich and poor. I look to see if there's a significant middle class because I think it says a lot about the economy and the rule of law. I can say that it appeared to me that Panama City was mostly middle class, although I'll concede that I did not see all of it. There were certainly some nice homes (well guarded, I might add), but the majority of what I saw was what you'd think of as everyday housing - not too big or nice, but not dilapidated. More importantly, the city was bustling with people tending to their "para hacer" lists. Things changed dramatically as we made our way to the coast.

Bocas del Toro is a collection of islands just south of the Costa Rican border, on the Carribean side of Panama. It is an interesting place because the main town, Bocas Town, is sheltered from the ocean by the backside of two sizeable islands - it's own and one other. There are some smaller islands in the mix, as well. The result is a place where much of the transportation is by boat, on water that is as smooth as glass. Houses and hotels are built on stilts. It's actually one of the neatest places I've ever been. Alas, economically, the place is a train-wreck.

As I said, my friend and I were investigating rumors that property was dirt cheap, but on the rise as international tourism was taking off. We concluded that it was probably true. We also concluded that we'd be idiots to try and find out for sure. This is where the rule of law comes into play. You see, Panama is very friendly to foreign investment, mainly because the US is the biggest user (and therefore customer) of the Panama Canal. As a foreigner investing in Panama, you can set things up so that you don't have to pay any taxes - not on property, not on income - for a period of ten years. If you invest in some sort of re-forestation project, ten years can become twenty. The Panamanian government has latched onto the idea, which has been well proven, that foreign capital creates local jobs. It's the rising tide lifts all boats principle. However, the adherence to the rule of law is really the arbiter of long-term success.

In Panama City, you can see the wonders of a free market with an influx of capital - Panama City is the financial center of Central and some of South America. Though I am quite certain that corruption is present there, I am also certain that enough of the folks in power have realized that gains from malfeasance are easily dwarfed by gains from saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Essentially, the leaders in Panama City have officially become westernized. Not so in Bocas del Toro.

One of the big draws to Bocas is teak wood. Just run a google search on "bocas del toro teak wood" and see how much comes up. The offers vary, but the general theme is the same - you can pay a ludicrously low price for 10-20 acre increments of waterfront land with beaches that transition into teak forests . The teak is meant to be your nest egg - they (a crew of workers comes with the deal) harvest them every ten years or so - yielding a reportedly whopping return on investment. On top of that, these visionary developers have dedicated some of the land to harvesting the Noni plant, which, as near as I can tell, is something like Aloe but with a "it'll cure what ails you" kind of mystique. This is harvested yearly, offering investors reliable and consistent income. So, to summarize, here's what you get: land for cheap that is right on the water (high appreciation potential), the full rights to build whatever you like on it (vacation home or business), a farm of teak trees that will provide a windfall of cash every ten years (built-in revenue stream), and a crop of Noni plants that will pay the light bills (icing on the cake). Too good to be true? You bet.

It didn't take much digging to conclude that the areas away from Panama City are not even remotely westernized, at least not the economic sense. They're in a strange place, between the past "he who has the cash makes the rules" system and the future "follow the rules and create the cash" system. Corruption still holds sway over Bocas del Toro. The concept of quid pro quo has not yet really taken hold there, at least not where foreigners are concerned. To some (too many) of the locals, we are nothing more than walking money bags. Their job is to extract as much as possible from us, and there is no ethical or practical issue with saying or doing whatever it takes to make that happen. From my perspective, whether you're renting a taxi, hiring a tourguide, or buying a teak farm, you are well served if you do not count on honesty or integrity from the locals.

We met another American who had been in Panama for much longer than we had. He had the occasion to befriend an attorney who spends half her time in Panama City and half her time in Miami. She explained to him that a very large portion of the time she spends in Panama deals with helping foreigners who've been scammed in real estate deals, many of which take place in Bocas Del Toro. Apparently, they have quite a slick operation set up there.

Buyers are courted and shown real, working tree farms. They're provided access to reference customers who sing the praises of their investments. When these marks decide to pull the trigger, they are treated to a credible closing, complete with piles of legal paperwork. The thing is that the paper is worthless. The check clears and the crime is discovered only when the "new owner" tries to exercise his rights of ownership - either by building something or simply by hanging out. The Bocas authorities are called in and the person gets that sickening feeling that you get when you know you've been had. The police, who most likely are in on the con, rave about how this is causing all sorts of problems and how they are hot to nail these ladrones (criminals). From there, the story is just like any con movie - the victims return to the scene of the closing, only to find an empty building with no one around. The company they dealt with is gone, vanished from paradise. And the point of all this?

The situation in Panama, if we can extrapolate the Bocas situation, highlights something important about how societies handle the transition to capitalism. The thing about going from a closed market to a free market that invites foreign participation is that there is a queue for the receipt of benefits. The haves are the first in line, which means they will have more before the money trickles down to those who have nothing. This can be very disconcerting when seeing far into the future must always give way to daily necessities. So, for many rural Panamanians, the benefits of honoring contracts with foreigners have simply not yet availed themselves. In an area where there is no middle class, corruption, for most folks, is still a better business than truth. The problem is that this can only go on for so long before the whole project withers away.

Capitalism is a vacuum for money, but only if the profit motive can be realized. When money goes in and then disappears because the main rule of the game is that there are no rules, the vacuum dissipates...and fast. This is what is happening in Bocas right now. A friend visited there a couple of months ago and says that Bocas del Toro is already played out. How can that be? As recently as March, you could smell the opportunity there. There were major resorts planned on one of the biggest islands and more and more tourists were visiting and staying longer and longer. It seems, however, that one too many investors got burned by the short-sighted (although understandably pragmatic, from their point of view) actions of latino grifters on the long con. The resorts are on hold. The money well has dried up before it ever really got going. It's sad, really...but maybe not.

Like I said, Bocas del Toro is beautiful. Though I liked the idea of buying low and selling high while the international tourist boom made landfall there, I now like the idea of being able to go back to a place that'll be largely unchanged and still every bit as charming (don't get me wrong, I had fun) in 10 years. And now that I know what I'm dealing with, I'll conduct business as I do in Jamaica - product first...then the money, mon. And if I'm in a real good mood, I might just finish off the transaction with my favorite Spanish phrase: "Donde tu frijole playa?" (That one, you'll have to look up.)

Musing Between Theory and Practice

Yesterday's column raised some eyebrows. I got a few notes from folks who felt it was totally out of character and even somewhat irrational. They were concerned that I was standing atop one of the slipperiest slopes known to man. Indeed, they were right. I am, but it's no cause for alarm. It seems to me that the difference between conservatism and liberalism is often the difference between theory and practice, and predictably, I come down somewhere in the middle. I really think it's possible to be a compassionate hard-ass.

Bertrand Russell is my favorite philosopher - hands down; it's not even close. The things he observed and codified about humanity were so precient that it's somewhat eery to read them this many years later. One thing he harped on a bit was the treatment of criminals. In a brilliant little book entitled What I Believe (1925 - I have it as an essay in the book, Why I Am Not A Christian - 1957), he wrote:

I merely wish to suggest that we should treat the criminal as we treat a man suffering from the plague. Each is a public danger, each must have his liberty curtailed until he has ceased to be a danger. But the man suffering from the plague is an object of sympathy and commiseration, whereas the criminal is an object of execration. This is quite irrational. And it because of this difference of attitude that our prisons are so much less successful in curing criminal tendencies than our hospitals are at curing disease.

Now, Russell was not so naive as to overlook the valuable deterence that comes with criminal punishment. His point was, however, to say that, "The vindictive feeling of 'moral indignation' is merely a form of cruelty." This is where I'm coming from in suggesting that even the most economically conservative among us should be careful in simply dismissing the bad decisions of the poor and ignorant as "their problem."

The liberal theory, the one that underlies much of Russell's thinking (he had serious socialist tendencies), is that it is unfair to hold people responsible for all of their actions if there are mitigating circumstances. The conservative practice is that this is exactly what we must do if it is an orderly society that we seek. I think there's middle ground here.

What often gets lost in these kinds of discussions is the fact that the history of the human condition has been most characterized by Mother Nature and social groups holding individuals accountable for their actions, regardless of circumstances. Either you provide for yourself or you die. This is the harsh reality of our animal heritage. And while it is a true that it is now possible for people who do nothing toward their own self-preservation to survive and even prosper, we should only see this as an achievement if it does not unravel the system that gave rise to it. This is where practicality rules the day.

It is clear that the rule of law is the tie that binds a free society. If we lean too far left, it is the rule of law that perishes, even as the wards of the state (and the guilt-ridden achievers) applaud the victory of theory over practice. When we distort the nexus between actions and consequences with proximate causes, we subvert the role of our criminal justice system and invite chaos into order. Practicality, therefore, requires us to be compassionate hard-asses when it comes to attitudes about economic stratification.

We should think of our economic system as an anonymous one - anonymous in terms of individuals operating within the system and anonymous in terms of the forces that shape the free market (the invisible hand). Capitalism, by taking advantage of human nature, is based upon this very idea. We recognize at the outset that there will be winners and losers, but we also recognize that our system produces more winners than any other ever devised. The question is what to do when anonymous losers become real people with real problems.

Lefties will, whether they know it or not, advocate changing the system to eliminate losers entirely - this is the vision of the welfare state. It is, quite obviously, impossible, which is why liberals are so often accused of living in fantasy land. My recommendation is that we come up with a means by which we deal with losers once they appear on our radar screen. We should consider it an ancillary benefit that capitalism will alert us to the existence of those who are not faring well under it, not as indication of its cracked foundation. We cannot control a person's starting point in life, which means we will inevitably come upon folks who cannot make the wise decisions that are the prerequisites to economic success in a free market society. This is not a bad thing. It's a reflection on reality. What we do next is what matters.

I am vehemently against handouts of pretty much any sort, except in extreme cases. I think a good quid pro quo beats a handout most every time, so despite my compassion towards those who are hurt by our system, you'll never hear me argue for more welfare benefits. The solution, I believe, starts with separating the truly needy from the able but mentally unprepared. The truly needy, the insane and disabled, are the exceptions to the handout rule. If they cannot reciprocate, compassion dictates that we help them anyway. It is the able but mentally unprepared who have no business getting handouts in my book.

This is where the time horizon of maturity concept comes in. If we can say that the primary feature of being mentally unprepared to thrive in a capitalistic society is being unable to envision and internalize the consequences of future actions, and I think we can, then disdain has no place in these discussions. "Their problems" are our problems, in more ways than we think, which means it is incumbent upon us to try to solve them...without disturbing the economic incentives that underlie our system.

We must introduce a quid pro quo function into the provision of welfare benefits, and I'm not talking about means testing. Means testing will tell us if someone needs help, but it will not tell us why, and it will not tell us what kind. The trick is to provide benefits that sustain life, but with a catch - they diminish unless educational milestones are met, but not just involving traditional concepts of education. The curriculum must, first and foremost, be designed to resolve the time horizon problem. This is the first filter, so to speak. We can't forget that among the losers in our society, there will always be able-bodied individuals who do not possess the time horizon problem but simply will not act on their own behalf. (If we must dole out disdain, and I'm not saying we must, it is to these souls that it should be aimed.) I am convinced that most people, if properly grounded in the actions/consequences concept, will rise above their plight. The right kind of education is the first step.

The test will come when we then become hard-asses, forcing them to do what it takes...like everyone else. Those who pass, meaning they take responsibility for their lives, get to become anonymous again. Those who do not then go through another evaluation to determine if they're really needy or just shiftless. The needy get the handouts; the shiftless get to experience the consequences they care so little about. It's not perfect, but it's ethical and, most important, it's fair - we can't change the system for a few bad apples, but we can at least be rigorous in the separation.

The tricky thing about straddling the line between theory and practice is that solutions often come out half-baked. I'll admit that this one is. But it's still better than considering the non-achievers among us as losers without a second thought. We're better than that, so I'll hold out hope that a fully-baked solution, one that embraces compassionate hard-assism (please add another hokey coined phrase to my credits), avails itself in due time.

Being Poor is Whose Fault? The Time Horizon of Maturity Reprise

Neal Boortz, my favorite radio guy, is fond of saying that poverty is a mental disease, that poor people are poor because they keep doing things that make people poor. It's all about choices, says the talkmaster. I tend to agree, but there's more to it than that. I concede that making bad decisions is the fastest way to get poor and stay poor. However, the question on my mind has to do with the culpability of people who consistently make bad decisions. What if the reason so many folks make consistently bad decisions is beyond their control? Then what? Then is it reasonable to advocate a social system that dooms these truly unfortunate souls to the perpetual motion machine of poverty?

I can almost hear the gasps. Here I am, one who pleads regularly for more personal responsibility, taking the blame off the individual. Allow me to elaborate. As I've mentioned before, a major component of human development is what I call the time horizon of maturity. This basically refers to one's ability to project him or herself into the future to actually envision the consequences of actions that are being taken in the present. Children have a very short time horizon, and this is mostly a function of their limited understanding of the concept of time in general. As they grow up, however, they come to understand time, and if they're raised in the right kind of environment, they come to be able to imagine themselves in the future. This is the key to making good decisions.

Many liberal-minded people think of conservatives as heartless because conservatives don't often display a great deal of sympathy for people who have had the chance to do something with their lives but they simply haven't. Indeed, as I myself have said many times, I went to public school. I could have kicked back and lived the high life (literally) every day , but I wanted a future that would not allow it. How is it fair that someone should be rewarded with part of my success (in the form of benefits that come from my tax dollars) for doing nothing, for contributing nothing? Though it has been a bit discomforting, the idea has been steadily dawning on me over the last year or so that maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the libs have gotten this one right...at least partly right - they've correctly identified the problem.

Imagine an 8-year old white boy named Jimmy. His father left shortly after he was born. His mother, Lila, has tried to work but she's been fired again and again for poor attendance - some due to looking after Jimmy, some due to looking after herself a little too much. Now she's on welfare. She gets food stamps and a check every month. They also live in government housing. Jimmy's neighborhood is tough, even for 8-year olds. Most of the kids hate school and ditch it whenever they can. Jimmy is no different. When the school calls home to notify Lila, she's too engrossed in daytime TV to care. Besides, she never exactly liked school herself. Now, the question, the one I can't shake is this: when 20 years goes by and Jimmy is a derelict in his neighborhood (if he's still alive), was it his fault that he never got his act together?

The answer revolves around whether or not he possesses the ability to see the future...with himself in it. I am more and more convinced that most people in poverty simply do not. If you say to someone, "You must study for this test in order to pass this course," it means nothing if passing the course means nothing to that person. Passing a course is not an end in itself. It is the means to an end. In order for one to be motivated by this line of reasoning, he or she must be able to internalize the personal significance of passing the course. More importantly, the significance has to be more powerful than whatever immediate gratification must be foregone in the studying. So you can't just pound home the platitude that you have to stay in school to succeed in life. It's like a foreign language to one who cannot see the future, and we cannot hold this person responsible for not speaking a language that they have no experience with. This, more than anything else, is the poverty problem, and our society is not addressing it at all.

What are we to do? This is the big question. Here, I must side with my fiscally conservative brethren in saying that income redistribution is not the answer, at least not as it is done today. You can't give money to someone who lives for today and expect them to do anything but spend it as fast as possible. This is the phenomenon that explains the staggering number of lottery winners who end up in jail for failing to pay taxes on everything they buy and for defaulting on massive debts. No, money is not the answer. We need widespread prognostication education.

One way or another, we have to get to the people currently in poverty and teach them to envision themselves experiencing the consequences of their decisions. We have to teach them to teach their children the same thing. We have to go back to basics. It's all about action and reaction. As we do when teaching anything complex, we must start small and work our way up. We need to be able to diagnose where people are and then get them in a program to see further and further into the future. When we have a nation of amateur prognosticators, we can feel justified in holding them accountable for their actions. Until that time, we should be careful with our judgement. We should thank luck and circumstance that it is not we who see tomorrow so much fuzzier than we see today.

From the Mailbag - One Reader Objects To His Genes

I got this email recently in response to the "Is Man Inherently Selfless?" article. It is chocked full of object lessons in how not to think about this stuff, so I figured I'd take it apart piece-by-piece.

One thing I read over and over again from evolutionary biologists is how men are genetically programmed to want to impregnate as many women as possible. Men are genetically predisposed agains monogamy. This is totally false. I am not programmed that way. It's certainly not because I have rid myself of my bass desires through mental discipline. And the reasoning for it isn't particularly enlightened. It's quite simple and tied to other unenlightened caveman values. Status. Your offspring are much more likely to achieve status if they are born into a monogamous relationship than if they aren't. And whereas I certainly could enjoy having sex with 70 virgins I would be highly unlikely to cheat on a monogamous mate because of feelings of loyalty which can overide sexual desire. Especially if you have kids, from what I've heard people's sex drive gets noticeably weaker once they have had offspring.

I knowingly embrace these caveman values of mine.

Let's start with the biggest red flag of them all - "This is totally false. I am not programmed that way." I see. So if this person had six fingers on his left hand and I stated that humans have five fingers on each hand, would he say that that also is totally false? It's false for him. Exceptions to rules do not necessarily negate them. We can't think of ourselves as archetypical representatives of our species. Some combination of genes and culture could easily produce a person who displays almost no "caveman-like" behavior. That doesn't mean our ancestors were not cavemen, and it does not mean that the biological facts of reality are not still in play.

The facts I'm referring to have to do with the size of our sex cells. Males have many, many small ones; females have relatively few large ones. The size and quantity of sperm cells in males means that males have plenty to lose - there are millions more where they came from. In females, however, eggs are very precious. This is the reason for the divergent reproductive strategies of males and females. Males have shotguns; females have rifles. It's that simple.

"Your offspring are much more likely to achieve status if they are born into a monogamous relationship than if they aren't." Sorry. Wrong again. The notion of monogamous relationships is very modern - as in, it has only been around for a few millenia. When our genes were being shaped by natural selection, it is doubtful that anything resembling monogamy existed, at least nothing very long-term. You can't think so digitally about this. There are more than two options. Your genes, which are all that matters here, are best served if you have hundreds of kids by impregnating hundreds of women who already have mates, and then having those mates raise them. In fact, it is widely believed that jealousy emerged to keep males from being cuckolded (where they unknowingly raised another male's child). If this is true, then we can think of monogamy as a cultural analog to jealousy - both exist to see that any time or resources a male invests in his offspring are not actually being invested in someone else's offspring.

"And whereas I certainly could enjoy having sex with 70 virgins I would be highly unlikely to cheat on a monogamous mate because of feelings of loyalty which can overide sexual desire." Your feelings of loyalty to your mate have been installed by your environment, I can assure you. This is easy to see because you don't have to teach kids to tell lies and be selfish. You have to teach them to tell the truth, even when it hurts. You have to teach them to share. And when it comes to sex - look at what goes on in the least educated, most ignorant places in the world. Rampant male promiscuity is the order of the day. Just look at America's inner cities. Very few mothers are married, yet most males have children. The flip side is to look at affluent and educated people. Fewer kids, more marriages. I suspect that you grew up closer to the affluent educated side of the spectrum than you did the poor ignorant side. That, more than anything else, explains your "loyalty."

"Especially if you have kids, from what I've heard people's sex drive gets noticeably weaker once they have had offspring." Sex drive toward the male's mate may get weaker, but take away any culturally-installed inhibitions and put him in the back room of a strip club with a dozen prostitutes and then tell me about his sex drive.

Let me shout this point from the rooftops - IF YOU ARE MONOGAMOUS AND FAITHFUL, IT IS BECAUSE YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCES HAVE TAUGHT YOU TO OVERCOME YOUR GENES. The job can be done so well that you never even know it happened - just like how kids raised in devout religious environments never even realize (at least not until they get out into the world) that it's possible to go through life without ever believing in God. Early indoctrination of the human mind is every bit as powerful as genetics, which is why we should be using it to do good, not to promote superstitions and nonsense. Those of us who have risen above our genes have much to be proud of, but as long as people continue to deny the dangers of our natural tendencies, we'll never realize the vision of a truly compassionate and rational society.

This is a classic case of recognizing the problem being half the battle. Those who insist upon romanticizing humanity will consistently fail at this. Too bad. How do we justify telling a kid after catching him in a lie that he's programmed to be good, but that somehow he has turned against his nature? And we wonder why so many people have inferiority complexes.

Scandinavian Economic Prosperity and Merits of the Welfare State

I was listening to the Michael Medved radio show today (He's really good, by the way.). The topic was Scandinavian family values, or rather the lack thereof. He was referring to a USA Today article that talks about how 82% of Nordic children are born to unwed mothers. Though it is somewhat shocking to think that an entire culture has embraced such a backwards mentality as to consider marriage more deliberately than bearing children, it appears to be so. A couple cited in the article is expecting a baby in May but they've decided to put off marriage until they're sure they're right for each other. Say what? Aside from the differences in religious and social attitudes in Scandinavia, there appears to be an economic explanation for this practice.

According to a caller from Copenhagen (you gotta love internet radio), the Danish system rewards having children before you get married - government benefits are substantially higher for single mothers than they are for married parents. Putting aside that this is obviously stupid, I think it illuminates something more important about the relationship between economic policy and social attitudes. But first, it's time to put to rest the myth that the Nordic system is the pinnacle of compassionate and effective economic policy.

Scandanavia is often held to be an example of a successful welfare state, where taxes are high but benefits are high and much appreciated by a population more happy with the return on their substantial investments. On the surface, given the prosperity of these three countries, this argument seems compelling. It seems to refute the notion that the kind of economic freedom reflected in free-market capitalism (and its necessarily minimalistic welfare model) is a prerequisite for truly elevating the human condition. However, I am inclined to believe that it is the social pressures that exist in such ethnically homogenous populations that explain the success of the massively regulated and redistributive economies in Scandinavia.

The problem for free market fans like myself when considering this area of the world has always been reconciling the notion that there is no free lunch with the fact that Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have in years past enjoyed very low unemployment and a commendable general standard of living. How could such generous benefits be sustained economically? Why wouldn't the freeloaders bankrupt the system? The answers, until the last decade or so, have revolved around the fact that freeloading among Scandinavians was socially unacceptable. The folks who could work did work because the social repercussions of being a deadbeat sponging off the system were more painful than whatever agony was associated with maintaining gainful employment. Social resposibility effectively protected the system. Therefore, the security of comprehensive state-provided benefits could be enjoyed by all without fostering resentment toward a significant portion of the population for taking without contributing. Nowadays, however, the Scandinavian welfare state is in a crisis, and immigration is turning out to be the chief culprit.

I found an article on the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs website called "Denmark - Conditions of Life - The Scandinavian Welfare Model." The author, Niels Ploug, describes the situation:

It has never been the intention either with unemployment, sickness benefits or with cash benefits that so many people should receive them or that they should receive them for so long as has been the case in recent years. The financing of the welfare state has thus become a problem, and as it has not been politically possible to increase taxes, which are already very high, the Scandinavian countries have accrued a very large national debt which on the long view could represent a threat to the welfare systems.

The reason so many are receiving benefits is the influx in the last few years of immigrants. The Scandinavian systems were designed to provide benefits to all residents. Prior to the immigration stampede, this was viable because the ratio of people contributing to the system (via high taxes) versus people extracting benefits from the system was high enough to sustain it. However, now that immigrants are moving in and realizing that they can live in relative luxury (compared to life back home) without so much as lifting a finger, the system is descending into deeper and deeper waters. Thus, the free market fan is vindicated.

Whenever income distribution is derided by classical liberals (not to be confused with the modern-day notions of liberalism), the misguidedly compassionate are quick to point to Scandinavia as an example of the realization of their vision. It is the harshness of capitalism, they argue, that creates poverty and crime. If we only adopted the redistributive policies of our Nordic friends, many of our problems would go away. This, as we can now see, is nonsense.

The fact is that there is no ethnic homogeneity in this country to protect us against freeloaders. Our society is so anonymous that it is entirely possible to remain unemployed and receive unemployment and welfare benefits without any "neighbors" ever knowing - especially now that food stamps are giving way to benefit cards that are often indistinguishable from debit and credit cards. So there are no real social incentives to be productive. We can see how a relatively small population of immigrants with no ethnic connection or feeling of social responsibility are bankrupting the Scandinavian system. Imagine implementing that system here. It would make the inane US social security system look like the height of economic acumen. And, beyond simple economics, as in the case of single mothers in Nordic countries, there are significant social ramifications to such systems.

As the caller from Denmark pointed out, there's a definite connection between the terms of the provision of benefits and the behavior of the general public. It simply makes sense economically to have a child before you get married. According the Ploug article, about two-thirds of single mothers in Sweden receive housing allowances, which means that available benefits are being taken advantage of in a big way. And why not? If you and your partner are blissfully in love and want to have a child, you'll recieve significantly more income from the state if you do so while unmarried. Could it be that much of the rationalization for this practice (liberal attitudes about the sanctity of marriage, etc.) is a smoke-screen for the fact that people will often do what makes the most sense economically? This has certainly been the case in the US.

When Welfare Reform was passed in 1996 limiting the amount of time benefits could be received, the US saw a gradual reduction in the number of people on the welfare rolls. When there was no economic incentive to get to work, many welfare recipients were content with limiting their exertions to walking to the mailbox every month to collect a check from Uncle Sam. But when the money ran out, necessity forced them into the workplace. So, when we look at Scandinavia, we should not see a shining example of how things ought to be. We should see the massive impact that economic policies have on the prosperity of nations and on the value systems embraced by the populations therein. It is, quite simply, an axiom that large-scale income redistribution inevitably leads to a decline in fiscal health. What is also becoming more and more clear, however, is that attitudes regarding employment, family life, and the relationship between the rich and poor are disproportionally influenced by economic policies in the welfare state. This is an object lesson in the concept of unintended consequences.

Social attitudes should be shaped by the public's rational pursuit of the good life. But when economic policies place arbitrary hurdles in the way of practical courses of action, impractical and often irrational options become the paths of least resistance. Over time, they become socially acceptable simply by virtue of being well worn. The problem is that, eventually, these paths place the good life entirely out of reach. As far as I'm concerned, it's better to let necessity continue to be the mother of invention. What do you want to bet she's married?

Random Thought on the Variation in Animal Behavior

I love nature shows, but I'm always alarmed at the confidence with which folks like Steve Irwin and Jeff Corwin approach dangerous animals. They consistently refer to the exhaustive body of research on these animals as evidence of what these critters will do from moment to moment. This seems odd to me, even though the fact Corwin and Irwin are still alive reasonably substantiates their credibility. What gets me is this: how is that human tendencies have so much variation but animals are fairly well predictable?

I mean, there are good people who adhere to social norms, but there are also bad people, even evil people, who have no regard for others. The behavior of these kinds of people cannot be even remotely predicted. Are there not equivalents in the animal kingdom? Are there not "bad seeds" who, far from doing what researchers expect, will jump at the opportunity to maul a supremely arrogant human? This thought grips me most when I see marine biologists swim with sharks. Wasn't the shark in Jaws one of these bad seeds? I know, it's just Hollywood, but still. I saw a show a couple of nights ago where a guy was swimming with no weapons and in no cage with a slew of bull sharks. He was obviously very comfortable - the crazy bastard. Why is it that the behavior of such dangerous animals can be predicted so consistently, yet humans are all over the map?

Maybe it's human culture that builds in so much variation in behavior. I don't know, but you can count on one thing - if I ever encounter a bunch of bull sharks, I'm exiting the water immediately.

Is Man Inherently Selfless?

Scientific American is putting out a new quarterly magazine called Scientific American MIND. I picked up what they’re calling the premier issue (although there are letters to the editor regarding the previous one – go figure) and found an interesting article on a topic I’ve written about before. That topic is altruism. My thesis, the one I’ve gotten from evolutionary psychologists, has been that altruism doesn’t really exist, that seemingly benevolent actions are really just selfish acts with less obvious payoffs than usual. The article, entitled “The Samaritan Paradox,” argues that this thesis may be flawed. The authors, Ernst Fehr (an economist from the University of Zurich) and Suzann-Viola Renninger (a journalist educated in biology and philosophy, also in Zurich) put forth the notion that humans may indeed be endowed with genes for selflessness and truly altruistic behavior. Hmm. As much fun as it might be to be debunk the prevailing scientific wisdom, I don’t think these two are up to it.

Their argument is full of holes, which is understandable – them being Swiss and all. It rests on what they deem to be the perennially intractable problem with the selfish gene theory – the presence of people who give and give with no hope of ever getting - people like Mother Theresa and volunteers who rush to the aid of perfect strangers after natural disasters. They write,

“Such sacrifice does not follow the rules of evolutionary biology. If the immediate family does not profit and if neither reciprocal aid nor aid aimed at improving reputation promise future advantage, then selflessness gains nothing. Worse, it is costly in terms of resources, health, or money. By this logic, there really should not be any good Samaritans. Yet they clearly exist.”

Well, I guess that settles it. Sarcasm aside, I think this is a good example of how evolutionary theory gets contentious. These two authors have pitted themselves against the master himself, Richard Dawkins, in suggesting that his elegantly simple theory may be overblown. The problem is that they cannot see the forest for the trees. Instead of considering the simple (and obvious, at least to me) solution, they run off on a long tangent about “punishment” games. Fehr and Renninger attempt to prove the exception to the selfishness disguised as altruism concept by citing games which show that “…many people – even when facing high monetary stakes – are willing to penalize others at a cost to themselves to prevent unfair outcomes or to sanction bad behavior.” This proves nothing.

In my mind, it is obvious why we see selfless acts that clearly have no payoff. It’s the caveman mind in a modern world problem. We can’t forget that our emotions evolved to motivate us to do things that would see to our survival. As I’ve mentioned before, sympathy has been referred to as nature’s bargain hunter. It works like this: a caveman walking along stumbles on a guy who’s down on his luck and hungry. This caveman, all of sudden, starts to feel this twinge of emotion that is discomforting. Looking for some way to assuage his tortured mind, he offers some meat to the hard-luck character. Voila – he feels better. The consequence? He gets back more meat than he gave at some point down the road, or he has a new ally in the dangerous game of making it to the next day. All other things being equal, the caveman with this emotional proclivity has a better chance of surviving than the caveman who ignores the guy in trouble – he gets a large return on a small, insignificant investment. But, though we have the same genes, we are not cavemen.

The crumbling of the false hope that mankind is at his core benevolent hinges on the idea that our minds, and therefore our emotions, were designed for an environment that no longer exists. This explains why they should be going haywire, so to speak, in modern times. In caveman days, life was not as anonymous as it is today. In a tight knit social environment, bargain-hunting emotions flourished because they led to actions that benefited the individuals that had them. In this world, however, it isn’t inconceivable that those emotions (since they are today what they were back then) could lead to acts that would result in no benefit whatsoever. Emotions are powerful, and sometimes we humans do whatever they command – like running into a burning building to save someone we don’t know, dying in the process. In my view, it’s more likely that selfless acts are indicators of miscalculating anachronistic selfish motives than they are of some inherent selflessness in mankind. Given the countless other ways our ancient emotions steer us wrong, this just makes the most sense. The good news is, however, that these ill-fated emotional tendencies need not be attenuated.

Just as love is not achieving its original aim - getting us to pump out as many offspring as possible - neither is sympathy. But far from being cause for alarm, this is cause for celebration, for it means that we are not doomed to operate as robots blindly following our emotions, as our cave-dwelling ancestors were. We can, instead, harness them for our own enjoyment of life, clinging to the ones that make us happy and discarding the ones that weigh us down - we need only understand them. Furthermore, considering that the prevailing theme throughout the history of mankind has been the struggle for power between the haves and the have-nots, is it not reasonable to conclude that we are naturally selfish, but that a few, the enlightened, have consistently raised the bar of compassion in human society? So to Fehr and Renninger I say, nice try, but you’re fired.

Buy American?

I just saw David Oreck, the vacuum cleaner guy, on Cavuto's show. He was going on about how we really need to be buying American products. Apparently, our comfort with buying whatever happens to give us the best bang for the buck is going to be the cause of our demise. Among other things, says Oreck, we need to ask merchants for the comparable American product when we're shopping. That way, we'll buy more domestic products, which will be the best defense against outsourcing. This guy really sucks...get it?

Kidding aside, these arguments are specious at best. For one thing, when it comes to many products (like consumer electronics), the ones made overseas are far superior to those made here - in terms of meeting consumer needs at an affordable price. So, asking to see the US equivalent will be nothing more than a confirmation that I'm making the right choice on my DVD player. The bigger gaffe in this line of thinking is the underlying premise that American products are, well, American.

Many of the parts of US cars are made in foreign countries. This is the case with many, many products. The point is that buying American no longer means what it meant even 20 years ago. The genie of international trade is out of the bottle, never to return. The notion of picking American-made products over international competitors doesn't automatically translate into an ostensibly beneficial rebalancing of trade. The money will still make it to China and Korea and Canada. This is no solution. In fact, it has the potential to create more problems than it solves.

The great thing about the free market is that it rewards innovation. America is the pinnacle of innovation in just about every advancing industry on this planet. This is because the competition for customers puts pressure on companies to come up with new ways to meet their demands. It is, therefore, essential that the market be true. That is to say, consumers need to continue to make their purchasing decisions based upon getting the most for their money. If, suddenly, Americans started buying American cars no matter what, the innovation in the American car industry would stall on a dime. This might be nice for a while, but eventually international competitors would advance their products to the point where exports of US cars would decline rapidly. Furthermore, there's only so much economic patriotism that can be expected of society. When American cars stand still while Japanese and German cars move forward, there will come a time when it will be economically ill-advised to buy American, no matter where you live.

The bottom line is this: if we want to sell more American products, we need to make ours better than theirs. If we can't, we need to focus our attention on industries where our innovation continues to be rewarded, both here and abroad. Anything else is just putting off the inevitable while simultaneously ensuring that we aren't ready for it when it gets here. Stick to sucking dirt out of carpets, Dave.

Jesusgate? A Case Study in Bias

Looks we have a new controversy on our hands, at least as far as many conservatives are concerned. The fuss is over a story in this week's Newsweek magazine. I happened to catch a little of the Hugh Hewitt radio show today, where Hugh and guests were in an uproar over Jon Meacham's, "Religion: The Birth of Jesus - From Mary to the manger, how the Gospels mix faith and history to tell the Christmas story and make the case for Christ." They were calling it the religious equivalent of Rathergate - replete with bias and based upon unsubstantiated evidence - as if their own position was the pinnacle of manifest truth.

Indeed, the reaction to the story itself is a case study in bias. From my reading, I found Meacham's work and his conclusions to be well worth my time. But this is because of my own bias. The story makes the case that the entire story of Jesus' birth is a convenient mixture of historical revisionism and ancient theology. Given my own religious views, it makes sense that I would feel that way. Alternatively, Christian conservatives find this idea patently offensive. It undermines the very core of their faith. Therefore, understandably, they are reacting with venom. But, the fact is that we're both wrong.

If we're to have a true free market of ideas, we have to be willing to not only hear views that oppose our own. We have to be willing to question the validity of arguments that confirm our own biases. We cannot, as so many people do, simply accept as true that which "feels right." As I've said countless times, our emotions do not necessarily have our best mental interests at heart. So, there's work to be done on both sides of this issue.

For the Christians to maintain intellectual credibility, they have to stop crying foul when public entities put forth ideas that conflict with their beliefs. After all, if their ideas hold water, they can withstand scrutiny. (I have long believed that one who wishes to silence the mouths of dissent knows, deep down, that his or her beliefs are built upon shaky ground.) The argument against Meacham's story seems to be that he starts with his conclusion and then recruits experts to prove it - the classic (and flawed) use of a priori reasoning. One of Hewitt's guests, a minister and doctor of theology, claims that Meacham is not a biblical scholar, which apparently means that he is not worthy of considering what he considers. Furthermore, the so-called scholars cited in his text are actually fringe wackos with an axe to grind against Jesus. The collective objective of Hewitt and guests was very clearly to spark outrage that such a story would have even been allowed to run in such a reputable periodical. Their indignation mirrored that expressed at CBS's decision to run the Bush National Guard story. Interesting.

I've noticed what may be an axiom in cultural discourse. If someone goes public with something that damages you and you know you're wrong, you attack the messenger. However, if the new information bolsters your position, you defend it and chastise the other side for not addressing the arguments themselves. When it was the Swift Boat Vets - it was the Dems on the personal attack and the conservatives demanding that the discourse focus on the facts. Now that the conservatives stand to lose, the tables have turned. Somebody needs to grow up.

Meacham's story, as I said, sits well with me. If he just summarized his thesis and never offered me a bit of evidence, I'd be inclined to agree with him. But that's not just because it feels right to me. It's because I've done my own research. I can point to my own body of evidence to back up his assertions. So, you might say I've earned my right to be prejudice on this. However, in the interest of taking the high road, regardless of my bias, it makes sense to put the story to the test. But we shouldn't be too optimistic.

When it comes to religion, it is harder than usual to find preferred explanations (click here for some depth on this concept). We can eliminate a lot of arguments, but we're still left with a few reasonable ones to choose from. That means we have to be careful about what we think we can take from a story like Meacham's. He's not going to prove that he's right - it's impossible. So the best he can do is put forth a plausible explanation of how Jesus' birth actually went down. He makes a few points to build his case, and it's up to us to take him to task. If he fails our tests of logic or credibility, then we must reject his assertions. It doesn't mean he's wrong; it just means he didn't prove his point.

I'll admit that I haven't taken the time to verify Meacham's references, either for validity or credibility. Therefore, for now, the best I can say is that his story sure feels right, which means I have no business endorsing it. My bias isn't good enough. This is a lesson many would do well to learn.

Another from the Mailbag - What Emotions Do We Keep?

Got an email from Drew that also warrants posting.

i've been perusing your archives and i must say that i enjoy reading, and agree with, virtually every point you've made. personal responsibility, something which has obviously gone the way of the dodo, if it ever found homes in the minds of the masses in the first place, appears to be both a theme of your work and a complaint i regularly voice to anyone who will listen. that being said, i was reminded of bishop butler, if memory serves correctly, who believed that logical precision should be held above the interpersonal relationship (to be fair, i'm grossly over paraphrasing butler), as i was reading your posts. i read an essay he wrote back in school concerning the fact that he would rather sacrifice his mother, if she had committed some crime, than sacrifice his ethical underpinnings and logical rigor. the interesting thing about being human is the process of taming the oft-volatile mix of reason/emotive impulse. were we cold, calculating robots, though the world's current problems resulting from the caveman mentalities that we cannot seem to shake from society at large would probably be solved, what minds would be around to care? to get to my point, as you often allude to the more fundamental point that anything done ought to be to secure as much time for meaningful interpersonal relationships as possible, in the form of the offhand remarks concerning your wife and child, my question to you, and the answer to which you might want to consider putting up on the site or in some book you're working on, is what of the caveman mind ought remain and be encouraged to flourish? thanks for taking the time to post on the site. it's always nice to know that others share the same passion for the belief that virtually anyone can become the master of one's own destiny, and that it requires little more than a willingness to take responsibility for one's actions and the direction of one's more enlightened mental development.


Despite the fact that Drew went to the TS Eliot School of Writing Style, he poses a great question. Let me rephrase it. If the caveman mind causes so many problems, what, if anything, should we leave intact? I write about this a bit in my book but the basic answer is the love parts. The evidence seems to suggest that love evolved just like all other emotions - to get us to do things that made us more likely to reproduce. However, in my view, it's the very best thing about life. Who cares why we're lucky enough to experience it. That's the point, really.

We, as humans, come to the show with hundreds of thousands of years of genetic baggage. The survival skills of our species have proven so superior that survival is not a concern for most of us, at least on this side of the world. We are now to the point where we have access to heretofore unimagined areas of solution space, and we have the tools to explore them. We are finding that our species is hooked on status like crack. We are finding that our species is obsessed with physical appearance. We are finding that the human mind is a devoted tabulator of favors done and favors owed. Most importantly, we are finding that we have the power to control what goes through our minds and to what extent we act on the emotions that were designed to motivate us.

But love is tricky. Bertrand Russell's musings on love are well worth reading. His basic idea is that love without mutual respect and admiration is not worth having in most cases (at least in terms of romantic love). That means love itself isn't enough. So, while I think we should hold on to love, I think we should be deliberate about who we allow ourselves to love and be loved by. But, if we get it right, I think we are well-served if we let our love run wild. This, I believe, will never steer us wrong.

Aside from love, I think it's important to recognize that our emotions are our primary motivators. I remember a drunken argument I had with a Star Trek fan who tried to tell me that Vulcans use reason entirely to motivate themselves. Always willing to entertain a silly argument, I kept asking why one would build a space ship or educate a child. The answer was always, "to better this or that." But for what? If you have no emotions, how do you know that it is better for children to live than die? If you have no emotions, why would you ever get off the couch? The point is that I don't think we should be talking about doing away with our emotions. I'm talking about understanding them so that we can harness them rather than be victimized by them.

For example, it is very clear from history that competition and accountability bring out the very best in mankind. But why? Wanting to win in competition obviously has its roots in the quest for status. Accountability, to a lesser extent, is the same thing - public awareness of deficiency is always to be avoided in the caveman mind. So, we should hope to embrace our competitive side. This is how we improve ourselves. The key is to make sure that we don't tie our self-opinions to how we do in contests - even if we're Tiger Woods or Lance Armstong.

I'm an amateur cyclist - so amateur that I can't finish in the pack of a Cat 5 race (for you cyclists out there). But I love it and I try every year to get better. I put myself in situations where I have to compete - sometimes in races; sometimes just to the top of a hill or to end of a street, but I'm competing. No matter whether I win or lose, however, I always go home feeling the same about myself. I am who I am, and nothing I did on my bike today changes that. It's what I think of as a healthy disconnect between ancient emotions and modern self-esteem.

At the end of the day, our emotions can help us along or they can do us in. One thing is for certain - they're with us for the long haul. We'd best get to know them to make the best of the time we have. Thanks Drew. PS - Get yourself a shift key. They're cheap.

Self-Publishing - Since You Asked...

I've had a number of folks contact me via email suggesting that I self-publish my book. Some have correctly pointed out that there are companies that do on-demand printing, which significantly reduces up-front costs. Nevertheless, I see self-publishing as an absolute last resort. Here's why.

1. Getting on a bookshelf in Barnes and Noble or Borders with a self-published book is REALLY difficult. Buyers for these companies use a database to determine what they'll buy. It serves as a filter of sorts, alerting them to the things that are most likely to sell. This, as far as they're concerned, is invaluable. Tens of thousands of books are published every year. Contrary to what many people think, most of them never even get considered to occupy space in the chain book stores. If the books haven't sold a prerequisite amount of books in independent stores across the country, the buyers never even know they exist. And, if that weren't enough, the method for assessing book sales isn't exactly rigorous. Some bookstores are a part of a network known as the Book Sense Network. Stores in the network keep track of sales and report them to the network, where they are aggregated across geographies and posted as the national sales database. This is what Borders' buyers are using as their catalog, so to speak, but they only see the high end of the list. The hordes of books that aren't selling are left off. So, if you self-publish, you have to figure out a way to go cross-country to Book Sense stores and convince them to stock and, if you're lucky, market your book. That's logistically tough, at the very least, not to mention the cost, even if you assume that your book will sell. If it doesn't, you'll be buying back your books and putting them in your garage or closet. I've been told jokingly that you know you've made it when you have a garage full of your own books. I'll pass. Thanks.

2. Good publishers have good editors, which is to say that they have people who know the buying market (and their tastes) very well. Though I believe my manuscript is solid as it is, some readers have chastized me for beating a dead horse, while others have said they didn't get it. An editor at a reputable publishing house will know how to tailor my message to my target audience, without watering down my voice or deflating my arguments. And I can't just hire a freelance editor. There's something to be said for having your ass on the line (i.e. being held accountable by the senior management of the publishing company). The stick is a better motivator than the carrot, always has been.

3. Getting published by a reputable publisher helps you get better book deals in the future, assuming your book is not a total disaster. The book industry seems to me to be a very group-think kind of industry. This is an unfortunate consequence of corporate involvement, I suspect. All that money is a vacuum that attracts book proposals. This means acquiring editors are victims of information overload. Their solution is to filter the submissions by the criteria that are most likely to minimize risks. Content, therefore, matters less than having a name that everyone recognizes on the cover. And given the budget for only so many books per year, it isn't long before the roster is filled according to who has "platform," not talent. But...if you manage to get one reputable publisher to take a chance on you, you automatically move to the front of the pile with your next book. When the president of the company wants to know why you're publishing a particular book, it's always good to be able to say, "It's the author's second. His first was put out by Copernicus."

4. Self-Publishing Costs A Lot. The only reason you'd ever want to self-publish would be to attract the attention of real publishers (unless you're just one of those folks looking to memorialize your work, where sales isn't important). Self-published bestsellers are rare, indeed. That means you have to get the book edited professionally by a freelancer (not cheap or good enough), then you have to pay for the printing and binding costs. And this whole "on demand" thing is very cost prohibitive when the numbers start piling up. Basically, the convenience doesn't justify the cost yet - prices still have to come down before this really makes sense - again, if volume is your ultimate goal. So, you'll end up paying $10 a book (with a color cover jacket) from a printer who will take orders of 500 or 1000 at a time. Then, after you have the books, you'll have to pay for the marketing. This is where the costs start to skyrocket fast. You're hard pressed to really succeed self-marketing a self-published book without having a good online presence, with direct links to Amazon.com (where positive reviews hopefully abound). So you have to pay to have that done (unless you are tight with mega-genius code freaks like my buddy Dave.) Then you get to pay for either advertising or PR or both. This isn't cheap, believe me, and it's tough to know where to place your bets - exposure to the wrong crowd is a painful waste of capital. You can also pay about $5000-$6000 to get interviewed for 10-minutes on 18-20 different morning radio shows. You provide the questions, the show hosts ask them. The bottom line is that all of this will work - it's the same stuff that the big guys do - but it takes a lot of cash to get it to pay off.

With all that said, you can see how I'm keen to get a publishing deal with a good company. I'm just not ready to throw the hail Mary and self-publish. I know no one is going to invest much in my book, but the use of their editorial staff, their printing assets, and their name and reputation is all I want. I can do the rest, especially if I add the book's advance to my own funds. So, we'll see. The next telling event will come in February when I hit a writer's conference in California.

But, as always, I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if someone has some insights that I've missed...

"Closer" - Movie Review

Despite the impression I got from the masters of the backhanded compliment (that is, movie critics), I went to see Closer recently. The NY Times review, for example, was full of tidbits that gave the movie promise, but then it closed with the standard, "it failed to realize its ambition" sentiment. Never did A.O. Scott, the author, bother to mention whether or not the movie was worth seeing. (I suspect that paid movie reviewers have some little club where they try to out-technical and out-nuance each other from week to week - all at the expense of readers who just want to know if they should see the movie.) This, to me, is the point of a movie review.

As I've said before, movies, for many people (including myself), are an escape from the familiar areas of solution space that so constantly occupy their attention. Therefore, any useful review deals primarily with whether or not the escape was worthwhile. It, furthermore, addresses whether or not the escape has a lingering effect. After all, it is always a plus when a movie stays with you longer than the two hours it took to watch it. So, for Closer, let me get the important stuff out of the way.

It's definitely worth watching, if for nothing more than being an inventive script that is well acted by some of Hollywood's best eye-candy. That, in itself, is quite an accomplishment these days. I read several moviegoer comments that were very negative, saying the movie was awful and a downer. However, after seeing it, I think it's likely that these people were uncomfortable with the subject matter more than anything. It's about four people struggling with fidelity in a love quadrangle that spans a number of years. There's betrayal, cowardice, overt sexuality, and emotional weakness, so I can see how conservative, prudish types might be turned off. But, the movie's strength is in the insights into humanity it provides, insights that are provocative well after the last credits have rolled. It may be the warped lens through which I have been viewing the world lately, but I came away really thinking about truth and how each character's approach to it would translate into long-term happiness.

Closer is an adaptation of a well-known play by Patrick Marber, which, to me, explains the fact that the movie is just one long series of dramatic moments in the interpersonal relations of these four characters. Just as many plays leave you guessing where you are in place and time until the words of the players provide the needed information (cleverly, one hopes), so does Closer. We get to see how people meet and then we zoom forward to find them long since intimate. Though it could be argued that this leaves out some critical insights into the foundations of their relationships, I disagree. Courtships may vary in theme, but the process usually follows the same general path. So, this movie dispenses with the blurred, feel-good soundtracked montages of the couples falling in-love and gets to the good parts - where things go wrong.

Fade in with Jude Law meeting Natalie Portman on the street, in a somewhat unusual encounter - she obliviously wades out into traffic while she's gazing at Law and gets hit. Law's character, Dan, is an aspiring novelist who works as an obituary writer. Natalie Portman's character, Alice, is a bit of a vagabond who's just arrived from New York, with no bags, no home, and no work, though procuring it shouldn't be hard for a stripper. They are obviously smitten with one another, so it isn't shocking to change scenes and find them together as a couple for four years. With a feel for the pace of the movie, we settle in and find that in subsequent years, Law's character will deceive, confess, rationalize, submit, gloat, hit bottom and well...I don't want to give away the ending. Suffice it to say that once professional photographer, Anna (played by Julia Roberts), enters the scene, the cast-members with y-chromosomes are at her mercy. Interestingly, it isn't because she's her usual bubbly,charming self. She's actually more of a demure shell of a person who seems to glide through life. But Law and his perennial opponent, Larry (played by Clive Owen), cannot resist her.

With the quadrangle complete, the movie proceeds to bounce forward and backward into and out of scenes that either set up or pay off the build to emotional high drama. Dan, still with Alice, pursues Anna, who resists, but not really, and winds up with Larry. Larry and Alice confront their cheating partners. And on and on. But don't worry - it's not confusing; it's entertaining. And the plot is utterly unpredictable - I found myself wondering who would end up with whom in the end. But none of that matters without real characters in real situations. This, in my view, is where Closer really hit the mark.

I think we all know people like the character, Anna, who seem to have their act together but are fascinatingly passive, letting life drag them out and push them back in, like the tides. They make curiously short-sighted decisions (when they make decisions at all), often about the most important aspects of life, but they somehow never have the consequences fully befall them. Roberts has Law and Owen pursuing her relentlessly throughout the movie, though, other than her looks, you're hard pressed to know why. Even after she's on record being unfaithful, she is still chased by both suitors. That's not even remotely inconceivable in real life, is it? And Jude Law's character, Dan? We've met him, too.

He's the guy who was born on the fence between socially acceptable and socially unacceptable. When he's on his game and things are going well, he's compelling and alluring. When trouble comes, he's a mush of pathetic mud, with whoa is me as his theme song. In this case, however, he is wily and quite liberal with the truth (even with himself), so he rises again, though it is often only on the promise provided by a temporary illusion. He goes through life fixated on himself and his own emotional state, and, not so ironically, he never has any idea. Sound familiar? And Dr. Larry? What about him?

He's our better man. Though it doesn't come up often, it is very clear that Clive Owen's character fancies himself better than all three other cast members. At one point, he gets the raw end of the deal with Anna and makes it explicit - "I'm the best thing that ever happened to you." You wonder if he even believes it as it leaves his lips. Sturdy or not, Larry uses his perceived status to shelter himself from the pain of being cheated upon and abandoned - had he not been playing with lesser people, he'd not have been treated so poorly. The result of this, however, is predictable because it mirrors the real world. The facade works...for a while, and then it comes down crashing with an emotional breakdown. In the end, however, Larry triumphs (if you can call it that), which vindicates his commitment to social stratification...for him and us. Is anyone surprised when the well-bred guy with money wins?

As I mentioned, I thought a lot about truth when I walked out of this movie. That's basically what it was about for me. For all but Portman's character (with one notable and surprising exception), truth was a matter of convenience. Roberts' character consistently endulged herself and kidded herself at the very same time. (It is not a coincidence to find these two phenomena side by side.) Dan's determination to be true to himself was the "get out of jail free" that, in his mind, dismissed all of his wonton behavior and character flaws. Larry's trickery with truth was perhaps the least pernicious, if only because it was installed over a long period of time that began shortly after birth. His Matrix-like illusion of the world was sufficiently strong to get him through some tough times (with only a couple of breakdowns), but it was powerless to show him that the goal he sought was not worth seeking. In the end, it was only Alice who was who she was (figuratively, if not literally), which is why my bet would be on her to come out happy.

You know a movie's good when you wonder which character will fare better in the future. Go see it and let me know what you think...

The Publishing Biz - Episode 6

It's been a while since I've updated you all on my efforts to get a book deal. Admittedly, things are moving a bit slow these days. After spending months beating my head against a wall (also known as talking directly to acquiring editors at publishing companies), I am now 100% convinced that my only hope of getting the attention of serious literary agents is to demonstrate that I have built a grass-roots following for my ideas. In fact, this was a recommendation I got long ago from a guy at a big-time PR firm in New York. He said, "Look buddy, I love your work and I think you're a promotable kind of guy, but no one knows you and you have no credibility to write a self-help book. So, if you want this to happen, you'll have to prove that people will buy and read your stuff." OK, so it took my almost a year to believe him. Hey, I'm a skeptic and I do my homework. Anyway, this site is supposed to introduce the world to my way of thinking, and I have to say it's exceeding my expectations.

This site gets several hundred hits a day (especially since we started advertising on the Reason Magazine website, which happens to kick ass), and though many of them are from new visitors (as near as we can tell), there are quite a few folks who come back regularly. I also get a good bit of email (editor@enlightenedcaveman.com) - mostly good, some bad, and some plain weird. The big conundrum these days is column length. In the days when it was just me and my webmaster reading this thing, I had no concern for brevity. My goal was to establish sort of an ideological persona by weighing in on various issues. Over time, thought I, readers would come to really understand where I'm coming from. But now that traffic is really picking up, I'm thinking I may need to make some changes.

Some readers have recommended that I address more topics and just spend a little less time on each one - something like this. I like that idea but don't think I could do it consistently. This is mainly because I tend to dwell on concepts for a while and then belt out a column when I feel like things have become resolved in my mind, at least how I want to say them. I also want to avoid being another me-too blogger. When it comes to the enlightenedcaveman concept, I'm in a league all my own. Of that, I'm fairly certain. However, on political matters and pop culture matters, I don't see the point in echoing what you can hear or read in numerous other places. So, my plan is to do the multiple topics thing a couple of days a week. But this was supposed to be about the publishing business.

In short, see the movie Sideways. There's a part where the main character (a wannabe author) is talking to his agent. She's telling him that the publisher he'd been so optimistic about has decided to pass. Her explanation sums up my experiences thus far with the industry. Content matters last. But there's no cause for bitterness. This industry, like all others, can be cracked with the proper determination. So I'll be in California again this winter attending writer's conferences looking for representation. The education continues...

Do let me know if you have any recommendations on content length or topic number. Thx.

A Tribute to Solution Space

There's concept in science known as solution space, and it colors my entire perspective. Solution space refers to the sum total of all possible solutions to a problem or question. For example, if you're asked in which month Arbor Day falls, your solution space is a list of the twelve months of the year. The thing about solution space is that most problems have a massive number of possible solutions. One, or even a few, may be right, but most are absolutely wrong.

There's more. Solutions that are wrong but not very wrong are often located closer in space to the right solution than solutions that are very wrong. So, since Arbor Day is usually the last Friday in April (I had to look it up, believe me), March is closer, in solution space, than February, which is closer than December. The idea is to kind of visualize an expanse of space and to think of the solution as being located in some tiny locale therein. In this case, our solution space is two-dimensional. But in most cases, when you factor in thousands of variables at work at any given time, the space expands in all directions.

I have found the use of the solution space concept very valuable over the years. For one thing, it keeps me very far from ever proclaiming certainty. Regardless of what we're trying to explain, there's a solution space for it and, very importantly, our imaginations play a large role in what areas of solution space we explore. We generally start where we've been before and extrapolate from there. Herein lies the wisdom of solution space. The moment we think we've thought of everything, we need only remind ourselves that solution space is gigantic and that the odds are very good that we're missing A LOT. It's humbling and produces a tendency to keep digging, which bring me to the next benefit of solution space.

Solution space is a creativity enhancer. By understanding that our current way of explaining things is limited to the insights gained from our previous experiences, each located in its own area of solution space, eventually we know where not to look. We're forced to reject the familiar if our question remains unresolved. We have to find environments that stimulate our brains in new ways. As soon as we experience new things and new ideas, we begin to consider the permutations that surround them in solution space. It's as if we're instantly transported to a new area of space with all new possibilities. This is why people go to movies, and it's also why a lot of people do drugs. Isn't a big screen experience the ultimate cure for boredom with the familiar? And didn't John Lennon and pals frequently refer to the mind expanding powers of whatever it was they were on? What the moviegoer and Lennon had in common was the desire to access some previously unaccessed areas of solution space. In looking for explanations for everything from meaning of life to the perfect melody line, the solution space jockey finds the thrill in the chase.

At some point in the internalization of solution space, we come to know that finding what we want may take a while. We develop tenacity to continue searching for solutions. Eventually, when we've run down one too many rat holes, it dawns that the most important solution space is the one related to what makes for a worthwhile question. It becomes instantly apparent that the good ones are daunting, where many have tried and all have failed, where the space of possibilities is enormous. But you have to pay your dues and the big questions aren't big for nothing.

Getting a crack at the biggest expanses of solution space requires years of training. One must learn to tell the difference between a correct and incorrect solution - between truth and fiction, at the end of the day. The base of this skill is the commitment to the notion that possibilities may only be proven wrong, never right. The only thing to do is disprove as many as possible and then evaluate the field that remains. Based upon a certain set of rules, a solution may or may not be chosen as the preferred solution. And preferred solutions are only allowed if they are accompanied by an admission of uncertainty (solution space is big, even for simple things).

The rules that determine if we can even prefer a solution are the same rules that we use to determine if a solution is true or false. These are the rules of logic. Once they are mastered, we must use them to acquire as much knowledge as we can - about a wide array of subjects. The more we learn, the more difficult the questions we can pursue effectively. This is pretty much where I am these days.

I'm on a mission to learn as much as I can about this world. This blog, I hope, will help me do that. I am constantly pondering the role of our genes in our ability to understand our experiences. So I'll throw out what I've encountered in my jaunts through solution space in the hopes that readers might help in the search. And if I stray into politics too much, well I can't help it - the drama's irresistable.