Thank You Feedspot!

While I do not think this a Happy Thanksgiving for the reasons laid out in this blog and on the AIER site, I will thank Feedspot for listing my blog among the Top 35 American history blogs: https://blog.feedspot.com/american_history_blogs/. I may not get a ton of hits but I mostly attract quality readers.

Unhappy Thanksgiving: Why We So Stoopid

 HUMAN HUBRIS, THE HOLIDAYS, AND THE COVID CRISIS

This holiday season of senseless lockdowns, I would like to remind humanity that it ain’t “all that,”

not by a long shot, in the hopes that it displays more humility and less hubris during the next pandemic. 

For all of our technology, Homo sapiens, wise humans, are more like Homo non sapientem, not so

wise humans. In fact, one of the wisest of our species, Jared Diamond, wrote a book explaining why we

should consider ourselves nothing more than a third type of chimpanzee. 

If unwilling to change our genus to Pan, we should at least change our species name to Homo

 superbus, or arrogant humans. The only objectively intelligent thing humans ever did was to unleash

 the selective power of markets. Even that, though, is a relatively recent phenomenon understood and 

embraced by far too few members of the species.

I say the selective power of markets because when governments allow them to function freely markets 

work akin to natural selection. Most types of living things possess genes that vary from individual to 

individual and that produce variations in key attributes like size, color, resistance to disease, behaviors,

 and myriad other characteristics. In a given set of environmental circumstances, some of those 

variations help individual organisms to reproduce relatively more successfully than organisms of the 

same species that do not possess the genes for the successful trait. Unless environmental conditions 

change, over generations the species will increasingly be composed of individuals with the 

advantageous trait.

Evolution by means of natural selection is not “just a theory,” it is a powerful way of understanding the 

world that has been observed in numerous instances even on an historical timescale. Perhaps the 

most famous example occurred in Britain, where industrialization darkened trees with soot, leading to 

the selection of darker-colored individuals of a certain species of moth that birds found more difficult to 

spot, catch, and eat than the lighter-colored moths. As Britain de-industrialized and tree barks became 

less sooty and hence lighter in color, selection worked in the opposite direction as the darker-colored 

moths became easier to spot and hence were more likely to be eaten before passing on their genes,

so the lighter-colored moths again proliferated. Changes in the prevalence of different colored moths,

 like all selective processes, occurred automatically, without the need to invoke a deity or other type of central planner.

Human economies also work through a selection process, though one Homo superbus rarely

 acknowledges. Producers make goods with various attributes. Consumers select some of those 

goods, causing them to be (re)produced. Others they eschew, causing their discontinuance 

(extinction). Instead of birds eating moths, the selective pressure comes from people deciding which 

type of hat to buy, which brand of toothpaste to prefer, which restaurant to frequent, and so forth. (The

 difference is the moths who get consumed by birds are the losers while the producer whose goods get

 consumed are the winners.)

Producing the right good at the right time looks like business or inventive “genius” but we cannot reject

 the hypothesis that it is due simply to dumb luck, just as it was for the moths born a color that 

happened to match the trees. As is well known, most entrepreneurial endeavors fail within the first five

 years and the most even highly-motivated angel investors and venture capitalists can do is to winnow

 out the most likely losers. And selective pressures continue throughout firm existence. In a famous

 1950 article in the Journal of Political Economy entitled “Uncertainty, Evolution and Economic 

Theory,” American economist Armen A. Alchian argued that the firms that come closest to

 maximizing profits, even if due simply to dumb luck, are the most likely to survive. 

In short, no intelligent design or strategic management plan is necessary for organisms or firms to

 become adapted to their economies or environments, both of which automatically select the most

 adapted and weed out the least adapted.

But humans, a staunch defender of Homo sapiens might retort, domesticated many plant and animal 

species, forcing them to work for us (e.g. horses), or make stuff we want (e.g. sheep), or even to 

render our breakfast easier to fetch, and tastier too (e.g. egg-laying chickens and milk cows). In other 

words, wise humans boot-strapped ourselves out of the Stone Age and into modernity. It took us 10,000

 years but, clearly, humans rule!

Typical Homo superbus thinking I say. We think ourselves gods who can simply dominate nature and

 bend economic reality to our will. While we can certainly influence the environment or the economy, we can 

barely understand either, much less control them in any deep or lasting way. Moreover, the  

domestication of wild species to produce cattle, cats, dogs, goats, horses, sheep, and other barnyard 

critters shows not our dominance but just how little control we really have.

 

The traditional story of animal domestication, it turns out, is all wrong. Humans did not choose species

 to domesticate, then bravely capture and tame wild varieties and selectively breed them to serve us. If

 anything, domesticates banked on humans. Do not confuse that claim with the joke about cats having

 domesticated humans rather than vice versa. (Anyone who has lived with a feline understands the

 sentiment!) Rather, it is a claim about the process of domestication first laid out for a popular audience

 by Stephen Budiansky in his 1992 book The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Chose 

Domestication. It shows that the individual animals that allied with humans were rewarded with higher

 levels of reproduction than their wild progenitors, just as the darker-colored moths were rewarded when dark, satanic mills dominated Britain’s environment.

Budiansky shows that man’s best friend, the dog, was likely the first domesticate and the direct 

descendant of Canis lupus, the wolf, humanity’s longtime foe and competitor as apex predator. Their 

millennia long partnership seems bloody unlikely, yet it occurred and without the aid of a brave, genius 

caveman. An example of spontaneous order one might call it.

First came toleration. Wolves and humans are both dangerous critters that hunt in packs. Better to live

 and let live than to try to exterminate the other side. Inevitably, though, humans and wolves went after

 the same prey at the same time and discovered that they had specialized, complementary skills. In 

short, they learned that they could eat more critters by working together rather than apart. Wolves have

 much keener senses of smell and hearing than humans, who are better at dispatching large, 

dangerous prey animals at a safe distance with their arrows, javelins, spears, and stones. 

(Rudimentary pieces of technology evolved from trial and error and selection as much as from innate

 intelligence.)

Wolf packs and human hunters began to travel in tandem because it was mutually advantageous to do 

so. (Caribou and humans still do the same, trading the salt in human urine for herd culling.) Naturally 

less aggressive wolves were welcomed close by but aggressive wolves were obviously problematic 

and hence driven off and perhaps even killed. Humans became the alphas, the leaders, of relatively

 tame packs of wolves, some of the pups of which were genetically predisposed to see humans not as

 threats but as lead wolves. They were subservient and hence valuable additions to camp and within 

several generations were boon companions. 

That’s right, your canine best friend doesn’t think it is human, it thinks you are a dog, an alpha dog. Your 

dog is in essence a wolf, but one at first unconsciously infantilized by human beings and only in the last

 few hundred years deliberately bred for specific traits.

That story of canine domestication is more than mere speculation as another type of wild canine,

 Vulpes vulpes (the fox) was deliberately domesticated in the twentieth century in a Soviet experiment.

 It took only five generations to go from Reynaud (the name that horse-riding fox hunters gave their wily

 wild quarry) to essentially another breed of dog eager to lick your face and chase a ball.

Okay, but surely humans deliberately domesticated camels, cattle, goats, horses, llamas, sheep, and

 such. In fact, according to some animal rights activists, we enslaved them for our own selfish benefit.

 Not so much as it turns out. Many creatures benefit from interacting, even trading, with Homo

 superbus and prefer to live in our midst to a greater or lesser degree. In sub-Saharan Africa the wild

 Greater Honeyguide bird (Locator locator) calls to and directs humans to trees containing active 

honeybee hives, allowing the dull bipeds to do the hard work in return for the yummy leftovers. 

Similarly, ravens will lead humans to big game animals so that they can feast on the entrails and 

carcass after the hunter does the hard work of harvesting and butchering the beast. A tribe in 

Kamchatka even trades with mice, exchanging the carbohydrate-laden tubers the mice collect in winter

 for bits of protein-rich fish. (The humans figured out that when they simply stole the tubers the mice 

died.)

Many species, like raccoons (Procyon lotor), eat human trash and leave behind nothing but a mess. 

Pests we call them. But some animals, like goats, offered up milk in return. While it seems “obvious” 

that any creature with genes that predisposed it to allow humans to kill it would soon lose that trait or go

 extinct, domesticates have done amazingly well in relative and absolute terms. They far outnumber 

wild creatures and make up the bulk of the terrestrial world’s mammal biomass. 

Think about it: humans destroy the habitat of wild creatures that offer them nothing in return but 

preserve and even create habitat for critters that offer up something in exchange, be it a Yellowstone 

photo op or a plate of yummy chislic. Again, conscious genius is not necessary to achieve the 

outcome, just some genetic variation upon which selective pressures toward docility, fur production,

 tastiness, and such could work.

The novel coronavirus, by contrast, has not placed much selective pressure on the human genome 

because the vast bulk of its victims are well past prime reproductive and even child rearing age. 

Humans may not be so lucky next time but likely will remain insufficiently wise and too arrogant to learn

 from our many mistakes. We convince ourselves that we have developed wonderful technologies but it

 might all be due to selective pressures on more-or-less random ideas. Humans did not even jumpstart

 the Agricultural Revolution by deliberately domesticating animals, which it turns out evolved to live with

 us because it benefited them. In short, we cannot outlaw a virus nor make the economy blossom by 

diktat. All we can do is to improve our institutions to leverage the awesome power of the economic 

selection process.

It's the Zombie Apocalypse!

 Remember, I post most of my stuff these days on the AIER blog but every now and again ... I have to feed my roots with a jooooocy one:

 

This year has witnessed so many strange happenings that it remains difficult to keep track of them all: 

botched elections (predicted to be so to boot!), corporate donations to BLM, CHOP/CHAZ 

(Seattle autonomous zone), “murder” hornets, peaceful protests that destroyed lives and property, 

wildfires gone wild, and, of course, the Covid pandemic and incredible attempts to stop it via 

socioeconicide.

Viewed separately, each phenomenon appears bizarre. Viewed holistically, we are clearly in the midst

 of the zombie apocalypse. I don’t mean some Hollywood concoction like The Dawn of the Walking Dead 

28 Weeks Later (that’s a mashup of three different franchises for the uninitiated), I mean the original, 

authentic zombie, a person whose mind has been taken over by another.

Mind control sounds all sci- fi but it need not be. In fact, even fungi can do it. Scientists have discovered

 new types of fungus that infect ant brains, forcing the ants to anchor themselves to leaves and other 

stable places where the spores develop, kill the ant, feed on it, and then use it as a platform to spread to

 other ants.

Other examples abound: A type of wasp larvae infects a spider, inducing it to build a nice cocoon in 

which the larvae lives after it kills and eats the spider. Another type of wasp partially paralyzes a 

cockroach, leads it by its antennae to her underground lair, then feeds the roach to its youngin’. 

A type of flatworm lives in live cow liver. It places its eggs in the cow’s GI tract, where the inevitable 

happens. Cow dung-eating snails then consume the flatworm eggs, which the snail turns into slime 

balls that ants eat. The flatworm larvae then infect the ants’ brains, inducing the ants to sit motionless

 on the tips of grass leaves where, you guessed it, a cow is likely to chomp ‘em down.

Another type of fluke produces larvae in a type of ocean snail, inducing it to attach to the gills of a type

 of small fish, from whence the larvae can infect the fish’s brain, inducing it into spasms that attract

 the attention of sea birds. Once in the sea bird, the flukes mature and reproduce. Their eggs land on 

someone’s head or, more likely, the ocean, where ocean snails eat them and repeat the cycle anew.

Hairworms infect crickets, driving them toward lights, which in nature often means moonlight dancing on 

water. The crickets then drown, allowing the hairworms to reproduce in the wet cricket corpse.

You might think that your brain is too sophisticated to be as easily controlled as that of an insect or other

 creepy crawler. That’s true but the defining characteristic of zombies is that they don’t realize they are

 being controlled. If they realized their plight, they could resist.

A leading candidate for causing zombie-like behavior in humans is a cervid (deer) affliction called

 Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). The CDC has worried about CWD jumping the species barrier for 

years and in Fall 2019 the popular media was awash in stories of “zombie deer.” I don’t mean fringe 

sites, I mean the most trusted sources of news, including the almost infallible CNN. Like the ants 

awaiting certain death by cow, zombie deer easily fall victim to predators, including orange-vested 

ones and ones that go vroom vroom, allowing the nasties to spread to scavengers and humans.

While few people consume the flesh of wild cervids where CWD is endemic, it could have crossed into

 domestic species via captive cervids and from there into humans. Unlike Mad Cow Disease, which

 resided in bovine brains (and few eat such organs any more), CWD resides in the muscle 

(meat) too and is not destroyed by cooking.

Consider the symptoms of people who have died of mysterious prion (brain) ailments in recent years,  

as reported by the CDC (so it must be true because they are “the” scientists!):

“One of the patients died after an illness lasting 5–6 months that was characterized by progressive  

aphasia [inability to understand language], memory loss, social withdrawal, vision disturbances, and 

seizure activity leading to status epilepticus and induced coma.”

“The second patient died from an illness lasting ≈16 months. The patient’s illness began with behavioral

 changes, including unusual outbursts of anger and depression. Confusion, memory loss, gait 

disturbances, incontinence, headaches, and photophobia also developed.”

It is possible that further mutations have rendered the ailment less deadly and more contagious, 

spreading perhaps through human saliva or a common blood vector like mosquitoes, as that is the most

 successful reproductive “strategy” and hence the path of most pathogens. If zombification weren’t 

plausible, why would the CDC maintain a zombie preparedness page?

Before you grab your shotgun and start hunting human zombies, I should explain how manipulative 

the above narrative is. It cites authorities like CNN and the CDC and combines plausible but unproven 

speculation about mutation with half-truths (if you actually follow the link, it turns out that the CDC’s

 zombie page is a publicity hook) with real evidence of symptoms. I did everything but call it “novel” 

because that would have made it too obvious that I was deliberately trying to mirror the tactics used to gin up fear over the coronavirus.

Were I an epidemiologist (or physicist), I daresay I could publish a model with Neil Ferguson, 

funded by the Gates Foundation, showing that in a year 100 billion people will be zombified unless 

[insert favorite policy here: stop hunting and trapping; release all captive animals “back” into the wild; 

beg Gaia’s forgiveness through mass human sacrifice, etc.]. 

I am not joking about publication: a 2017 peer-reviewed study predicted that zombies would wipe out 

humanity in 100 days. And it was published by physicists (like Ferguson) employing a standard

 epidemiological model. Like an infamous Covid model, it was rooted in a student project and 

somehow published even though the students involved were smart enough to realize that the

 model’s assumptions drove the outcome: un-zombified people would not change their behaviors 

and could not kill the zombies. Truth is (a) stranger!

The real zombie apocalypse occurring now didn’t start with Mother Nature. Humans caused it, but not 

in a conspiratorial plot. According to impeccable sources like the New York Times, the Atlantic, and 

 NPR, zombification is slavery is zombification. New World enslavers, they show, sought to turn their 

human chattels into biological machines who (that?) did as they were bid and nothing more. While 

some slaves resisted zombified enslavement, many others succumbed and became the mindless 

“tools” of their masters.

Slavery is now rightly eschewed as immoral and uneconomic (if profitable for enslavers) but 

governments remained interested in zombification, in the creation of passive workers and citizens 

easily tricked by mindless mantras like “Your vote is your voice” and “Flatten the curve.” It’s not that 

any individual or state controls the thoughts of everyone all the time, it is that people are kept vulnerable 

to manipulation by means of an educational system that encourages rote memorization and focuses 

students on external rewards, like grades and awards, instead of the intrinsic joy of learning.

Unfortunately, modern zombies are more difficult to detect than the drooling, brain-hungry figments 

of Hollywood’s imagination. Analogous to some alcoholics, they are “high- functioning” zombies, q

uite capable of serving as a specialized cog in some bureaucratic machine or running heavy machinery. 

But they are not entirely free people either and hence horrible citizens in a Republic that requires 

eternal vigilance for its success. But there is a tell: try explaining Public Choice theory to suspected 

zombies. If they still don’t get it after the third attempt, definitely stay at least six Congressional 

districts away.