TheVat

"Will work for food."

Oddly, I think I can translate: Can models of evolutionary adaptation based on colony insects help us to predict how AI will develop in the coming years? Seems unlikely, given the distinct differences between natural selection and artificial engineering, and between the goals of ant colonies and humans. While distributed processing is a little like a colony of insects, the colony is a weak analogy and there are better ones in human social or industrial networks. Really there are all kinds of collaborative networks, where large tasks are broken down into smaller pieces, that are probably better models.

That would seem to be an easy goal: Look at what SotA bots are doing now and what Trump does: Lying? Check. Delusions? Check. Relying on videos over text sources? Check. Racist/misogynistic talking points? Check. Pretending to care about you? Check. Cheating? Check. Being used by national adversaries to sow chaos? Check. 😬

Having much admired Asimov and had the pleasure of meeting him on several occasions, could I ask you to stop misspelling his name in that unfortunate way? Anyway, the story is "Liar," and it inspired the conclusion of the famous Trek episode I, Mudd. And you are correct, the short story was in I, Robot.

DeTocqueville's "tyranny of the majority" comes to mind. As he noted in his famous book on America, the threat of that has to be mitigated by Constitutional guardrails as well as local and state governments. Without referendums that are constrained by a Constitution, Linkey's dream is easily a nightmare. Or "mob rule" as @CharonY put it.

The framework at the intersection of ethology and evo biology, laid out by Tinbergen (his famous 4 questions), is one that demands mindnumbing quantities of field data. Where this intersects with ornithology, there is the benefit of the popularity of birding, so a large army of passionate amateurs can potentially be recruited. Does that lead to quality data? Maybe serious birders can answer that. Citizen scientists seem to be more interested in birds than, say, hedgehogs. Not hard to understand. 🔭🦅

Well, the index signal is by definition an honest signal. So anything that's pertinent to a signal of adaptive fitness, not just metabolism, right. Female "choice" in most species is steered by selection, hence I place quote marks. Selective advantage would steer towards maximum signal for that least cost (cost: in hazard, metabolism, predation, immunity, social effects) which will still manage to exceed the costs weak individuals can handle. To be an honest signal, it must cost something, but arrive at an equilibrium where the strong individual doesn't "overinvest." That's what I think is meant by "evolutionarily stable"? Or part of the meaning, anyway. 🐓🐡🦔🦔🐩🐩🐩

It's a Van Dyke! I thought Mirror Spock looked great with one. The best time travel plot, despite the usual logic holes you can drive a bus through, is ST IV. Don’t tell me, you’re from outer space. No, I’m from Iowa. I only work in outer space.

Hahaha! I suspect all of Ireland can easily unify on that sentiment. Éire go deo!

Index signaling doesn't mean a behavioral or strategic norm, nor was I speaking of one. Index simply means any signal which harmonizes with the animal's morphology and physiology and requires no burdensome costs that can't be sustained over time. They can vary immensely as you note. Of course I agree there's a vast landscape of signaling behaviors and traits. Just leaning towards the majority of them being index signals that are not costly. The nest weaving skills you mention would be such, no? Being able to select and transport materials and weave them would seem to be almost all upside and not costly to the bird - such skills rest in cognitive traits and lifting energy that generalize across the bird's life as fitness. My guess is selective pressures lead to more of that and less of dragging giant arseloads of plumage.

Ok, back to retract as edit window closed. Looks like I misunderstood part of Zahavi, and his theory is one disallowing fakery by lower quality males. So my other problem with Zahavi remains, which is his contention that the handicap principle is fairly widespread. It looks to me like index signaling is more the norm, where display costs are not that high and often just a result of natural morphology. Secondary sexual traits in humans for example are mostly functional adaptive traits - hunting males develop longer muscular legs and upper body musculature which is impressive to females but also aids hunting. The deep voice mostly is due to larger size. Body hair assists with transpiration, which helps cool a persistence hunter. Big boobs bring bounty to babies. And so on. So a lot of display is also adaptive. IIRC, this was a point stressed by biologists like Maynard Smith. The one area of human sexual display where parameters exceed natural requirements (i.e. a two incher is sufficient for delivering gametes) is fairly low cost. So peacocks and whydahs could be exceptions, not ordinary demonstrations of a handicap principle.

Or solting their colons.

Could be. The whole scenario as you've described does seem to signal robustness (growing massive tail, hauling it around) at considerable cost. The brood parasitism also means a large metabolic investment doesn't have to be followed by a further high-energy phase of nest construction, defense and food gathering. This fits with Grafen's model where high-quality males afford larger displays (peacock model), allowing display receivers ( females) to reliably judge their condition. But I'm not sure any of this allows fakery, which is what (if I'm not losing the thread here) Zahavi was suggesting as possible. Fakery, in the sense of lower quality males making themselves quite weakened and starved in order to do a massive tail display, wouid seem difficult here. If fakery isn't allowed here, then the whole strategy is evolutionarily stable and not supporting of Zahavi. (I think. Not 100% to speed on Zahavi yet, and my Sunday morning strategy is mental flabbiness.) An analogy of impermissible fakery would be workers who buy a costly education to signal productivity to prospective employers, then are too broke (and have lost all their friends due to endless studying) to move to another city to take the job.

First of all, males are stupid when they show off to impress females. Second (serious answer) - while seeming prima facie a notable exception to the prevalent interpretation of Grafen's model, I feel there are aspects of these birds courting which aren't spelled out here. E.g. do the silly-plumed actually succumb to raptor predation at higher rate than non-silly ones? Also, how long does the sexual display period last? If it's fairly brief, the species costs might be fairly low in spite of that period of hindered aeronautics. Finally, do we know there's a high energy cost (metabolic?) to shedding the breeding plumage? For those habitat conditions this type of sexual display could be one of the lowest cost options and most efficient way to be seen. This may not be intuitively obvious in this case, but it could be.

Some comments from Emily's friends at the LHC, an infested motel, and a French grocer... Do GeV lover see bottom spin nips motto "bees revolve God"? Star foes procedural obstacle to motel cats: bola rude corpse of rats. Épicerie can embrace carb menace: I, recipe. Fool, a signage gang is aloof.

And then I'll hear something about how book sales are doing well now, which makes me wonder if it's a small minority who are buying lots of books. I know bibliophiles who deliberately check out more books from the library than they will read just to "send a message" that patrons are still reading and books worth keeping on shelves. The nonbook trend certainly helps the Right Wing demagogue - people who can't follow extended and complex narratives are the fertile soil they thrive in. The bit "a lot of them are proud of it" is chilling.

I have strongly critiqued your ideas in one other thread, on "totatizing ideologies." I find no postings which attacked you personally, unless you believe that this was personal: I don't know you, you might be quite good at your avocation or avocations, and have other gifts as well that manifest in your free time. But I see no reason in a discussion forum to not call you out on what seemed like race-baiting and sexist assertions you make without any supporting evidence. Or, in this thread, on psychiatric advice that is clearly emanating from someone without training in that field. Your other comments seem to be misreadings of what I wrote, which do seem to have fueled some genuinely personal attacks on my mental capacity, job competence, and my character (you called me a liar). I did rather enjoy your sly attempt to don a mantle of wisdom with the line, "I have decades of engaging with delusional people..." Engaging, eh? As in, giving them rides? Encountering them at train stops and on the street? Soothing an aunt with MH problems? Reading some articles, perhaps? No doubt, once can learn something that way, but I am not going to tell you that's equivalent to college coursework in cognitive sciences and five years of on-the-job training in behavioral managment and life skills coaching. If it were, then many human service organizations could save an absolute shitload of money on training, drop their coursework and certification requirements, and simply hire truthseekers like yourself. And, being perpetually cash-starved, I'm sure they would jump at such a chance.

No empirical support for this hypothesis. Maynard Smith did a good job of showing how honest signals are not costly, as with stotting by gazelles. And Grafen's model doesn't support the handicap principle, either.... The Handicap Principle: how an erroneous hypothesis became a scientific principle - PMCThe most widely cited explanation for the evolution of reliable signals is Zahavi's so‐called Handicap Principle, which proposes that signals are honest because they are costly to produce. Here we provide a critical review of the Handicap Principle ... pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov "We show that Grafen's models do not support the handicap hypothesis, although they do support Zahavi's second hypothesis, which proposes that males adjust their investment into the expression of their sexual signals according to their condition and ability to bear the costs (and risks to their survival). Rather than being wasteful over‐investments, honest signals evolve in this scenario because selection favours efficient and optimal investment into signal expression and minimizes signalling costs. This idea is very different from the handicap hypothesis, but it has been widely misinterpreted and equated to the Handicap Principle. "

What a bizarre personal attack. This was a completely anonymous account of a social work job held thirty years ago (where I was considered a skilled and caring staff member) whose entire point was that psychopathy is uncommon and is notably different in affect from other mental health challenges. And, again without going into particulars of geography or identity, my discomfiture was something passing which I adjusted to in future work. The encounter described did not stigmatize, it was to elucidate that some rare forms of neurodivergence will present a challenge for the ordinary person. The takeaway is that most encounters are far less fraught than that cited and allow much greater connection. Your comment seems typical of some of your posts where you make pronouncements based on minimal knowledge and hasty judgments outside your areas of expertise. This is not advisable on a forum where many members do have professional training and expertise in a variety of fields. More of your amateur advice. And some of that is not well-informed on the best way to engage. For example, telling someone prone to paranoia that there are no MIB or zombies around has the potential to direct their attention to the possibility that such entities exist - and may not serve to make them feel safe. Please do not spread your unprofessional and half baked notions here - no matter how well-intentioned they may be.

Well yes, plus one. I couldn't tell from the article how much these influencers were actually ducking out on work, obligations, showing up. Partly I posted excerpts to salt the conversation, and maybe get beyond the particular lens of that article. Do the people the writer describes really not want to get well? For sure, there is a slacker culture out there, and there are people with a hyper focus on their bodies who fall back upon their couches at the eruption of a pimple or a little fatigue. And who hasn't wanted to urge them to get over themselves and get a grip? I guess I just want to learn more. It's been an area of ignorance for me going back to when CFS became widely talked about. I remember a friend of my father's had CFS and I recall my initial surge of skepticism. Then it seemed later that what she experienced was quite real, and debilitating. But I couldn't really know what it was like, so there's always the potential doubt. Ailments with a psychological component always present some ambiguity and mystery. (full disclosure: I grew up in a culture with deep roots in farming and ranching, so the ingrained attitude is that if you can walk and there's no major blood loss or concussion, then get your ass in gear and quit whining. This can be a positive approach up to a point, and it certainly discourages malingering or sloth or excess introspection, but it may not apply well to ailments of the less visible kind)

Unfortunately the writer turns to a rather sneering tone as the article continues. The section on Pots, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, seems determined to paint sufferers as potential dupes of the "sickfluencers," and contented to take to their chic sickbeds for life with (it is implied) possibly psychosomatic symptoms arising from undue focus on the ordinary sensations of being sedentary and out of shape. The whole article seems relevant to the thread topic in terms of stigma being applied to newly defined ailments and the writer seeking experts who lean towards interpretations like "hyper-awareness of physical symptoms like fatigue and a racing heart” rather than genuine pathology. That expert goes on to say that patients are determined to find a diagnosis that validates a syndrome... Often though, she says, it is more likely that factors such as “a lack of sleep and exercise and a poor diet” are causing the patient’s symptoms, and these can be resolved with minimal medical intervention. Some women, however, do not accept such a verdict. Invariably, these individuals have already decided they have a certain condition before they see a doctor, and if the GP refuses to validate their beliefs, they “seek out a private specialist and get a diagnosis of an unusual condition,” says Musgrave. I mean, there could be patients who are hypochondriacs shopping around for an illness, but I feel the writer is pretty one-sided on the verdict we should be reaching about various conditions.

https://archive.ph/2026.09.06-034031/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/09/05/disability-became-cool/ Perhaps you’ve seen it on a news segment on television about a transgender rights march, where every other attendee appears to be supported by a walking stick. Or perhaps you’ve heard about it in your family WhatsApp group, when your sister tells you about your seemingly healthy niece’s new condition. If you still haven’t noticed it, your daughter surely can’t have escaped the bravely smiling young women on Instagram, their profiles decked out in acronyms. POTS. ME. CF. ADHD. MDD. GAD. PMDD. EDS. FND. For a steadily growing group of British young women, these acronyms – and the conditions they represent – are fundamental to their lives. The country is sicker than it’s ever been before, and it’s not afraid of shouting about it. Disability is changing. To many, it is no longer an adversity to overcome, but a social identity akin to one’s sexuality, gender, or race; an immutable reality to be celebrated by the subject and accommodated by the rest of us. One in four British people is now disabled, according to the Department for Work and Pensions’ Family Resources Survey. To put this figure in context, this is a higher rate of disability than witnessed in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The growth in those identifying as disabled does not reflect a sudden, shocking increase in the number of paraplegics. The twin driving factors are, instead: mental health disorders and chronic conditions. They can be hard to “prove” and harder to effectively treat, and are more likely to be experienced by young women. A cohort of young people – somewhat cruelly dubbed “sickfluencers” – want to tell you about their conditions and convince you they are real. Like the rest of my generation, they broadcast their struggles to an online community of like-minded individuals. But, were they not decked out in the accessories of their disease, it would be impossible to perceive the conditions they consider to be so central to their interaction with the world....

Agree - I should clarify that America was just one example of erecting mental barricades against facts. Perhaps I see the US as more extreme on this because of proximity (and the notably extreme response of ICE resulting from that mindset). But I'm interested in this threads focus on Germany, and seeing if Germans can get to someplace politically that's more rational than America right now. It doesn't seem like a high bar.

This seems especially true in current US populism where facts are completely ignored. There's quite a labor shortage, e.g., in construction here which can only be mitigated by migrant hiring. But try to tell anyone in the maga brigade that we either have to double wages for laborers (else native-born won't do such work) or hire immigrants - falls on deaf ears.

Titter. (would post more but atm must go out and deal with giant mass of wild grape vines - which WILL wipe out humanity if I don't intervene...)