Domestication

Quote :

"Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel Nausea, presented as the journal of Antoine Roquentin, opens with the narrator’s statement of an unexplained change that has pervaded his world. Roquentin’s need to examine this disturbing sense of change is the explicit reason why he begins writing.

"The best thing would be to write down events from day to day. Keep a diary to see clearly—let none of the nuances or small happenings escape even though they might seem to mean nothing. And above all, classify them. I must tell how I see this table, this street, the people, my packet of tobacco, since those are the things which have changed. I must determine the exact extent and nature of this change." (Sartre 2007)

Roquentin searches for an understanding by attending to the manifestations of the ordinary. Through close attention to the ordinary, he seeks to articulate the manner in which his whole being-in-the-world has changed.

"For instance, there is something new about my hands, a certain way of picking up my pipe or fork. Or else it’s the fork which now has a certain way of having itself picked up, I don’t know. A little while ago, just as I was coming into my room, I stopped short because I felt in my hand a cold object which held my attention through a sort of personality. I opened my hand, looked: I was simply holding the door-knob." (Sartre 2007)

Roquentin is unaware of the phenomenological resonance and philosophical potential of his detailed daily descriptions. He is thus somewhat surprised when, his inspection of experience reveals to him the world itself, the world of which he is part, rather than a private mental domain. The unmistakable presence of a new quality acquired by the world – or, perhaps, the new absence of a dimension that has unexpectedly vanished from the world – makes it difficult for Roquentin to find the terms to pinpoint the change he has experienced.

"So a change has taken place during these last few weeks. But where? It is an abstract change without object. Am I the one who has changed? If not, then it is this room, this city and this nature; I must choose." (Sartre 2007)

Roquentin is ultimately concerned only with the specificity of his own situation, i.e., with a mood that reveals the bare “such-ness” of the world and bears a distinctive affect of nausea.

We may say, with Heidegger, that moods are world revealing." [Kenaan-Ferber, Moods and Philosophy: Towards a Phenomenology of Moods]

phoneee wrote:

Looks like I hit a nerve again

phoneutria wrote:

Such a display of weakness though, dear.

phoneutria wrote:

I am a critic of refined taste, luv.

Quote :

"The testosterone tradeoff

"In numerous jawed vertebrates testosterone appears to play an important role in courtship, aggression, and territorial defense, particularly by males. It is very likely that last common ancestor of jawed vertebrates already used testosterone in such capacity. The jawless vertebrates do not seem to use testosterone as their primary male hormone but they might use related steroids like androstenedione in a similar capacity. However, there have been some suggestions that testosterone might act as a pheromone in some lampreys. Whatever the case, the fixation of this steroid and the basic behavioral pattern regulated by it appear to have emerged after the split of the jawed and jawless vertebrates from their common ancestor, though related steroids might have functioned in the vertebrate common ancestor itself in a similar capacity. The expression of male ornaments and behaviors targeted to elicit female interest are under the control of testosterone across vertebrates – horns, bright colors, songs are all induced by testosterone secreted from the testes. Given that sexual selection by female choosiness tends to act on these manifestations one question is would there be selection for males with increasing testosterone levels. Studies by Ketterson et al using the sparrow-like bird the junco have thrown light on various tradeoffs imposed by testosterone.

Testosterone, polygyny and cuckoldry
A classic tactical fork faced by a male vertebrate like a junco with territorial behavior and parental care is whether to form a long term pairing with a single female or whether to attempt to inseminate many females. At first sight the latter tactic might seem the obvious winner. Among birds, species with persistently high levels of testosterone throughout the mating season tend to sing more and mate with multiple females. However, juncos, like other examples across the vertebrate tree, are nominally monogamous, with biparental care, though not without extra-pair copulations. It would hence, appear that some tradeoff might be involved. The effects of exogenous testosterone implantation in male juncos was used to assess the role of the possible tradeoffs involved. The males with testosterone implantation, as opposed to those with control null implantation, flew around a wider swath of territory, sang more and attempted courtships with more females. However, they unlike the controls did not provide much help in chick-rearing to their females. This responsibility landed mostly on the females unlike in natural situation were both parents are involved. However, measures of female fecundity showed no significant decreases from the non-participation of their males. This meant that the tradeoff in the case of juncos was not coming from any lowering of fitness from lack of paternal contribution to chick-rearing. It was also observed that the male with implanted testosterone tended more frequently to father chicks on females of males from adjacent territories. Thus, they were indeed accruing more fitness from extra-pair copulations than the control birds. However, it was also observed that they themselves were getting cuckolded more often by other males unlike the control birds. It was noted that the fitness gained from extra-pair copulations was balanced by the fitness lost due to cuckolding.

Testosterone and immunity
Several experiments have shown that elevating testosterone by extrinsic administration tends to suppress the humoral and cell mediated acquired immune responses that are typical of jawed vertebrates. This relationship between testosterone and immunity is relevant to a widely studied and well-known hypothesis in animal biology known as the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (IHH). This derives from the signaling theory that posits that signals, which are used by males to indicate their quality to females, should be costly to ensure honesty. If this were not the case they can also be displayed by low quality males, which lack the wherewithal for such signals, there by defeating their very purpose. Thus, the signals of the male have to come with an associated handicap that only a good quality male would have the wherewithal to overcome and still show the signal. As per the IHH the elevated testosterone levels that are need to express the sexual ornaments and behaviors come at the cost of lowering immunity. This could lead to increased susceptibility to infections – thus testosterone cuts both ways. Hence, a poor quality male would not be able to cheat by merely elevating testosterone because it will also knockdown his immunity, render him prone to infection, and thereby make him unable to sustain the higher grade ornaments or aggression displays. In contrast, only a genuinely good quality male will be able to tide over the testosterone immunity handicap and still show his ornaments or aggressive displays.

In another set of experiments using the junco model the levels of endogenous testosterone through the mating season were measured and compared with the endogenous concentration of complement and total immunoglobulin IgG concentration in blood. The latter two were seen as proxies of innate immunity, which represents the readily available immune capacity to neutralize pathogens. It was observed that there was a good negative correlation in the male birds between testosterone and the two proxies of innate immunity. Other experiments on the junco had also shown that injections of testosterone in males resulted in lowered humoral and cell-mediated acquired immunity suggesting that effect of testosterone probably affects all arms of the immune response. Thus, birds with higher testosterone had a lower immunity – given this situation only a male with really good quality would be able to sustain a high testosterone mating season because a lower quality male would succumb to the ravages of infection. Importantly, it was found that both the above measures of innate immunity were positively correlated with the mass of the male bird. Thus, lighter males had weaker immunity and elevation of testosterone on this background could weaken it even more, making it difficult for him to falsely signal his quality before falling to infection. Hence, in line with the IHH the immunity cost imposed by testosterone allows for honest signaling.

Testosterone and female choosiness
When sexual selection operates on high testosterone induced traits there will be tendency for the genetics of female choosiness to get linked to the genetics to the sexually selected traits in the male. Given that the genetic control of testosterone levels might be generic, selection for its elevation in males of the species would hence lead to elevation in the females. This could potential constrain sexual selection for testosterone associated traits in the male if elevated testosterone starts having negative effects on the females. In the junco model it was observed that implantation of testosterone into the females to elevate their levels resulted in them becoming less choosy between males with elevated or normal testosterone level. Thus, if sexual selection of traits associated with elevated testosterone were to occur it would be nullified by the loss of female choosiness with increasing testosterone.

In conclusion the junco experiments suggest that the elevation of testosterone potentially comes with multiple tradeoffs – elevated risk of cuckoldry, lowered immunity, and unintended side-effect in the form of reduced female choosiness. Thus, the junco has probably converged to an optimum, elevation beyond which is deleterious. Given certain similarities in the mating system of the junco with modern humans, and the conservation of the testosterone system in jawed vertebrates, some these observations are indeed relevant to us. Of course we are a social ape with a long history of such sociality in the primate tree and breed throughout the year. This adds additional factors but some of basic responses remain very much the same. It is common to believe that tendencies towards monogamy in humans result from selection for shared parental care. This is not entirely supported because in most mammals the female provides the bulk of the parental care, with male, if involved at all, playing a primarily protective role against rival males who may kill his offspring. The possibility that risk of cuckoldry as in the case of the junco could be a major factor favoring tendencies of monogamy in extant Homo should be considered. In this regard, one may also ponder over the effects of modern Anglospheric social engineering and the kind of males and females they are favoring."

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The Experiment

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“Many [female mice] were unable to carry pregnancy to full term, or to survive delivery of their litters if they did. An even greater number, after successfully giving birth, fell short in their maternal functions. Amongst the males the behaviour disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to cannibalism and from frenetic over-activity to a pathological withdrawal from which individuals would emerge to eat, drink and move about only when other members of the community were asleep. The social organisation of the animals showed equal disruption…”
[…]
“The common source of these disturbances became most dramatically apparent in the populations of our first series of three experiments, in which we observed the development of what we called a behavioural sink. The animals would crowd together in greatest number in one of the four interconnecting pens in which the colony was maintained. As many as 60 of the 80 mice in each experimental population would assemble in one pen during periods of feeding. Individual mice would rarely eat except in the company of other mice. As a result extreme population densities developed in the pen adopted for eating, leaving the others with sparse populations.”
[…]
“…In the experiments in which the behavioural sink developed, infant mortality ran as high as 96 percent among the most disoriented groups in the population.” – John Calhoun

Quote :

“…the limit Calhoun imposed on his population [of mice] was space — and as the population grew, this became increasingly problematic. As the pens heaved with animals, one of his assistants described the rodent utopia as having become hell.”

Modern Cases Of Behavioural Sinks In Humans

Population Condensation

Depopulation (failure to achieve replacement fertility)

Senseless Aggression

Breakdown Of Gender Roles

Withdrawal

The Beautiful Ones

Conclusion

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Prior to the communism in 1944 Bulgaria had one of the youngest and fastest growing populations in Europe. The population was relatively evenly spread around the country. The Bulgarians lived mostly in villages and thanks to a very fertile soil they were quite self-sufficient.

When the communists came to power they needed to create a large working class to support them in order to stay in power. The party line was to collectivise and intensify the agriculture and to industrialise the country as a whole. Large numbers of people migrated (forced to move) from the villages to the towns which later grew into big cities.

The population continued to grow but it peaked in 1989 but now it's in sharp decline. Most Bulgarians (72.5 per cent) reside in urban areas.

The problem is that since most people now reside in the cities and the country experiences a big transitional crisis, the families are finding it difficult to feed the children and lack the skills and conditions to grow their own food.

The country had lived through two major world wars plus a number of regional conflicts but it had never experienced such a sharp decline in its population ever. The urbanisation proved fatal.

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1. Safe Spaces

"This is a relatively new addition to many Universities; it is essentially a safe room to which students will flee when faced with opinions or situations that “trigger” them. These triggers range from a simple comment they don’t agree with, to being in a room with too many white straight males.

Students are emotionally affected to the point where they can no longer take being exposed to foreign opinions or ideas, and are driven into a state of panic. To coax them out of it, Universities have applied a patch job instead of a cure by treating these students like children. They are simply removing them from the situation rather than having them face it like adults and become more resilient to emotional and illogical responses.

Users of these “hugboxes” are in no way prepared for their future outside of university, where one can’t take a timeout in a business meeting when their ideas are shot down.


2. Affirmative Consent laws

California and more recently New York have adopted “yes means yes” and “affirmative consent” policies. These mandatory procedures on campuses exist to regulate sex and ensure that fully grown adults understand what the definition of consent is.

With the progressive redefinition of the word “consent” people are having issues understanding what it means as well as with being falsely accused of rape and lacking the evidence to prove their innocence. In response to this epidemic, many universities across Canada and the U.S are introducing “consent kits” equipped with consent forms, pens, and condoms. Apparently university students are so socially challenged that they have no idea when someone wants to have sexual relations with them or even when they themselves have consented said relations. These kits have reduced students to the social level of children who cannot handle the responsibility of impromptu kisses or romantic spontaneity. They now have to have a signed piece of paper, a breathalyzer test and picture that they can present to their trusted adult figures at the University to ensure they don’t get falsely accused of rape. The policies also advocate for a guilty until proven innocent judgement of the accused, therefore forcing students to buy into this ridiculous form of consent.


3. Campus Protests

Adult temper tantrums, that’s all they are. Radical students gather by the hundreds outside academic buildings and campus speaking halls with poster boards and raised voices that either achieve nothing, prevent intelligent debate, destroy the life of a falsely accused individual or someone who made a bad joke.

The ridiculous protests at Dalhousie University screaming for the expulsion of dental students who made inappropriate jokes on Facebook are a perfect example of this. Mattress girl at Columbia university takes it to a whole new level with her ridiculous display of dragging a mattress around campus to protest a student’s continued existence at the university. A student whom she falsely accused of rape, and now demands retribution. You’ll find it is exceedingly difficult to attend a worthwhile campus protest as they are so few and far between nowadays. The ones you’re more likely to encounter revolve around notions of patriarchy, bad jokes, perceived racism and nipples.


4. Post modern art & writing

When a child brings acanvas covered in scribbles to their parent, they stick it on the fridge, Instagram it and get excited if there is something that remotely resembles anything other than spaghetti. As that child gets older, if their art doesn’t progress with their age, they usually give it up or their parents hide their liger doodles in a drawer.

Art doesn’t have to be perfect; it could literally just be a wash of colors and still be appealing. Nowadays, however, people are abandoning the most conventionally appealing aspects of art simply for the sake of being edgy and counter-culture. I imagine their thought processes were something along the lines of “you know what? Fuck hygiene. I’m painting this with my menstrual blood, and if you don’t like it you’re sexist, because this embodies the oppression of women.”

And that’s literally what they’ve done – now all bodily fluids are fair game. These students are applauded by their art departments, teachers and fellow students for their “ingenuity.”

This goes for writing as well, in my first academic writing class we were introduced to a poet by the name of Bill Bissett. A man who deliberately spells things wrong – his writing appears to be that of an elementary school student if not simply word vomit. Visit his website if you dare.


5. Teaching fantasy as fact

Rape Culture? The wage gap? Despite the wage gap being excessively debunked, professors continue to valiantly defend its existence. It’s easy enough to point at a horse and call it a unicorn if you ignore the absence of a magical horn. Similarly, the wage disparity is attributed to sexism when you ignore differences in time worked, positions filled, degrees earned or any other factors that are relevant to the equation. Young students living in the western world with no overarching social problems eat up their professors’ extreme narratives without question as they search for their generation’s imaginary civil rights movement. Rape culture, white privilege and other exaggerated terms are taught as fact, not as an idea to entertain or debate. This will inevitably make for a bunch of graduates who believe in the intellectual versions of dragons and unicorns.

This combination of utter nonsense has created the largest entitlement and victim complexes on earth. What universities are stuck dealing with is a bunch of infantilized adults who are running around regurgitating the exact views of their professors, bleeding on canvases, hiding in safe spaces when faced with opposing opinions and arranging petitions to remove people who make jokes they don’t like. It really is the reincarnation of some of the worst traits most of us grew out of as kids.

If universities continue to encourage this behavior, we’re going to have to introduce nap time and friendship circles to keep pace with regression of our future adults minds."

Sloterdijk, Pete wrote:

Successive generations that follow a trend toward domestication are not governed by the normal evolutionary pressure of a purely natural environment. They benefit from a special climate that has been created half naturally and half culturally, in which it is not necessarily those who are optimally adapted for external nature who survive but rather the specimens that do well in internal conditions: these are the living beings who distinguish themselves by their exceptional agility, their increased capacity to learn, their engaging sociability, and, finally, by their bioaesthetic advantages. Nest-building creatures, particularly birds, provide a natural-historical prelude to this, but even individual reptiles, such as the well-known Mexican salamander, retain their larval form for the duration of their lives, as do those particular mammals that are able to offer a high standard of nest-security and parental care to their young. In the case of such living organisms, biologists have observed a complex of characteristics that since the late nineteenth century were described by the term ‘neoteny,’ that is, the retention of juvenile features (or were described with the concept‘ paedomorphism’). This includes the trend toward accelerated births, which leads to the emergence of quite immature young, a feature that is inconceivable without the luxury of a secure nest.
These tendencies all come together in Homo sapiens, whose young are characterized by extreme immaturity at their time of birth.
‘Premature birth’ [Frühgeburtlichkeit] among humans, to use.

[What Happened in the Twentieth Century – Towards a Critique of Extremist Reason]