ErnstMuller
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ErnstMuller has not written any posts yet.
ErnstMuller has not written any posts yet.
Maybe I've been a bit unclear. That may be because I'm no native writer of English.
The point I wanted to make was just "Be very, very careful if you start messing with your feelings of hunger." Self inflicted eating disorders are no fun.
(Also, there are a lot of people with eating disorders out there. Knowledge about starving more effective can be harmful to some people.)
And just to make it clear no one in their right state of mind would start taking ECA while being at BMI 18, the bit about my BMI was just anecdotal to make my point clearer. The nonanecdotal knowledge is in the link I provided, and a short search at Pubmed or Google Scholar should unearth more facts about hunger and it's psychic and physical effects.
Messing with your feelings of hunger is seriously dangerous. Starvation leads to a massive biochemical response, among other things a excretion of endorphines, so you can get kicks from hunger. (That seems to be one of the ways anorexia works - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22036318)
So, if you want to test the ECA- theory for yourself, be very, very careful. (I speak as a person with weak feelings of hunger which tends to forget to eat. I constantly battle against my tendency to lose weight, especially if stressed. That's no classical eating disorder - I'm very aware that I'm much to thin (BMI around 18). After approx. 2-3 days of low caloric intake (say, only breakfast and nothing else) hunger goes away completely and is replaced by feelings of euphoria and happiness. I suppose, this could happen to anyone who switches of his feelings of hunger. So, be careful, make and keep a timetable for meals!)
Because it works something like this, in a grossly oversimplified explanation:
Human genes are organized on 23 chromosomes, 2 complete sets of them, so 46 in all, with 50% being redundant. Your DNA is fragmented in 46 stripes of neatly ordered DNA.
Information on these two sets of chromosomes aren't identical, just redundant: On one set could for example be the information to make fair hair, on the other the information for brown hair, with the carrier of those genes getting brownish hair.
If a human produces gametes (cells used for reproduction, sperm and eggs), each gamete will get half of the set of chromosomes.
So, to oversimplify even more, your daddy will put one of... (read more)
Then you are suffering strongly from the Bystander-effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
One could translate this effect as "the warm fuzzy feeling that there are enough people around which will do the job and oneself doesn't need to bother".
The effect is very strong. So, adjust your thoughts: The barbarians will kill you either way. There aren't enough people which care, so you yourself have to rise to do something. (That also applies to everyday life: If you want something done, especially in a busy and people-rich environment, do it yourself.)
The point of banned goods is not that they are banned because of the hazards for the people alone who buy them but for everyone else also. Sulphuric acid for example is easily usable as a weapon especially in concentrated form. (It grows very hot if it touches water. And it is very acidic. So, by using a simple acid proof squirt gun one can do serious damage.)
And, that's not really all: Suppose I could go into such a shop, proof that I'm sufficiently intelligent to handle dangerous stuff without being a danger for myself and buy a) a PCR machine b) a flu virus genome sequence c) a HIV genome sequence d) some assorted chemicals e) some literature... (read more)
You write "The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death."
Is there any evidence for that? That sounds much like the typical sort of sociobiologistic hypothesis which sounds so convincing that no one really thinks about it and just nods in agreement. So, are there any papers, experiments, mathematical models to back it up?
I would rather more suggest a hypothesis that it was (and is) very favorable for humans in terms of fitness to belong to a certain group of people and stick to that group - whether that group is a sports team, a class at school or a political party.
Well, I wouldn't dare to disagree with the rest of your article. Just that choosing of a political party has nothing to do with actual politics, just with sticking to a group.
In their search for "true beliefs" they would quickly discover that there is no such thing as "actually true" but that science deals in more and more viable models. So, they would abandon their search for "truth" and would go onward to the search for better and better fitting models. (See definitions of science ... and, for a philosophical point of view, radical constructivism).
Our senses don't perceive the "real" world. They build a highly refined and effective illusion of complete perception. (See for example the blind spot in the eye, the physiology of color perception, or our sense of hearing.
Likewise, our minds always use simplified models. No one would be able... (read more)