Cactus Bloom Time Again

Renee, Angie, Gabriela and Tanya

Depression and Survival of The Species

Excerpted from Depression Not Adaptation.

Every so often I see the argument that psychological depression is common because it evolved for a purpose. Usually the idea is that depressive symptoms bring social benefits to the sufferer, as "honest signals" of mental hardship. Less commonly, I see other hypotheses, such as the idea that depression gives people a "breather" to work out their problems. I don't think any of these are convincing, because they don't demonstrate the fitness advantages of the behavior.

Why do deer freeze in your headlights? I think human depression represents the same sort of frozen decision making, future shock, if you will, sensory overload, if you prefer. That humans have a high degree of awareness of their circumstances lends overload to become a form of incapacity, a depression.

And, to answer the question presented in the article.....

The evolutionary calculus for depression—as for any psychological “adaptation”—demands an answer to this question: how does that condition affect your expected number of offspring?

...well, that question has as many answers as there are grains of sand; or least as many answers as there, have and will be people.

Man At The Expense Of The Canary And The Drosophila

It is a rarity here, but someone found me and left a comment. A compliment even.

The commentator's name is foreign to me, so I used Google translator to get the English version, Xiaobo, (pronounced sho' bo').

Thank you Xiaobo. 谢谢晓波。

Xiaobo's blog, again titled in what I believe to be Chinese, translated to; Read Love Stories. Which I immediately assumed meant it is a porn site. But, further investigation reveals that it is not like that. Though, it took a while to discern that it isn't, and the first blog post title I translated came back as, "Man at the expense of the canary and the Drosophila", (the picture above is stolen from that article, my apologies if that offends). Curious, I translated the text of the post and discovered that it is about the destructive use of creatures by man for man's safety in contradiction to the teachings of Buddha. According to the Buddha, all creatures are equal, so using a canary to detect mine safety puts man's interests above the canaries interests. Drosophila are fruit flies, and are sometimes used to detect toxins on vegetables, same dilemma.

But, I didn't know any of this when I googled for "canary and the Drosophila" and at the head of the list was an article entitled, Evolving Sexual Tensions. At that point, my suspicions were mildly reinforced, but the article is scientific not prurient and actually an interesting read.

So the experience as a whole can be summed up this way.

Never assume, and if you do assume the worst, then be prepared to enjoy being wrong.

Which Google translates to Chinese as: 永远不要假设，如果你做最坏的假设，然后准备享受自己的错误。

38th Juxtaposed To The US/Mexican Border

It occurred to me the other day that the chronic ineffectiveness of the United States government to control its southern border has a chance to force the US citizens to demand that their southern border be militarized as a last-ditch effort to end the infiltration from Mexico. The model for the most drastic militarization would be the 38th Parallel which separates North and South Korea. I wonder, will Washington allow it to get so bad on the border that our grand history of no militarized borders must come to an end? Will the incursion from the south eventually lead to a DMZ along our entire southern border?

It is the worst case scenario, other than maintaining the status quo with its dysfunctional allowance for cross border trespass that is.

Links-

fmso

Wiki on 38th

Wiki on Mexican Cession

PBS on 38th

Things To Ponder

Interesting idea; man today tells me he would like to create a video war game wherein the rules are exactly the same as the rules of engagement for our troops in combat. His premise; that game can not be won. His theory; if all of the kids were made to play the game, the rules of combat would be changed due to the then popular understanding that they are ridiculous.

I replied, as my way of sounding approval, "it should be a required course in school, and no one should graduate until they win at the game. When nobody graduates the insanity of the rules would be proven".

RR Continuing Success; Readership NonExistant

Our unstated goal to avoid having following at this site is being achieved without notice. Hooray for RR, we are still unknown.

Undocumented Phoenix Pro BB Player Calls Laura

He talks funny, can't really belong in Arizona!

Really, right on point Keith, now good luck getting the AULU (American Undocumented Liberation Union) to back you though.