High Cost of Luxury Beliefs, Emotionality, Fighting Ability
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High Cost of Luxury Beliefs, Emotionality, Fighting Ability
Podcast + links and recommendations
I recently spoke with Peter Boghossian on his show:
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From the archives:
Exploring the personality traits and academic priorities of college professors:
Links and recommendations:
My friend Dr. Johannes Niederhauser is a German philosopher who offers superb online courses and lectures. I’m currently listening to his course on Heidegger’s Being and Time. Strongly recommended.
Negative Emotionality and Neuroticism From Childhood Through Adulthood by Rebecca Shiner
Are we prepared for the end of obesity? by Theodore Dalrymple
Attention, Rage, and the Artist as the Supreme Being by Chris Jesu Lee
Personal and professional reflections on the power of an evolutionary perspective by Dr Silva Vartukapteine
Complex Systems Won’t Survive the Competence Crisis by Harold Robertson
Was the sexual revolution a government psy-op? by Matthew Crawford
Follow me on Instagram here. The platform is less volatile and more chill than Twitter, so I post some spicier excerpts from my readings on my IG stories
Three interesting findings:
1. Study of 475 mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters found that lower voice pitch was associated with greater fighting ability. The researchers conclude that “Men’s voices appear to provide information about differences in men’s threat potential.” (source).
2. In Germany, Protestants work 3-4 more hours per week than Catholics (controlling for age, sex, education, marital status, and number of children). Both groups earn the same wage on average, but Protestants make more money because they work more hours. (source).
3. From 2007 to 2016, total hours per day spent sitting increased among adults aged 20 to 64 from 5.5 hours per day to 6.5 hours per day. Among adolescents, it increased from 7 hours per day to 8.2 hours per day. (source).
High Cost of Luxury Beliefs, Emotionality, Fighting Ability
Theodore Dalrymple's red corner versus blue corner was interesting, and does indeed match how the online arguers divide, though I don't know about the population as a whole. There is a gradual increase in obesity throughout the 1900s - about what you would expect from improved economic conditions - until 1980, when it quite suddenly starts increasing, with no evidence that there is a dramatic change in eating or exercise. So we don't know for certain, but everyone seems to make stark declarations, cherry-picking their data to fit their theory. Seed oils have some evidence, but there are holes in the full argument; exposure to lithium might have something to do with it; vague and undefined references to food being ultra-processed has its adherents. There are plenty of nominees, and of course plenty who insist it's just calories in, calories out, because dammit, that's what it SHOULD be if the world was rational.
Whatever the cause is, until recently the only treatment was reducing calories and increasing exercise, so that group did have that going for it: evidence on the losing side if not the gaining side. But now we may not need to know the answer, or at least not worry about finding it fast. We may fix the problem without quite knowing how (which happens in medicine sometimes). We can figure it out later.
I will be posting the psy-ops article and commenting on it, BTW. I thought it was fevered and exaggerated at first, but he makes a good case. Some weaknesses, but overall quite good.
Rob, when we lived in Scotland two decades ago we were exposed to their concept that it "didn't matter if you are an atheist, the important thing is are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist? "
Protestant vs. Catholic were labels for cultural groups as much or more as for religious behaviors per se.
Did that German study refer to those practicing those religions or was it a cultural signifier? This is an interesting point on its own but also relevant as none of the modern Germans I know practice any religion...