Despite the hat and chin music, or maybe because of the hat and chin music, I love this guy. He's Robert Trivers, the author of several nice models of mother nature, blind altruist. And in addition to these landmarks in the advent of the goo-goo apes, doc Trivers also has some nice stuff to say about the sprinkle of really keen self-deceivers among us.
A delight in self-deceivers of the charismatically-doomed variety has traveled close to my heart ever since aquainting myself with Ahab, that mad manic visionary vengeful skipper, and his chosen cetacean.
See, there's no question, no question whatsoever, about the power of self-deception as Trivers demonstrates with analytic clarity. Among other things, it's the key to leadership on Wall Street, and here's not a bad application of this Trivers theorem to the recent credit market dust up.
"Between a CEO who is consciously trying to maximise the free lunch and a CEO who genuinely believes that a highly levered balance sheet of “safe” assets is the best strategy, who is likely to be more convincing to his shareholders and regulator? Bob Trivers’ work shows that it is the latter. Bankers who drink their own Kool-Aid are more likely to convince their bosses, shareholders or regulators that there is nothing to worry about. Given a sufficiently strong selective mechanism...it is inevitable that such bankers would end up being the norm rather than the exception. The real deviation from the moral hazard explanation would be if it were any other way!"Ahh, self-igniting and soaring on your own fumes -- now that's the vida loca supreme, mates! And if you can bring a herd of lawless resolutes along, nearly as crazed as yourself -- so much the better. Numbers make for a far more sublime and resonantly catastrophic finale. I cherish that suddden burst of full realization of his folly. As the horn of doom sounds in the background, the CEO, coat hurled to the side, charges toward a buy option: "If this is it -- if this is the big one, boys -- I'm goin' down fully vested!"
Comments (36)
A sociobiologist, Owen? A guy who wrote a preface for Dick "the Dick" Dawkins? Ugh.
(Needless to say, the headline represents an editorial Bronx cheer.)
Posted by MJS | March 29, 2010 11:58 PM
Posted on March 29, 2010 23:58
Owen, I believe Trivers' findings add strength to the work of Sir Caractacus Potts, the British philosopher, whose seminal work, "Confabulation: The Flattery of Evolution", influenced Margaret Thatcher, now naturally selected into the peerage as Dame Thatcher. Under her guidance, the British phenotype was molded and shaped by the expression of a successful genotype that quite by accident utterly crushed labor.
Posted by Al Schumann | March 30, 2010 1:17 AM
Posted on March 30, 2010 01:17
u two are just jealous of his hat
--as to socio biology ??
why not
in the right hands
i see a brave new world for us !!--
Posted by op | March 30, 2010 9:16 AM
Posted on March 30, 2010 09:16
I am jealous of the hat. Hats were a factor in the evolution of the Schumannites, from which tribe I proudly claim descent by way of the usual conjugal mishaps, deceptions, outright fraudulent representations and what not. Were it not for hats, the ÜrSchumanns would not have been able to walk dogs in bad weather. If we hadn't walked dogs, weather conditions be damned, none of us would have met and nature would not have followed its course, however influenced it may be by the usual conjugal mishaps, deceptions, outright fraudulent representations and what not.
I, too, see a brave new world. With hats.
Posted by Al Schumann | March 30, 2010 10:39 AM
Posted on March 30, 2010 10:39
I sense a "studies" kerfuffle gathering near the horizon.
Posted by Boink | March 30, 2010 11:23 AM
Posted on March 30, 2010 11:23
Bring it on. I'm loaded for bear on this one.
Posted by MJS | March 30, 2010 11:49 AM
Posted on March 30, 2010 11:49
bear ??
more like army ants no ??
Posted by op | March 30, 2010 12:03 PM
Posted on March 30, 2010 12:03
the confabulatory ambulators
of alpha shumax major
selection pressure
-- for naked spencerians
like my darling Maggie --
serves the same "function"
as cotradiction for hegelians
the all purpose houdini gambit
http://www.redmolotov.com/images/designs/thatcherrevolutionary_design.jpg
Posted by op | March 30, 2010 12:17 PM
Posted on March 30, 2010 12:17
Boink, I hope I can provoke a kerfuffle. I'll start off by expressing my bitter disappointment in socio-biology. I had high hopes for it. How cool would it be if Science supported and enforced the outcome I find most pleasing? Very cool, that's how cool, and even cooler if that meant I was destined to own a walk-in closet full of hats.
Alas, socio-biology -- even in the best hands, such as Trivers' -- turned out to be one post hoc after every ergo propter hoc.
Posted by Al Schumann | March 30, 2010 2:19 PM
Posted on March 30, 2010 14:19
kerfuffle ??
i always thought it was kerfluffle
but i'm gayly dislexic
as to soc-bio and wilsons termites
what up wid dat ???
mjs might have a soft spot for
this chap
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lewontin
which i fail to share
hey anyone who puts Godthe designer
in his proper place
gets my vote
no matter how far off or below she is
His proper place ???
http://wendyusuallywanders.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/dumpsters.jpg
Posted by op | March 30, 2010 4:10 PM
Posted on March 30, 2010 16:10
in my youth
i was wont to say
"who's afraid of genetic determinism
if they determine us we now can change them "
its a custer's last stand of pinko humanism
that something is both incomplete and grosslt mis used
hardly makes it a threat in and of itself
a batch of genes
as strict father or mother to the hu- brain
bah humbug
much like homo economicus
its a delightful voodoo doll
btw b4 typing this
i just put a lethal looking hat pin
in my little "herr boinker" doll
http://www.seomagic-usa.com/catalog/images/SVD-001.JPG
while snickering
"kerfuffle this"
Posted by op | March 30, 2010 4:38 PM
Posted on March 30, 2010 16:38
Al
provoke who ???
this guy ???
http://www.complete80s.com/media/mr-potato-head.gif
i'd watch my step here
the sour old puss head
has a wicked left hook
Posted by op | March 30, 2010 4:42 PM
Posted on March 30, 2010 16:42
and super Guy
if try any of that brooklyn latin of yours
on him
why .... you'll get your hoc knocked back into your ergo with a post ..and nice and propter too
Posted by op | March 30, 2010 4:46 PM
Posted on March 30, 2010 16:46
op, aren't you just frustrated that you couldn't find an orthodontist sufficiently skilled to straighten out your typing tooth, leaving you to grapple perpetually with the embarrassment of your then-for-than substitution.
Posted by Boink | March 30, 2010 5:24 PM
Posted on March 30, 2010 17:24
then again
i'd rather the crooked tooth
than the dulled claw
Posted by op | March 31, 2010 7:14 AM
Posted on March 31, 2010 07:14
Owen, that's just the thing. In practice, socio-biology replaces God the Designer with a series of above the fray critics who are just calling them like they see them. Invariably this means that anyone who disagrees with the critics' revealed truth, or steps too far outside the received proprieties, does so because he's:
• suffering evolutionary maladaptations
• attempting to procreate
• driven by the bad cess of frustrated procreative impulses
• predestined to be part of the tazerable class
• acting under the influence of inappropriate genotypes
It all looks awfully familiar to me, the half-hearted admonitions against brutality notwithstanding.
Posted by Al Schumann | March 31, 2010 7:56 AM
Posted on March 31, 2010 07:56
that something is used by black hats only makes it potentially nasty and lethal
not
untrue
as i wrote
i don't even hope it ain't true
cause we can now design our own genes
take this old chestnut wok of a cook up
john adams vs jefferson
mr A: born equally free of the state
versus
mr J : born equal in the eyes of the state
neither matter to me because we had no such ethical maker
we are born haplessly enough
with what genes we have in what social historical context we find
not by choice but by accident
any nice 18th century oughts posing as isin's
not withstanding
i'm a hobbes guy
without the belief you can square the circle
or that the inability to square the circle is a flaw in .....reality
Posted by op | March 31, 2010 8:03 AM
Posted on March 31, 2010 08:03
vide poor old hobbes
--crypto humanist --
battling platonic wallis
over then still undiscovered
transcendality of pi
then again who created pi ???
the maze ahh the maze of it all
"ruggles bring me my hegel "
Posted by op | March 31, 2010 8:07 AM
Posted on March 31, 2010 08:07
the necessary existence of a higher decider /chooser
is not required
for an ethical system to exist
or retain its self referential
contradictional validity
even if there is no discoverable
absolute morality as a result
of the absence of this necessary existent
big E existent that is
kinda
"no more MR E "
the god of spelling btw hates me
fuck him the nasty buggar
he must not get laid much
Posted by op | March 31, 2010 8:13 AM
Posted on March 31, 2010 08:13
after all as engels
that most
innocently clear of thinkers
sez .....somewhere
the necessary in the last analysis
is an accident
and the accidental a necessity
Posted by op | March 31, 2010 8:17 AM
Posted on March 31, 2010 08:17
lewontin
strikes me as sharing your insight and that motivates his harrum scarrum
assault on poor darwinated mendelian
red neck positivists like e o wilson
kool it lou
the enlightenment soul is not
on a trip to some mendelian iron lady
after all
"i ammmm mendel " as the boss sez
and she has the chops and tenure
to let us free ourselves
even from that pious totalitarian creep mendel
Posted by op | March 31, 2010 8:22 AM
Posted on March 31, 2010 08:22
Owen, this something that's being used by black hats is not science. Socio-biology parasitizes biology through cherry-picking, offers pat justifications and hedges the cruelty of them with admonitions to decency. Gene modification is a separate thing and as sciences go it's in early days yet.
Posted by Al Schumann | March 31, 2010 8:23 AM
Posted on March 31, 2010 08:23
"design our own genes"
I would say that if 'designing our own genes' permits an escape from genetic determinism, then we have already escaped. Or determinism is not what it seems. 1,2,3,many determinisms.
Curious tidbit: My mac auto spell checker accepts "determinism" but flags the plural as misspelled. You wouldn't want to argue this stuff with Cupertino, would you?
I know nothing about this topic.
Posted by Flak | March 31, 2010 9:45 AM
Posted on March 31, 2010 09:45
"I know nothing about this topic"
Al does
and considers socio bio to fall into the same category as the efficient market hype
i have no reason to doubt him on this
i take this point a yet another bout
between "mechanism "
and the dialectic of reality
in this case the genesis of a human brain
and its life products
that's the part where
our conflicted teams
of political guardians come in at least
the rest of the human genome
is for hollywood and the nfl elite
to sort thru
by whatever spurious ad hoc wives tales
superstitious categories
and other vailed coin tosses
the elite gauntlets might use
to filter mass millions into elite hundreds
Posted by op | March 31, 2010 11:58 AM
Posted on March 31, 2010 11:58
Ahh Owen, but you overlook the role of genetic determinsm qua general ideology, wenn sie lastet wie ein Alp auf dem Gehirne der Millionen. There is where it's truly vicious. And from a purely subjective point of view I hate the way it bolsters the merito-lotto winners' smugness.
Posted by MJS | March 31, 2010 12:07 PM
Posted on March 31, 2010 12:07
Long ages ago I became an utter "determinist". Everything of now and of future for me was "determined" by a distant past. And if for me for everyone. Then the lunch hour approached and I someone handed me a menu. I was helpless before the entrees. What did "determinism" recommend? Huevos rancheros? (sp?) Chicken fried steak? Time to revise!
Posted by Flak | March 31, 2010 1:13 PM
Posted on March 31, 2010 13:13
"wenn sie lastet wie ein Alp auf dem Gehirne der Millionen"
where is the Hitchcockian suspense in that?
wenn sie wie ein Alp auf dem Gehirne der Millionen ....warte nur ..... warte nur .... lastet!
Posted by Anon | March 31, 2010 8:33 PM
Posted on March 31, 2010 20:33
Anon, you're a brave man to improve on Marx's German.
Posted by MJS | March 31, 2010 9:13 PM
Posted on March 31, 2010 21:13
Marx didn't frame that sentiment in a subordinate clause.
Posted by Anon | March 31, 2010 9:17 PM
Posted on March 31, 2010 21:17
Indeed, indeed, right you are. I fear my veneration for the old boy's ipsissima verba led me into the paths of syntactic wickedness.
Posted by MJS | March 31, 2010 9:24 PM
Posted on March 31, 2010 21:24
"Die Tradition aller toten Geschlechter lastet wie ein Alp auf dem Gehirne der Lebenden. Und wenn sie eben damit beschaftigt scheinen, ... usw.
is enough to make the point.
Love your blog.
Posted by Anon | March 31, 2010 9:29 PM
Posted on March 31, 2010 21:29
That's a happy and instructive conundrum, Flak. An entire ontology laid waste by, one hopes, a good lunch.
Posted by Al Schumann | March 31, 2010 10:01 PM
Posted on March 31, 2010 22:01
'Tradition ... lastet wie ein Alp ...?
What is an Alp? This guy?
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/767/alpnightmareec6.jpg
Posted by Boink | April 2, 2010 12:07 AM
Posted on April 2, 2010 00:07
That's the guy. German 'Alp', piquantly, is cognate with English 'elf'.
Posted by MJS | April 2, 2010 9:31 AM
Posted on April 2, 2010 09:31
we've been here b4 mates
and my common law son in law
still recalls the blush
however
he has a corking critique of rosa lux under full sail ...
german philogy is an alp others must climb
or is it kill like macbeth killed sleep
Posted by op | April 3, 2010 9:05 AM
Posted on April 3, 2010 09:05
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Posted on May 24, 2012 05:02