Recent content by Philosoraptor

My vote goes to the peso. Mexico's good for the money.

The Germans (as usual) led the pack in inventiveness, but certainly not in pragmatism. Off the top of my head, I can recall that they rolled out the first assault rifle during the war, the StG44: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG44] This is, of course, a very important development. From what...

Don't forget the 2000 years.

The big number, though, is the roughly 2.3 million Americans behind bars--that's right, 2.3 million. Unfortunately, many of them are mentally ill, handicapped, etc. More still are locked up because of minor drug crimes.

I'm in the middle of Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror," which is a narrative history of the 14th century, and it is excellent. A fantastic read, and a horrifyingly fascinating period in history! Highly recommended.

Bartleby is a fantastic story, but I have yet to read anything more by Melville. For a literature major, that's pretty bad!

I like how she tries to wipe the notes off on her leg while speaking, too.

Haha thank you! I can't claim credit for the pun (a friend of mine thought it up) but it's way too good to pass up. And truly, the lament of Ecclesiastes is fitting: "Vanitas vanitatum." Thanks for the link to the story, it is a good one. PBS is wonderful. "Solomon saith: 'There is no new...

I think Arctic cultures are very different. The eastern Siberian and Alaskan peoples are quite similar, for the reasons I mentioned above, but going around the globe you get as much difference as I imagine you'd find in civilizations around any given latitude. The ancient Egyptians and Aztecs...

If that's true, then, how do you maintain a stable society? How do you keep defectors in check, or prevent them from taking over the population?

This book, "Achilles in Vietnam" by Jonathan Shay, was recommended to me by one of my Greek professors once: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684813211/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Thanks n!kofeyn, I appreciate the suggestions. I have some familiarity with calculus, but I definitely need to brush up on it and improve it.

So you don't want people who cheat to be punished? You don't want criminals to go to jail? Punishing, as it's usually understood, is meant to prevent people from gaming the system, so to speak. I don't think it's typically understood as a means of thought control.

Maybe the utility lost on each occasion is low, but if this happens frequently enough it starts to add up. I agree that humans display this behavior frequently, and I think part of the key may be in collective punishment, which you mentioned before (eg things like laws, like an actively...

I think that's the key: you have to have punishers. But even then, those individuals are going to lose some fitness by punishing, and others (peaceniks, let's call them) have an incentive to free ride and get all the benefits of the punishers without any of the expenses of being one of them. How...