Click image for more cuddles …
Experiments with baby apes have shown that they prefer fake furry mothers with no food over fake non-furry mothers (just a bleak wireframe model) that offered food.
So we primates need warmth, closeness and love more than anything else when we are small and vulnerable.
Nature is not just cruel, it also knows the benefit of love.
Everyone has his / her own Christmas movie they like to indulge to get that "happy family feeling".
Strangely Tim Burton’s "Nightmare before Christmas" touches that very nerve perfectly for me: it’s silly, it’s emotional and very funny.
And mixing Halloween and Christmas somehow expresses perfectly our modern approach to the whole affair for me …
But it’s not just the movie that’s so great – it’s soundtrack is brilliant too and feature many great songs from Maestro Danny Elfman:
Click player below to start the great Overture:
Click player below to start Jack singing "What’s this?":
So if you haven’t seen the movie yet – get it on your Christmas list.
When you clone yourself only some of your genes will live on, but these have nothing to do with your personality or achievements.
You will simply die as everybody else no matter how many kids you produce.
Oh, the pain! Oh, the drama! We are uncovering all the lies in your relationship …
| Definition Social Porn: Watching other peoples’ relationships without really having a relationship with them – and mentally participating in their dramas. |
Since the early 80’s there has been a Tsunami of afternoon talk shows filled with social drama and pain.
And we are loving it!
It is amazing how the Queens and Kings of "honesty" and "self righteousness" are police, judge and executioner in one person. Oprah made Billions of Dollars with her tears, Jeremy Kyle currently tries to do the same in the UK.
But the real question is: Why do we frenetically watch and love Social Porn?
Every tear is worth a million dollars …
It all comes down to us being social animals. When you look at many fellow mammals they have social hierarchies like us with different ranks. Everybody knows what an alpha-male or alpha-female is.
But one essential feature of social networking (the real thing, not the simulation on Facebook) is watching other "animals" in the tribe. Watching the "others" allows us to spot opportunities to climb the social ladder, make new friends, know who our enemies are and our enemies’ enemies are.
The most important part of watching others is to learn where you stand in the tribe’s hierarchy and your chances to climb higher or fail …
Yeah, you might be bigger, but my social ranking is higher …
For some animals this is much easier: dogs sniff other dogs arse or even sample their urine or poo – and can analyse from this the status and current health of the fellow canine.
We primates have developed the face as the main social interFACE. Compared to most other animals the primates’ face has the more muscles and expressions than anyone else on this planet. Ape and human faces have an incredible range of "gestures" – which work even across species.
Our faces tell complete stories without words. We can socialize simply by looking at each other. You usually can see in an instant if someone looking at you likes you or hates you; if there is a chance for a better social contact or if that other person might even attack you …
So by watching and gossiping with others about others we learn what’s going on in the group, what the other members strengths and weaknesses are, and which tactics are successful or devastating.
I’ll scratch your back, if you …
Being successful in climbing the social ladder increases our chances of mating and spreading our genes. Yes, Ladies & Gentleman, it all comes down to mating once again …
And watching social porn on TV confirms this: it’s mostly about sex and cheating.
When we watch these dramas, we learn how to "protect" our own social involvement and genetic "investment". Of course we want partners, who are safe for our offspring and support them. We don’t want cheats that are a danger to our sperm or egg investment – and therefore perpetuation of our "selfish gene".
Social Porn on TV is a highly valuable lesson to "spot" cheaters and avoid failures in reproduction.
Wait a minute! Is that critter really mine?!
So watching social porn on TV and gossiping about relationships has an important biological benefit. We learn how to be successful animals and mating mates …
But there is also a strong social and moral component to it. We humans have transformed many "biological mechanisms" into social rules like married people do not engage in sex with strangers. Based on these social rules we have created moral and religious restrictions as well.
"You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife (or husband)." is simply a biological need (protecting your sperm & eggs from invaders) turned into a social and moral rule.
So Social Porn also enforces these "morals" when cheaters and liars get booed by the audience and judged by the presenter. That is why the Ladies in the audience hiss, when a boyfriend cheated on his bitch – it’s a violation of the biological contract of only breeding exclusively together.
This social pressure is once again there to protect our biological investments.
We love watching Alpha-Couples, especially when they are media whores and on twitter.
The biological background also explains why we love watching alpha-animals of the global tribe and their relationships. Like good herd animals we learn from watching the strongest and fittest of our flock.
That is why so many people know more about the life’s of celebrities and their relationships than their neighbours living in the same house. Our biological desire is to swim ahead in the genetic pool and score the most adorable eggs or sperm available. That is why some ladies fantasize about sleeping with Bruce Willies, while Guy virtually impregnate Megan Fox.
That’s Social Porn in it’s most basic form and desire. Women and men do it equally.
Most Westerners waste precious fossil resources by travelling alone in their cars or on their bikes. In developing nations cars, motor bikes and even push bikes are for mass transport.
If you travel alone on a car 95% of the petrol will be wasted to move the car – not to transport you.
If the distance allows it than use public transport or a bike – or a small vehicle with a better weight to passenger ratio.
Westerners should see cars and motorbikes no longer as cool lifestyle choices(for their penis or social status), but as serious tools to be shared with others. The age of unsustainable individual transport has to come to an end.
In the Stone Age of Multimedia there was just one TV, one Radio, one Phone and one Record Player for the whole family.
Today’s multi-channel multimedia families have multiple entertainment and data devices for each family member. Plus everyone has many different online-personalities all over the intranets.
Instead of living and experiencing a "unified family reality" today we spread ourselves over several planes of virtual existence.
So it’s no surprise that so many families are feeling disconnected, hardly share mutual experiences or participate in each other’s lives. They are connected somewhere else with a million strangers …
The Single-Device-Family was certainly less sophisticated, but they actually had more time on their hands. They didn’t need to learn to handle complex devices, configure their computers, VCRs, cell phones, cameras, digicams, Facebook & MySpace pages, update their operating systems …
Their head were less stuffed with following a gazillion TV shows, celebrities, events in remote places, horrors and hysterias unreported or not yet invented.
Less sometimes really is more.
Found a mate? Check.
Found a place? Check.
Start multiplying.
It’s so easy and tempting to follow your basic instincts and societies fool proof models. But is it really you? Are you mostly driven by your biology or your so called personality? Are you perpetuating just the species or do you have a "real life"?
There is a new generation of grandparents in town, who are unwilling to lend a hand to raise the next generation.
Instead they rather cultivate their own love-life or hobbies instead of taking care of the grandkids.
Anyone surprised? Nope. That’s what you get when you mix our modern fun culture, the youth cult, ever increasing longevity and Viagra together.
Old people become as selfish as the young ones, because they don’t depend on them and very strictly follow their own very active lifestyle.
Ah, finally I get it what kids are made for …
I’ll order one for my camera asap from Amazon.
How cares about the religious aspects of Christmas anymore? It’s mostly about the family and gathering together. For most families it’s the only time of the year when they come together and try to be a happy genetic pool.
But Christmas is usually about embarrassment. Each family has a huge selection of tales to tell what went wrong on such occasions. Drunken uncles, trees on fire, kids swallowing toys, etc.
Happy Embarrassment everybody!
In the Age of TV families shared quality moments together in front of the screen. In the Internet Age we sit quietly in our rooms and maybe chat via AIM together. Computer screens don’t provide the same social glue as TV screens.
Several people fighting for the remote control was bad enough – but a consensus could be reached which show to watch for an hour or two. But you can’t have four people controlling a computer and surf different websites at the same time.
TV serves as the radio today – it provides the noise to our life, but it is the computer with it’s highly individualized interaction that grabs our FULL attention.
So our media experience is more and more individualistic – and all these digital toys and gadgets (especially cell phones and instant messaging) keep us “busy” and distracted all the time.
In front of the TV the whole family could switch off – today that switch has been lost. We are always “ON” …
It’s either your favorite heavy breather or your sick mother is crying out for help …
Giving your kids a pet will make them happy and teach them valuable lessons for life. Anyone ever asked those dogs, cats, hamsters, mice or whatever if they want to be abused by ignorant kids so they learn how to treat humans? It is highly unfair to train humans on animals how to behave with other humans.
One of the real differences between men and woman is the maternal instinct. Sure not all girls like to play with dolls and want to be married and humped immediately after they menstruated the first time.
But the female body is built to breeds – as much as the male is made to procreate as well, but in a different way. Woman have to deal with their ‘function’ on a regular monthly basis, while the male sexual ‘function’ just runs more or less maintenance free.
But also the so called biological clock – as much as it is also a social pressure to be a successful breeder – drives woman much more than men.
From that perspective it’s much more work for woman to become ‘neutral’ and free individuals (instead of just being driven by the mating instinct), because they have to deal with their purely biological ‘function’ on a more regular basis.
The Economist has a great special this week about "The End of cheap Food" (essay and an article). Highly recommended.
There are several forces at work:
One is simply demand and supply. For years farmers in Europe have been over subsidized and told to use their lands to overproduce even more food. Now with need these extra capacities back. Since the production of biofuels is so heavily subsidized as well – demand has made it for example more lucrative to sell wheat for fuel production instead of making pasta (here some background on the state of Wheat production worldwide).
Most of all food production is distorted: for decades now poorer countries with an agricultural base had no chance of competing against European and American farmers – because they are heavily subsidized. Sometimes local production has been so damaged by the price difference that they had to close – so these poor countries actually had to import food they could have easily produced themselves.
What we need is curbed up production in all countries, less subsidies and more sensible production. It makes no sense to transport milk from Europe to China. That’s a lot of fuel wasted – fuel which gets more and more expensive.
After the second world war many western nations became more socialist then many people would have admitted at the time. The social welfare of their citizens was very important to European countries – especially in fear of another working class uprising like in the Soviet Union, but also to keep another Hitler from happening.
But in search of social consensus many countries overdid it. Instead of building social societies they build nanny states that would infiltrate people’s life instead allowing them to make a living. In the attempt to bring social peace and equality they took out the vitality of the society itself and strangled any innovation and development within.
Hardly forty years later the welfare states ran out of money – countries like Britain, Sweden and Germany started to cut down on social budgets. Suddenly social welfare became a war against social parasites. Profit was more interesting then social consensus and support.
Welcome to the new old world of total capitalism – with it’s new saints Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher.
Working together – to survive.
In the search of efficiency and ever tighter budgets the main victims of this new spirit were the kids and the educational system. It is a harsh joke that child poverty is on the rise in many western countries. The educational systems in many countries are failing or under siege as well.
Plus the real income of white and blue collar workers in industrialized countries actually has declined in many countries for the last 30 years. The middle class is thinning out in many countries. A new lower class has developed in highly sophisticated countries.
Education is a human right and should be free. The same should be true for health care. A smart, healthy and educated citizen is the most valuable investment for any country. It’s not a question of money, but dedication, moral and priority within a society.
How do you introduce spirituality to kids in a free and open way? The chance of indoctrination instead of education is very big. Too often the voice of (any) god becomes the instrument of parental instructions. How can we show the wonders without destroying them?
In most modern countries birthrates have been going down for decades and divorce rates have been climbing. Can we blame it on evermore egocentric citizens? Or is the economy responsible? We are certainly heading for a more single lifestyle societies – and the old family construct of a ‘breeding contract’ is no longer intact. Many woman just do on their own – being on your own is no longer shunned by society, religion or politics. But also the relationship models are no longer built for eternity. We also live much longer and (have) to change much more within a lifetime. Also our modern speed is killing the social fabric.
The job for life and the family for life ideals are long gone. Birth and divorce rates are simply reflecting this new reality.
But modern societies are still not perfectly adapted for these new ways. Divorce laws are often arcane or favor one side of the equation. Also the patchwork families and unmarried relationships have to be honored better. Not enough big companies offer internal Kindergartens for their employees. There is a lot to be done.
Do you own pictures of dead people? Not just people you knew who have died – but people you never met, but are part of your family’s history? Our fear of death has made us produce great ancestral art, monuments, long chains of memory – to give us some reassurance that not all is lost, because of death.
Our psyche can’t cope with death – therefore we simplify it, try to make it understandable, to trick ourselves into believing that we or our loved ones continue in some way.
