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Showing posts from November, 2016

The plot thickens (with Herbert Spencer)

In a paper attempting to outline the conceptual domain of comparative psychology , Herbert Spencer discusses the quality of impulsiveness in relation with human races (bearded and unbearded). Among his "sundry questions of interests" about the relationship between mental energy, evolution, complexity, etc. are the following notes: ( b ) What connection is there between this trait and the social state? Clearly a very explosive nature - such as that of the Bushman - is unfit for social; and, commonly, social union, when by any means established, checks impulsiveness. ( c ) What respective shares in checking impulsiveness are taken by the feelings which the social state fosters - such as the fear of surrounding individuals, the instinct of sociality , the desire to accumulate property, the sympathetic feelings , the sentiment of justice? These, which require a social environment for their development, all of them involve imaginations of consequences more or less distant; and th

"the coral gardens are losing their magic"

A few quotes from these slides by Gunter Senft. because yams and taro plants, especially seedlings rot away in a soil much too wet and now often even swampy. food shortage in 2008 ... made Trobrianders eat up many of their yams seedlings which in turn resulted in an even worse food shortage problem in 2009  “Population of PNG is more than 7 million“ ≈ threefold increase in 40 years!