November 1998 Notebook Entries

November 1998 Notebook Entries

Notebook entry, November 28, 1998

I was reading the November 30th, 98 issue of Business Week and found that we were rewarded with an excellent opportunity to observe the Resource Retention Rule at work. The report begins on page 62 with the title: "Japan, Wanted: a new economic model." The report opens with a bit of cultural information that Japanese society has two faces for the truth. One, is the polite truth and the other, the public truth. The polite truth is the version of reality that one presents to intimates and friends, and the public truth is the version of reality that is presented to strangers. There is no violation of honor if one acknowledges the truth in private amongst decision makers of equal rank. In this particular instance, the story is about the truth of Japan's banking executives' version of reality. The new Prime Minister, Keizo Obuchi, who is under tremendous pressure to solve Japan's worst recession since the end of W.W.II, started to tap into the private network of the bank executives and found out the private, alarming truth: that the original "truthful" estimate of $600 billion in problem loans presented to the public, was, in reality, approaching $1 Trillion. In the interim, the Japanese have begun to find out nasty truths about their system. This is quite a change, since not too long ago, the Japanese would not even acknowledge that their system was flawed.

What is going on here is this: This system, that created these enormous piles of bad loans can be broken down into a simple fact: That the banking system of Japan is nothing more than groups of patriarchal oligarchies. In simple terms, they are run by AMG's (all male groups) to the exclusive benefit of their inner groups. In the aggregate, we have a system that is rich, powerful, and comfortable -- and it simply does not want to give up the advantage that such a social, business, and gender alliance has provided. As Mel Brooks, the Hollywood movie producer tells us in the movie, History of the World, Part I: "It's good to be the King." It is good to have the advantage of all of these resources at your beck and call, and the reluctance to change is simply what I have labeled The Resource Retention Rule. The Japanese inner circle can not see the advantage of breaking up the alliances, and all efforts will be made to resist change. Change, if it does come, will surface when the majority of the people realize the truth, and change the system through legal legislative processes. The process that is now occurring with the people is the possible fear that things could get worse, and blame that is now being labeled to these inner banking groups for any misfortunes can be attributed to what I call The Resource Differential Tolerance Ratio Theory. You can read more about both theories with my Capitalism & Communism essay.

But the bottom line is this: These patriarchal oligarchies retain the advantages of their world and do not want to adapt to the changing environment that swirls around them. What is happening, is that Japan is suffering from, what I would call, Isolated Organism Adaptation Fatigue. Simply: failure to change to adaptations of the changing environment, the organism is not willing, or incapable of change. It is a Top Dog that is lying on the porch, too fat and comfortable to get up and chase after new opportunities and challenges. The end result if no change occurs? -- the organism will die or be overtaken by new organisms that have adapted to the changes in the economic environments. Being overtaken in this case would mean outside international competition that have adapted and changed to new technological changes and financial reforms. Does Japan place barriers within Japan to keep out competition and stalls at every effort at banking deregulation?

The key is this: Mating with diversity produces more variants, which produces greater ability to adapt to environmental changes. Isolate and discriminate, and an organism find itself with limited strength for a period of time, but eventually will be swept away by those economics organisms that have changed.

2nd Item: Same Business Week issue, only on page 30j. "A Medieval Work Ethic That Still Works." Report by Inka Resch on the French medieval craft guild of the Compagnons. Once again, we find a patriarchal oligarchy which isolates itself. It can survive, but can you see that it requires support from higher alliances of other organizations? It is also an excellent example of a AMG that has formed for the perpetuation of economics, rituals, and secret ceremonies which assists the male gender exclusively and helps to pass one's genes.

Notebook entry, November 26, 1998

Interested notation: today is the one-year anniversary of this notebook entry-turned journal. Time flies when you are having fun. It is also Thanksgiving Holiday in America. Today is the day that our culture gives thanks to which give our lives true meaning and happiness. I am most thankful that I have this opportunity and ability to place this web site at this location and make it available to all who wish to visit.

2nd item: Newswire report from Associated Press with byline of Joseph B. Verrengia. A report on a study done in the newly released journal Nature indicates that scientists have found what they believe to be a vault of last-ditch genetic variations that kick in to help organisms survive when outside environments take dramatic turns for the worst. The researchers noted that the genetic variation that were held back in reserve depended on a protein called Heat shock protein 90. The findings defy the orderly, incremental, and predictable pace of "normal" evolution. Working with fruit flies, researchers at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Chicago fooled the fruit fries into thinking that the climate change was real, and that within the span of just a few generations, weird variations -- from strange limbs to different wings erupted to supposedly adapt to the new environmental changes. Researches cautioned that this study was done under controlled experiments, but does lend strong credence to the theory of punctuated equilibrium originated by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould and others who have suggested the evolution is a very messy business driven by random disasters along with "normal" incremental evolution.

This goes along with my speculated muse about NASA astronauts in extended micorgravity environments. See my Notebook Entry from Jan. 13, 1997. You can read it at my earlier notebook entry pages at: http://www.evoyage.com/notebook_entries2.htm

Notebook entry, November 19, 1998

Lunch with my editor, John Martin. Went to the new downtown Pavilions in Denver and the place was packed. Denver has grown up and it is now a very sophisticated city. We walked around for almost a half hour before finding some obscure food court with very bland food. Next time, I'll make reservations. Got John caught up with what I was doing this past year in terms of the web site and background information on the poster development and mail campaign for next year. We discussed plans for working closely on my writing THE BOOK. Also discussed were various methods of marketing same.

Notebook entry, November 11, 1998

Today is my birthday, (my 53rd), which falls on Veteran's Day. If you don't have the day off, I hereby give you permission to do so. Will be having lunch in Evergreen with Al and Joanne Greenberg, long-time friends of my wife, Diana.

I also just finished the revised edition to the Evolutionary Christmas Tale: Musing about DNA and Ebenezer Scrooge and put it up for the holiday season. I think that Charles Dickens wrote it best: "We choose this time because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices..." You can go directly to the muse at: Christmas Tale

Notebook entry, November 10, 1998

A few days ago I read a distruping newswire report from the Associated Press, dateline Ogden Utah. It seems that some landlords are working hand-to-hand with local police to use criminal records to help apartment complexs keep out those people with past offenses. Of course no laws are being broken and where the cooperation has taken place, there has been a reduction in crime. But at what price? The ordinances require tenants to agree that they have no criminal records and also agree to an annual home inspection by police, fire and health officals.

As an person who views human behavior through an evolutionary perspective, these actions are nothing more than primative mechanisms to control territory in favor of the ruling cultural heirarchy. It is nothing more than giving these people no other option but to leave the city, or even worse, to leave the state and go burden some other state agencies.

Notebook entry, November 6, 1998

Major story in the New York Times by Nicholas Wade that scientists have unlocked the mystery of the primordial human cells from which we individuals are created. It is basically finding way the trailhead of where all human live begins. The most promising use of the research is to grow new tissue that can be used for transplants and organ replacement. The studies were done under the team of Dr. James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and the other by Dr. John Gearhart at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

We are developing the science, but do we have the ethics to truly proceed forward?

Notebook entry, November 5, 1998

An even bigger story was splashed over the evening news and in every major daily: Thomas Jefferson did it. It has been confirmed by DNA testing of the male line of Jefferson's family tree that he did have a sexual relationship with one his slaves, Sally Hemings. The study was headed by the retired pathologist Eugene Foster and was published in this week edition of the journal Nature.

I feel that Jefferson place in history is secure as the author of the famous line "...all men all created equal." That's is true. But science once again reveals the truth that has been covered over by The Resource Retention Rule of historians and pundits alike. We will survive as a nation, and be ever stronger than before. Now if we could just get the creation scientists to look themselves in the mirror and admit to themselves that they standing in the way of truth in order to retain the advantage of their resources that their position brings them. We will survive and be ever stronger as we learn the universal behaviors that dwell within us all.

Notebook entry, November 4, 1998

The mid-term elections are over and there was one surprise in the Minnesota governor's race that seem to have the political pundits scratching their heads in puzzlement. Jesse (The Body) Ventura, a formal Navy Seal and professional wrestler won the race by running as an independent. Well, we in the evolutionary community have the answer. Jesse is a "Big Man" which is the word for "leader" in most primitive societies. To quote from Steven Pinker's book, How The Mind Works, W.W. Norton, 1997: "...in fact the leaders usually are big men. In the United States, taller men are hired more, are promoted more, earn more ($600 per inch in annual salary), and are elected president more: the taller candidate won twenty of the twenty-four elections between 1904 and 1996." P. 495,6. Steven is professor of psychology and director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jesse Ventura and other men similar in large stature, fit, what some of us in the evolutionary community call the Marlboro Man Complex: Tall, physically dominating, plain speakers of folk wisdom and sharp of tongue. Amongst those with this profile: John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, Jackie Cooper, Robert Mitchum and Jimmie Stewart. Big men who lead us to victory in war; lead us out of the wilderness of confusion and chaos from our primal past, and their presence still dominates our political process. Not for much longer because the secret is out.