Priomdal villain seeking and oil and food prices

I've been reading about evolutionary psychology lately. The premise of evolutionary psychology, which goes hand-in-hand with the current advances in neuro-biology, is that our brain is composed of cognitive organs which evolved just like other parts of our body, and therefore human behaviors can be explained from an evolutionary perspective.

One of the biases we inherited from our caveman ancestors is the tendency to associate "bad" things in the "society" we live with an external agent. We always look for a villain outside.

Another shortcoming of our brains is that we don't come in terms with mathematical phenomena that do not occur in our everyday lives. Everyone knows the story of the king who was fooled by his clever servant who wanted two times the grain of gold on each tile of a chess board. That is because we never come across exponential grow in our lives, and hence did not evolve a sub-organ for it. As a matter of fact there are some tribes who don't have numbers at all!

Combination of these features may be a reason why the current spikes in the food and oil prices are always associated with speculators. As these two articles argue,

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121486800837317581.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/business/13speculate.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&oref=slogin

the basic supply-demand relations may be the only reason. I would be happy to see more arguments from the other side if you have any.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Balik Hafizali Millet ve Onun Oyunbaz Yöneticileri

Spor'u yakindan takip etmeyenleriniz olabilir. Onun icin olanlari kisaca size özetleyeyim. Galatasaray Basketbol Takimi sezon öncesi Avrupa'ya özel bir turnuvaya gidiyor. Cemal Nalga adli bir oyuncusu 5 mac cezali. Bu turnuvada sahada yer aliyor, ama takim arkadasinin formasiyla oynuyor. Türkiye Basketbol Federasyonuna ise macta oynamamis gibi gosteriliyor. Boylece Cemal Nalga sezona hem hazir giriyor, hem de cezasini cekmekten kurtuluyor. Asagilik bir kurnazlik örnegi. Türkiye'nin en büyük camialarindan birine, kendini Galatasaray Lisesi gelenegine adamis bir camiaya yakismayan, bu yuzden beni cok uzen bir kurnazlik hem de. Galatasaray Klübü kendi icinde hemen cezalari veriyor. Sira Basketbol Federasyonuna geliyor. Disiplin talimatnamesinde ACIK ACIK yaziyor: Basketbol Federasyonunu kandiran takim lig dusurulur. Su an linki bulamiyorum, ama acik acik yaziyor bu. Eyyamci Federasyon ne yapiyor? Lig dusurmuyor, ama lig dusurmeye es deger bir ceza veriyor. Cemal Nalga'nin
Read more

Failed Training Day or Previously on Battlestar Galactica

Things started out bad right from the start. I missed the bus, which cost me 20 minutes under the rain. Then I went in the gym, only to notice that I've forgotten my sport socks at home. I had to go back to the locker room three times because I forgot my magazine, towel and water bottle respectively. It was clear I had no concentration or motivation whatsoever. I stepped on the bike and could only manage 10 minutes. I tried my luck at the weight room, did some abs but I was just not in the mood. So I gave up, went back home and watched two episodes of Battlestar Galactica. I can't get enough of the series, I need a game to go with it. Here is the opening scene which excites me every time: I'll go today instead. I am pretty motivated. Besides, it's a great way to spend the Valantine's Day. (*)Bu kliseyi dillendirmeden duramayacagim "Sevgililerimizi yalniz sevgililer gununde degil, hergun hatirlamaliyiz."
Read more

Mixed-Up Confusion: How I solved Mac Book Air's Wireless Disconnection Problem

That the world is screwed should not be news for you. People are dying of hunger in Somalia, riots break out in London, political fringe groups in the USA set the agenda for the whole wide world  and the we-know-it-all politicans in Europe are driving the contient to bankrupcy. People are looking for safeheavens. If there is a safeheaven, speaking financially, it must be Apple Inc. You've probably read already, that it has more cash than the American government. Yet, even with Apple there is something that is not right... When I was coding for a research project back in the old days of my PHD, we were working with a modified Mobile IP stack. Not only the code itself was in development phase, but also we were modifying the code here and there to match our needs. For sometime we observed a weird phenomenon. Everything worked fine as long as there was some traffic between the clients and the server. As soon as the traffic died out, we had to restart everything from scracth. As i
Read more