One of the stranger things you notice is how violence in a society is what produces peace. Lately we are seeing scenes in shopping centers, where shoppers are battling it out physically for sale items. That is actually due to a failure of the amygdala to adapt to a more violent environment. Those amygdalae lack constraint pathways, which would perceive angering stimuli but were conditioned to keep amygdala activation in check in the face of such angering stimuli.
It reminded me of this video I saw recently, where a bully picks on a kid, and when the kid doesn’t respond, the bully gets ever more aggressive. That is an amygdala not being taught, “Don’t do that.” (It is also an example of a narcissist, bothered increasingly by his target’s lack of emotional expression. The bully is not just cruel – that is a narcissist legitimately getting angrier due to his target’s lack of response stimulating his amygdala.)
Contrast that video with this one. Here, the bully initially is getting the same conditioning. Get angry, pick on a kid, blow off steam, feel better. If that continued, you would have cognitively trained a bully who would derive pleasure from hurting others.
However that doesn’t continue. Instead, the bullied kid picks up the bully and body slams him on the ground, traumatizing him, and even injuring his ankle.
The bully now has an amygdala pathway linking bullying with the sudden experience of pain and agony. In the future, as his amygdala becomes activated with angst, he will immediately, without conscious thought, see two paths before him. The first pathway will be to release the angst by making another child suffer. As he considers that, his amygdala will remind him of that awful impact with the ground, the shock, the confused assessment of damage afterward, the fear, the helplessness, and the embarrassment. His amygdala will say to him, “Do not do that.” He will choose the second pathway, which will be to bottle up his amygdala angst.
He will not be happy. His amygdala will still grate. If he can develop the ability to quash his anger internally, he will be on the path to growing up to be a normal decent human being. If he is a true narcissist, he will not develop that ability, and he will remain miserable. But the world around him will be a little nicer, and innocent people will be free to enjoy their lives absent his violent oppression.
That is how society gets civilized. Had Michael Brown had that experience, repeated often enough, he might even have ended up a productive citizen, rather than as a dead body in the street. Instead, his amygdala never learned to say, “Do not do that,” so when a police officer angered him, attack was the only option he knew, and his amygdala saw no reason to “not do that.”
The shopping scenes are the same. Right now we don’t have real K-selection. In a real K-selected world, people would be accustomed to occasionally dealing violence upon others out of necessity, and they would quickly acclimate to a world where everyone was capable of visiting violence upon them. In such a world, if you grab someone’s Xbox and try to take it away, you will probably get hurt. Even though an Xbox is not necessary for survival, people will have grown conditioned in other areas of life to respond aggressively, competitively, and even violently when challenged in a rude and obnoxious manner. That foundational conditioning will carry over into every other area of life.
Of course today, the free availability of resources means it is rarely worth it to fight for anything. If you don’t get the item in front of you, there will be another. As a result, we live in the world of the bully. Fighting is rarely worth it for the decent folk, we have grown conditioned to avoid it, and thus the bullies have free reign, because we refuse to punish them for their obnoxiousness, and we cede to their every threat. I see it everywhere, even as idiot protestors walk down the street demanding I bemoan the killing of a savage who I wish I could have had the pleasure of putting down myself. Instead, I set my jaw with an expression of contempt and ignore them.
Mark my words, sooner or later, as the K-shift begins, somewhere, some idiot is going to try and grab somebody else’s sale item. Somewhere a temper shortened by resource shortage will blow, and the events that follow will be so traumatic and horrifying that all of those involved, even the mere witnesses, will tiptoe carefully through the door on subsequent Black Fridays, desperately hoping to accomplish their shopping without drawing the attention (or ire) of anyone else.
When that day comes, it may even herald an extended period of widespread bloodshed, terrifying violence, and sheer mayhem, but what will come after will be a world of polite and decent people, each respectful of one another – some because they enjoy being respectful and kind, others because they fear the consequences of not being so. What will come after will be amygdala development. I look forward to its arrival.
A great many of us are reaching our Threshold of Outrage.
I agree with you about Michael Brown. However there are many police and other government agents out there with under developed amygdala who apparently get those pleasure centers stimulated by exercising arbitrary and aggressive authority over others. What is your opinion on how r/K theory comes into play there?
I think it is the same deal. They never get punished for it. So not only don’t they lean the lesson but pour encourager les autres is not working either.
We had something in the Declaration about it too:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
What the powers fail to understand is that they are creating conditions for another revolution. This article is quite instructive.
http://news.yahoo.com/nypd-officers-see-racial-bias-nypd-102028331.html
I have to say, not everything will be r or K. There are sadists and psychopaths who just are. That a lot should gravitate to places where they can do as they wish may fall outside the scope of r/K. I do like the amygdala model though, as it offers an intellectual framework for the idea of how experience molds us. Still, even it fails to explain why good men cannot learn to be corrupted by that which teaches others how best to sate their evil.
Still, even it fails to explain why good men cannot learn to be corrupted by that which teaches others how best to sate their evil.
There is a small segment of the population not totally ruled by the amygdala. They generally prefer reason and are able to damp down the underlying chemical signals. But it takes will and practice. It is very difficult, at first. Which is why few do it.
What I find interesting on your blog is all the amygdala talk and yet not a single mention of cannabinoids which is one of the major signaling mechanisms in the amygdala.
Very true. I generally try to write about stuff I can look back on and compare to my experience, so I can tell myself that at least it seems to comport with my experience. I never did marijuana, so I can’t really draw on any experience there. I did see a writer who went hunting, and said marijuana felt like those intense moments waiting for your game. I understand that, but in my case, that was an intense, hyper-alert, poised to strike feeling. It was intense. The kids I saw smoke Marijuana in High school didn’t look like that, for some reason. They seemed detached, whereas I think I would have looked hyper-aware, energized, and engaged.
I don’t know how to reconcile all of that, so while I recognize the importance of the cannabinoid system, I don’t feel qualified to blog intelligently on its role. If you have any insights, I’d be delighted to hear them. I do think the rising use of marijuana will have some effect on our r/K bias, and I am curious what that might be.
My take is that it will facilitate easier reprogramming of the amygdala. It will have to be intentional though. Just lighting up will not help.
Funny enough Leary and his cohort encapsulated in “set and setting”. Which is to say, “What do you want to do?” “Place yourself in an environment conducive to the objective.” Then lower your action potentials with drugs.
With the environment (man made) changing so rapidly I think that cannabis will help us adapt faster. I think this will be true on the left and the right. We see this with the rise of libertarianism – which is an attempt to combine the advantages of r and K. You will note that they are despised by the left and the right – generally.
And what is the dismissive description of libertarians?
“Republicans who want to smoke dope.”
And both sides dismiss them that way.
We are no longer in an environment where preserving culture for a hundred or three hundred year stretches works tolerably well. I’d say about 30 years is the optimum. One generation and a half.
And in fact we can reprogram our “triggers” or at least damp them down with cannabis. The fact that it is so helpful with PTSD (a problem of genetics, trauma, and the amygdala) is an indication. The fact that the amygdalas of some people do not stay programmed by events has obvious survival value. They represent 80% of the population. OTOH the 20% that retain their programing by the environment long term also must have survival value for such a large number to remain in the population. There is a decay rate to the programming. That was first evidenced by some mouse studies done at the Max Planck Institute by B. Lutz. Unfortunately the studies are no longer on line. He bred mice for long and short decay rates.
BTW I must congratulate you. This is the first high K site I have ever visited which encouraged the discussion of this topic. I normally get banned.
I don’t ban anyone unless they are disruptive just to be disruptive.
I’m not sure cannabis will ever get to the point it is freely available, like alcohol. It looks to me kind of like libertarianism. Personally, on a philosophical level, I can’t imagine why everyone can’t agree to leave everyone else alone to do what they want.
But I can understand why a species, prone to engage in group competition, where any weakness in one’s competitive group could get everyone killed, would become imbued with a psychology which would lead each individual in the group to want to police the behavior of every other individual – to keep the group as fit as possible.
If I look at it like that, then I can see why when we vote, only r or K end up as the options, and I imagine the competitive will always feel deeply justified in trying to keep everyone else off of drugs. Much of this means we are all tilting at windmills, as we try to change those things we think are the products of logic and reason.
Mark my words, sooner or later, as the K-shift begins, somewhere, some idiot is going to try and grab somebody else’s sale item. Somewhere a temper shortened by resource shortage will blow
Pure fantasy. K porn.
I work in the STEM area. I’m an engineer. Do you have ANY idea of how unlikely a resource shortage is? We have just gone through what amounts to the Great Depression II and hardly anyone has missed a meal.
We are not running out of oil. Nuclear fusion is on the horizon. Electronic functions are still going down in price and will for at least another 5 years. I can by a microprocessor system that would have cost $5,000 in 1978 (unit quantities) for about $4. Not considering inflation which would make the calculation even more stark. And unlike the 1978 version it sips electrons rather than gulping them.
You had better look for a better way to strengthen the K faction rather than the vague hope of resource scarcity.
Do you know why the r faction is whipping your arse? It is not just abundance. They are adapting faster. So far what I see in the K faction is empty dreaming.
Let us take some well known factors. At around $4K to $6K a year per person resource availability reproduction goes below the replacement rate. (where is the scarcity in that?) Engineers are continually doing more with less. (No scarcity there). Proven reserves of oil go up every year and have been for a century (Peak oil? Not for 50 or a 100 years – if ever).
I have never seen a group more out of touch with reality than conservatives. But liberals are running them a very close race. So there is that. It is like they are vying with each other for the label “most stupid and out of touch with reality”.
I lean towards the conservative side but it is a very difficult attitude to maintain.
And I will repeat something I said elsewhere. The reasons liberals are running circles around conservatives is that they adapt faster. We see this with Alcohol Prohibition. Who were among the first to take it up? Progressives. Who were among the last to give it up? Conservatives. Modern day Prohibition is the same.
I think resource restriction can happen, but because of the underlying mechanism, it will happen all at once, or not at all. You are right, that we will have the capability to produce food. But the human element, combined with how much easier it is to destroy than build, will neutralize that ability. Once restriction begins, watch out, because anarchy is bubbling just beneath our surface, even now. Once rioting and pillaging becomes the norm in certain, high-population density parts, no truck will go near there, and the slide will accelerate.
The problem is, you have two never ending, exponentially growing factors. Fast breeding, entitled imbeciles who are multiplying faster with each generation, and the ability of a slower growing cohort, prone to be revile the first group, to provision them. That can come down.
Yes. It is easier to destroy than build. What is then amazing is how little destruction takes place and how anti-entropic most people are in even the most difficult circumstances.
Maybe it is “you never know what will come in handy” programming at a deep level.
If you look at how wars are fought these days there is very little destruction of production centers. What armies go after is logistics. Mobility. A military truism developed over the last century or two is:
“Amateurs study battles, professionals study logistics.”
In the Roman day a legion was self contained. Once established it produced its own food. That can no longer be done.
Which just brought a thought to mind. We tend to dismiss all those “hangers on” who followed a legion. But what if they were essential to its function?
As to two exponential functions. You are not taking into account that reproduction declines below replacement rate at a fairly low economic level.
That may change with a long enough period of prosperity where only those with an intense desire for children reproduce but we are at least 5 or 20 generations away from that.