There was a huge boom about 11:00 AM. Marianna had asked me to read a Ukrainian – English animal book. Just as we got through horse and cow and were up to sheep there was a huge boom. Enough that I moved Marianna and my own phlegmatic frame downstairs. Eddie was excited and went outside to see what it was. After a bit of coaxing, I came out to watch. There were a bunch of streaks in the air and some large puffs of smoke that looked like small clouds.
Oksana found on Viber that we had just been through a ballistic missile attack. We conclude that what we saw was the patriot missiles bringing down whatever the Russians had shot. It might have been Kinzhal missiles, once again targeting the patriot system itself. Alternatively, air-, sea- or land-based missiles. Lots of possibilities.
Missiles don't often appear on our side of the river. It could be that the targets were on the other side, and this is just where they were intercepted. I am sure we will read about the debris falling in nearby neighborhoods. The Russians have been rocketing Kyiv, in fact all of Ukraine, quite consistently this month. They do not seem to have hit many militarily significant targets. Bob Homans keeps repeating that they are shooting this stuff off far quicker than they can replenish it, but they never seem to hit bottom.
Working on my movie on the reversal of human evolution, I went through my library looking for references to altruism. I started with Pathological Altruism, which I reviewed in 2012. I see that the review is still up. So is the price. I probably paid $15 for it. It is now $60 on Kindle, $70 for the hardcover. For whatever reason, the powers that be don't want you to read it.
Oakley's book concludes with a chapter by David Sloan Wilson on the evolution of altruism. I bought Wilson's book, "Does Altruism Exist?" It doesn't say much about the evolution of altruism, but pointed me to Joseph Henrich, whose book The WEIRDest People in the World I had reviewed in 2020.
Political correctness being what it is, the word "race" does not appear in any of these books. But it is implicit in Henrich's argument about why Europeans turned out to be the most successful people in the world. We altruistically support one another to a greater extent than others. Therefore, although Japanese, Chinese and Jews are more intelligent by measured IQ, it is we Europeans who clawed our way to the top of the heap at the end of the 19th century. We supported one another.
The authors referenced a 2012 book expressly entitled "The Evolution of Altruism." Similar price – about $70. I ordered a hard copy used for $12. I can afford to wait.
The Western Europeans do not include the Russians, who are not at all altruistic. This fact may account in large part for their historical lack of material progress and their historical animosity toward their neighbors, including us. Here is what I wrote about this last year, including an analysis of their genetic makeup.
I will address altruism in my video on why evolution is spinning backwards. The evidence is that altruism, like intelligence, is largely genetically determined and has been evolving quite quickly. The difference is that whereas consistent, reliable measures of intelligence have been available for a century, altruism like other personality traits is hard to operationalize and measure and has not been a subject of interest for that many decades.
Oakley's title "Pathological Altruism" points to a major piece of evidence about the evolution of our altruism. The study of altruism, and this book's focus, are on European derived populations. We look around us and the people we see who are most committed to modern altruistic dogmas – climate change, gender equality, lookism, racial equality, deinstitutionalization of the criminal and the homeless, etc. etc. are white people just like me. They are also the ones who are most inclined to condemn, shame, deplore and otherwise abuse those of us who are not on board with their beliefs. In other words, they are the pathological altruists.
That's my short take on this topic. I will work it into my video script today.
And that’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where aside from the Russian Percussion there is little new news. Oksana and Marianna are off to the park, Eddie to his rocket modeling, Zoriana in kindergarten and I on a mission to pick up a waffle iron.
I see the altruistic kids all the time on street corners trying to collect for Greenpeace, Save the Children, and other charities who get money from the soft-hearted only if there are problems in the world. Greenpeace now must drum up catastrophes so that they can collect donations. No catastrophe, no cash. It's their business model to save the planet. In order for them to exist, there must be problems or they can just create problems. I read not that long ago, a book written by one of the founders of Greenpeace, "Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom." The author Patrick Moore says that all the threats facing humanity and good old Mother Earth (after all, who could not love our Mother?) are far away and in places where we can't verify the truth of them, like the great garbage patch or the Polar Bears in the Arctic. How can those of us who are just dumpy normal people see the issues first hand. None of us is going out into the middle of the Pacific. None of us is going to the North Pole to count Polar Bears. How do we know the optimal temperature of the planet? We must rely in specialists and we have to trust that those specialists are honest and accurate in their predictions.
Compassion is seen in the modern world only as a positive trait. There is no down side to compassion and caring. At least, it's never addressed that one can love too much, but the world is full of the failures of love and compassion. I think one comment is apropos. It's better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. This is the essence of wisdom.
There is a story about Tolstoy who once went into the slums of Moscow and was horrified by what he saw. He gave away all the money that he had on him and came home in despair. The fact is that no matter how rich he was, Tolstoy could never fix the problems of poverty in the slums of Moscow by giving away his entire fortune.
Yes, feeding those who are starving is compassion and caring, but it's far better to assist them in feeding themselves because today's meal will be eaten and people will be hungry tomorrow.
This topic of the evolution of altruism fascinates me. Eagerly awaiting it!