rico
war for warmongers
we need memorial day to obscure the unbearable truth about war
jon schwarz 2017
theintercept.com/2017/05/29/we-need-memorial-day-to-obscure-the-unbearable-truth-about-war/
ceding and succeeding: how the altruistic can benefit from the selfish in joint decisions
michael lowe et al. 2019
doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1108
Consumers routinely make joint decisions with others -- which restaurant to eat in, what movie to watch, or where to go on vacation. Researchers from Boston College, Georgia Tech, and Washington State University wanted to see if people with opposite attitudes could come to satisfactory decisions together.
The studies found that when paired with a selfish partner, it is better to behave altruistically rather than selfishly. Similarly, when paired with an altruistic partner, it is better to behave selfishly to achieve a desired outcome, according to the findings, reported recently in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
In both scenarios, the paired respondents were able to come to decisions that best reflected their individual preferences, or what both partners personally liked -- if they took the opposite attitude as that of their partner, said Boston College Carroll School of Management Coughlin Sesquicentennial Assistant Professor of Marketing Hristina Nikolova.
"When you see that your partner is acting selfishly, it is better to let it go and act altruistically instead; let them make the decision because this will ultimately ensure a better outcome for you than if you act selfishly too," said Nikolova, a co-author of the article "Ceding and Succeeding: How the Altruistic Can Benefit from the Selfish in Joint Decisions."
"In the joint decision-making of an altruistic and selfish consumer, the selfish partner would willingly express her desired preference, while the altruistic partner will likely accept these suggestions," Nikolova continued. "Since consumers' preferences are more similar than they recognize, an altruistic individual will likely get an option that she somewhat prefers even when a selfish partner drives the decision. Thus, regardless of who drives the decision, both partners are likely to reach a joint decision that is relatively preferred by both of them."
Conventional wisdom suggests that standing one's ground is associated with positive outcomes, Nikolova said. But that's not necessarily the case.
"In the context of joint choices, however, we find that two selfish heads do worse than one altruistic and one selfish head; two selfish consumers jointly choose options that neither of them prefers. This happens because both partners are likely to be rigidly self-oriented when negotiating with others," she said.
For those who are selfish in nature, conceding runs counter to their nature. The study found that selfish individuals are likely to meet suggestions with counteroffers even when the suggestions somewhat coincide with their own preferences, Nikolova said. And that might actually be a bad thing.
"This propensity to counteroffer rather than concede inadvertently leads to negotiation," she said. "The two selfish partners trade rejected offers until they land on an option that is further down both of their preference lists but is deemed acceptable by both partners."
There is limited research on joint decision-making in the fields of marketing and consumer behavior. Nikolova sees future studies further investigating how interpersonal orientations influence decision making. While the study examined decision outcomes among pairs of individuals, it didn't focus on how the pairs went about making their specific decisions.
She said she hopes to look at whether pairs with similar outlooks -- two selfish persons, or two altruistic persons -- use the same decision tactics as paired opposites. That would require a closer look at the decision process, rather than the outcome.
abstract We examine how the interplay of two partners’ interpersonal orientations (selfish vs. altruistic) in a decision‐making dyad impacts the extent to which the joint decision matches each partners’ individual a priori preferences. Two experiments, in which we manipulate and measure interpersonal orientations, as well as examine real consumption decisions, demonstrate the benefit of mismatching interpersonal orientations (selfish‐altruistic) in dyadic decisions. Specifically, altruistic and selfish consumers reach joint decisions that better reflect their individual preferences when working with a partner who has the opposite interpersonal orientation (heterogeneous dyad) versus a matching one (homogeneous dyad). Initial evidence suggests that this effect occurs because homogeneous dyads are more prone to engage in negotiation (communication that involves departure from one's initial position to a mutually serving position) than heterogeneous dyads. This leads homogeneous dyads to focus more on equally preferred options than on their own most preferred options, which pushes them further down both partners’ preferences lists. This research contributes to the literature on joint decision making and has important implications for consumer well‐being.
population is the main driver of war group size and conflict casualties
rahul c. oka et al. 2017
doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1713972114
Specifically, the researchers show that the larger the population of a society, the smaller its war group size, proportionally — which means fewer casualties in a conflict.
“Small-scale societies have a high proportion of their people involved in war,” Oka said. “Fatalities might actually be 40 to 50 percent of the group, and definitely a higher proportion of those fighting get killed. But as we go from small-scale societies to big states and conflicts between empires or nations, fatalities rarely go above 1 percent of the group populations. So if you have 100 people fighting, you might actually get 50 people dying, combatant and non-combatant. That’s 50 percent. But if you have 3 million people fighting you might get 100,000 dying, which is actually much less, proportionally, than the small-scale society. This is seen by many to suggest that contemporary large societies are less violent than past small scale societies, promoting the idea that before the state, life was nasty, brutish and short.”
Instead, the researchers found that societies today are not necessarily more or less violent than past societies. The proportions are driven by a deep scaling law guiding social organization, Oka said.
Oka and his co-authors gathered data on population and war group size from 295 societies and on war group size and conflict-related casualties from 430 historical conflicts going back to 2500 B.C. They plotted the available data on population size, war group size and conflict casualties.
“We first derived the scaling laws that would explain these trends. Then we gathered the data,” Oka said. “And to our very, very pleasant surprise, for both the population and army size, and army size and conflict casualties, we found the scaling laws beautifully explained the distribution.”
The researchers looked at scaling, not percentages or proportions, as a reflection of the realities of warfare. As population size goes up and societies form into states, Oka said, the military becomes proportionally smaller, more nimble and more specialized. A small-scale society can have 40 percent of its population committed to fighting, for example, but “it’s just economically impossible for a state-level society with, let’s say, 10 million people to have an army that is 4 million strong,” Oka said. “It’s logistically inconceivable.”
The idea of using war group size and conflict casualties as proportions of the overall group population to determine if some societies are more violent than others isn’t a new one to anthropologists, Oka said.
However, this study is the first of its kind to offer an expanded data set looking at societies in different places and time periods, during both peacetime and conflict, and examining the scaling relationship between population and number of people in the army or war group, and between the number of people in conflicts and deaths occurring during conflicts.
“These scaling laws provide a means of comparing conflicts across all population scales and social and economic organizations,” said Golitko. “Notably, it appears that the relative level of investment and size of conflicts have not changed much once increases in population over time are accounted for. In other words, we may be no more or less violent now than in the past.”
“These are deep scaling laws that are describing the size of war groups and in turn the number of people killed in conflicts,” Oka said. “Neither variable is affected by type of society or institutions. Both scale, directly and indirectly, with population. These are deeper organizational processes that have to be addressed as we continue trying to reduce conflict investment and build peace.”
abstract Recent views on violence emphasize the decline in proportions of war groups and casualties to populations over time and conclude that past small-scale societies were more violent than contemporary states. In this paper, we argue that these trends are better explained through scaling relationships between population and war group size and between war group size and conflict casualties. We test these relationships and develop measures of conflict investment and lethality that are applicable to societies across space and time. When scaling is accounted for, we find no difference in conflict investment or lethality between small-scale and state societies. Given the lack of population data for past societies, we caution against using archaeological cases of episodic conflicts to measure past violence.
The proportions of individuals involved in intergroup coalitional conflict, measured by war group size (W), conflict casualties (C), and overall group conflict deaths (G), have declined with respect to growing populations, implying that states are less violent than small-scale societies. We argue that these trends are better explained by scaling laws shared by both past and contemporary societies regardless of social organization, where group population (P) directly determines W and indirectly determines C and G. W is shown to be a power law function of P with scaling exponent X [demographic conflict investment (DCI)]. C is shown to be a power law function of W with scaling exponent Y [conflict lethality (CL)]. G is shown to be a power law function of P with scaling exponent Z [group conflict mortality (GCM)]. Results show that, while W/P and G/P decrease as expected with increasing P, C/W increases with growing W. Small-scale societies show higher but more variance in DCI and CL than contemporary states. We find no significant differences in DCI or CL between small-scale societies and contemporary states undergoing drafts or conflict, after accounting for variance and scale. We calculate relative measures of DCI and CL applicable to all societies that can be tracked over time for one or multiple actors. In light of the recent global emergence of populist, nationalist, and sectarian violence, our comparison-focused approach to DCI and CL will enable better models and analysis of the landscapes of violence in the 21st century.
the bloodstained leveller
walter scheidel 2017
aeon.co/essays/are-plagues-and-wars-the-only-ways-to-reduce-inequality
the great leveler: violence and the history of inequality from the stone age to the twenty-first century
walter scheidel 2017
the effect of pollution on crime: evidence from data on particulate matter and ozone
jesse burkhardt et al. 2019
doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2019.102267
The research results show a 10 microgram-per-cubic-meter increase in same-day exposure to PM2.5 is associated with a 1.4% increase in violent crimes, nearly all of which is driven by crimes categorized as assaults. Researchers also found that a 0.01 parts-per-million increase in same-day exposure to ozone is associated with a 0.97% increase in violent crime, or a 1.15% increase in assaults. Changes in these air pollution measures had no statistically significant effect on any other category of crime.
"We're talking about crimes that might not even be physical -- you can assault someone verbally," co-author Bayham said. "The story is, when you're exposed to more pollution, you become marginally more aggressive, so those altercations -- some things that may not have escalated -- do escalate."
The researchers made no claims on the physiological, mechanistic relationship of how exposure to pollution leads someone to become more aggressive; their results only show a strong correlative relationship between such crimes and levels of air pollution.
The researchers were careful to correct for other possible explanations, including weather, heat waves, precipitation, or more general, county-specific confounding factors.
The team published a companion paper in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy with similar results that used monthly crime statistics. A third paper in Epidemiology, with lead author Jesse Berman at University of Minnesota and co-authors from CSU, used EPA pollution monitor databases and different statistical techniques and came to similar conclusions.
The tool that allowed the team to overlay crime data with pollution data was originally used in collaboration with CSU epidemiologist Sheryl Magazmen to study health effects from air pollution, explained co-author Jeff Pierce, associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science and a Monfort Professor. Pierce, associate professor Emily Fischer and researchers Kate O'Dell and Bonne Ford, had previously worked with Magzamen to detail how smoke and particulate matter exposure correlated with things like hospitalizations and asthma inhaler refills.
Burkhardt had been wanting to study whether breathing smoke could enact behavioral change when he met atmopsheric scientist Pierce.
"Several years ago, Fort Collins experienced a fairly severe wildfire season," Burkhardt said. "The smoke was so bad that after a few days, I started to get frustrated, and I wondered if frustration and aggression would show up in aggregate crime data."
Pierce recognized that the pollution-concentration product he and colleagues had designed, which provided detailed concentrations of total particulate matter and the fraction from smoke, would be useful for Burkhardt's desired application.
"The results are fascinating, and also scary," Pierce said. "When you have more air pollution, this specific type of crime, domestic violent crime in particular, increases quite significantly."
The economists calculated that a 10 percent reduction in daily PM2.5 could save $1.1 million in crime costs per year, which they called a "previously overlooked cost associated with pollution."
abstract We estimate the effect of short-term air pollution exposure (PM2.5 and ozone) on several categories of crime, with a particular emphasis on aggressive behavior. To identify this relationship, we combine detailed daily data on crime, air pollution, and weather for an eight-year period across the United States. Our primary identification strategy employs extremely high dimensional fixed effects and we perform a series of robustness checks to address confounding variation between temperature and air pollution. We find a robust positive effect of increased air pollution on violent crimes, and specifically assaults, but no relationship between increases in air pollution and property crimes. The effects are present in and out of the home, at levels well below Ambient Air Pollution Standards, and PM2.5 effects are strongest at lower temperatures. The results suggest that a 10% reduction in daily PM2.5 and ozone could save $1.4 billion in crime costs per year, a previously overlooked cost associated with pollution.
virtuous violence: hurting and killing to create, sustain, end, and honor social relationships
alan page fiske and tage shakti rai
assumption of “four fundamental motives that underlie most moral judgment, emotions, and behaviour: unity, hierarchy, equality, and proportionality (Rai and Fiske, 2011).”
I believe each of these “fundamental motives” is a myth
this book. and by extension the theories of its authors, are a good example of the authoritarian agenda, by pushing authoritarian–focused ideas such as “When terrorists attack Americans, the American military strikes back at the terrorists – and at those who harbor them.” and “In World War II, President Truman was advised that exploding atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki was morally necessary in the cost-benefit calculus of winning the war with the fewest American casualties.”
also, the (authoritarian) olympic pantheon is presented as the sole religion of the ancient greeks
could have guessed this by the author’s associations with steven pinker
exposure to violence affects the development of moral impressions and trust behavior in incarcerated males
jenifer z. siegel et al. 2019
doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09962-9
evaluated 119 males incarcerated in Connecticut prisons, some of whom scored high on exposure to violence. Participants learned about two strangers who faced a moral dilemma: whether to inflict painful electric shocks on another person in exchange for money. While the "good" stranger mostly refused to shock another person for money, the "bad" stranger tended to maximize their profits despite the painful consequences. The participants were asked to predict the strangers' choices, and later had to decide how much trust to place in the good versus the bad stranger.
The team found that participants with higher exposure to violence effectively learned that the good stranger made fewer harmful choices than the bad stranger. However, when deciding whom to trust, they trusted the good stranger less than participants who had a lower exposure to violence.
"In other words, exposure to violence disrupted the ability to place trust in the 'right' person," said Siegel, an Oxford doctoral student and first author of the paper. "We also saw that this disruption led to a greater number of disciplinary infractions within the prison setting."
Crockett said the findings suggest that exposure to violence changes the way people use information they've learned to make healthy social decisions.
"Social flourishing depends on learning who is likely to be helpful vs. harmful, and then using that information to decide who to befriend versus avoid," she said. "Our research suggests exposure to violence impairs this crucial aspect of social functioning."
Baskin-Sommers added, "The combination of exposure to violence and this specific cognitive disruption may leave certain individuals vulnerable to continually developing problematic social connections that limit their chances for psychosocial and economic stability."
abstract Individuals exposed to community violence are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior, resulting in a dramatic increase in contact with justice and social service systems. Theoretical accounts suggest that disruptions in learning underlie the link between exposure to violence and maladaptive behaviors. However, empirical evidence specifying these processes is sparse. Here, in a sample of incarcerated males, we investigated how exposure to violence affects the ability to learn about the harmfulness of others and use this information to adaptively modulate trust behavior. Exposure to violence does not impact the ability to accurately develop beliefs about agents’ harm preferences and predict their choices. However, exposure to violence disrupts the ability to form moral impressions that dissociate between agents with distinguishable harm preferences, and subsequently, the ability to adjust trust behavior towards different agents. These findings reveal a process that may explain the association between exposure to violence and maladaptive behavior.
white matter microstructure in youths with conduct disorder: effects of sex and variation in callous traits
rogers jc et al. 2019
doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2019.02.019
Conduct disorder affects around 1 in 20 children and teenagers and is one of the most common reasons for referral to child and adolescent mental health services. It is characterised by a wide range of antisocial or aggressive behaviours such as vandalism, weapon use and harm to others. It is often also associated with other disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety, or depression.
The exact causes of conduct disorder -- thought to be an interaction between genetic and environmental factors -- are not well understood, but scientists in the University's Centre for Human Brain Health and the Institute for Mental Health have found that there are distinctive differences in white matter pathways (the brain's structural wiring) among young people who have the condition.
The researchers investigated differences in the brain's structure between children with conduct disorder and a comparison group of typically-developing children without severe antisocial behaviour. The study included nearly 300 children aged between 9 and 18, with equal numbers of boys and girls.
Each volunteer underwent a brain scan using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning technique called diffusion-tensor imaging to examine differences in white matter fibre tracts -- which carry signals between different areas of the brain.
One of the largest differences identified by the team was in an area of the brain called the corpus callosum, the largest white matter fibre tract in the brain and a major pathway which connects the two hemispheres of the brain together. The MRI results suggested there was less branching along these fibres, so the connections between the left and right sides of the brain were less efficient in young people with conduct disorder as compared to the comparison group. Interestingly, the researchers found that boys and girls with conduct disorder showed the same structural abnormalities within this pathway in the brain.
The researchers also investigated whether certain antisocial behaviours, such as aggression, or personality traits, such as reduced empathy or guilt, were linked to the observed changes in brain structure. They found that the differences in the corpus callosum were linked to callous behaviour, including deficits in empathy and a disregard for other people's feelings.
Increasing our understanding of how the brain is wired differently in young people with conduct disorder is an important area of research because it may help clinicians to diagnose the condition more accurately and guide the development of effective interventions in the future.
"The differences that we see in the brains of young people with conduct disorder are unique in so much as they are different from the white matter changes that have been reported in other childhood conditions such as autism or ADHD," says Dr Jack Rogers, co-lead author on the study.
"Additionally we found that callous traits, such as reduced empathy and guilt, explained some of the white matter differences seen in youths with conduct disorder suggesting that these traits are important factors to consider when exploring differences in the brains of young people with conduct disorder."
Dr Stephane De Brito, also co-lead author, adds: "It can be really difficult to get a diagnosis for children with conduct disorder -- partly because it is often obscured by other conditions, but also because it is frequently not seen as a genuine disorder. Increasing our understanding of what these structural differences look like in the brain might lead to more accurate diagnosis in the future, but also will help us develop and test interventions that can help children at a critical period of brain development."
Dr Graeme Fairchild, a Reader in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath and a collaborator on the project, said: "This is the first large-scale study looking at white-matter pathways in the brains of girls and boys with conduct disorder. The results demonstrate that there are reliable differences in the connectivity of these pathways, and that these differ from those seen in other mental health conditions such as depression. It will be important to study whether these white matter changes cause conduct disorder by studying how the brain develops over time, and also whether these brain changes can be modified by psychological interventions."
cry pilot
joel dane 2019
burn cycle
joel dane 2020 unread
kill orbit
joel dane 2020 not yet read
peace and resistance in youth cultures: reading the politics of peacebuilding from harry potter to the hunger games siobhan
mcevoy-levy 2017
roots for radicals: organizing for power, action, and justice
edward chambers 2003
on war
carl von clausewitz
population wars: a new perspective on competition and coexistence
greg graffin, caroline greeven 2015
through the ages
czech games edition
worth fighting for
rory fanning unread
salon.com/2016/04/10/the_things_i_still_carry_partner/
not recommended
embers of war
gareth powell 2018
land of the living
georgina harding 2018