Friday, July 24, 2009 - Pittsfield MA
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It's been over a week since my last post. Let's see if I can get caught up.
Overhead storage box masking a big leak, July 19, 2009
The leaks on the overcab area are bigger than I first thought
That bloody useless shallow box Lazy Daze built in at the head of the overhead bed has been masking a leak. You can just see a bit of water damage under the mattress near it. But wait 'til you see what's under that box!
Night camp
Wal-Mart Supercenter in Pittsfield MA
Wal-Mart Store #2228, 555 Hubbard Ave./Suite 12, Pittsfield, MA 01201 - (413) 442-1971
- Good level parking lot
- Verizon cell phone service is good
- Verizon EVDO Broadband service is good
- Find other Wal-Marts in the area
- Check the weather here
Genetic Determinism and Human Nature
The "implication" that seems to worry people the most is so-called genetic determinism - the notion that if human nature was shaped by evolution, then it's fixed and we're simply stuck with it; there's nothing we can do about it. We can never change the world to be the way we want; we can never institute fairer societies - policy-making and politics are pointless.
Now, that's a complete misunderstanding. It doesn't distinguish between human nature - our evolved psychology - and the behavior that results from it. Certainly, human nature is fixed. It's universal and unchanging, common to every baby that's born, down through the history of our species.But human behavior, which is generated by that nature, is endlessly variable and diverse. After all, fixed rules can give rise to an inexhaustible range of outcomes. Natural selection equipped us with the fixed rules - the rules that constitute our human nature. And it designed those rules to generate behavior that's sensitive to the environment. So the answer to genetic determinism is simple. If you want to change behavior, just change the environment.