andrewducker | Interesting Links for 21-08-2017

Second-home ownership up 30% since 2000: (tags: housing uk )
What it feels like to be in the zone as a programmer: (tags: programming emotion productivity )
8,000 years ago, 17 women reproduced for every one man: From The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature:
In the ancient empire of the Incas, sex was a heavily regulated industry. The sun-king Atahualpa kept fifteen hundred women in each of many “houses of virgins” throughout his kingdom. They were selected for their beauty and were rarely chosen after the age of eight—to ensure their virginity. But they did not all remain virgins for long: They were the emperor’s concubines. Beneath him, each rank of society afforded a harem of a particular legal size. Great lords had harems of more than seven hundred women. “Principal persons” were allowed fifty women; leaders of vassal nations, thirty; heads of provinces of 100,000 people, twenty; leaders of 1,000 people, fifteen; administrators of 500 people, twelve; governors of 100 people, eight; petty chiefs over 50 men, seven; chiefs of 10 men, five; chiefs of 5 men, three. That left precious few for the average male Indian whose enforced near-celibacy must have driven him to desperate acts, a fact attested to by the severity of the penalties that followed any cuckolding of his seniors. If a man violated one of Atahualpa’s women, he, his wife, his children, his relatives, his servants, his fellow villagers, and all his lamas would be put to death, the village would be destroyed, and the site strewn with stones.
(tags: sex prehistory society )
Teenagers' blood being sold for £6,200 a shot: (tags: teenagers blood OhForFucksSake )
Crown shyness is a phenomenon observed in some tree species, in which the crowns of fully stocked trees do not touch each other: (tags: trees viaSwampers )
Not Being Assaulted at a Gig is a Basic Human Right: (tags: rape assault women music OhForFucksSake )
Every PhD's nightmare: your Doctoral adviser telling CNN that you're not *actually* an expert in your field: (tags: phd funny politics )
19 Scottish Landmarks That Got Terrible Reviews: I agree with The Royal Mile one
(tags: review funny Scotland )
More terrible reviews of Scottish sights: (tags: reviews Scotland funny )
Immigrants Do Not Increase Crime, Research Shows: (tags: immigration crime )
How do I improve my storytelling?: (tags: storytelling writing viaFanf )
Joss Whedon Is a ‘Hypocrite Preaching Feminist Ideals,’ Ex-Wife Kai Cole Says: (tags: JossWhedon feminism relationships marriage )
Only economic study showing benefits of Brexit debunked as 'doubly misleading': (tags: UK Europe fraud economics )
Why Iran hates the USA: (tags: Iran UK USA politics oil )
Why North Korea hates the USA: (tags: USA war NorthKorea )
Sexism in Silicon Valley: (tags: sexism usa Technology )
A friend just spent 3 hours in detention in UK border control for doing science communication: (tags: science immigration OhForFucksSake uk )

I also agree about the Royal Mile. I wish I could think of some way of controlling the quality of the retail offering on the Royal Mile without creating a local government Taste Police.

I have no problem with Taste Police, up to a point. Particularly in areas that are supposed to represent the city.

I think the devil would be in the detail.

Assuming that you share my preference that the Royal Mile have far fewer generic shops selling cheap "tartan tat" which is made in China how does one come up with a set of rules that allows the council to exert some pressure towards that? Fewer Jimmy Hats and Princess Diana tartan.

The rules need to not rely too much on arbitrary or "I know it when I see" rules. They need to not be too widely cast so that all councils everywhere in Scotland can ban the sale of any thing they don't like. Something that nudges the business model of the Jimmy Hat retailers.

So we'd probably need something that referenced the World Heritage site.

A ban on external street displays.

A ban on piped music

Minimum space between aisles.

Some sort of rates penalty if you own more than one shop on the Royal Mile.

A price transparancy measure so that everyone knows that walking up or down the street is not going to get you a Jimmy Hat any cheaper.

The Tartan Tat shops are probably immune to a local citizen boycott because they don't sell stuff to locals.

i wonder if the rules on charities getting cheap rates would help them move in to the Tartan Tat market. If we're going to have Tartan Tat I'd rather the money was going to a good cause.

See, those rules all seem reasonably to me.

Other than the price transparency rule. I don't mind prices varying from shop to shop. I just don't want them to be blaring awful music and taking up the pavement.

It's more that the prices don't vary. Many of the Tartan Tat shops are owned by the same family. They give the illusion of there being lots of competition but in fact there isn't that much.

The story about the reproductive rates is very interesting.

I spend quite a bit of time thinking about how evolution, culture, the adoption of farming and so on affected gender roles and how all that works. Not to any great effect.

I'm puzzled that what I think I'd expect to show up in terms of different attitudes to risk (and some other factors) between genders (or perhaps sexes) doesn't seem to show up when individuals are tested. Yet we seem to have a long-term culture that behaves how I'd expect it to behave.

So the fertility ratio article is a fascinating extra data point - but one that still leaves me more confused than before. Which was pretty confused.

scientific wild-ass guess: if the different attitudes to risk are entirely or mostly cultural, they might be (re)enforced in groups. So one person by themself isn't getting those immediate "come on, what are you, afraid?" or "don't take stupid chances" comments, and might or might not be thinking much of "what will other people think of me for doing this?"

Some risk-taking seems to be about display, and that's going to be less of an issue if there are no witnesses, or if the decider thinks there aren't any. You can go home and tell the story whether or not you actually took a chance, or exaggerate or downplay how risky something was. Or boast about "well, if it was me I would have done thus-and-such" without any actual risk.

That's an interesting suggestion. Many thanks for that. One clearly has to account for any genetic component in the context of the environment that the genes find themselves in which, in this case, might be a culture that is being slightly nudged by group psychology.

Still confused but now I have something else to chew over. Thank you.

I'm intrigued as to what individual attributes you're thinking of.

Mostly attitudes to risk and things that follow from attitude to risk.

How could they put his wife to death if the problem was not having a wife in the first place?

And I leave why they put his llamas to death to your own imagination! :o) (lamas? Tee hee :o)

> The only reason to go there is to get to fife

...and you must be desperate if you need to get to Fife!

I mean, I'm not judging, but how come nobody in these hypotheticals ever *leaves* fife? :)

Inbreeding. They're scared to cross running water.

The only reason to leave Fife is to go to Brechin.

Interesting Links for 21-08-2017

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