I heard on the BBC's Moral Maze (8/7/09) a woman trying to support legal discrimination against homosexuals. As part of her misguided attempt to place her religious conviction above basic decency and law she said that freedom is the ability to associate freely.
She was talking about how beautiful it would be for a Christian school to employ only Christians, in both teaching posts and in other posts (such as a gardener) such that everyone reinforced the same idea.
"The principal that's running the school needs to be free to employ a staff that believe in the same things that he believes in. That's the beauty of association around a doctrine; around a creed. That's true freedom."
I can understand this concept of freedom. It's a worrying idea though, because although we have vast amounts of information available to us nowadays, there is a great deal of bias and ignorance in society because people do not use that information.
The idea that it's beautiful that people can insulate themselves from other opinions, and indoctrinate children in one set of unfounded beliefs without any challenge at all is a revolting one. Schools especially must expose children to all options, including evidence-based beliefs. But even other walks of life suffer when people are insulated from opposing beliefs. With insulation we get intolerance, misunderstanding and misinformation.
If I return to a free market metaphor, people can only choose the best purchase with perfect information; this is a basic principle of economics. The same is true for ideas: it is a disruption of the market of ideas to prevent people having access to ideas. It is deceitful to hide better ideas in order to convince people to accept your own. It is an admission of inferiority and a disruption of the freedom of others.
Of course, if an adult chooses freely to associate around a doctrine it's a trickier issue. People who exclude other opinions are entitled so to do.
A person can ignore new knowledge and associate only with charlatans, and by so-doing gain misguided opinions. We might think of ways to persuade people not to be so lazy, and not sink into the morass of bias that is human nature, but the best way is through education. If we can teach children about the virtue of free-thought; about how valuable freedom is, and how what separates us from the other animals is our thinking mind and ability to overcome our instincts, then our children will be less likely to give in to the human desire to reinforce beliefs and biases, and will be more likely to use the information that our current society can provide in such abundant amounts.
The problem of too much information is like the problem of too little: both lead to inadequate decision-making. However, the problem of too much information is an inbuilt human instinct (as we can see from TED talks on human psychology) that we can fight. The problem of too little, which is what this woman wanted to impose, is not something that those subjected to it can avoid.
The freedom to associate around one opinion might be a freedom, but it is against our duty as members of a democracy. A voter's duty is to inform himself of both sides of any issue about which he cares so that he can make the best choice. Our society cannot survive as a properly-functioning unit if we focus on rights and freedoms, and never on duties and responsibilities. It will dinsintegrate into unconnected and misunderstood 'free associations' of biased and intolerant groups.
When we get a citizenship test, we must have a section that asks about issues, and opinions on both sides, and we might need to administer something similar to voters. Ensuring that voters do their duty by considering the issues is a difficult problem, but one that needs to be addressed.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Having a cold
It's not pleasant, and I couldn't help but notice how much snot my nose feels obliged to produce. At a rate of 1ml/min. (at its peak) that's a lot of mucus.
The sinuses, in total, seem to have a capacity of about 30ml, meaning that an hour into a cold they'll all be utterly full and the pressure will start to build. It's not helped by the fact that the maxillary sinuses have their drain at the top of the sinus, making drainage impossible when the head is upright.
It feels, however, more like the frontal sinuses are the ones causing the pain, since they're the ones in the forehead. Why that might be I don't know. Perhaps the inflammation up there has more sensitive tissue against which to push.
I wonder whether people with big sinuses tend to have an easier or harder time with colds. If sinuses developed to protect from blows to the face then men should have bigger ones, and this might explain why they find colds so much more unpleasant, if bigger sinuses lead to greater pain. On the other hand, it hardly seems likely that we'd suffer blows to the face much more often than to the rest of the head, and we don't have rear sinuses.
I'm not sure that sinuses are particularly helpful with humidifying and heating inhaled air, since they're connected to the nasal passage by such small holes. That makes it difficult for air to circulate into them int he duration of inhalation.
They might insulate delicate facial structures from temperature fluctuations, but given that we don't have them anywhere else, we have lived our lives in temperate climes and no-one seems to notice problems from breathing cold air through the mouth, I don't like this answer either. We could test it easily by examining humans from different environmental backgrounds.
That leaves the possibility of sinuses giving the voice resonance or being necessary for making the face lighter. I can't see any value intrinsic in having a lighter face; the ease with which one might make facial expressions will hardly be changed by having lighter bones in the upper part of the face, since the bones move little if at all.
Resonance is a nice idea. Is it worth having a resonant voice in exchange for regular sinusitis? Is sinus size related to the pitch of a person's voice?
The sinuses, in total, seem to have a capacity of about 30ml, meaning that an hour into a cold they'll all be utterly full and the pressure will start to build. It's not helped by the fact that the maxillary sinuses have their drain at the top of the sinus, making drainage impossible when the head is upright.
It feels, however, more like the frontal sinuses are the ones causing the pain, since they're the ones in the forehead. Why that might be I don't know. Perhaps the inflammation up there has more sensitive tissue against which to push.
I wonder whether people with big sinuses tend to have an easier or harder time with colds. If sinuses developed to protect from blows to the face then men should have bigger ones, and this might explain why they find colds so much more unpleasant, if bigger sinuses lead to greater pain. On the other hand, it hardly seems likely that we'd suffer blows to the face much more often than to the rest of the head, and we don't have rear sinuses.
I'm not sure that sinuses are particularly helpful with humidifying and heating inhaled air, since they're connected to the nasal passage by such small holes. That makes it difficult for air to circulate into them int he duration of inhalation.
They might insulate delicate facial structures from temperature fluctuations, but given that we don't have them anywhere else, we have lived our lives in temperate climes and no-one seems to notice problems from breathing cold air through the mouth, I don't like this answer either. We could test it easily by examining humans from different environmental backgrounds.
That leaves the possibility of sinuses giving the voice resonance or being necessary for making the face lighter. I can't see any value intrinsic in having a lighter face; the ease with which one might make facial expressions will hardly be changed by having lighter bones in the upper part of the face, since the bones move little if at all.
Resonance is a nice idea. Is it worth having a resonant voice in exchange for regular sinusitis? Is sinus size related to the pitch of a person's voice?
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Second Jobs
I recently learned that MPs have been forbidden from having second jobs, the idea being that a second job would prevent them from focussing sufficiently on their work for the good of the country.
I don't know which dolt thought that one up, but I find it far more likely that MPs with part-time jobs will work better, since they won't be swayed by short-term populism, financial concerns over being granted a paid position as a minister or committee chairman or worries about re-election.
I would even venture to suggest that MPs should be required to have another job, or a fall-back job, confirmed by an employer (but without conflict of interest, such as working in a lobbying company), to ensure their immunity to such concerns.
They would also have more experience of working like the rest of the population, have networks outside of Parliament and the party apparatchiks and have less time for conniving to disenfranchise other voters in political meetings and conferences.
I don't know which dolt thought that one up, but I find it far more likely that MPs with part-time jobs will work better, since they won't be swayed by short-term populism, financial concerns over being granted a paid position as a minister or committee chairman or worries about re-election.
I would even venture to suggest that MPs should be required to have another job, or a fall-back job, confirmed by an employer (but without conflict of interest, such as working in a lobbying company), to ensure their immunity to such concerns.
They would also have more experience of working like the rest of the population, have networks outside of Parliament and the party apparatchiks and have less time for conniving to disenfranchise other voters in political meetings and conferences.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Disease
I watched an interesting talk today about the possibility of controlling the evolution of infectious diseases.
A few years ago cholera was introduced to Peru, causing an outbreak, and it spread to neighbouring countries such as Ecuador and Chile. But the severities of the outbreaks were very different because these countries have differing qualities of water supply.
The interesting finding was that not only were the severities of the whole outbreaks different, but that the cholera strains had evolved to be milder in places with cleaner water because they needed healthier, more mobile humans in order to be transmitted.
A similar thing could be done for both malaria and HIV; insect-proofing housing in malarial regions would prevent mosquitoes biting severely ill people, and thereby reduce the spread of virulent strains of malaria. A reduction in HIV transmission rate would make HIV evolve to be less aggressive.
For HIV, spread by direct contact, a reduction in contact is always a good thing, and so this theoretical possibility does not suggest a new way to improve HIV care. But in vectorial diseases we have a powerful way to improve the disease.
If microbes in hospitals become resistant to antibiotics they will often be more virulent. If we can identify major routes of transmission and block these preferentially for the most virulent strains (which are easily identified by the worst suffering patients) then this action will not only be directly protective, but preventing some infections, but will introduce a reproductive bias in favour of less aggressive infections.
We need to identify whether transferring patients to specialist wards provides more opportunity to spread infection or reduces it, and whether patients then all share the worst strain on that ward.
Perhaps specialist wards should deliberately take only half the cases, and try to take the worst ones, in order to make the infections evolve to be less problematic, rather than treat one species as all the same.
A few years ago cholera was introduced to Peru, causing an outbreak, and it spread to neighbouring countries such as Ecuador and Chile. But the severities of the outbreaks were very different because these countries have differing qualities of water supply.
The interesting finding was that not only were the severities of the whole outbreaks different, but that the cholera strains had evolved to be milder in places with cleaner water because they needed healthier, more mobile humans in order to be transmitted.
A similar thing could be done for both malaria and HIV; insect-proofing housing in malarial regions would prevent mosquitoes biting severely ill people, and thereby reduce the spread of virulent strains of malaria. A reduction in HIV transmission rate would make HIV evolve to be less aggressive.
For HIV, spread by direct contact, a reduction in contact is always a good thing, and so this theoretical possibility does not suggest a new way to improve HIV care. But in vectorial diseases we have a powerful way to improve the disease.
If microbes in hospitals become resistant to antibiotics they will often be more virulent. If we can identify major routes of transmission and block these preferentially for the most virulent strains (which are easily identified by the worst suffering patients) then this action will not only be directly protective, but preventing some infections, but will introduce a reproductive bias in favour of less aggressive infections.
We need to identify whether transferring patients to specialist wards provides more opportunity to spread infection or reduces it, and whether patients then all share the worst strain on that ward.
Perhaps specialist wards should deliberately take only half the cases, and try to take the worst ones, in order to make the infections evolve to be less problematic, rather than treat one species as all the same.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
The purpose of marriage
I listened to the second Reith lecture this year
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l0y01/The_Reith_Lectures_The_Reith_Lectures_2009_Morality_in_Politics/
which is entitled 'Morality in Politics'. Professor Michael Sandel discusses how politics should not attempt neutrality on vexed moral questions, but needs to engage in debate and resolve them.
He also mentions how the attempt to be distanced from moral debate has led us to a flawed tolerance of disagreements, in which we pretend to accept others' opinions whilst finding them fundamentally disagreeable. This chimes nicely with a quotation which I have cherished for some time (and which I took from a games designer called Mark Rosewater, but which is not lessened by its unusual pedigree) and which ends like this:
'When did everyone get so afraid of conflict existing? Conflict is a wonderful thing. It causes resolution.'
We need proper debate about these problems, and that is the one thing that we are not getting. Another news source today mentioned that a few decades ago a politician got about 43 seconds to make a point. A few years ago it was 9 seconds and it is now 6 seconds. The article was attempting to blame computer games and video for shorter attention spans, but whatever the cause, it is clear that we are getting less substantive debate, not more.
Professor Sandel went on to talk about one thing especially: how the state cannot avoid being involved in moral questions. His first example was one in which a disability law made the question of the essential nature of golf a legal question, to be decided by judges, and his second was the subject of homosexual marriages.
States currently all support heterosexual marriages, and Professor Sandel clearly distinguishes between the options of equally supporting all types of marriage, supporting homosexual relationships in a lesser way or under a different name, and not supporting any marriage. As he says, marriage is patently not about procreation, despite many people's protestations.
In his opinion, marriage is about honouring the mutual and exclusive dedication of two people to each other. This honour is conferred not only by name but also through various legal benefits.
His analysis is clear and concise, if a little slowly spoken. It is about other points that we differ. Whereas he believes that the state must support homosexual marriage as an equal with heterosexual marriage, since the individuals have made identical commitments, I think that his examination is enough to show us that the whole institution of marriage is unsound.
Firstly, I see no reason for the state to honour mutual and exclusive dedication at all. Why this is a special form of relationship entirely eludes me; I have no arguments against it, but fail to see justification also. It simply appears ludicrous.
Secondly, I think that legal benefits are better given as support for procreation, if given at all. The mutual dedication is good only because it might (I doubt it) be always better for a child. In this case marriage is flawed because we recognise marriage intrinsically, not parents with children. Thus in some way I actually agree with those who are categorised as right-wing loonies and Christian nutters.
Thirdly, the 'mutual and exclusive' tag can be applied to any number of people. The addition of 'between two people only' is as ludicrous as 'between a man and a woman' if it is only the feelings that we are honouring. This is similar to Professor Sandel's dismissal of the 'simplistic' argument that people should be free to choose their partner. He says that it is not that simple, because of the option of the state not supporting a partner system at all. Rather than choose to remain in a clearly untenable system of thought, as he does, I take this problem as a demonstration that marriage is indeed an arbitrary and unjustifiable legal imposition.
We already know that our states are predicated on the dispensation of as much freedom as possible; it is commonly held that it is good for the state to impose no more on people's choice than is necessary to prevent others within or without society imposing on people's free choice. To support the institution of marriage is therefore beyond the legitimate scope of a government, since it is an arbitrarily chosen good, dependent solely on belief.
The 'right-wingnuts' or whatever they choose to call themselves are quite right. Once marriage is dissociated from child-rearing its value is lost. Where they are wrong is to suppose that it currently is linked to child-rearing and that supporting homosexual marriage will break this link. Until marriage necessarily involves a child then that link does not exist. We have plenty of married couples without children, and plenty who no longer have children.
I'm not even sure that giving any support for child-rearing is a good thing, given the problems of global over-population and people having children just for the benefits. Gregory Clark makes a compelling argument (implicitly in his work) that because child subsidies are proportionally greater for the poor, the poor will have more children, who will have a reduced quality of upbringing the more children the poor have. The rich, who can afford to care for a child better, will feel less incentive.
He also argues that the long-term trickle down of greater fertility in the rich generated the work ethic and culture of personal virtue that started the industrial revolution. While the direct evidence is weak, the possibility is absolutely clear. Although any idea of attempting to control fertility of any group is anathema to modern society, it being claimed that everyone has the right to as many babies as he chooses, this seems silly to me. Soon we will have to indulge in population control anyway.
Furthermore, child subsidies already disproportionately affect the poor. It can be argued just as cogently that we are already therefore favouring fertility in this group, and that changing this system will remove our immoral influence. Of course, this is delving into subjects that could merit a whole discussion of their own.
The last point on this subject (that I have in mind at the moment) is something that Professor Sandel mentioned in his first Reith lecture: that financial incentives replace moral incentives, rather than adding to them. If putting a price on pregnancy (as he mentions in the second lecture) is wrong, then surely a price on child-rearing is wrong. Children should be raised to be moral citizens because it is necessary for society, not because society pays for children and has punishments in place for their immorality.
I would support a centralised child-rearing scheme. If anything is essential to society then future members are. If working members of the public supported both young and old then there might be less of a pensions problem: if there are too few workers to support the aged at some point in the future then it is because those aged did not support enough children when they were working (in a stable society: society with changing life expectancies but not retirement ages, or a society with a shrinking income would suffer anyway).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00l0y01/The_Reith_Lectures_The_Reith_Lectures_2009_Morality_in_Politics/
which is entitled 'Morality in Politics'. Professor Michael Sandel discusses how politics should not attempt neutrality on vexed moral questions, but needs to engage in debate and resolve them.
He also mentions how the attempt to be distanced from moral debate has led us to a flawed tolerance of disagreements, in which we pretend to accept others' opinions whilst finding them fundamentally disagreeable. This chimes nicely with a quotation which I have cherished for some time (and which I took from a games designer called Mark Rosewater, but which is not lessened by its unusual pedigree) and which ends like this:
'When did everyone get so afraid of conflict existing? Conflict is a wonderful thing. It causes resolution.'
We need proper debate about these problems, and that is the one thing that we are not getting. Another news source today mentioned that a few decades ago a politician got about 43 seconds to make a point. A few years ago it was 9 seconds and it is now 6 seconds. The article was attempting to blame computer games and video for shorter attention spans, but whatever the cause, it is clear that we are getting less substantive debate, not more.
Professor Sandel went on to talk about one thing especially: how the state cannot avoid being involved in moral questions. His first example was one in which a disability law made the question of the essential nature of golf a legal question, to be decided by judges, and his second was the subject of homosexual marriages.
States currently all support heterosexual marriages, and Professor Sandel clearly distinguishes between the options of equally supporting all types of marriage, supporting homosexual relationships in a lesser way or under a different name, and not supporting any marriage. As he says, marriage is patently not about procreation, despite many people's protestations.
In his opinion, marriage is about honouring the mutual and exclusive dedication of two people to each other. This honour is conferred not only by name but also through various legal benefits.
His analysis is clear and concise, if a little slowly spoken. It is about other points that we differ. Whereas he believes that the state must support homosexual marriage as an equal with heterosexual marriage, since the individuals have made identical commitments, I think that his examination is enough to show us that the whole institution of marriage is unsound.
Firstly, I see no reason for the state to honour mutual and exclusive dedication at all. Why this is a special form of relationship entirely eludes me; I have no arguments against it, but fail to see justification also. It simply appears ludicrous.
Secondly, I think that legal benefits are better given as support for procreation, if given at all. The mutual dedication is good only because it might (I doubt it) be always better for a child. In this case marriage is flawed because we recognise marriage intrinsically, not parents with children. Thus in some way I actually agree with those who are categorised as right-wing loonies and Christian nutters.
Thirdly, the 'mutual and exclusive' tag can be applied to any number of people. The addition of 'between two people only' is as ludicrous as 'between a man and a woman' if it is only the feelings that we are honouring. This is similar to Professor Sandel's dismissal of the 'simplistic' argument that people should be free to choose their partner. He says that it is not that simple, because of the option of the state not supporting a partner system at all. Rather than choose to remain in a clearly untenable system of thought, as he does, I take this problem as a demonstration that marriage is indeed an arbitrary and unjustifiable legal imposition.
We already know that our states are predicated on the dispensation of as much freedom as possible; it is commonly held that it is good for the state to impose no more on people's choice than is necessary to prevent others within or without society imposing on people's free choice. To support the institution of marriage is therefore beyond the legitimate scope of a government, since it is an arbitrarily chosen good, dependent solely on belief.
The 'right-wingnuts' or whatever they choose to call themselves are quite right. Once marriage is dissociated from child-rearing its value is lost. Where they are wrong is to suppose that it currently is linked to child-rearing and that supporting homosexual marriage will break this link. Until marriage necessarily involves a child then that link does not exist. We have plenty of married couples without children, and plenty who no longer have children.
I'm not even sure that giving any support for child-rearing is a good thing, given the problems of global over-population and people having children just for the benefits. Gregory Clark makes a compelling argument (implicitly in his work) that because child subsidies are proportionally greater for the poor, the poor will have more children, who will have a reduced quality of upbringing the more children the poor have. The rich, who can afford to care for a child better, will feel less incentive.
He also argues that the long-term trickle down of greater fertility in the rich generated the work ethic and culture of personal virtue that started the industrial revolution. While the direct evidence is weak, the possibility is absolutely clear. Although any idea of attempting to control fertility of any group is anathema to modern society, it being claimed that everyone has the right to as many babies as he chooses, this seems silly to me. Soon we will have to indulge in population control anyway.
Furthermore, child subsidies already disproportionately affect the poor. It can be argued just as cogently that we are already therefore favouring fertility in this group, and that changing this system will remove our immoral influence. Of course, this is delving into subjects that could merit a whole discussion of their own.
The last point on this subject (that I have in mind at the moment) is something that Professor Sandel mentioned in his first Reith lecture: that financial incentives replace moral incentives, rather than adding to them. If putting a price on pregnancy (as he mentions in the second lecture) is wrong, then surely a price on child-rearing is wrong. Children should be raised to be moral citizens because it is necessary for society, not because society pays for children and has punishments in place for their immorality.
I would support a centralised child-rearing scheme. If anything is essential to society then future members are. If working members of the public supported both young and old then there might be less of a pensions problem: if there are too few workers to support the aged at some point in the future then it is because those aged did not support enough children when they were working (in a stable society: society with changing life expectancies but not retirement ages, or a society with a shrinking income would suffer anyway).
Thursday, 28 May 2009
I came across a conversation some people were having about a news article that explained how the poor have to pay more than many middle-class people for the same services (such as how not owning a car can disrupt one's life). One person made a typical American-right-wing comment about how the poor should stop smoking, look harder for jobs and take any job, cook for themselves and cancel television subscriptions (all good advice, but not really an infallible solution to a global or national problem of poverty). These hilarious paragraphs were the response.
'The poor are there because many of them make such bad choices. All those middle class poor overextending themselves on their mortgages and all those multi-millionaure poor overextending themselves on credit default swaps just show that bad decision making is an exclusive trait of the poor and that they can never have wealth until they learn to stop making bad decisions.'
'That's right. If they were responsible people, educated themselves, went to business school, and blew a $12,000,000,000,000 hole in the world economy, then the government could help them out. As it is, though, these leeches are steaing our money for what? To feed their children?'
' If you cannot afford a computer and internet, then you're 'paying' for a similar thing with commute time, as you go to the library to use their computers. Funny how the "time is money" phrase kind of gets ignored by many when applied to the poor.'
'The poor are there because many of them make such bad choices. All those middle class poor overextending themselves on their mortgages and all those multi-millionaure poor overextending themselves on credit default swaps just show that bad decision making is an exclusive trait of the poor and that they can never have wealth until they learn to stop making bad decisions.'
'That's right. If they were responsible people, educated themselves, went to business school, and blew a $12,000,000,000,000 hole in the world economy, then the government could help them out. As it is, though, these leeches are steaing our money for what? To feed their children?'
' If you cannot afford a computer and internet, then you're 'paying' for a similar thing with commute time, as you go to the library to use their computers. Funny how the "time is money" phrase kind of gets ignored by many when applied to the poor.'
Thursday, 21 May 2009
The drive to promiscuity
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8055296.stm
This is a news story about how brain anatomy correlates with sociability. The idea that sociability is an innate characteristic is not proven, since the brain could have grown this way during development due to environmental influences. Nonetheless it's as interesting a thought that someone might have a set drive for sociability during adulthood which doesn't really change.
What I find more interesting than this, though, is the implication that these various drives might correlate with each other, such that people who crave chocolate, sex or other drugs also crave social contact. I've encountered suggestions that people substitute one of these things for another: magazines are full of articles in which people mention chocolate binges that happen as a result of being dumped, for example. I'd never encountered a neurological basis for this before though.
We also have cravings for attachment and romance, as explained here:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat.html
Apart from the fun bits, such as 'we were made to love more than one person', I wonder if all these cravings really can substitute for each other. Can the 'satisfaction' neurons reach maximal activity just from one or two of these (such as sex and chocolate) or do we need romance, sex, attachment, chocolate and social contact?
Either way, I'm not sure that marriage is a good solution. Helen Fisher thinks that we naturally want more than just the satisfaction of one drive that marriage gives us. If one drive, satisfied enough, can satisfy us entirely, why marry at all? Why not smoke weed all day, or eat chocolate, or have a busy social life? On the other hand, if it can satisfy us, why do so many marriages fail?
It seems much more likely that some amount of substitution is possible, but that we really want all the cravings to be satisfied separately.
In this case marriage seems to fight against human satisfaction by specifically denying us the chance to satisfy lust, romance and attachment all at once. Once again it seems a less than optimal solution. Any long-term arrangement that satisfies our desire for attachment does us harm if it also forbids us from satisfying our intrinsic desire for romance or our relatively short-term lusts; people who are attached to each other should accept that what is now called cheating is a perfectly normal and acceptable human trait. We might also notice that this research gives a decent explanation for extreme variabilities in sex drive. If someone wants more sex than someone else, he's not necessarily more base and sinful, just as the other person is not necessarily more prudish.
Of course, we knew this already. It does bring us on to the complicating factor of religion. Religion is a powerful tool for convincing people that things are wrong when they're actually beneficial. Religious people tend to be far less tolerant of drug use (of any sort), promiscuity, satisfaction of urges in general and especially of lust. It does seem strange that God would have made us to be naturally unhappy if we follow His teachings. Of course, much of these teachings are not necessarily God's, but are part of church doctrine instead. Either way, we have cause to doubt organised religion.
This is a news story about how brain anatomy correlates with sociability. The idea that sociability is an innate characteristic is not proven, since the brain could have grown this way during development due to environmental influences. Nonetheless it's as interesting a thought that someone might have a set drive for sociability during adulthood which doesn't really change.
What I find more interesting than this, though, is the implication that these various drives might correlate with each other, such that people who crave chocolate, sex or other drugs also crave social contact. I've encountered suggestions that people substitute one of these things for another: magazines are full of articles in which people mention chocolate binges that happen as a result of being dumped, for example. I'd never encountered a neurological basis for this before though.
We also have cravings for attachment and romance, as explained here:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat.html
Apart from the fun bits, such as 'we were made to love more than one person', I wonder if all these cravings really can substitute for each other. Can the 'satisfaction' neurons reach maximal activity just from one or two of these (such as sex and chocolate) or do we need romance, sex, attachment, chocolate and social contact?
Either way, I'm not sure that marriage is a good solution. Helen Fisher thinks that we naturally want more than just the satisfaction of one drive that marriage gives us. If one drive, satisfied enough, can satisfy us entirely, why marry at all? Why not smoke weed all day, or eat chocolate, or have a busy social life? On the other hand, if it can satisfy us, why do so many marriages fail?
It seems much more likely that some amount of substitution is possible, but that we really want all the cravings to be satisfied separately.
In this case marriage seems to fight against human satisfaction by specifically denying us the chance to satisfy lust, romance and attachment all at once. Once again it seems a less than optimal solution. Any long-term arrangement that satisfies our desire for attachment does us harm if it also forbids us from satisfying our intrinsic desire for romance or our relatively short-term lusts; people who are attached to each other should accept that what is now called cheating is a perfectly normal and acceptable human trait. We might also notice that this research gives a decent explanation for extreme variabilities in sex drive. If someone wants more sex than someone else, he's not necessarily more base and sinful, just as the other person is not necessarily more prudish.
Of course, we knew this already. It does bring us on to the complicating factor of religion. Religion is a powerful tool for convincing people that things are wrong when they're actually beneficial. Religious people tend to be far less tolerant of drug use (of any sort), promiscuity, satisfaction of urges in general and especially of lust. It does seem strange that God would have made us to be naturally unhappy if we follow His teachings. Of course, much of these teachings are not necessarily God's, but are part of church doctrine instead. Either way, we have cause to doubt organised religion.
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