Friday, August 10, 2007
EVOLUTION
Evolution and speed
As I continue reading about different aspects of evolution, and also listening to lectures of many smart English speaking professors, I am constantly coming to the conclusion I have made already some time ago, and i.e. that speed of reaction is one of basic prerequisites of evolution.
For simplicity just imagine two males fighting for a female; the one who cannot react fast enough and maybe will even ponder how he should hit the rival, will die for sure, the other male won’t wait for the first guy’s logical but time consuming decision making. In this case the speed of reaction deicide not only about the right to mete with the female but also about life of the other guy or at least about the quality of his further life, as he might get so severely wounded that his next life would be a pure torment.
At present time, car driving might be also a good example of necessity to react fast, nearly all sports include the need for fast, speedy response, basketball, ice.-hockey, as well as box, or 100meters sprint, where it is necessary to react extremely fast to the start signal.
Imagine the following situations: a) you are standing in line at eh post office of a town where you have been living for years and where crime is basically non-existent. Suddenly somebody hits you severely on your shoulder. Would is your normal reaction? Well, in this town, most probably you just slowly turn around and then you see a face of your friend grinning at you. In a town where crime is on daily program, you might turn around as fast as possible and hit back without looking who might have hit you, because you know of the possibility of being robbed, killed or attacked in some other way as a normal daily activity and you would feel the necessity to protect yourself.
So speed is really important. Unfortunately, speedy decision-making can cause a lot of problems, as it does at present time in the USA, and it even affects other countries economies.
What happened in the USA again? Well, some smart Alec preparing new bank product, had found out that people react more positively to a good thing, a gift given to them immediately, and do not take it too much seriously that they will have to repay it later on, because it is a long time from now on, it is not coming fast.
As people really react this way, it means, preferring fast gift and not considering later downsides of the gift, USA banks have been offering loans, with extremely low interest rate at the beginning, for few years, mostly two, and then increasing the interest rate remarkably, sometimes it even doubles. Then, many people cannot pay the installments and it results in many foreclosures and total breakdown of the home loan sector, and severe impact on the entire bank branch.
This link will bring you to the article discussing the subject. The author calls it a flaw, a mistake that is built in our brain. I do not think it is a mistake; it is a needed system equipping us with the ability of fast reaction that is absolutely necessary as I have shown on several examples and you might, for sure, find other good examples for necessary fast reaction. Unfortunately, some people cannot differentiate between the situations, and stubbornly use the emotional way of fast reaction, instead of making some logical thinking first.
The reason might be that real logical thinking is too difficult, too demanding, and many people avoid that therefore and prefer emotional fast reaction in any situation, and that makes them losers.
As I continue reading about different aspects of evolution, and also listening to lectures of many smart English speaking professors, I am constantly coming to the conclusion I have made already some time ago, and i.e. that speed of reaction is one of basic prerequisites of evolution.
For simplicity just imagine two males fighting for a female; the one who cannot react fast enough and maybe will even ponder how he should hit the rival, will die for sure, the other male won’t wait for the first guy’s logical but time consuming decision making. In this case the speed of reaction deicide not only about the right to mete with the female but also about life of the other guy or at least about the quality of his further life, as he might get so severely wounded that his next life would be a pure torment.
At present time, car driving might be also a good example of necessity to react fast, nearly all sports include the need for fast, speedy response, basketball, ice.-hockey, as well as box, or 100meters sprint, where it is necessary to react extremely fast to the start signal.
Imagine the following situations: a) you are standing in line at eh post office of a town where you have been living for years and where crime is basically non-existent. Suddenly somebody hits you severely on your shoulder. Would is your normal reaction? Well, in this town, most probably you just slowly turn around and then you see a face of your friend grinning at you. In a town where crime is on daily program, you might turn around as fast as possible and hit back without looking who might have hit you, because you know of the possibility of being robbed, killed or attacked in some other way as a normal daily activity and you would feel the necessity to protect yourself.
So speed is really important. Unfortunately, speedy decision-making can cause a lot of problems, as it does at present time in the USA, and it even affects other countries economies.
What happened in the USA again? Well, some smart Alec preparing new bank product, had found out that people react more positively to a good thing, a gift given to them immediately, and do not take it too much seriously that they will have to repay it later on, because it is a long time from now on, it is not coming fast.
As people really react this way, it means, preferring fast gift and not considering later downsides of the gift, USA banks have been offering loans, with extremely low interest rate at the beginning, for few years, mostly two, and then increasing the interest rate remarkably, sometimes it even doubles. Then, many people cannot pay the installments and it results in many foreclosures and total breakdown of the home loan sector, and severe impact on the entire bank branch.
This link will bring you to the article discussing the subject. The author calls it a flaw, a mistake that is built in our brain. I do not think it is a mistake; it is a needed system equipping us with the ability of fast reaction that is absolutely necessary as I have shown on several examples and you might, for sure, find other good examples for necessary fast reaction. Unfortunately, some people cannot differentiate between the situations, and stubbornly use the emotional way of fast reaction, instead of making some logical thinking first.
The reason might be that real logical thinking is too difficult, too demanding, and many people avoid that therefore and prefer emotional fast reaction in any situation, and that makes them losers.
# posted by Dalibor @ 6:41 AM 
