“Ethics” is advertising – the article leisurely goes through some good ideas. Here are some summed up thoughts:
1) Signaling; important for the survival of organisms is communication about the qualities of an individual organism to others; all of the characteristics and behaviors of organisms transmit this information through various symbols; humans are no exception and our idiosyncratic behaviors both knowingly and unknowingly share information about who we are.
2) Taking a view of common behaviors through the lens of signalling we can understand that religion is an efficient symbol of ethics, philosophy, and virtues. We can also see that the point of advertising is not to persuade you to buy an object, but convince you that an object is a symbol of a certain wealth, philosophy, and personality.
3) The symbolism of various objects, ideas, and behaviors as signals changes over time, with occasionally dramatic societal consequences.
4) What something means is more important than what it is.
Computer Show – computing from the 1980s, today
Look at Me – we all have stories
Katrina Refrigerators – a cool wiki article
Apollo Missions – engenders a feeling of propinquity
Big 5 personality test – if you want another
George Boole Google logo – hopefully google will continue to become more abstract
categories:
- look
- read
tags:
- biology
- humor
- life
- linkdump
- space