Glen, Eric, This is what I get for working backwards through my email messages.
We are all in agreement, here. The psychological vulnerability to "fan clubs" has come about in human evolution because they employ psychological structures which functioned at the individual level in village life but which now create new social structures that function at the group level in our larger societies. We have only to explain the behavior of the celebrity her- or himself: why anybody might be tempted to try to put ourselves in the celebrity position? Here, multilevel selection comes into play. While the routine function of fan clubs might be to make groups out of strangers, for the celebrity herself, it becomes an chance to exploit that weakness in human nature for her own individual gain. Any one of us who sees a chance at that opportunity would be a fool not to try and exploit it. Hence facebook and "friends". NIck Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella <g...@agent-based-modeling.com> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > Date: 11/25/2009 8:01:45 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dunbar numbers and distributions > > Thus spake ERIC P. CHARLES circa 11/25/2009 06:14 AM: > > I think there is confusion over the thing to be explained. The question of > > celebrity in this case is not "why should you trust someone who loves Garth > > Brooks?" but "why should you trust Garth Brooks?" > > That's not what celebrity is about, though. Celebrity has nothing to do > with trusting the celebrity. It has to do with trusting the people > around you, some of whom know things about the celebrity and some who > don't. It's easier if you think about things like sports stats. Just > because you argue that one team should win the next game or that > so-and-so is a better quarter back than some other guy doesn't mean you > trust that guy. It means you have some leverage for a trust > relationship between various friends. > > > Why do we treat these people > > as if they are part of our extended family? > > We don't. Just because I talk a lot about who Brad Pitt is married to > doesn't mean I treat Brad Pitt as if he's part of my family. It _does_ > mean that I have things to talk about with my friends who also talk a > lot about who Brad Pitt is married to. > > > What do you really know about Garth > > Brooks that makes you think you should buy a car he recommends? > > If Garth Brooks recommends we buy a car, we buy that car because it > gives us leverage with our social clique (presumably orbiting details > about Garth Brooks). > > > Why would you > > care who he is married to? > > Because knowing that gives me leverage with my social clique. > > > Surely this type of interest and trust used to be > > limited to village members. Surely then, that type of interest and trust is > > being extended to a group other than the one it evolved to extend to. > > The trust is built up within and around the social clique, not with > Garth Brooks. The celebrity is merely the fulcrum, the _category_ that > makes trust a fine-grained thing. > > > I'm not really sure how the argument goes from there, but that part seemed > > relatively straightforward. > > [grin] Yeah, people tell me that I've totally missed the point ALL THE > TIME. So, it doesn't bother me to be way off base, here, too. I claim > that it's not that straightforward at all. We are _not_ confusing > "village" trust with "world" trust, as Nick argued. We are exercising a > part of our extended physiology, namely the TV/Magazine media, in order > to exercise/maintain a complex trust matrix. > > That's my story (aka rhetoric) and I'm sticking to it. ;-) > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
