Social Parasites Engineer Their Own Downfall!

Social Parasites Engineer Their Own Downfall!

www.sciencedaily.com

Social Parasites Of The Smaller Kind
Science Daily — Cooperation is widespread in the natural world but so too are cheats -- mutants that do not contribute to the collective good but simply reap the benefits of others' cooperative efforts. In evolutionary terms, cheats should indeed prosper, so how cooperation persists despite the threat of cheat takeover is a fundamental question. Recently, biologists at the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford have found that in bacteria, cheats actually orchestrate their own downfall.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I thought this was so delicious I could not resist posting it..
Dare I take a leap and apply it to people as well, perhaps to entire government structures based on the isms socialismm, where the state taking care of all actually encourages cheatiing at the expense of the real producers..the individual.

By all means please flag this thread as these forums tend to be infested with cheaters.and who will no doubt feel an urgent need to what is being given away on this thread..this will be their last handout..Let them read and learn..

Sys


www.sciencedaily.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 30-8-2007 by Sys_Config]

Fascinating read; I can't help but draw parallels to human society, and yet I feel a little guilty about it.

I wonder if this will have any impact on ... well, anything at all. It may be a bit far-fetched to think that this research will inspire more cooperation in certain aspects of society: the test subjects were, after all, microbes.

I kind of see it like what is going on in our own society right now and we are not a socialist society after all, but a society that is separated by two groups.

The workers and the profiteers.

To answer one part of the OP, from a personal perspective, I have been on incapacity benefit for over 3 1/2 years now.
Does this make me a cheat, according to the OP?

Let me expand.
Nearly 4 years ago I injured my back quite badly and have since been unable to work - for the first time in my life I am out of work through no fault of my own, and have to rely on the benefit system and all that entails.
During my working life, I contributed to the economy, to charities and helped the companies I worked for grow.

Am I still a cheat?

At the moment I can't work even part time, but I do charity work for a local arts centre (theatre) and the british heart foundation, insofar as I am able.

Am I still a cheat?

I say this only to illustrate the need to be very careful before labeling people - what works in the animal kingdom is not always applicable to humans.

I see that this topic can become personal, so I will refrain my post,

Is two classes in America those that work and depend on government assistance and those that profit from the workers and the suffering of the ones in need.

Now is that better.

Originally posted by marg6043
I see that this topic can become personal, so I will refrain my post,

Is two classes in America those that work and depend on government assistance and those that profit from the workers and the suffering of the ones in need.

Now is that better.

You go right ahead and say whatever's on your mind marg - I won't take it personally, because I know that my circumstances are the exception rather than the rule.
I'm fully aware of how people exploit and abuse any kind of social welfare system - I get cheesed off about it myself.

My point was that you never know the story behind the person, and that's the danger of labeling everybody on benefits.

I have Aspergers, a disorder in the autism spectrum.

While I have a well above average IQ and thanks to one of many good factors of having Aspergers combined with that IQ, am way better at certain things then any normal person can even hope to be, other factors of aspergers make it impossible for me to do certain tasks, to deal with certain situations and to be any good in communicating with people directly, unless I'm very familiar with these people (and in my case some other bad factors that aren't that important other then in my daily routine and personal life).

If it wasn't for the social welfare system, these bad sides of aspergers would mean I couldn't do a job at all, because the things I can't do are normally considered a part of what my job description would be.

Before I was diagnosed with Aspergers, I was fired from several jobs because I was unable to do everything they wanted me to do, the company usually disregarding the fact that the things I could do were done better, faster and in much higher volume then anyone else did. Some companies held of firing me just because they did see that I was better at some things then others. But because they regarded me as a normal person, the things I was unable to do or forgot to do were seen as me being unqualified for the job or as me being a bad apple and rebellious. Before I was diagnosed, it became harder and harder to get a new job, because the opinion of the previous company counted for the new companies I was trying to get in.

If you know that its thought that around 50% of the people in Silicon valley have aspergers to some degree, you'd also understand why the work environment at places like Google and Microsoft and other technology related companies are totally different from any other corporate environment.
They know that the people they hire have unmatched skills in some departments, but need extra care in other departments. They also understand that with Aspergers, alot of the people that have it and have their extended skills situated in the technology field, need a mechanism around them to suit their exponential skill growth and their massive hunger for learning everything there is to know about their field.

Once the related departments of Belgium's welfare system got involved in coordinating and managing my work and workplace, things got a whole lot better, both for me and whoever I was working for. People that work with me recognize my intellect, recognize my skills and at the same time understand and recognize my limitations, this without thinking I'm a moron or a retard.
Companies I work for understand that the things I'm good at are an extremely valuable asset and that my limitations are nothing compared to the value of my skills, because they don't have to deal with these limitations anymore. The welfare system does.

Company's also get an extra incentive to work with me because they get subsidies for doing so.

I do agree that people who are on unemployment for a very long time, while having no physical or mental limitations of any kind, are a pest to society.

Especially if for example, you look at how fruit farmers here in Belgium currently call in 15000 polish workers during the harvest season, because the 100k or so unemployed people are to lazy and to backward to do the job.

I say to backward because in the past they forced these people to take these kinds of jobs, but ended up having the fruit farmers complain that these people didn't only do the job badly, but would also do just about everything to get tossed out.

Other sectors where they need labor force too are faced with the same problems, having to hire people that are overqualified or foreign, because the qualified and able people on unemployment rather keep leeching from the system then do anything productive.

[edit on 30/8/07 by thematrix]

I understand Budski, and I agree with you one hundred percent but in our nation that is so many deceiving people to make a buck, many even find a way to exploit people like you.

But the thread mention socialism but this is happening here in America and we are not socialist we are a capitalistic nation and capitalism is used for abuse all the time.

Point taken marg, I do feel though that capitalism that's tempered with some socialism (in the form of social welfare) is a must in the modern world - despite the fact that some people abuse the system, we can't just throw the weaker members of society to the wolves, and this is what makes it open to abuse.

Then again, the people who abuse the system always get found out one way or another.

Karma is a wonderful thing

You know when I read the thread and I posted first, I was referring to our economic situation and what has become of our nation difference of classes.

I do not truly agree with the meaning given to the thread.

Our nation is turning into two classes the profiteers that controls the government and the economy of this nation and the people that depends on them for survival.

Our middle class is almost none existence, occurs this is in a political point of view.

I believe in free interprise and capitalism but also believe that the fortunate should care for the less fortunate and that it doesn't have to become full blown socialism.

reply to post by marg6043


I agree marg, but with one proviso - the middle class was largely a victorian "invention" of people who aspired to be better than the "lower" classes by virtue of economic success.

Personally, I think the disappearance of the middle classes (in the victorian sense) is a good thing.
Of course, once this happens, the whole communist issue rears it's head, with the division between the "state" (or substitute state for corporations, government etc) and the proletariat dependent on them.

Its not always only the weaker members of society that need help.
I don't consider myself weak in any way, but I still need the help I'm getting.

And this is exactly because society is the way it is. I live in a country that would be considered very socialist by Americans, but capitalist corporations are present here too and they also help dictate how society views other people.

Society doesn't like people who clothe outside of the norm, who speak their mind, who do things that aren't in the norm, people who's emotions can't be read on the outside, people who prefer being by themselves, people who need to do things their way, etc etc.

Because of those things, I might seem a weak member in the context of what society perceives, but once you get to know me, my skills, my character, my aspergers boosted sense of justice, my sense of humor and many other things would make it strange for me to be considered a social outcast.

The same way I have problems getting over thresholds in meeting new people and communicating with people in person, just as much does society and people part of it have trouble getting over the thresholds to not judge me by appearance, eccentricities or social standards, and really get to know me.

Once they do get past those preconceptions society sets up around a person like me, people usually like me a lot.

reply to post by thematrix


You know, by the way you post and the topics you cover I would never had thought that you have any problems at all, I always enjoy your posts.

[edit on 30-8-2007 by marg6043]

I haven't discussed anything with you before thematrix, but I find your answers articulate, well reasoned, intelligent and interesting, and I would never have guessed that you had an impairment(?probably the worng word) if you hadn't mentioned it.

IMO - those employers who had a problem? their loss - people need to look beneath the surface a lot more than they do.

I hope you will all pardon my short-sightedness -- if indeed, this is what plagues me. However, I fail to see how (or why) this topic should be taken personally.

The research was carried out on bacteria. The rules of bacterial society certainly vary from the rules of human society. Naturally, there will be characteristic similarities: a society is a structure that consists of several individuals working together. This holds the same whether the society in question is of apples, birds, bees, humans, or Quargons from Zygote-12.

As the old saying goes, "The devil is in the details." Human society consists of other sub-groups -- but on the whole, it is still a conglomeration of individuals working together. As you may all remember from your school days, team work is necessary if a team is to succeed. If individuals stop playing as a team, they will fail to progress together.

This study has done nothing but indicate that the same holds true for bacteria. It may provoke us to look at our society in similar terms -- but should we go trigger-happy and start fingering the "cheats" in our society?

In conclusion, this is a fine thread. Wouldn't it be a shame if it fell apart due to errant thoughts?

The OP referred to applying the research to human society - it's this which I believe has prompted the social issues of the discussion.

For me personally, especially with the safeguards and help I'm receiving, I don't really have any impairments anymore.

But there are people with Aspergers who suffer from very extreme physical and speech tics and many other types of problems by which society would put them in the misfit and weak categories.

You can read about Aspergers on Wikipedia and on other sites on the web.

en.wikipedia.org...

There are plenty of people who live a completely normal life with it, while there are other people, who have some of their traits manifest in an extreme form, can have a really crappy life, mostly because society is so inflexible that they can't see past those things, even though the person in question might be the next Einstein if they were helped and understood.

As for the comments and praise, being articulate, well reasoned and intelligent are some of the double edged sword sides of aspergers.
Other people can think emotional, speak dialect or slang and get out of a problem by simply following their gut instead of over-reasoning everything, I can't, not for the life of me.

In a conversation like this one, these things are good, but in a conversation thats meant to be social or emotional, for instance with a hot girl you would like to get to know or all other types of conversations society dictates you need to be able to do in a social life, always speaking textbook language, being reasoned and knowledgeable is not good. Always having the urge to correct people or relieve them of ignorance when they are actually having chitchat, is annoying to them and unacceptable to society.

Anyway, that concludes the Aspergers Awareness information.
Time to bring focus back to this thread.

Btw, the fact that people with aspergers are usually intelligent (a requirement to make the destinction between aspergers and a form of autism is actually that people with aspergers have to have an IQ of 100 or above) and well spoken and completely functional and very good in certain aspects, that they either get diagnosed only in adulthood (like me) or live their entire life having problems in society, the later being the reason why I eventually did get diagnosed, because I had problems fitting in as an adult.

[edit on 30/8/07 by thematrix]

I apologize for not clarifying cheat..and that someone impaired might even construe themselves as a drag..I believe the bacterial essay seemed to direct itself at active opportunistic entities, which I doubt any one here , by analogy so far, the " shoe" seems seems to "fit".

Gods Speed


SyS

Thanks for clarifying your thoughts there.

It's my understanding that posters picked up on the human element and chose to discuss it as it pertained to them.
No offense was taken by me, and the thread has many social connotations which may be interesting to discuss.