Von Rueden and Van Vugt’s article discusses leadership roles in small-scale societies (SSS) as an influence to leadership in large-scale societies (LSS).  An interesting component of leadership they address is the scope of influence that leaders in SSS  are granted.  They conclude that the scale of power fluctuates based on the size of the group, the amount of cooperation present, and the necessity for conflict resolution.  I thought this was an interesting insight because I had never thought of the amount of power that was granted to a leader to be reflective of the amount of people within the society.  It makes logical sense, though, as a larger group of people will lead to less cooperation and additional conflicts that would be dismissed in smaller groups. In a weird way, this idea reminded me of the economic concept diminishing marginal returns because with additional members in society, there is ultimately a cap of maximizing productivity for each member, resulting in less production capacity per individual with additional members.  Basically, with more people, there is no longer the need for one person to fish all the time to meet the needs of the society because there are other people who can do it.  It allows for more leisure time, which is a contributor to divisions in large-scale societies.

I thought it was also interesting that the central focus for SSS leaders is the advocacy for cooperation.  Specifically when comparing the physical qualities of SSS and LSS leaders.  Aligning with their thesis, SSS leadership is kind of like the reduced form of LSS leadership, in that SSS solely focus on a physically dominating body stature so that there is more reliability in punishment enforcement and LSS leadership favors larger and more masculine leaders as that is a sign of dominance as well as health and intelligence.  For this component of leadership, LSS leadership is en evolution of SSS leadership suited to address the larger and more complex issues of large-scale societies.

Fisher discussed the Chicken Dilemma with two options for each actor: to step aside or to not step aside.  This matrix shows the vulnerability of one actor choosing to step aside while the other doesn’t and the “best” solution is for both actors to step aside.  However, because of these vulnerabilities and lack of trust, both actors fail to step aside and aggressions grow.  A real-life example of this was the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I remember learning about different game theory in my Intro. to International Relations class, and I thought it was particularly interesting that Fisher noted, “threats are useless, though, without credibility”.  We saw this in the escalation of the Cold War when the Soviet Union moved nuclear weapons into Cuba to test US threats.  Although these social dilemmas are evaluations of human action, they can be extrapolated to high-stake, international issues, such as the Cold War.  It is important to focus on cooperation rather than stubbornly sticking to one side of an argument, whether at the personal or international level.

I thought Dr. Flanigan’s article against prescription drug restriction was intriguing as she argued the importance of preserving and enabling self-medication.  I was surprised by her explanation of the paternalistic history of prescription drugs; that as individuals expected more coverage from the federal government, there were inherently more restrictions put in place that prevented self-medication.  Although there were efforts to relieve the system, like the Doctrine of Informed Consent (DIC), prescription drugs continued to be less accessible.  I understand and see the normative arguments from both medical practitioners and patients, and it would be interesting to see how a highly dependable system can shift to promote the right to self-medication, as Dr. Flanigan suggests.

Blindspot (108)

The “Blindspot” reading discussed stereotypes as unfiltered and unacknowledged biases against individuals.  Specifically, the author discussed the costs that have followed the stereotype that “American = White”, sharing the story of Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-American, who was accused of turning over US nuclear secrets to China.  He spent time in prison and lost his job following this incident, all because “Americans” thought he was must have connections to another Asian country based on his appearance.  The part I thought was interesting was that the author stated that stereotypes are difficult to acknowledge because “they are often put into play without any feeling of personal animus or vengeance”.  This reminded me of our class discussion on how to evaluate moral arguments, as I wondered where incidents like this, based on stereotypes, would be evaluated.  And for the actors (the white Americans), would that argument have remained seen as moral if not for criticisms of stereotypes?  It is examples like these that emphasize the importance of recognizing biases and mindbugs and blindspots to prevent unnoticed discrimination.

In Banaji and Greenwald’s book “Blindspot”, they discuss the different types of lies individuals can tell, organizing them into “shades of truth”.  This in itself was interesting to me because lies and truth are often viewed as opposites.  However, the authors use this play on words to discuss certain lies as manipulations of the truth.  In other words, lies are distortions of the truth.

For me, I found the section “Colorless Lies” to be intriguing. The section discussed a quote by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, addressing the things individuals experience that they are not willing to admit to themselves, let alone to others.  These things that people keep to themselves are considered “colorless lies” because they are not acknowledged by the individual himself or others, by extension; they are invisible.  I thought this was an interesting inclusion because it isn’t necessarily distorting the truth, but it is omitting some truth from being known; that, in itself, is an untruth.  The authors go on to express how these untruths affect the teller as much as the listener, which is what makes them unique from other types of “lies”.