We have a winner. By applying principles of evolution and systems theory, we conclude that the Jews are set up for success. 

I am not a Jew, nor do I necessarily favor the Jews as a people. I simply find them and their success on this planet fascinating and in this article I’ll apply the principles outlined in this site to the Jews and their existence on this planet. And in doing so, they fare quite well. The Bible is full of metaphors and so I’m just taking a “page out of their book” in calling the Jews “God’s Chosen People”. I don’t personally believe God consciously chooses anything. Whether you believe in God or not, you may be able to imagine that nature favors some characteristics in things and individuals over other characteristics. Biology teachers will call this process of favoritism “Natural Selection”. Not all characteristics are created the same: some will do well in the world and some will not. And of course, some characteristics are doing neither great nor horrible, and just hover in the realm of “getting by”. And, when looking at the Jews in this article, I’m looking at their potential and not only their current state - much like a baseball scout is looking at a prospect’s potential and not only how well he is doing at the moment.  But they are, in fact, doing well and looks like they have what it takes to do even better.

The Jews as a people have several characteristics which make them more fit for success in this world than other peoples. The suspense must be killing you:

Decentralization and team work
Jews are historically everywhere. Dispersed yet united. I can’t escape the biological analogy of a bunch of cells working for a common goal. And, of course, other religions are also dispersed, but somehow the lack of a homeland has given the Jews an extra motive for maintaining togetherness. The history of suffering has only added to this motive. When the Jews finally did get a homeland in 1948 in the form of Israel, they transformed from a set of cells to one big cell with a nucleus. Ironically, the strife they still face may be serving the “togetherness” motif which has been integral to their success. Imagine Israel was as big as Texas, held 95% of all Jews and was in complete harmony with its neighbors. They would be just another country, just another people. Decentralization and team work are characteristics favorable to successful goal-oriented systems. They work for businesses and they are working for the Jews.

A defined operating plan
The Jews are a people, but then, so are the Irish. But when we define “people” as pertaining to a religion, they hold the advantage of having a code - i.e. a way of living and operating that everyone can adhere to. Research shows that businesses with a mission statement tend to do better than those without. Now, countries sort of have a mission statement, but democracy tends to water it down. You just don’t have everybody on the same page in a democracy as you do in a religion. Not saying one is better than the other, but when it comes to coordinating efforts on a large scale, it helps to have as many people as possible agreeing on what has to be done.

Freedom and Flexibility
Despite that Jews adhere to Judaism, they are known for their flexibility in their belief. Obviously, Orthodox Jews are not, but your mainstream Jew on the street can get through life with a lot less guilt than your average Catholic or Muslim. Their code seems less specific and stringent than other religions, making them the masters of the system instead of the slaves. If religion is a path to be followed, they have paved a wide road to allow for greater inclusion and possibilities. Again, the rabbis may not admit to this, but it is the reality of the modern Jewish people. Contrast this with the average Muslim, who also comes from a strict religion, but feels an increasing push to actually adhere to it much more than his average Jewish counterpart. This lack of flexibility will eventually mutate and strangle the Muslim community whereas the Jews will be able flourish in their approach.

The Jewish Trinity - confident, passionate, and able
Somehow confidence is built into the Jewish existence. Despite being teased on the global schoolyard, these people have unshakeable faith that they can do anything. Of course, there will be individuals who have no self-esteem, but I’m talking in general terms with graphs and large numbers of people. The Jews believe. And they have the muscle, cultural intellect and capability to deliver. Attribute it perhaps to the togetherness and a possible need to be one step ahead of the game in a hostile environment. Passion is in there too. They want to be there and they want to do well. Put all this together and it makes for a powerful group. Other peoples may share some of these characteristics (the Arabs are passionate too and the Swedes are very confident) but the combination makes them fairly unique in the world.

Employing other people
The Jews have done a great job ensuring that the rest of the world cares about their welfare. Sure parts of the world still openly deny the Jews their place in the world, but in large, most countries and peoples are sympathetic to the Jewish cause and help out where they can. This is a rare feat and one that does not go unrewarded. Imagine how much more successful a person is who has other people supporting his endeavors. Guilt has certainly helped win over support but so has a strong image.

They’re inside you
The Jews are also notorious entertainers and artists, as good art needs all the traits the Jews possess - passion, confidence, and ability. Coincidently, modern film and television have found them indispensable and the Jews have been able to put their cultural stamp on much of the information we receive via the television. This has been crucial to the success the Jewish people have seen since the Second World War. We all know how important information is. You can imagine the Jews inhabit a small piece of every American’s brain in the form of Barbara Streisand, Steven Spielberg’s films, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Ben Stiller, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, and Ross & Rachel Geller. Few ethnic groups can claim to own the same proportion of mental real estate in the world’s psyche. To top it off, we’re all quite happy to have them there. Of course, I have yet to feel a strong Jewish presence on the Internet - the mother of all information systems. Is it potential proof that Jewish success is not a planned and calculated effort or are the Jews simply not in a position to hold a disproportionate presence on the internet?

All these points mentioned above contribute to the success of any system. Businesses understand this and do their best to employ all of these elements. And somehow, they are all built into the Jewish existence. Lucky them. I say “lucky” since I don’t see it came about from some conscious initiative - that’s just how the Jews have evolved. Of course, we can all learn something from this, but we won’t since we - whatever people you belong to - are not led by conscious decisions and actions. But we can use logic like this to get an idea of which people will have a hard time in the coming centuries and which ones will effortlessly flourish and expand. Best of luck to all of you.

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Radiohead just released an album. Yes, we’re all a-tingle and anytime Radiohead does anything, it’s a big deal. But what’s notable about this release is that it’s being posted on the internet for free download and fans pay what they want to pay. The theory goes like this: like it a lot = pay a lot, like it not = pay nothing. I haven’t heard the album, but I’m expecting them to do pretty well. What a cool place we’re at in time where products and services are paid for via donations. And that’s what this amounts to - some communist business model where you pay what you feel like paying. No hard sticker price, just your conscience guiding you. Lots of blogs are doing it these days. People put their time and energy into something and then put their faith into the world that there will be some form of gratitude.

This site too bases its business model (if you can call it that) largely on donations. I like the idea that everything is potentially free. There are ads too, which people can either look at or ignore - but, of course, that is another business model. To understand donations better, it’s a good idea to understand why people make donations. This can be largely explained by the phenomenon of altruism. Altruism exists in two forms: 1) reciprocal: i.e. “you owe me one” and 2) kin: “I win when you win”.

In reciprocal altruism, you do something for someone and they are obligated to do something back for you - whether this obligation is enforced by an iron-clad contract or a passive-aggressive guilt trip. This, of course, only works when both parties know of the other’s existence. Donations based on reciprocal altruism may not have such a bright future. With a donation, in this definition (via the internet and largely anonymous) recognition of the donating party is fairly vague. They gave you five bucks, you know their email address, but a feeling of reciprocity is not very strong. You assume they got something out of your product, site, or service and are simply showing their appreciation. A system is not in place which would make this true reciprocal altruism. They could have just as well not paid you five bucks. The end result in terms of your feelings towards them is practically the same when measured in terms of reciprocity. So, just expecting to post good stuff and get money for it from donators may not work out in the long term.

Kin altruism may be the saving grace. We know from evolution that altruism is stronger towards those sharing a higher percentage of our genes (i.e., you’ll be more altruistic to your siblings than to your cousins, statistically). We also know that beliefs and values, not genes, are the currency of cultural evolution. Therefore, by the same mechanism, altruism is stronger towards those who share a higher percentage of our beliefs. For instance, if two people were drowning and you could only save one, who would it be - the one who loved your favorite band or the one who hated your favorite band? Now substitute the word “band” with “religious figure” and you see how strong this stuff really is. Donations should theoretically come easier from those who share your beliefs and values. The more web visitors you attract who believe what you believe and the stronger they believe it, the more money you should theoretically make through donations. A lot of people like Radiohead and their fans are pretty fervent, so by this logic, I would expect Radiohead to do relatively well with this initiative.

How to increase donations
For altruism to really flourish, a few things need to be in place. It may be worth trying to work these elements into your website and/or business.
 - donor identification - altruism doesn’t work as well when the donors are anonymous. Get their names recognized somehow - preferably publicly. Everyone likes other people to know they gave something for nothing. I know what you’re thinking, “doesn’t that make it more of an ad than a donation?” Maybe a little, but in this sense they are both agreements (”I do something and you do something in return”)- just in slightly different forms.
 - do something a lot of people like and feel strongly about - this would explain why there is so much content related to religion, George Bush, and the war in Iraq. Virtually everyone feels strongly about these subjects.
- present a good, positive image for your business/website. Perhaps contrary to logic, people who have a lot of money will tend to receive more donations than those who have very little money. This is the reciprocal altruism again - you give to people who you expect will be able to help you in the future. Poor people would have a harder time doing this. Present yourself well and people will be more likely to give.
- convince people you are helping them - by doing whatever you’re doing in your business, point out the benefits the donator will be receiving (and they should certainly be receiving something beneficial). Radiohead can say that they are providing good music. You should accentuate the great content you’re enriching lives with.

Notice how these four things sound a lot like campaigning - and indeed you’ll see them all in bloom in the upcoming US election. Give them some thought for your website/organization. Hope it works out…. And in a no way ironic gesture…

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Yes, this is a gross generalization and no this is not based a specific scientific study and yes, I was going for the catchy title. Taste is a matter of opinion, not something quantifiable. But guys can attest, most women have bad taste in music. Enough guys have bad taste in music, but over a large population, men tend to listen to more artistic, intricate, and authentic music than women do. Guys like The Police and women like Sting. Get it? Why is that? Let us explore.

Music?
First off: what the hell is music anyway? I mean, why do humans take different sounds and put them together in an organized whole? Answer: because we can. Some things in life are inherently impressive. Nature is impressive. The way the sun sets or the trees turn color. It shows organization and harmony, things we naturally like because of the “power” they symbolize - and we like power because without power there is no advancement. Whoever made it must be powerful and capable and someone we want to be friends with. Many people call this God which is why God is so revered. People also make impressive things. Buildings, art, weapons, food… Men, in particular, make things to impress women. It’s in our genes as well. “Show them what we can do and they’ll want to hitch up with us”. Music, like any other form of art of cultural creation, is symbolic of what we can do. It is a status symbol. The head of a deer in the entrance hall to your hut used to work fine some 100,000 years ago, but as humans developed, so did the things they did and made to impress women. Music, art, cuisine, and culture ensued and somewhere in the course of evolution, music got associated with sex.

The Non-Manly man
Men are natural born musicians. Birds make music for the same reasons - to attract females. It’s in the blood. Not all men are musically talented, but there is a tendency in men to be musical, or at least to appreciate music. And one can distinguish the more musical types of men. Like I said, the deer’s head worked well in impressing the ladies, but not all guys are the type to hunt deer. If they were, there would be nothing but brutish, dominant males running around engaging in continuous struggles with each other. Evolution had to find a balance and some men had to bow out of the fight. The testosterone-challenged men had to find other ways to impress the ladies, and art provided an opportunity. The trend is quite clear today - the gangly, the ugly, the slight effeminate, make the best musicians (again, a gross generalization). Want me to name some? Jimmy Page, Joe Jackson, David Bowie, John Lennon, George Harrison, (sorry Paul, you’re not ugly enough), Mick Jagger, Kurt Cobain, Rick Ocasic, Bill Corgan, Alex Turner, Keith Richards, Pete Townsend, Jack White, Craig Nicholls, Elvis Costello, Michael Stipe, Perry Farrel and so on… What other choice did they have in this world accept art? Over the course of thousands of years, evolution provided them with an alternative to brute masculinity.

How women listen to music
Many men seem to have “music friends” - other people with whom they share musical tastes. And most often these are other men. I personally have rarely found other women to really bond with musically. There seems to be something missing. And indeed there is. Women, by nature, are not into making music but are more into listening to music (yes, there are some great female musicians). And what’s more, they’re listening to it not for how well it is made, but for how it makes them feel - either through the sounds or through the lyrics, or both. The feeling they’re looking for is one of quiet comfort and total devotion. Jack Johnson and James Blunt provide this quite well. “Yes, you are beautiful. And that’s why it is you who will get the profits from my record sales”.

How men listen to music
Men might listen to music at times for how it is made - like they can learn something from it, or rip it off so they can make some music for the ladies. And though initially men made music for women, somewhere along the line men took it to the next level - not only out to impress women, but out to impress other men as well. Impress enough men, and respect, money, and women tend to follow. The tone of the music would then start to appeal to the male character and not the female character. Easy examples of this would be blues, heavy metal and grunge. Loud, a bit edgy, and not typically romantic. Relatively speaking few women like Buddy Guy, Metallica or Nirvana, yet these artists have been heralded by critics and earned their share of respect and money. That puts these guys in some primo positions for passing on their genes, not that they were ever consciously making music for that reason.

What the music says to a woman
Women tend to like the crooners - it’s in their genetic predisposition. Singers like Jack Johnson who aren’t really doing anything too interesting with the music, but sing a certain way or say certain things that women like. Things like “I’ll be with you forever” or “I love only you”. Which, from an evolutionary perspective may as well be “You can count on me providing a nice life for you forever” and “All my resources will be focused solely on you.” And it’s natural that women are turned on by this - whether it’s true or not. But we see from this example that women are slightly more focused on what is said and the complementary feeling of how it’s said rather than the detailed nuances of beat and melody behind it.

How it says it
Again, it’s a feeling thing. Women are often (subconsciously and indirectly) asking musicians to “calm me down and make me feel safe”. It can be a cut-throat world out there and it’s a natural tendency in women to look for someone to take care of them. The lyrics can imply this but so can the music itself through gentle rhythms and soothing melodies.

Power in the music
Not like “power-metal”, but more like capability. “You’ve promised all these things, but can you deliver?”. If he’s on the radio, he’s got a better chance. If he’s making good music, it shows he’s probably ahead of the curve in capability. It’s not often that women like no-name musicians or that guy playing on the street corner or you doing your best to impress her with your one-man-band routine. The music needs power behind it to make the promises in it believable. Sometimes there are no promises, just capability (and the success it leads to) and that’s good enough to turn the ladies on as well.

This article has no objective other than to further the understanding of the sexes. Understanding ultimately acts as the foundation for acceptance and tolerance and finally: blissful harmony.

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Brian Tracy and now the movie, The Secret talk about the Law of Attraction. This says “like attracts like”. That is, you attract into your life the people, ideas, and experiences that are in line with your most dominant thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of the world. Sounds great and I believe it, but I want to give it some credibility. Often these self-help gurus declare these laws and use them as the basis for their methods but give little to no evidence that they are laws at all. And that, of course, is one of the major complaints of the whole self-help movement. Law of science? Law of the State of
Kentucky? They don’t really say, and scientists are quick to brush them off as speculation and non-sense. And of course they are right to shoot down statements with no scientific basis. But I believe some statements do have a scientific basis to them. Let’s see if we can explain this one.

Let us first take a quick look at human behavior and the behavior of systems. It is well known, but often forgotten, that humans behave largely on a subconscious level. The fact that we forget this is a funny little reminder of this conclusion. I mean, if we were constantly aware of it, it wouldn’t be true - we would be living consciously all the time. But most of the time, we’re on auto-pilot. Dealing with the infinite number of stimuli around us is just too much for the conscious mind to handle. Systems have been put in place millions of years ago to allow us interact with each other in order to help us survive and pass on our genes. The subconscious mind is simply a grouping or “individualization” of these systems. Evolution is a marvelous system put in place to see that our genes are passed on to future generations. Even though evolution occurs on the gene level, for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume it occurs on an individual level - as if an individual is trying to pass on all it’s genes, not that a gene inside an individual is simply trying to get passed on (which is actually the case). Imagine two people, one who is an achiever and one who …is not. The achiever has everything he can ask for in life and continues to produce and achieve and feels supreme confidence in his ability to continue this way. The non-achiever is the opposite - can’t seem to achieve anything, is non-productive and unhappy. May have wishes to do things but has a lack of self-confidence in achieving the things that he wants (or says he wants). Evolution says these two people will not have anything to do with each other. The achiever, in the long term, is in a better position to have his genes passed on. Having healthy kids takes effort and resources, and the achiever has more at his disposal. Again, this is long term or over a large statistical population. Of course, any non-achiever can have kids and pass his genes on to future generations, but take a large population of maybe 1000 achievers vs. 1000 non-achievers over many many generations, and you will see the achievers doing a better job of passing on their genes. Yes, I know it’s hard to test this in a lab, but computer simulation programs actually do a pretty good job of proving this type of phenomenon.

How would they interact together? We are social beings and much of our gene passing is done with the help of other members of society. The non-achiever will want to hitch on to the coat tails of the achiever. “Friends in high places” so to speak. This is a natural tendency to want to be friends with powerful, successful people. The achiever on the other hand, will experience the non-achiever as a burden, and would want to avoid interaction. This is a simplistic view, but you can see how the achiever would want to hang out with other achievers, and the non-achiever, is left no choice and will have to pair up with other non-achievers to, just like everyone, find strength in groups. All these tendencies are hard-wired into our systems and operate at a subconscious level. This is not to say that successful people never socialize with non-successful people, but the tendency for like to be with like is a part of nature. We tend to be attracted to people like ourselves as an adaptation. Unsuccessful people are also attracted to successful people, but the relationship takes on a different tone. Not one of equals but rather one party trying to profit and the other trying to maintain his position. And since the bell-curve dictates that there will always be many more unsuccessful people than successful ones, the unsuccessful have some lobbying power by the size of their numbers, so the powerful do have to stay friendly with the masses or risk being ousted all together. Is this recognizable?

But what about this successful guy? Has he always been this way? Or did he make a decision somewhere? Perhaps either one. But in either case, at some point, he felt some internal feeling of success and other people saw him as such and treated him as such. Maybe by giving him a good job. Maybe by entrusting him with a certain task. Or maybe even by giving him something in exchange for his attention, association, and knowledge on success itself. He will have a tendency only to engage in any of these activities with people or groups which he sees as equally or more successful. Doing so with less successful people or groups would go against nature. Like attracts like. And what about the unsuccessful, non-achiever. Was he born into this circumstance? Or did things simply go wrong for him somehow? Again either way, at some point, he had internal feelings of being less and manifested this by poor and irresponsible behavior, and other things which would show others that he was not interested in achieving. And others would treat him as such. They would not trust him with responsibility, and not want to be around him in a professional setting. So where does he turn? On a professional level, he will associate with others like him. Not because the successful people are jerks, but because of the tendencies nature has built into us all. “If you have resources and potential, see to it that you keep them. If you do not, try getting some from those who do - failing that, group together with others who will associate with you…other non-achievers”. We see examples of this everywhere. Hollywood stars who can only really hang out with other
Hollywood stars - because everyone else is trying to milk them dry. Rich people who only hang out with other rich people. And on the other side of the spectrum, gangs in poor neighborhoods who work together to achieve a level of power which they lack as individuals. Same with soccer hooligans.

So, we see here the natural tendency as built by evolution itself. These mechanisms, again, are all done on a subconscious level. If you want to be a part of the successful people, then you will need to start acting like one. Adapt their attitude, their ways, their confidence, and their values, and they will entrust you with their resources.

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