As the world churns

This week many nations are posturing with their testosterone-laden fleets and planes and bombs -- solely to impress scare each other. Now, where have I seen this act before? I mean, it's so damn familiar. Oh, I remember. It's what all braindead, piggish males do on every street corner in America, every day. Gotta let that testosterone rage. Gotta.

Our government loves war. Just can't get enough of it. This worries me because I tend to see where it's all going, and it's not a good place.

If all the Arab Spring countries end up as unthinking, Muslim-controlled hotbeds of hatred, I think I know what the US will do. It will nuke the entire area off the planet. Problem solved, in their over-amped, testosterone-soaked brains. (Though maybe they'll try to develop a DNA-controlled death-switch that affects only those with Arab, Persian, etc. genes. Uh-huh. Like this won't get out of control. Ha.)

I could see this end-play happening in real life. And that's scary. Our ability to kill each other grows exponentially with the passage of time. And testosterone-heads won't be able to resist pulling the trigger.

The world that comes after that will be unrecognizable. And something tells me it will be controlled by religious crazies of the American kind. The American Taliban will finally have its day. I don't want to be around for that.

Idle thought

I'd love to know how many old, white male members of congress are on synthetic testosterone. There may be a simple reason why they're so irritable (and obstinate and aggressive and stupid). This would explain so much.

Why many men lack empathy

"Extra testosterone reduces your empathy" is a story I found on physorg today. The title pretty much tells the tale.

Read the whole thing if you like. It explains why women can understand another person's intentions better than men -- in other words, why they're more empathetic. This finding makes you wonder why in hell men run the planet, given this huge defect. Here's a takeout from the story:

A new study from Utrecht and Cambridge Universities has for the first time found that an administration of testosterone under the tongue in volunteers negatively affects a person's ability to "mind read", an indication of empathy.

What they mean by "mind read" is the ability to understand another person's motivations by watching them. In other words, the thing autistic kids find it so hard to do: understand others. And when we say women are "intuitive", we are again referring to this skill.

It was obvious without the study but it's good to nail this stuff down. I wonder if you can extend this further. Men who have hairy chests and go bald have more testosterone than men with hairless chests who keep their head hair in later life. Does this mean you can fool the hairy guys more easily because they won't understand your intentions? Interesting question.