[csail-related] GSB Tonight: Evolution.

[jamoozy at gmail.com (Andrew Correa)]

Evolution has been on my mind.  I walked by the UHaul place [1] on the way
to lab this morning, and saw the big signs saying "U-HAUL", "U-MOVE", and
"U-STORE".  I started thinking about the word store.  Where does it come
from?  Some might ask "What is its etymology?", but I'm not a nerd [2] and
I've got evolution on my mind, so I'd ask "How did it evolve?"

Well a "store" is also a place that you store things--like a cache.  As
society evolved, so must these words have.  A store is just that, a cache
of goods.  It became the place that we all get our resources from.  It's
efficient!  Maybe if France had invaded England earlier, perhaps we would
have called stores "caches" [3].  It didn't.  We call them "stores".  So I
like my conclusion about that.

Then I continued my evolution thought process.  I noticed there exists a
very nice analogy between a multi-cellular organism and a multi-person
society.  Like cells took a while to make animals, we took a long time to
figure out how to work together in larger and larger groups [4].  The
larger our groups, the more successful the society has the potential to
become [5].  Maybe the next step in our evolution is 1 part technology and
1 part politics.  Technology takes the place of Darwinian evolution--it
keeps us alive--and societal change enables us to be more productive in
groups--it's like neuron- and hormone-based inter-cellular communication.

Let's talk about the evolution of societies at this week's:

       +-                                                  -+
          girl scout benefit -+-  5:30 pm  -+- 32-G9 lounge
       +-                                                  -+

           For those coming from elsewhere: Building 32 is
            <http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=32><http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=32>
       Once you are in 32, just take the G-elevator to the 9th
   floor and we will be in the lounge that you will be looking at

<http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb><http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb>

[1] Boy do I have stories about those assholes ...
[2] Only cool kids go to MIT!
[3] If you understand this, well done.
[4] If the presidential debates are any sign, we still have a ways to go.
[5] Since there are pedantic people out there, let me say (before you do)
that I realize this must be capped by something else--much like animal
species can only grow so large before they become too large to live.