Re: Why gossip is good for you
Inviato da PikeBishop il 21/8/2009 17:41:55
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And that has, of course, nothing to do with editorial/political choiches, has not?
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Has anyone noticed that a similar percentage of working time is the equivalent of the price paid by the individuals to satisfy the feeding habits of the bureaucratic machine?
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A respectable suggestion.
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No, that's not gossip, it's exchanging of vital information: if you consider it gossip you'll therefore are labelling as "gossip" all major financial newspapers.
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Well, it could but actually it doesn't, really.
Also, leaving alone the newspapers that could have other reasons for publishing rubbish (i.e. rubbish is cheap), it is not a fact that gossip has an overwhelming proportion of human conversation: maybe in small minded people conversation or in small talk to break embarassment, but definitely not in the conversation of people that are actually able to talk about a definite subject of interest, by the way.
It is also remarkable that the very people still living in small groups of hunter gatherers (allegedly given by the author of the study as the groups in which is the gossiping factor did develop uman language) is pretty much free from gossip and very inclined to silence!
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It doesn't: it mixes carefully well-known facts to wishful thinking without not even remotely explaining any of the various facts it claims to explain.
why should we find tittle-tattle about the private lives of minor celebrities, royalty and politicians of such overwhelming interest that it can drive the starving children of Somalia and the war-ravaged cities of former Yugoslavia off the front pages of even the most sedate of newspapers?
And that has, of course, nothing to do with editorial/political choiches, has not?
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Extrapolating from these data, we find that the amount of time required to maintain cohesion within a group of 150 would be something in the region of 35 to 45 per cent.
Has anyone noticed that a similar percentage of working time is the equivalent of the price paid by the individuals to satisfy the feeding habits of the bureaucratic machine?
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A more plausible suggestion is that language evolved to enable humans to integrate a larger number of individuals into their social groups.
A respectable suggestion.
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by talking to one person, we can find out a great deal about how other individuals are likely to behave, how we should react to them when we actually meet them and what kinds of relationships they have with third parties. All these things allow us to coordinate our social relationshhips within a group more effectively. And this is likely to be especially important in the dispersed groups that are characteristic of humans.
No, that's not gossip, it's exchanging of vital information: if you consider it gossip you'll therefore are labelling as "gossip" all major financial newspapers.
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This could explain our fascination for social gossip in the newspapers, and why gossip about relationships accounts for an overwhelming proportion of human conversations.
Well, it could but actually it doesn't, really.
Also, leaving alone the newspapers that could have other reasons for publishing rubbish (i.e. rubbish is cheap), it is not a fact that gossip has an overwhelming proportion of human conversation: maybe in small minded people conversation or in small talk to break embarassment, but definitely not in the conversation of people that are actually able to talk about a definite subject of interest, by the way.
It is also remarkable that the very people still living in small groups of hunter gatherers (allegedly given by the author of the study as the groups in which is the gossiping factor did develop uman language) is pretty much free from gossip and very inclined to silence!
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The theory explains why gossip about other people is so fascinating; it explains why human societies are so often hierarchies; it predicts the small size of conversation groups; it meshes well with our general understanding of why primates have larger brains than other mammals, and it agrees with the general view that language only evolved with the appearance of Homo sapiens.
It doesn't: it mixes carefully well-known facts to wishful thinking without not even remotely explaining any of the various facts it claims to explain.
Messaggio orinale: https://old.luogocomune.net/site/newbb/viewtopic.php?forum=54&topic_id=5216&post_id=144215