Philosophical ramblings on taste, capital, and lineage survival – no actionable lead

pile of nuclear waste in my safe instead of cash and securities? Drive a truck filled with dynamite into a crowd of unbelievers? Write a book on economics when | have no credentials? Sing when | have an atrocious voice? All express my tastes. There is no escape. Behavior reveals taste satisfaction in the broad sense including provision for future satisfactions. Tastes, Aims and Ends | usually mean the word “tastes” as objectives whose satisfaction exhausts capital value. By that usage, as we just saw, the truism that behavior reveals tastes must be interpreted carefully. We see current taste satisfaction at mealtimes. Between meals, we mostly see buildup of capital to satisfy tastes in future. And we sometimes are motivated to give capital away, as in raising the generation to succeed us. | sometimes use the term “aims” to mean the sum of this exhaust plus gift plus buildup. Then to say that output realizes growth plus cash flow is to say that it realizes aims. All behavior reveals and maximizes aims explained by ends. This again puts the maximand rule in a different way. As capital of both factors is our whole means of behavior, and as it is present value of foreseen taste satisfaction and nothing else, we might first suppose that taste satisfaction is our unique fina! goal. But that too could mislead. Biology shapes our tastes, and shapes them to replicate the generations. | treat the biological imperative as the “ends” driving tastes and aims. Our two complementary ends are adult survival and replication of both factors for survival of the young. This idea underlies next generation theory. What we maximize is risk-adjusted present value of current plus foreseen taste satisfactions by ourselves plus donees. Current taste satisfaction or exhaust by ourselves is counted at full value, and foreseen ones are added at a time discount. Transfer is part of the mechanics. The exhaust plus growth plus gift are the aims, in whatever proportion we like, and our subliminal deeper motive of lineage survival is the ends. Chapter 3: Foundations 1/11/16 15 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_010986