On 21 Nov 2001, at 7:55, David Honig wrote:

At 08:12 PM 11/20/01 -0500, Faustine wrote:

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David wrote: George wrote:

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5) Gold makes women sleep with you. I don't know why they like it, but they do. They sleep with you because of your large cattle herd only they have accepted abstracted value and settle for gold or stocks...

Not all women are golddiggers. I happen to think any woman who marries .. The only "abstracted value" I find really intriguing is the quality of...

You should interpret my statement in the context of George's statement not your personal life.

Also regardless of your personal tastes, you should be familiar with sociobiology, Desmond Morris, etc. Peacock feathers, mammaries on humans, antlers, etc.

Actually, in that context I was specifically NOT referring to gold as a generic proxy for value, if you'll recall I was listing reasons was gold is particularly well suited to be a proxy for value. The point is that gold is something that falls into the category of sparkly things that women like. Women will sleep with you if you give them jewelry, even if they're not going to sell it. Umm, or so I've been told. Of course, men like the sparkly stuff also, but if wear lots of jewelry people are likely to think you're either gay or a pimp. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but giving off misleading signals can lead to embarassment. George

Pecunia, the latin word for money, comes from the Etruscian pecu, meaning, cow. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

On Monday, November 26, 2001, at 05:21 PM, georgemw@speakeasy.net wrote:

On 23 Nov 2001, at 19:13, R. A. Hettinga wrote:

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Pecunia, the latin word for money, comes from the Etruscian pecu, meaning, cow.

Cheers, RAH

And of course the German word for money is Gelt, which means Gold.

German is but one of _many_ descendants of Proto-Indo-European. My favorite dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary, has extensive etymologies tracing to PIE. Note that often the words have Greek and Latin cognates, meaning in most cases an etymology distinct from German. Lots of English, Norse, Dutch, and German words have the "gl" sound: glitter, glisten, glimmer, gleaming, gloaming, gloss, glow, glower, gold, guild, guilder, gall, cholera, even Sanskrit words. Left as an exercise: the PIE origins of "mark" (another common word for a unit of money), "dollar" (ditto), and "crown." For extra credit, "peso," "peseta," and variants. For extra extra credit, "florin." Here's the entry: http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE158.html ENTRY: ghel-2 DEFINITION: To shine; with derivatives referring to colors, bright materials, gold (probably yellow metal), and bile or gall. Oldest form *hel-, becoming *ghel- in centum languages. Derivatives include gold, arsenic, melancholy, Hare Krishna, gleam, glimpse, and glide. I. Words denoting colors. 1. Suffixed form *ghel-wo-. yellow, from Old English geolu, yellow, from Germanic *gelwaz. 2. Suffixed variant form *ghl-ro-. chloro-; chlorite1, from Greek khlros, green, greenish yellow. 3. Suffixed variant form *ghlo-wo-. chloasma, from Greek khloos (< *khlo-wo-s), greenish color. 4. O-grade form *ghol-. podzol, from Russian zola, ashes (from their color). 5. Suffixed form *ghel-i-. Hare Krishna, Harijan, from Sanskrit hari-, tawny yellow. 6. Possibly suffixed zero-grade form *gh-wo- in Latin fulvus, tawny (with dialectal f- as in fel, gall): griseofulvin. II. Words denoting gold. 1. Suffixed zero-grade form *gh-to-. a. gold, from Old English gold, gold; b. gild1, from Old English gyldan, to gild, from Germanic denominative verb *gulthjan; c. guilder, gulden, from Middle Dutch gulden, golden; d. gowan, from Middle English gollan, yellow flower, possibly from a source akin to Old Norse gullinn, golden. ad all from Germanic *gultham, gold. 2. Suffixed o-grade form *ghol-to-. zloty, from Polish zoto, gold. 3. Suffixed full-grade form *ghel-no-. arsenic, from Syriac zarnk, orpiment, from Middle Iranian *zarnik-, from Old Iranian *zarna-, golden. III. Words denoting bile. 1. Suffixed o-grade form *ghol-no-. gall1, from Old English gealla, gall, from Germanic *galln-, bile. 2. Suffixed o-grade form *ghol--. chole-, choler, cholera; acholia, melancholy, from Greek khol, bile. 3. Suffixed full-grade form *ghel-n-. felon2, from Latin fel, bile. IV. A range of Germanic words (where no preforms are given, the words are late creations). 1. gleam, from Old English glm, bright light, gleam, from Germanic *glaimiz. 2. glimpse, from Middle English glimsen, to glimpse, from a source akin to Middle High German glimsen, to gleam. 3. glint, from Middle English glent, a glint, and glenten, to shine, from a source akin to Swedish dialectal glinta, to shine. 4. glimmer, from Middle English glimeren, to glimmer, from a source akin to Swedish glimra, glimmer. 5. glitter, from Old Norse glitra, to shine. 6. glitz, from Old High German glzan, to sparkle. 7. glisten, from Old English glisnian, to shine. 8. glister, from Middle Dutch glinsteren or Middle Low German glisteren, to shine. 9. glass, glaze, glazier, from Old English glfs, glass, from Germanic *glasam, glass. 10. glare1, from Middle English glaren, to glitter, stare, from a source akin to Middle Low German glaren, to glisten, from Germanic *glaz-. 11. gloss1, from a source perhaps akin to Icelandic glossi, a spark. 12. glance2, from Old High German glanz, bright. 13. gleg, from Old Norse glvggr, clear-sighted. 14. glad1, from Old English glfd, shining, joyful, from Germanic *gladaz. 15. glee; gleeman, from Old English glo, sport, merriment, from Germanic *gleujam. 16a. gleed, from Old English gld, ember; b. glogg, from Old Norse glodh, ember. Both a and b from Germanic *gl-di-. 17a. glow, from Old English glwan, to glow; b. glower, from Middle English gloren, to gleam, stare, probably from a source akin to Norwegian dialectal glora, to gleam, stare; c. gloat, from a source perhaps akin to Old Norse glotta, to smile (scornfully). ac all from Germanic *gl-. 18. gloaming, from Old English glm, twilight, from Germanic *gl-m-. 19. Possibly distantly related to this root is Germanic *gldan, to glide. a. glide, from Old English gldan, to slip, glide; b. glissade, from Old French glier, to glide; c. glitch, from Old High German gltan, to glide; d. glede, from Old English glida, kite (< gliding, hovering bird), from derivative Germanic *glidn-. 20. glib, from a source possibly akin to Middle Low German glibberich, slippery. (Pokorny 1. hel- 429.) --Tim May "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship." --Alexander Fraser Tyler

At 5:21 PM -0800 on 11/26/01, georgemw@speakeasy.net wrote:

But if I was an Etruscan, they would've taken my whole cow!

Actually, if you were an Etruscan, between spouse-swapping :-), you would have created a bearer instrument, clay, metal, whatever, like *they* eventually did. So, too, did various Mesopotamians, and before anyone else, including the Chinese. (cf. "A History of Money", by Davies). In the meantime, livestock work quite well in small agrarian groups, as your average Masai (or Proto-Indo-European, or proto-Texan, for that matter...), might have told you. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

georgemw@speakeasy.net wrote:

Cows might have served well as currency for primitives like the Etruscans, but can you imagine using them today? I took a bus this morning, the fair was 1.10 and I only had paper money so they ripped me off 90 cents. But if I was an Etruscan, they would've taken my whole cow!

As far as I know people who use cows (or whatever) like this make it work by running up all sorts of debts with each other. So it looks to strangers as if they are being all nice and friendly and doing favours, but of course A knows that B owes so many cows or goats or pots of beer next time someone from village X marries someone from village Y, while B can call in at C's village any time they want and eat prawns, as long as D has by then given some of those special beads made out of abalone shell to F... and so on. Great fun & entirely rendered obsolete by the invention of double-entry book-keeping. If our ancestors lived like that for a long while then maybe we are evolved to remember those reputation tensors Tim mentioned. We all, quite naturally, keep track of who owes what to who & whether they are likely to pay up. So the tribe benefits from old folks who remember exactly who brought what to which party years ago. Human beings as natural book-keepers. It is a good a sociobiological Just So Story and any other. Of course we do stuff like that informally. My sister & her husband owe me some money from when I helped them buy a car. But I, quite separately, owe him about twenty quid I borrowed to buy some beers - but then he owes me a round or two next time we are in a pub - the debts aren't commensurable (even though two of them are denominated in pounds sterling). The "round" is a powerfully symbolic system of exchange and reputation amongst British men (women sometimes join in, as do Irish & Australians, though they don't *quite* get it). As the Gikuyu proverb says "goats are not bananas". Try searching the web for "Onka's big Moka" (you have to avoid references to a band called Toploader that made an album with that title) It was an all-time classic TV program about some guys in Papua who had to successfully bring off a big party before the rainy season, so that they could hand over loads of pigs to their rivals. Like a potlach, with the added complication that, while you have the pigs, they have to eat - pig-capital has negative interest rates. But it wasn't just pigs... Ken

on Tue, Nov 27, 2001 at 06:52:04AM -0800, David Honig (honig@sprynet.com) wrote:

At 05:21 PM 11/26/01 -0800, georgemw@speakeasy.net wrote:

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Cows might have served well as currency for primitives like the Etruscans, but can you imagine using them today? I took a bus this morning, the fair was 1.10 and I only had paper money so they ripped me off 90 cents. But if I was an Etruscan, they would've taken my whole cow!

You would have gotten a goat and two chickens in change.

No. Etruscan T-Bills. Fertilized eggs. -- Karsten M. Self http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

Petro wrote:

It might be more than just wealth these women are after. A man with fat herds, or a fat wallet can better provide for children than a man with a single battered old goat, or an empty wallet. And over emphasized secondary sexual characteristics might, at the subconscious level be linked with better child-producing abilities.

On a long road trip one night, I heard an extremely interesting long discussion amongst a group of psychiatrists, sociologists, and other scientists, regarding a study which showed, firstly, that large numbers of attractive young women married unattractive, frequently older, boring, but financially well-off men. No surprise, that, eh? But then, the study showed, that a large percentage of these same women also tended to have adulterous relationships with what was termed "dangerous" men -- losers, outlaws, reckless adventurers, etc. Another surprise was that this was a cross-cultural phenomenon, and the gist of the discussion was that this wasn't merely thrill seeking or whatever on the part of the women, but was actually subconscious darwinism in action, i.e., the woman formed the permanent alliance with the man who could best support her offspring, then got herself impregnated by the males with the strongest, sexiest, genetic makeup -- thereby insuring that not only would her children survive, but they, like their true father (and also like the mother) would be very attractive and likely to mate. An extremely interesting idea. Some might find the articles in the most recent Wired about the high percentages of autism among Silicon Valley children to be interesting -- -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com

On Mon, 26 Nov 2001 measl@mfn.org wrote:

Nothing like a good across the board generalization, huh Jim?

Actually it isn't 'across the board', there is a bail out clause.

Who was she? It's nice to see you're not bitter ;-/

No particular one, let's just say that 20 years ago when I was a lot younger and sillier I did some extensive social experimentation. And no bitterness at all; just clear rational observation (it's also based on the biology but that's a seperate and less fun issue). -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, Petro wrote:

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Who was she? It's nice to see you're not bitter ;-/

Why do you assume it was a she?

:) -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thursday, November 29, 2001, at 10:13 PM, measl@mfn.org wrote:

On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, Petro wrote:

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On Monday, November 26, 2001, at 07:58 PM, measl@mfn.org wrote:

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On Mon, 26 Nov 2001, Jim Choate wrote:

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Not all women are golddiggers. They're called 'old maids'. ALL women who are interested in a 'relationship' are 'golddiggers' in the sense they want to 'change'

On Tue, 20 Nov 2001, Faustine wrote: the other party. Nothing like a good across the board generalization, huh Jim? Well, I hate to be in the position of defending Jimbo, but he's right--in a sense, but not just about women. Where does the desire for "a relationship" translate into the desire to "change the other party"?

Where is that a requirement in what Jimbo said? He said that any (woman) involved in a relationship wanted to change the other party, and that made her a gold digger. I am stating that in *any* relationship where there are 2 parties, both parties would, under a "Perfect Truth Serum" be able to articulate at least 2 things about the other party that they want to change. So by Jimbo's definition we are all gold diggers.

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I'd be willing to bet (should there be a way of proving it to my satisfaction) that in every relationship, one party would like to change AT LEAST 2 things about the other party. Then I guess we're down the minutae of "what is "a relationship", and what is "change"...

It doesn't matter how you define relationship, altho there was a certain kind of relationship assumed (I would stretch it to almost any relationship that lasts more that say, 25 minutes) However "change" in this context is rather obvious.

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Of course, this then makes every person who gets into any kind of relationship a "gold digger".

The American colloquialism "Golddigger" != "Relationship participant who would like to effect changes in the other engaging party(s)". The Goldigger term commonly refers to a woman who marries or engages in highly personal (not _necessarily_ sexual, but the inference is a common one) long term "relationships" for the accrual of cash and property, rather than any actual interest in the partner(s). Think long-term hookers. Think Mary Elizabeth Terranson :-)

Sure, but we're not talking normal definitions.

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Who was she? It's nice to see you're not bitter ;-/ Why do you assume it was a she? <chuckles> Because Jim's comment specifically referred to women.

It is considered polite to refer to a TV as a she. -- "Remember, half-measures can be very effective if all you deal with are half-wits."--Chris Klein