6 comments

  1. doc holiday

    The term Proxemics, introduced by Edward T. Hall, can be summarized by this description:

    Like gravity, the influence of two bodies on each other is inversely proportional not only to the square of their distance but possibly even the cube of the distance between them.

    Hence, the study of animal communication, sometimes called zoosemiotics has played an important part in the development of ethology, sociobiology, and the study of animal cognition, e.g, Pursuit-deterrent signals occur when prey indicates to a predator that pursuit would be unprofitable because the signaler is prepared to escape. Pursuit-deterrent signals provide a benefit to both the signaler and receiver; they prevent the sender from wasting time and energy fleeing, and they prevent the receiver from investing in a costly pursuit that is unlikely to result in capture. Such signals can advertise prey’s ability to escape, and reflect phenotypic condition (quality advertisement), or can advertise that the prey has detected the predator (perception advertisement).

    In this symbolically challenging case, which Yves presents, it is axiomatic that mantises (in general) are often thought to be protected simply by virtue of concealment.

    Hence, when directly threatened, many mantis species stand tall and spread their forelegs, with their wings fanning out wide. The fanning of the wings evidently makes the mantis seem larger and more threatening, with some species having bright colors and patterns on their hind wings and inner surfaces of their front legs for this purpose.

    Therefore, in simple economic terms, this visual metaphor at first seems to be a complicated puzzle that seems chaotic because of the random encounter — but that obvious association with “random” gives the puzzle away almost instantaneously! How stupid!

    Nonetheless, this is a visual pun for The Random Walk Hypothesis — however, if one just takes a step or two back (which is what the predator metaphor is all about IMHO) then one is almost whacked in the head by Yves suggesting that we “should” look at Central Bank Transparency as it relates to inefficient information and fraudulent accounting practices, which are being supported by Central Banks. This is a play on camouflage and cloaking strategies used to conceal the movement of canines which are related to coyotes, and of course, they are symbolic here, by appearing as a trickster, a culture hero or both.

    I’m sure many of you have read, “Central Bank Transparency” by Petra M. Geraats University of Cambridge March 2002, if not here is an example of why the encounter between the pooch and mantis is suggestive of intervention:

    “For instance, in the case of monetary policy, the central bank and private sector could both face uncertainty about the structure of the economy; but, as long as both have the same information and are aware of it, transparency prevails. This definition of transparency focuses on information that agents actually have, not on the act of disclosing information. The reason is that public availability of data need not suffice to achieve transparency. If manipulation of data is required to extract useful information and agents are constrained by limited resources, then asymmetric information could persist. In addition, there may be sociolinguistic reasons that complicate effective communication of relevant information. This is further discussed in the context of monetary policy by Winkler (2000), who proposes to view transparency in terms of openness, clarity, honesty and common understanding”.

    http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/faculty/geraats/cbtp.pdf

    Thanks be to Wiki, et al

  2. Richard Kline

    First one frames a conceptual parameter space; then one maps object identity features via a best fit heuristic; then one operationalizes the quantification methodology; a summary descriptive and a money quote leads into references. Piece o’ cake, right? Well, right?? Some folks are even _employed_ to do this stuff. : )

    Alternate hypothesis: “Bugs are bad eattin’, so advertise ‘bugness.'”

  3. Mara

    I see the Little Puppy of Recession, soon to become the Big Dawg of Depression. The green mantis is Greenspan/Bernanke trying to scare it away. In the end, bugs always get squished.

  4. doc holiday

    Not to beat a dead horse, but I wanted to add one last observation, which is related to the thought that Pursuit-deterrent signals can advertise a prey’s ability to escape:

    The ability of an organism with a given genotype to change its phenotype in response to changes in the environment is called phenotypic plasticity.

    A highly illustrative example of phenotypic plasticity is found in the social insects, colonies of which depend on the division of their members into distinct castes, such as workers and guards.

    I thought there might be a correlation with Colony Collapse Disorder, i.e, the phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or Western honey bee colony abruptly disappear.

    What if, this photo from Yves is a clue about the morphology of environmentally induced plasticity and interspecies communications — which would imply that Central Bank Transparency is generational and thus a new era of Darwinistic Finance is evolving as this age comes to a close with systemic failure.

    That was what she wanted to say!

  5. Anonymous

    My guess is he just thinks the photos
    are cute. Not everything need add up.

    But it is obvious the green mantis is
    China and the dog is the USA. Neither
    understands the other, with the mantis appearing fierce, while the cute puppy is the greater threat. And
    we know the mantis can never give the dog what it really wants.

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