...some people will complain mightily...

 Jonathan H. commented on an earlier post 

I don't doubt the US could survive solely on domestic food, but it would require changed diets that some people would complain mightily about.

That observation is a massive understatement.

Vortice shedding off of a smooth and a dimpled sphere respectively. Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation

 

Some events are so complicated and so dynamic that they defy accurate predictions or tidy explanations. Turbulence is one of those phenomena. Predicting human behaviors is another. The best we can do is to make broad statements that are sort-of-accurate in general, average kinds of ways. For instance, we can predict that on average the turbulent slip-stream of the dimpled ball has less kinetic energy imparted to it so the dimpled ball is likely to fly further, especially if it has a spin.

It is the same with people. We can make general predictions but we cannot say what any one person will do with certainty. Nor can we say when somebody might do something. Those who claim otherwise are either stupid or lying to you.

For example, we can say that there are groups of people with a history of shouting "Racism" whenever they feel society is not offering them a prime-slice of whatever is being handed out.

A subset of that group escalates with violence when they feel their demands for More/Better is not being met quickly enough.

Skinner's Superstitious Pigeons

B.F. Skinner is considered one of the Godfathers of Classical Conditioning in the United States.

Figuring out how to design an experiment with a control group is not a trivial task.

For those of you who are a little fuzzy on your science methods, a control group is usually the portion of the test subjects who are not given the drug being tested. Usually they are given a placebo or an inert pill that LOOKS like the drug being tested. As implied earlier, figuring out how to treat the control group to not skew the results is not a small problem.

B.F. Skinner used pigeons in many of his experiments. At one time, he trained them to be kamikazi pilots. That is, he put them in cages and trained them to peck at a picture of a Japanese aircraft carrier. They were trained to peck at the base of the super-structure. The picture was overlaid with a very crude touch-screen (a wire mesh). Skinner moved the picture around and used smaller and larger images. The pigeons were rewarded with food when they pecked in the proper place.

The thinking was that a human pilot could take off with the airplane and parachute to safety after it reached an appropriate elevation. The pigeon could then pilot the plane and crash it into the enemy ship. Birds have phenomenal eyesight and pigeons are cheaper to catch or raise than college educated humans.

Like many crash, wartime efforts, nine women were impregnated to ensure one baby was born in a month. Many different "control groups" were investigated.

One control group was simply fed at random times. The pigeons were in their cages and at random intervals a few pigeon kibbles came rattling down the chute.

Within a modest amount of time, several of the pigeons in that control group developed behaviors that are best described as weird. One of them spun-in-place. Another ceaselessly hopped on one foot. A third shook its feathers without stopping.

Skinner speculated that the pigeon(s) connected whatever behavior they were engaged in with the food coming down the chute. Consequently, they would do that behavior more frequently increasing the odds of the behavior being reinforced by the random food-drop.

Some of the behaviors were durable. For example, the pigeon that was hopping on one foot continued hopping for another 10,000 hops even when returned to the cage where the pigeons were fed on a regular schedule.

Skinner labeled these seemingly inexplicable behaviors "superstitions".

Why would we expect humans raised in chaotic environments with random reward structures to not behave in unpredictable, seemingly wasteful ways?

Regression-to-the-mean

Many of my readers are mature and have experienced much of what life offers.

Sometimes life is tough. Sometimes it is easy. It never stays the same.

By definition, when life is at its very hardest, it gets easier afterward. "I hit rock-bottom and I was digging so fast I bounced up"

As humans, whatever we were doing when we hit the bottom appears to have been responsible for our improving circumstances. We might not associate that activity with our slide into the ditch but we will give it credit for getting us out...even if it has absolutely nothing to do with our improving circumstances or it is holding us back.

Example: There are many people who think they got through tough times because they smoked a lot of weed. It does not occur to them that the weed had something to do with losing their job or significant other or not being able to afford groceries.

Tying it together

The people who play the race/victim card* assume that is how they got ahead just like the twirling-dervish pigeon assumes his dance made the food rain down.

People who escalate to violence make the same assumptions. From their own, personal level, they burned down their neighborhood (including the Projects where they live) and they are temporarily housed in newer, modern hotels with amenities. Those hotels are surrounded by strip-malls. They have PROOF that burning down buildings improves their condition.

When the prime-cuts of food disappear, when their favorite frozen pizzas or fast foods are not available, most of us will revert to our own, personal superstitions because we have "proof" that they work

The people who play the "Racism" card are no different and they are very comfortable yanking that lever 10,000 times if necessary.

The people who quickly escalate to violence...they are going to bang that lever until they get what they consider is owed to them.

Starvation will not the main risk in America. Being near people like this (or the actions you must take to avoid those people) is what will get you killed. Unfortunately, their location will be like the turbulence peeling off the ball. You can make some general predictions about where the wake will be most violent but you cannot predict any place where you will never be buffeted.

Avoid those people to the extent you can manage. Surround yourself with people who have demonstrated a strong work-ethic. That is their "superstition".

*Or homophobic, Islamophobic or sexist or.....