Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA04072 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 17 May 2000 16:30:18 +0100 Message-ID: <39227553.9B4FAC1F@mediaone.net> Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 11:32:51 +0100 From: Chuck Palson <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: A response References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB1A3@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Vincent Campbell wrote:
> Interesting comments Bruce, and apologies for butting in on direct responses
> to Tyger and Chuck. Who says the British are mild-mannered and polite? :-)
>
> Just one quick point to make here, and that is I note your conflating of the
> terms culture and society, and as I have said elswhere we need to make a
> distinction between the two.
>
> Just a quick aside also, I thought the Inca died out because of the
> conquistadors, or was that the Aztecs, or both? Even if my South American
> history is wrong (and probably is), I don't know my building, but does
> stucco have a practical use, or is it simply for decoration? If the latter,
> then why did the Incas continue to devestate essential resources for
> decorative purposes, assuming at some point they would have recognised this?
I strongly suspect that stucco has a practical use. Is it applied on wood? If
so, perhaps it is a weather protector. It would offer the some of the advantages
of stone without the big increase in labor.
They continued to devastate the resources for the same reason we continue to
devastate our air by buying SUVs which double the amount of carbon spewed out to
2 tons! I will say something radical: there's no such thing as an
enviornmentalist person unless they are in the movement. People will do
environmentalist-like things if it suits their immediate needs. People claiming
to be pro-enviornmental buy SUVs because it's only them and their particular
purchase wouldn't make a real difference. And that's the same dynamic that led
to the Inca's poor use of resources.
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed May 17 2000 - 16:30:58 BST