Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id DAA02710 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 23 May 2000 03:43:38 +0100 Message-ID: <3929A97D.B10F573@mediaone.net> Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 22:41:17 +0100 From: chuck <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: What is "useful"; what is "survival" References: <NBBBIIDKHCMGAIPMFFPJKEMIENAA.richard@brodietech.com> 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
Richard Brodie wrote:
> Chuck wrote:
>
> <<In a nutshell, useful means "useful for survival within a particular type
> of society." You can't tell recently discovered hunter/gatherer group that
> they need computers because they are doing perfectly well in their own
> econiche with a hunting/gathering stone age technology. But tell a modern
> office manager that his outfit doesn't need a computer operating system or a
> fax, and he will look at you a little funny. That's because he knows
> perfectly well that his firm needs it to survive in the type of society
> generally called an advanced capitalist industrial economy. If you don't
> have it, you are at a competitive disadvantage and you might not be able to
> earn a living if you keep up that and similar behavior.>>
>
> But Chuck, this is exactly Blackmore's point! The memeplex has evolved to
> make communication equipment essential to its own survival! The people who
> do the work and buy the equipment, instead of sipping coconut milk on the
> beach, are so wired into the system that their survival is truly threatened
> if they don't play along!
No, you got it wrong. You are treating it as a simple game forgetting where and
why the technology came along in the first place. The only way to effectively
understand the process is by looking at a lot of historic detail that
illustrates continuously how our society is a **necessary** response to the
exhaustion of the pre industrial revolution resource base. It has to do with
increasing population densities, the carrying capacity of the land relative to
old technologies, an increasingly complex division of labor that is needed to
exploit harder to get resources -- stuff like that. The necessity faced by this
basic ecological problem of resource exhaustion is finding new efficiencies at
every level. That isn't to say that people who act in this broad ecological
stage understand it as such; they don't have to.
In short, the industrial revolution did not happen because people were suddenly
infected with some virus as some memists might claim. It was a necessary
response to a changing ecology. The competitive game is a constant in across all
human societies - that's how change is ultimately accomplished. But it's not the
competition itself, but the ecology that drives it.
Unfortunately to give this a reality, it is necessary to have a good grasp of a
lot of historical data pertaining to economics, politics, psychology, population
studies, and history. There are simply no easy shortcuts on this one. But the
principle is still ecological, not simply a game of cultural catchup -- even
though people may conceptualize it that way in their daily lives.
>
>
> <<Frankly, I don't think I am saying anything that people don't know, but it
> bears saying it because so many
> of us have come to dislike the hoops we have to go through to survive in an
> industrial economy. But like it
> or not, it's survival.>>
>
> Frankly I've never heard anyone else on this list, other than you, express
> distaste for technological progress.
You evidently aren't reading some of the posts -- or at least not very
carefully.
>
>
> Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com
> http://www.memecentral.com/rbrodie.htm
>
> ===============================================================
> 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 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
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