RE: Watches & Necklaces

From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu 29 May 2003 - 04:58:14 GMT

  • Next message: joedees@bellsouth.net: "RE: back to basics"

    >From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@rogers.com>
    >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >Subject: RE: Watches & Necklaces
    >Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 22:47:27 -0400
    >
    >At 09:10 PM 28/05/03 -0400, scott wrote:
    >
    >snip
    >
    >>So would you agree with Richard that education is a parasite?
    >
    >No, because I don't think Richard said that.
    >
    (clears throat)

    After I had elaborated on symbiont relations with the aid of Minkoff's text, Richard had responsed (probably snipped from the post you had read along with my rather pointed questions to him):

    (bq) "It would seem easy to extend this, then, to gene-meme symbiosis. Education, for example, is parasitic because it reduces genetic fitness. How about them apples?" (eq)

    You may have a greater command of the English language than I do. Looking over what Richard said, is he saying that education is parasitic or not? Maybe he was being facetious?
    >
    >Education and closely associated wealth tends to reduced the number of
    >children you have, but it does make the ones you have more likely to
    >survive, in bad times *much* more likely to survive. This is just an
    >extension of the K r spectrum.
    >
    I happened to be the one who added the allusion to the K r spectrum to the mix, in response to Richard. So maybe we are in somewhat of an agreement here?
    >
    >Though as I noted, humans just happen to react to education and wealth this
    >way. Our evolution could have left us with the tendency to turn wealth
    >into more kids. To an unknown extent this may be more cultural. Consider
    >that bin Laden has 40 some odd kids, not unusual by Saudi Prince standards.
    >
    Good thing Abdul Aziz conquered Arabia and then oil was discovered so that those petrodollars could trickle down to bin Laden's dad and family via the construction business. Otherwise, so much for Saudi wealth. The fortuitiousness of the al-Saud conquest AND striking oil are an historical confluence that cannot be underemphasized in any analysis relating to Saudi Arabian affluence.

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