From: Reed Konsler (konslerr@mail.weston.org)
Date: Thu 29 May 2003 - 19:57:57 GMT
Reed
"By spreading the meme "get educated" one hopefully produces a caste of
highly effective cuckolded workers. This allows the rest of the species to
become genetic free
riders; taking advantage of the products of the educated to proliferate
their own genes."
Alan:
"I'm being a bit slow here, sorry - how do you mean "cuckolded"."
A cuckoo lays it's egg in a robin's nest. The egg and cuckoo chick imitate
the signals that the robin expects from their young. The cuckoo chick
hatches early and kicks the robin's eggs out of the nest. The robin raises
the chick as if it were it's own. In this system, the cuckoos are the free
riders. They take advantage of the robin's caretaking. The robins are the
worker caste.
The analogy is that the educated are a set of workers that add value to the
general pool of resources. However, they are not commensurately rewarded
for this donation. They might feel rewarded, but from a genetic perspective
it is only the number of children and grandchildren that is important. The
uneducated are free riders laying their eggs, as it were, in the laps of the
rest of us and expecting us to raise their children as if they were our own.
This system of genetic inequity only works in the presence of other memes
such as "charity", "every human life is valuable" and "love all people".
Imagine the poor black child, born in the inner city to a 14 year old single
mother. Do you feel charity? Is that life valuable to you? Do you feel
that our society should provide some support to that family?
Those feelings, if present, are memes that are not in your genetic interest.
I value those feelings despite this. That is the perspective I would
suggest.
======
I have read "Sperm Wars" but it was a long time ago. What part do you think
is relevant?
Have you read _The Lucifer Principle_ by Howard Bloom? I think it does a
great job relating memes and genes.
Best,
Reed
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