Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA04416 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 18 Jan 2002 21:46:10 GMT Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020118162723.02c51330@pop.cogeco.ca> X-Sender: hkhenson@pop.cogeco.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 16:43:29 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@cogeco.ca> Subject: RE: Why memeoids? In-Reply-To: <NEBBKOADILIOKGDJLPMAOELMCJAA.debivort@umd5.umd.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020117144516.02c41d00@pop.cogeco.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 02:46 PM 18/01/02 -0500, "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
wrote:
>Agreed. As I've said before, the only way to 'prevent' or minimize terrorism
>from foreign sources is to have an effective policy for and practice of
>interacting with the world's peoples. The US is a long way from
>understanding this and achieving it, because we haven't felt it necessary.
The problem is *much* worse than you make it out to be.
As an analogy, consider how poor public health debate and decisions would
be if people had no idea of what causes disease. Heck they are not all
that good even when the causes of disease are known. And there are severe
limits on how much our own society will let the US government do, without
being violently attacked, the US population would not have supported going
into Afghanistan even if million of people were starving (which they were).
But the main problem is that memetics and evolutionary psychology is not
even a topic at high levels of the government. There are no models built
on these foundations to predict the outcomes of different policies. It may
be that there are no good solutions available. What would you say if
models showed the best results for the world in ten years would be to
spread smallpox?
Keith Henson
>We have felt insulated from accountability to other peoples. If there is any
>one thing to learn from Sept. 11, it is that this is not so. We have a lot
>of catching up to do. American political scientists have failed to explicate
>this to our policy-makers; perhaps we will do a better job now.
>
>Lawrence
>
>
> is to > As an engineer, I can state that there so many routes to killing
>people
> > and/or damaging infrastructure the officials can't consider all of
> > them. It is impossible (at present) to entirely prevent attacks without
> > intrusion and cost that would wreck our society. I am not sure that
> > fully understanding the biological roots of the problem will lead to
> > solutions either, but it does seem like the best long range approach
> > available.
> >
> > Keith Henson
>
>
>===============================================================
>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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