Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id JAA06096 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 19 Jan 2002 09:37:53 GMT Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020119040252.02c45b50@pop.cogeco.ca> X-Sender: hkhenson@pop.cogeco.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 04:35:15 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@cogeco.ca> Subject: RE: Why memeoids? In-Reply-To: <F170ZuNY1SWoBDyseVw0000caec@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 01:35 AM 19/01/02 -0500, "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>>From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@cogeco.ca>
snip
>>I have speculated for years about how likely Turkey is to get into the kind
>>of mess Iran went into.
Sorry, words left out. I have speculated for years about how memetics
could analyze and predict how likely Turkey is . . . .
>Does Turkey have that much potential for instability? Is there a cauldron
>of fundamendalism bubbling within poised to overthrow the gov't there?
They have a reservoir of discontented Islamic fundamentalists. I have not
looked at the situation in detail, but I think it is clear that most
Islamic countries have some. The question is what does it take for
memes/groups to become a problem?
>I was hoping Turkey might represent the prototype for the modern state (as
>separated from the mosque), which just happens to have a predominately
>Muslim population. There's even a smidgen of what we call democracy there
>too, isn't there? That's not quite what Iran had under the shah, previous
>to their revolution.
It would be most interesting to study the indicators in the population
leading up to a coup. As candidates, I would put forth wealth per capita
and maybe more important rate of change of wealth. Other candidate factors
would be culture being displaced, percentage of later born children,
percentage of young men in bonded (or any) sexual relations. Subject to
real measurement, my expectation is that falling wealth per capita, more
later born children, and high percentage of males without sex partners
would all contribute to instability. Another possible factor might be the
extent to which wealth is stratified. There may be other factors as
important or even more so.
Turkey may have escaped some of the factors contributing to instability by
exporting a substantial fraction of its population of young people to Germany.
> From what I gather Turkey's not without its warts, especially considering
> controversies over the Kurds.
That is certainly true. Turkey has a unique history in that one of its
most forceful leaders, Atatürk, yanked Turkey into the modern age between
about 1925 and 1935. http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/History_of_Turkey
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