Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA22765 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 6 Feb 2002 23:16:05 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.240.222.132] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Selfish meme? Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 18:10:25 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F823vo9bhe99vFKlNAO0001b6f4@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 06 Feb 2002 23:10:25.0765 (UTC) FILETIME=[75E50150:01C1AF63] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Selfish meme?
>Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 11:25:45 -0800
>
>>Subject: Re: Selfish meme?
>>Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 12:49:37 -0500
>>
>>On Wednesday, February 6, 2002, at 10:02 , Grant Callaghan wrote:
>>
>>>The savages were more eco-balanced because there weren't so
>>>many of them.
>>
>>I think that's the main reason any society might be described
>>(however erroneously) as eco-balanced.
>>
>>Don't answer the question, of course, as to _why_ there are so
>>damn many of us now, royally messing things up and not giving a
>>fetid pair of dingo's kidneys about it....
>>
>>- Wade
>>
>Some might say because we are a cancer upon the earth that learned how to
>propagate beyond our natural resources. One of these days somebody is
>going
>to cut off our telomeres. ;-)>
>
>
There's a certain danger in comparing us to a cancer. Those are the sorts of
sentiments that can lead human history down dark paths, especially if one
group is deemed inferior to another and is referred to as a cancer and calls
for eugenic excision leaving the so-called "cream of the crop" start being
championed and carried out.
I try to be as conservation minded as I can. I've worked intimately with
endangered and threatened species in the past and would like to see a better
situation where human impact on non-human life is minimized, but I'm as
scared about what some people might consider solutions to our ecological
problems as I am about the problems themselves. I'm opposed to putting the
human species on a pedestal, but going the other way and nihilstically
dismissing our species as a wasteful cancer ain't a better alternative
world-view.
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