Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA29853 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 8 Feb 2002 15:27:27 GMT X-Originating-IP: [137.110.248.206] From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: ply to Grant Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2002 07:21:50 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <LAW2-F4avjrRZ1UbDBR0000a9c7@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 08 Feb 2002 15:21:50.0370 (UTC) FILETIME=[54A3B020:01C1B0B4] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: ply to Grant
>Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2002 22:35:29 +1100
>
>At 07:21 AM 7/02/02 -0800, you wrote:
>Jeremy wrote
>Snip...........
> >>My question was to do with the relative nature of fitness. It is the
>same
> >>as my questioning of other subjective dichotomies.
> >>I hope that I have made myself more clear this time Grant
> >>Jeremy
> >>
>Grant replied
> >I wrote that reply to someone who remarked on a statement that
>engineering
> >cultural change could be worth billions. I even forget who the original
> >author was. But my point was that this is already happening. Apparently
>my
> >remark grated on what appear to be leftist leanings.
>Snip.............
>
>Thanks for your reply grant. I have stored it away in my folder of most
>interesting posts. But realy does my ecological preocupation make me
>deserving of your acusation of being "leftist"? And isn't the left/right
>thing jist another divisive, and subjective, dichotomy?
>Jeremy
>
I'm sorry I appeared to have stuck you in a box, but I was just reacting to
a single statement that sounded like you condemned capitalists and didn't
want them agrandized. I'm neither with you nor against you on that score. I
can see where capitalism has brought us and I can also see what that has
done to the environment we inhabit. But on the subject of memes, commerce
spreads memes faster than small groups talking to each other and industry
invents new memes faster than just about any other group except scientists.
Businesses make up small cultures built around the making and selling of
products and services. All people in Congress and on Wall Street are
talking about these days is the unique culture of Enron -- a company that
had a two-faced set of standards and coerced the people who were supposed to
regulate it into ignoring their duty to make a quick buck. Now it has gone
from being a symbol of success to a warning to all companies of how NOT to
run a business. I don't think the memes that drove Enron will die quickly,
even thought the company has. Greed is too much a part of human nature.
But then, what is the difference, really, between greed and selfishness?
That, too is part of our genetic inheritance.
We (humans) are not the first species to destroy the environment we inhabit.
Almost every large animal over produces and destroys its habitat
periodically. Nature's way of dealing with that is to cause the near
extinction of such animals. It's called the "J" curve and has been seen
everywhere from petri dishes full of bacteria to islands crowded with deer
and goats. Cattle in America often overgraze the range they live on and
have to be culled by humans just to save it from them. The old tales about
wars between cattlemen and sheep herders was about which animal was going to
have access to the land. Cattlemen thought sheep destroyed the grass with
their grazing and left cattle to starve.
In this world of human population pushing that J curve almost straight up,
we are just doing what every species before us has done. We are overgrazing
the land we inhabit. The only hope I see for stopping that before we make
ourselves nearly extinct is to use the memes of culture to spread the word
there is a better way. Whether we can do that in time to save ourselves is
the question. When the line on the chart of population increase is going
straight up, that's the sign we're do for an attitude adjustment. And when
we are seeing a doubling of population in the lifetime of an individual,
that charts out at a pretty steep curve.
We can't survive unless we stop being so successful. We have to turn our
success in a different direction and propagate memes that limit population
growth and invent new ways to use the land. We must become stewards of it
instead of consumers. A lot of people will probably have to die before we
come to grips with the problem. But it is a problem that must engage the
whole population of earth and not just a few people at the top.
That's my rant for the day. Again, I'm sorry I took your statement as a
political position rather than a broader viewpoint. It's probably an
outgrowth of my arguements with the anti-globalism crowd who keep using
Marxist arguements to support their positions. They're still fighting the
management-labor wars in a world where labor is rapidly becoming management
through stock options and retirement plans based on stock ownership.
Cheers, Grant
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