At 02:59 PM 24/05/99 -0700, Sodom wrote:
>psypher wrote:
>> Nobody wants to acknowledge their priviledge and at what
>> cost it accrues to them because that might mean having to give it up
>> so we construct elaborate excuses to justify our actions despite the
>> consequences they have in places we can't see.
>
>Cost? what cost? I can reproduce all I like, teach my children as I
>like, go almost anywhere on the planet for a minimal cost. I can create
>without control, speak without limits, live pretty much any way I like.
>With the exception of a bit a religious dogma I have put up with, life
>is grand. You remind me of the angry young man who cant understand why
>everyone "just cant get along". Were not supposed to get along!
God help humanity if we did. Could you imagine? No internal cultural conflict of any kind = no memetic selection pressure = stagnation = eventual extinction of the culture; unless, of course, conflict was impressed onto the culture from the outside, in the form of competition between cultures. So, that's good for all humans in the long run, pressuring the bad ones to be better; until, of course, this milieu merges, then settles, into a larger single organism (U.N., International Court, N.A.T.O), but then no conflict, internal or external. Then humans are _really_ fucked in the long run; unless, of course, "memetic drift" causes "speciation", much like what happened with: feudalism - conflict - Magna Carta - conflict - expulsion from/to North America, only this time, the expulsion will probably be, well, out of this world. Which is a good thing for the human race in the long run because, in the long run, space is a pretty violent and unforgiving place, and it pays not to have all your humyns in one Gaia. On the other hand, humans are ultimately fucked anyway, because culture will control, then ultimately subsume the "independence of action" typical of its human "cells", much like cells did to organelles, and multicellular organisms did to cells. It has to be this way. Loose symbiosis or direct control are less effective _and_ less efficient than total "All-For-One-And-One-For-All" (which would require some "modifications"). Less efficiency and less effectiveness means less survivability, even when the only conflict is with supernovae and wandering radiation clouds. Then again, the random factor will ensure that a "cancerous" cell line will appear in the cultural animal every now and then....
>> ...I don't condemn systems of government because they disagree with
>> my views, any system of government that doesn't directly involve the
>> persons for whom it claims to speak is not one that will find favour
>> with me. I do become extremely irate when people attempt to justify
>> their actions within a particular national/religious/dogmatic context
>> without taking into account their personal responsibility. [the
>> preceeding statement was a general observation and not a personal
>> attack]
>
>How do you expect people the justify their actions? If you believe in a
>god you are going to use it as an excuse, if you like your country, you
>will use "National Interests" as an excuse. You are talking about the
>world you want, not the one that is and that humans are. Of course, you
>and 5 or 6 other people in the world that think you are humyns are free
>to start your own world, if you can find the space.
Of course, you could always skip a few links on the previously detailed causal chain. I hear Mars is renting...SPECIATION OR BUST!
Dan