Re: virus: RE: cow

Sodom (Sodom@ma.ultranet.com)
Tue, 25 May 1999 09:19:46 -0700

psypher wrote:

> Sodom: your message was very long and it wouldn't make sense to reply
> to it all piecemeal. But you asked why would we cooperate and why
> would we want to. So I'll tell you what i think since you told me
> what you think and maybe we can communicate.
>
> ...We should cooperate because we need to see ourselves as a species
> in order to survive. We've reached that point now.

Who is "WE"? the species as a whole, a particular unit of the whole, national or otherwise.

>
> ...Our thought processes in the wealthy nations are skewed towards
> reductionism, we're very good at taking things apart. But we're all
> one system.

We are all in one system, but the system will perform and exist whether all parts are there or not. No country, no company, no religion, can go even the shortest time without rifts in its organization. It is not currently possible to cooperate on the scale you imagine.

>
> ...our survival depends on the stability of the ecology in which we
> are embedded - that ecology includes other persons.

We dont know that - we adapt and adapt fast. You should say, "our survival
as we are now depends on the stability of our ecology". Now, I would
prefer an improving ecology as in a healthier, more diverse, less poulted
ecology - but my taste and reality are two different things. i will take the most pragmatic and reasonable approach to improving it - but my expectations are limited to the scope of possibility.

>
> ...the only way we will ever learn anything other than clever tricks
> to solve immediate problems is by communicating.

You underestimate the power of cleaver tricks

>
> ...communication requires two parties - one to send and one to
> recieve.

at least

>
> ...to communicate we must cooperate.

no, not really

>
> ...we must communicate if we are to learn.
>

but not as a whole, although a whole is nice. absolutism is your demon and reality your hell. To make improvement you need cooperation - you say so yourself. Yet you are difficult to cooperate with due to your combative and dominating nature. For you, pragmatism is the missing component and I think experience will be the key.

Bill Roh