From: David Hill (dhill@spee-dee.com)
Date: Mon Jan 21 2002 - 16:14:02 MST
And culture, by inference does not have survival value?
Particularly survival value from the incorporation of manners which
(granted) have survival value.
At the moment, it seems that the meme for 'everybody play nice is a good
thing' is trashing most other competing memes (e.g. look out for #1) in the
human population. Mostly we don't kill each other. This meme is expressed
in myriad religious doctrines. Of course it is generally modified somewhat
to the form 'everybody play nice as long as your playmate subscribes,
otherwise cream them.'
It is one of the memes which as expressed has allowed the human population
to propigate its patterns (DNA, culture, politics, business practice, crop
circles and religions) to the detriment of the other stupendous badasses on
the planet (whales, elephants, white mice).
[reading] Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon... 'Like every other creature on
the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass,
albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his
ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous
badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo--which, given the number and
variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most
stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a
stupendous badass was dead. As nightmarishly lethal, memetically programmed
death-machines went, these were the nicest you could ever hope to meet.'
I object only to the adjective "highly" as referring to evolved badasses.
Evolution is strictly nondirectional, there is no higher form other than
among those of us who choose to define such.
Hill's first rule. There is only one rule.
First corollary: He who makes the rules wins.
Second corollary. Never let the other guy make the rules.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
Of Blunderov
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 1:36 PM
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: RE: virus: RE: Blunderov reverses himself ping David Hill
David Hill wrote
"Do you find any truth in the assertion that manners are a function of
personal risk?"
<SNIP>
<ENDSNIP>
In some circumstances manners would certainly have an intrinsic survival
value, but I prefer the assertion that "manners are a function of culture"
<SNIP>
<ENDSNIP>
Regards
Blunderov
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