From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Wed May 26 2004 - 19:04:44 MDT
At 11:22 AM 26/05/04 -0400, you wrote:
> >Slave labor? If someone is controlled only via memes and not via physical
> >force, is it slavery?
>
>: You would have to make up your
>: own mind on this subject.
>
>Oh, so you're not going to try and convince me? Heh.
You cut:
"What cults (including scientology) do is to provide intense attention. In
some people this has about the same effect as addictive drugs.
"People in cults do things (such as cutting off their balls or blowing
themselves up) that are clearly against the interest of their genes."
>Why do people work hard all day for access to more expensive cars, even
>though income levels above 50,000 are negatively correlated with lifespan
>and reproduction?
Because the psychological mechanisms that induce us to work hard today were
shaped by the stone age environment. Human behavior would be selected to
be rational from the gene's viewpoint if the current environment lasted a
million years. In the case of working hard for high income, part of that
is probably adaption to high latitude winters. Working as hard as you
could storing up food and fuel was required to get you (and your kids)
though the winter.
Expensive cars are contemporary status symbols, but people have been
working for status probably back to the split with the chimps. Nothing
correlates more with reproductive success in a primitive environment than
having high status.
>Because they're part of a "cult-ure".
>
>Society is a hodgepodge of cults. The question, for me, is not "whether"
>cults are good or bad. The question is which cult do I feel like being a
>member of today?
I have cause to object to your statement. Stick my name in Google to see
why. Cults damages the people in them, but cults also damage the larger
society they are in because intense cults get their member's loyalty ahead
of family and country. This means cult members have far less inhibition
about breaking the rules of the larger society. Check out scientologist
Reed Slatkin, who ran the largest Ponzi scam on record. (Over $250
million.) http://www.slatkinfraud.com/index.php
There is a use for the word "cult" that you are abusing by making it all
inclusive.
Keith Henson
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