>Amazingly, scholars, who have predicted world-wide famine due to
>over-population, have been proven wrong time after time. I understand that
>the population density of the state of Massachsetts is many times higher
>than the impoverished Zimbawbe and yet Mass. can feed its population. This
>would indicate that memes are of major importance. Socialist countries can
>not feed themselves but when they allow a free market system, food
>production soars.
I would emphasize the point that Massachusetts can only feed itself because
it has the economic muscle to pull enough food and resources into it from
outside. I do not think that Massachusetts, isolated from the rest of the
world and given our current agricultural technologies, could feed Boston.
Unlike Massachusetts, the Earth has no economies exterior to it to exploit.
Yet.
Also, how do you define "socialist countries?" Is Sweden socialist? It is
certainly more so than many. And Swedes appear to be well-fed.
Then there is the fact that some "free-market" economies have problems
feeding their people. India is the obvious example. (But then, even the
U.S. is not TRULY a free market economy.)
[An aside - I've heard that the average American is directly or indirectly
responsible for the consumption of some 50 times the natural resources that
the average Indian consumes during his lifetime. So while we may chastise
Third World countries for allowing their populations to skyrocket, each
American child will do the damage of *50* Third World children during his
or her lifetime.]
Having said all that, I agree with your essential assertion that memes are
very important.
____________________________________________________________________________
Tyson Vaughan memetic engineer
tvaughan@ux.accesscom.net graphic designer
"The way up and the way down are one and the same." - Heraclitus