Re: virus: Is there room for mysticism?
Joel Bradford Klammer (klammer@acs.ucalgary.ca)
Wed, 10 Jan 96 14:08:37 MST
> At 10:02 PM 04/01/96 MST, Joel Bradford Klammer wrote:
>
> >Some other religions promise eternal life in paradise for all who
> >seek it. The closest Virus can offer is an extropian scenario of
> >longevity in this dirty world, available to those can afford the
> >technology (which in its initial phases is likely to be few). As
> >a memetic engineer, which do you think has greater mass appeal?
>
> Is this a trick question? I think what Virus has to offer is more
> appealing when you take into account the probability of delivering
> on what is promised. The other religions currently have greater
> mass appeal only because the masses aren't educated in critical
> thinking, especially decision theory. Now the question is do the
> masses want to be educated? If so, is their any advantage for us
> to spend the resources to provide the education?
Another question: can we define a person's level of education as
the extent to which they've learned to emulate your personal
intellectual proclivities? Some intelligent people have a
distaste for reductionism, and balance it out with a degree of
belief in intuition and/or revelation. To them, no amount of
education is going to make embracing the tenets of Virus seem
like anything other than swallowing a bitter pill.
Joel