Re: virus: Re: Virus: Sociological Change

Alex Williams (thantos@decatl.alf.dec.com)
Thu, 19 Dec 1996 17:51:04 -0500 (EST)


"jonesr@gatwick.Geco-Prakla.slb.com" at Dec 19, 96 03:19:32 pm
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> True, indeed. Therein lies the main problem with all political theory
> that I have encountered. The "ideal" state is one which satisfies
> both you and me, and everyone else. Originally, when I first posted
> on this subject I was intrigued as to whether there really is such a
> thing as the "perfect" society.

Which I responded to in the negative, but I always was a cynical
negativist. :)

> > Asking for an ideal state for
> > everyone is, memetically, akin to asking for one ideal ecology for all
> > life. Get jungle-based and tundra-based lifeforms living together in
> > harmony and we'll talk.
>
> The zoo?

I find this a very intriguing statement coupled with the latter:

> There *must* be a set of rules that govern fairly, justly, giving
> equality and liberty to all, and keeping everyone happy ... hasn't there?
>
> We can but live in hope :)

Are the creatures in the zoo /really/ living in a free and equal
ecology, or are they simply locked in a poor simulation of the habitat
they flourish in, restricted in choice and action /for their own
good/, with the lions and the lambs kept far apart to avoid the
obvious and inevitable consequences? I'm not sure that you'd really
/like/ to take the zoo's ecological niche mimicry as the model of the
`ideal society' memetic niche map that I asked for.

I'm not sure hoping for an ideal society is a /good/ thing; like
asking for a single ecology that all creatures can inhabit and succeed
in, it tends to produce a very limited ability to adapt in the long
run and boredom in the short.