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Guess this got bounced to me by accident rather than the list,and since
its reasonably coherent and non-antoginistic, I'll even reply to it in
the same way.
XYZ Customer Support wrote:
>
> > From: Alexander Williams <thantos@alf.dec.com>
>
> > In the Beginning, man was ape-like and tribes warred over everything
> > from the best hunting areas to watering holes to the best women to `hey,
> > he pointed at me.' Its a good thing, too, or the strongest would have
> > never survived.
>
> It wasn't the strongest that survived...it was the fittest. Dinosaurs were
> much stronger than any human alive yet they are still dead.
Strong in what sense? When dealing with cultural/physical conflicts,
its often the strongest that survive unless the weaker develops a weapon
capable of overcoming brute strength. This ties into my point below in
that wars provide the greatest impetuous to memetic/cultural development
while times of peace allow for a time of integration of the new
`technology' (whether it be physical or memetic) but eventually lead to
stagnation as no new high-power injections of energy enter the
pool/society.
> You must have a sick mind if you can't imagine anything better
> than killing men, women, children, and babies to advance
> technology. Wars kill off the strong as well as the weak and
> when WWIII erupts, we will have ample opportunity to prove
> that a million times over.
Of course war kills of the strong as well as the weak, its just that
correspondingly fewer of the strong get killed off and return to mate
and pass on that strength, whether that be brute physical strength or
intellectal/memetic strength.
Its not so much the killing that is a boon to memetic
development/technological development, so much as the trying not to be
/killed/.
I can say with some measure of safety involved that I don't believe
there will be a WWIII until humans colonize off-Terra sites like the
orbital lanes, the moon, and Mars. At that point a good thinning of the
native Terran population will allow any phenotypes in genetics or
memetics that develop off-world equal competition due to (roughly) equal
population.
--
Alexander Williams {thantos@alf.dec.com / zander@photobooks.com}
Prefect of the 8,000,000th Terran Overlord Government Experimental
Strike Legion, Primary Transport TOG "Bellatores Inquieti"
======================================================================
You ride in 250 tons of molecularly aligned crystalline titanium
wedded to a ceramic ablative matrix. You carry a 200mm Gauss
cannon, two massive 10-gigawatt lasers, two SMLM fire-and-forget
missiles, a Vulcan IV point defense anti-missile system, and a
deadly assortment of other equally lethal weapons.
Your vehicle is the ultimate product of 4,000 years of armored
warfare.
Your life expectancy is less than two minutes.
-- RENEGADE LEGION:
CENTURION
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From: "XYZ Customer Support" <xyz@starlink.com>
To: "Alexander Williams" <thantos@alf.dec.com>
Subject: Re: virus: The Root of All Unhappiness Lies in Yourself.
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 18:42:33 -0700
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> From: Alexander Williams <thantos@alf.dec.com>
> In the Beginning, man was ape-like and tribes warred over everything
> from the best hunting areas to watering holes to the best women to `hey,
> he pointed at me.' Its a good thing, too, or the strongest would have
> never survived.
> Now, if you object to the absence of the nuclear weapon meme removing
> the threat of nuclear weapons, we have a problem ...
It wasn't the strongest that survived...it was the fittest. Dinosaurs were
much stronger than any human alive yet they are still dead.
> I don't think it /is/ possible. Its not Politically Correct to say so,
> but War is Good, Baby. Wars have encouraged the majority of our
> technological innovations over the millinea, wars kill off the weak and
> give the strong a Rite of Passage sorely needed to establish societal
> roles. Wars, literally, are the proving ground of the meme.
You must have a sick mind if you can't imagine anything better
than killing men, women, children, and babies to advance
technology. Wars kill off the strong as well as the weak and
when WWIII erupts, we will have ample opportunity to prove
that a million times over.
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