From: Billy Brown (bbrown@transcient.com)
Date: Tue Jun 06 2000 - 15:23:25 MDT
Robin Hanson wrote:
> I don't see why you need such a convergence hypothesis. You don't
> need to argue that every culture or every individual in every culture
> or every cell in every individual is aggressively using such resources.
> You only need enough cultures which allow enough of their individuals to
> pursue goals which can be aided by making use of these resources. And
> since such resources seem to be of use in competition between
> individuals and cultures, it is hard to imagine them remaining almost
> completely untouched.
Or, to say the same thing in the vocabulary of evolutionary biology, any
system containing replicating entities will tend to be dominated by those
entities which replicate most effectively. You can start with a
99.999999999% pure population of 'voluntary' non-replicators, and you will
still end up with an environment dominated by industrious replicators.
Voluntary non-expansion on the scale of an entire civilization is only
possible if there is no individual variation (i.e. a borganism). Voluntary
non-expansion in a population of civilizations over evolutionary time is
only possible if all advanced civilizations inevitably converge to a
non-expanding borganism.
Billy Brown
bbrown@transcient.com
http://www.transcient.com
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