From: Lyle Burkhead (LYBRHED@delphi.com)
Date: Wed Jul 31 1996 - 23:50:34 MDT
In response to my statement,
> At some point (soon) we are going to take charge of our own evolution.
> It will be directed toward some goal. It is true that different people will
> have different purposes, at least for awhile. I'm not sure this situation
> will be stable, however. The Darwinian competition is going to turn
> rather vicious, and people with frivolous goals may not survive.
Eric Watt Forste writes,
> This may be a matter of taste, and my tastes in this matter are
> rather ferociously pluralistic. Are you arguing for the homogenization
> of culture, or against it?
We seem to be talking about different things. You are advocating
pluralism. I'm not advocating an ism, I'm just saying what I think will
happen.
But to be honest, the hard truth is that I really don't know what's
going to happen. I have an increasing sense of unreality about all this.
I don't know why people with frivolous goals won't survive.
> I oppose the homogenization of culture; in the *long* term I think
> it would be a disaster. However, I also recognize that the only
> long-term solution to this problem is offplanet diaspora. And in the
> post-diaspora future I'm fairly confident that purposes/values
> will not only be diverse, but will proliferate and ramify far beyond
> the scale of value pluralism that we see around us in the world today.
I disagree. If you can't establish a private space on earth, you won't be
able to do it offplanet, either. Offplanet colonies, like island colonies,
submarine crews, colonies of scientists in Antarctica, or mining towns
in Alaska, will carry human culture with them.
Lyle
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