From: Alexander 'Sasha' Chislenko (sasha1@netcom.com)
Date: Tue Nov 24 1998 - 04:26:41 MST
At 05:12 11/24/98 , Karsten Bänder wrote:
>You could guess from historic and ethnic development on the advantages and
>disadvantages of civilizations. You could say that, based on tight
>population and less-than optimum living conditions, the European
>civilizationswas forced to evolve to avoid extinction, thus came technical
>and civilizational advance. China, as an opposite, resolved the internal
>wars and became a static society for over 1.500 years, because lack of
>threat caused a lack of evolution. As Biology teaches us, evolution is never
>without an external factor. This applies to humans, too.
>
>In an ideal world where there would be no longer war and hatred, where
>people could live together in peace, will there be any evolution?
Biological evolution doesn't seem to happen anymore, and even in the
relatively stable societies of the past it probably happened more
in the times of peace (selection of partners based on physical and
mental features) than at war, where the factors were largely random
on individual level.
As for the social and technological evolution, it appears to be determined
more by economic and social competition now than territorial/physical
conflicts. And peace seems to be an important prerequisite for economic
competition in diverse areas, long-term investment, and innovation.
People can still intensely compete on the software market, the Olympics,
on scientific conferences and bestseller lists, without cutting each
other's throats.
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Alexander Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
<sasha1@netcom.com> <sasha@media.mit.edu>
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