Kemes R Us (was; Re: We luv the guv't)
Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Sun, 18 Jan 1998 11:52:58 +0000
>EvMick wrote:
>> A fellow name of Howard Bloom <i think> has a considerable amount to say on
>> that subject in his book "The Lucifer Principal".
>>
>> To quickly and perhaps grossly summarize <with attendant loss of
accuracy> I
>> beleive that Mr. Bloom is saying that governments...or "superorganisms"
as he
>> calls them.....are then next step up on the "memetic" food chain. They
are to
>> people what people are to cells...
Bloom bases his argument on a revival of `group selection' theory. This
approach to evolution has been pretty comprehensively demolished.
On other other hand, if Benfordian memetic `kemes' really are emerging (and
are not merely illusory slices across discurive regimes), it might not be
absurd to suppose that they are reorganising human genetics in a top-down
fashion, or might do so eventually. You'd need mighty good evidence to
take this out of the realm of racist idiocy and ooger-booger mysticism.
Damien Broderick