From: The Low Golden Willow (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 05 1997 - 17:09:40 MST
On Mar 5, 3:02pm, Eric Watt Forste wrote:
} >work for the state and the less for myself. I am in the fortunate position,
} >where i have a part time job, (1 day a week) which pays enough per hour to
} >get by, and leaves me lots of time for individual development. Don't call
} Ah, yes, the John Galt strategy, first popularized by Ayn Rand.
...but often re-invented elsewhere, perhaps, as I'm using a similar
lifestyle (need to work more, though) and have never heard this
associated in any way with Ayn Rand's works.
Cool, I'm posting. I wonder if I should be surprised by the total lack
of discussion (unless I'm forgetting something) of Frank Sulloway's work
on this or the transhuman lists. I just read a review and interview in
_Skeptic_* last night and it seemed cool all over again. I'd like to
read the book myself soon. But one thing in the interview struck me:
*Volume 4 # 4 1996.
Sulloway claimed that based on birth order, class, etc. Darwin would be
94+-6% likely to support a radical idea like evolution by natural
selection. Assuming his numbers were accurate, that would leave at most
12% influence for genetic *and* uncontrolled environmental factors.
If his model is at all in the right ball park, the "nature vs. nurture"
debate may just have been resolved, at least for certain personality and
"emotional intelligence" traits. If you can have that kind of
predictive accuracy based on environmental factors alone, I think
'nurture' trumps 'nature'. Of course this would hit the "cloning"
brou-ha-ha as well. (SJ Mercury's forum is going downhill.) So many
reviews of Sulloway's work, so little mention of the implications, at
least that I've seen.
Another point was the idea that France resisted Darwinism for longer
because it had already shifted to smaller families == fewer 'liberal'
laterborns to 'conservative' firstborns. The rest of the West has
caught up, and may be becoming more conservative as a result. Oddly
enough, if China keeps up "one child" it may become relatively more
radical, as only children apparently are less constrained. (Yay! Guess
what I am.)
Hmm. Polygamous societies would be conservative -- lots of firstborns
(one per wife.) Stable populations of high-tech mortals -- us -- are
conservative, with about one firstborn per laterborn. Immortal, slowly
growing populations could retain looseness even if the adults themselves
didn't, through the only children.
Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
-- Satan, _Paradise Lost_
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