From: Guru George (gurugeorge@sugarland.idiscover.co.uk)
Date: Sun Mar 30 1997 - 16:22:38 MST
On Sun, 30 Mar 1997 04:05:23 -0800
freeman@netcom.com (Jay Reynolds Freeman) wrote:
>> If we ever do come across any highly advanced civilisations, you can bet
>> your bottom dollar they will be capitalistic, trader civilisations.
>
> Does the Squirrel understand correctly, that an unaugmented biological
>unit, scarcely two million years past its culture's invention of the
>stone axe, is unwilling to consider that intelligent beings may have
>thought of something that it did not think of, has not thought of, or
>perhaps cannot think of?
>
Oh, I have considered it, and I've come up with a negative. I think
that the memes of several property, rule of law, and trade, quaint
though they may sound to your ears, are 'forced moves' in cultural design
space,*especially* if we are talking about the possibility of bringing
about a technologically advanced culture. Analogous to the way, say,
that having bilateral symmetry and sexual reproduction are 'forced moves'
in biological design space.
Anything beyond that is beyond the concept of society and civilisation altogether,
and so advanced even Marx couldn't have conceived it.
You see, for me, most of the problems in society arise from lack of
observation of those principles, and to me social progress consists in a
gradual refinement, extension and improving realisation of those memes.
We have *hardly even begun* to do this, and look at the curve of
progress in that short time, despite enormous ideological resistance
these past two centuries!
I think Vernor Vinge is a more accurate prediction than Ian Banks (much
as I enjoy Ian Banks!)
Guru George
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