The problem I see with this notion of metaorganism and their rights
is that it winds up being in practice, the "right" of the leaders of
existing institutions to impose their will on other people. Thus, I
think the case for metaorganisms has not been truly made. It is an
analogy which is easily abused, and the abuse of it plays into the
hands of existing and would be elites.
BTW, the idea is not all that new. The organic view of society goes
back at least to Plato. (Just wanted to bring up this point because it
appears a lot of Extropians/transhumanists tend to think ideas like
this are relatively new and cutting edge. In terms of memes, there
may be a suseptibility among our kind to anything which can be
packaged as "innovative", "radical", "cutting edge", etc.)
Daniel Ust