Re: The Extropian Religious War--thank you

From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Thu Jul 12 2001 - 10:01:50 MDT


Miriam English wrote:
>
> As I say, I am a common offender in tending to dump on religion and the
> people who succumb to it, and have great trouble holding myself back... but
> hold ourselves back, I think we should. Perhaps we should concentrate on
> tactics to defuse the religious indoctrination of young minds. :-/

Assimilation and transformation seems to be the most successful strategy
in the world of memes. IMHO, religions tend to drift toward harmlessness
the more populist and egalitarian they get. Fundamentalism is an effect
of cultural polarization, isolation, and change, which is something we
are likely to see much more of in the near future. Expanding internet
access to as many places is of paramount importance to mitigating
fundamentalism. One problem of this is that the immense amount of
information mandates the use of filters, but filters based upon what the
user wants to see contributes to isolation and fundamentalism. The Flynn
Effect and other indices indicate that younger generations have greater
ability to adapt and assimilate, but sufficient efforts at education of
high trust paradigms is needed to preserve progressive culture as those
that are less so become more connected.



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