From: "J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com> To: <extropians@extropy.com> Subject: Re: Subject: Re: A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies Date sent: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 09:36:40 -0800 Send reply to: extropians@extropy.com
> Lee Daniel Crocker wrote,
> >You're making the further unstated assumption that the success of a
> >population is good; i.e., you are defining moral worth as equivalent
> >to success of the species.
>
> Yes, and you would oppose this assumption? If the success of a species (or
> segment of a species) does not correlate to its mores, this dysfunction places
> it at a disadvantage in relation to less dysfunctional populations, don't you
> think?
>
We are TOO successful, as a species, in propagation, as our
major religions, each wishing to outbreed all the others so that
larger percentages of various types of believers in the population
may wield greater power and influence, urge their members to be
fruitful and multiply far beyond the carrying capacity of our planet.
We, as a species, remind me of yeast cells dropped in a glass of
sugar-water (metaphorically the earth), blindly, heedlessly and
malignantly multiplying until we drown in our own toxic waste
and/or starve after exhausting all available nutrients. Our
burgeoning quantity of life is functioning to the direct detriment of
our quality of life, as we treat our common home like a reluctant
lunchbox/outhouse, to be emptied of resources and filled with
pollutants and garbage without regard to present consequences or
future generations.
>
> > That's as good a desire as any, but there's
> >certainly nothing more fundamentally "right" about success than any
> >other human desire.
>
> Without fulfilling the desire for evolutionary success, (iow, unless a
> population succeeds) a population cannot go on to other human desires. This
> makes the desire for evolutionary success, reproductive success, sucess as a
> species, or however one puts it, a "fundamental" desire (as you put it).
>
> The extent to which ethical systems originate in our genes deserves, IMO, a
> scientific review equal to or surpassing that given to Sokal's Experiments With
> Cultural Studies.
>
> Cheers,
>
> --J. R.
>
>