From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Apr 14 2003 - 23:24:44 MDT
Keith points out the great site
> www.WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.com
and it's a pity that anyone with that much talent can't
at least get his own talk show. My favorite quote was
from Jean-Pierre McGarrigle:
"In an age of spin, al-Sahaf offers feeling and authenticity. His message is consistent -- unshakeable, in fact, no matter the
evidence -- but he commands daily attention by his on-the-spot, invective-rich variations on the theme. His lunatic counterfactual
art is more appealing than the banal awfulness of the Reliable Sources. He is a Method actor in a production that will close in a
couple of days. He stands superior to truth."
but al-Sahaf's parting shot to us all: "You are too far from
reality", must come a close second.
On a more serious note, Keith also writes
> I suspect that al-Sahaf was charged with preserving
> Saddam's honor in the Arab community and for the history
> books, and Al-Jazeera's lack of complicity was unexpected
> and not a little offensive. To be sure, Western
> aristocratic society boasts similar memes. There's an
> ESS there somewhere, I fathom.
An off-list correspondent has brought to my attention that I began
using the term "ESS" (Evolutionarily Stable Strategy) as if it
were /wrong/ Evolutionarily Successful Strategy /wrong/.
ESS is a term perhaps first used by John Maynard Smith in
his book "Evolution and the Theory of Games". My familiarity
with the term comes from Axelrod's work in the late eighties
---probably many of you are familiar with the "Tit-for-tat"
results, and the issues concerning whether or not a society
can be invaded by strangers who have different strategies for
cooperation or defection.
Some time in the last five years I have began loosely using
the term to refer to what is merely a "successful strategy"
for a subgroup or subspecies, or a memeplex, which waxes
dominant within its larger group. Sorry for the confusion.
The term ESS should be used only in the narrower sense.
Lee
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