Jason Axtell wrote:
> > Are tolerance, responsibility, and rational
> > self-interest compatible with great emphasis
> > on anti-collectivism? How so?
>
> More importantly, are these the good traits or the bad ones? I like
> tolerance and responsibility, but have qualifications on the rest. I'm also
> fairly confident that no one else on this list agrees completely with my
> last sentence. That being the case, how can we ever come to any agreement on
> what, socially, constitutes a memetic disease?
Actually, anti-collectivism is a sort of party line on my part. The term
doesn't really capture what I'm talking about. Basically, here's the issue: in
our economic ecosystem, we're beginning to run into a situation where biological
entities --- individuals --- are competing in the same fitness environment as
legal / corporate entities. We need to make sure that our legal / economic
environment does not favor legal entities over individuals. (I'm thinking for
instance about the issues of individual vs. corporate ownership of IP, the
notion of "auteur," etc.)
How can we come into agreement of what socially constitutes memetic disease?
Economic arguments.
> Better to encourage people to be free thinkers.
Agreed.
jb
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 29 2001 - 20:26:11 PDT