virus: RE: RE: FAQ ideas

David Leeper (DLEEPER@sybase.com)
Tue, 07 Nov 95 14:45:00 PST


Reply To Tyson Vaughan:

>My general criticism of David Leeper's proposed answers (or ANYONE's for
>that matter) to the various FAQ questions is that they tend to be personal
>interpretations of all the data available to him. Obviously this is going
>to be the way every individual responds to these questions. While such
>answers may be rendered faithfully through the lens of pancritical
>rationalism, they will always come down to personal interpretation of
>limited data.
>
>I think that the answers which represent Virus's point of view should avoid
>these problems. Ideally, they should be based on data collocated from
>exhaustive research on each problem. Quantity and quality of data is
>essential to the success of any pancritical rationalistic system, such as
>science.
>
>Probably the closest Virus can come to reaching this ideal is to survey a
>range of experts in each field and arrive at some kind of synthesis.

0) My replys were not based on personal opinion. For example, I'm
pro-choice on the abortion issue, while in my reply to the FAQ I tried to
look at things from a gene/meme point of view. This lead to my suggestion
that Virus simply ignore the abortion issue, its effects on the gene/meme
pool should be small.

1) "Experts" are what got us into this mess in the first place. The problem
with experts is that their field of vision is often very limited. They may
come up with ways that maximize a local variable, but not realize they are
harming a global variable.

2) A "synthesis" sounds to me like a patch-work philosophy designed by
comitee. I'm not so sure this is a good idea.

3) Data is just data. What are we looking for when we look at the data?
How do we deside that such and such data represents a bad situation? What
is "bad"? What is "good"? We have to base these desisions on some sort of
standard. What will this standard be? Until such a standard is set, data is
useless. I believe that this standard must be the long term
genetic/memetic health of the world. "Health" being defined by the
diversity and reproductive ability of the genes/memes of the world.

>*Greed. (The memes in this list may be added to the lexicon. In this case,
>we could define greed as an unquenchable desire for more power, status and
>material wealth. The inevitable implications of this desire are a
>consumption of resources with no mechanism for replacement of those
>resources or at the very least a re-establishment of the balance disrupted
>by such consumption. Greed is a meme which encourages a parasitic
>relationship with our environment.)

Why can't we just use the dictonary's definition of greed?

Thanks,

Dave Leeper,
dleeper@sybase.com
----------------------------------
My general criticism of David Leeper's proposed answers (or ANYONE's for
that matter) to the various FAQ questions is that they tend to be personal
interpretations of all the data available to him. Obviously this is going
to be the way every individual responds to these questions. While such
answers may be rendered faithfully through the lens of pancritical
rationalism, they will always come down to personal interpretation of
limited data.

I think that the answers which represent Virus's point of view should avoid
these problems. Ideally, they should be based on data collocated from
exhaustive research on each problem. Quantity and quality of data is
essential to the success of any pancritical rationalistic system, such as
science.

Probably the closest Virus can come to reaching this ideal is to survey a
range of experts in each field and arrive at some kind of synthesis.

Another tact is to identify only those specifics which are essentially
indisputable. For instance, the fact that humanity is severely damaging the
biosphere. I'd suggest that we avoid getting caught up in pointing fingers
at specific causes, since we quickly find ourselves in an area where
disputes are inevitable and a single, clear, rational answer does not
present itself.

It may be enough to point out that -- as is the case with most such
phenomena -- our relatioship with the biosphere is a highly complex one,
and the causes of our destruction of the biosphere are myriad and also
complex. In general many of these causes are meme-complexes maladapted to
our current situation as a species on Earth. Some of these memes and
meme-complexes include greed*, isolation of consumers from production
methods, a blindness to the interconnectedness of all living things, etc.
(Whether these values are engendered more or less by one economic system or
another may not be relevant.)

*Greed. (The memes in this list may be added to the lexicon. In this case,
we could define greed as an unquenchable desire for more power, status and
material wealth. The inevitable implications of this desire are a
consumption of resources with no mechanism for replacement of those
resources or at the very least a re-establishment of the balance disrupted
by such consumption. Greed is a meme which encourages a parasitic
relationship with our environment.)

I think that similar solutions can be applied to other questions such as
welfare, etc.

____________________________________________________________________________
Tyson Vaughan memetic engineer
tvaughan@ux.accesscom.net graphic designer