Re:virus:"stupid" laws

Martin Glover (martin.glover@dial.pipex.com)
Sun, 18 Oct 1998 17:01:52 +0000


Looking at eric boyd's post (may've been someone else's originally) about
laws against people damaging themselves, i was struck that the post was
phrased in terms that sounded quite moralistic to me: what people OUGHT or
OUGHT NOT to be allowed to do.

I would've thought a memetic viewpoint on laws would be fairly free of moral
judgements about behaviour (including making laws etc), but rather phrased
in terms of questions like "why are these ideas more widespread than their
opposites?"

I'm not trying to police the list, but it interests me as to whether
memeticists genuinely see laws as a matter of "should and shouldn't". The
complimentary standpoint might be something like seeing a group's morality
as a complex of ideas dominant in their meme pool.

Is there a concensus on the list about that?

Cheers

MG