From: Anne Lambert
Message: 9009
Date: 2001-09-04
> Pat, calling everyone stupid again, states:1
>> It is the competition between groups that has guided evolution; and if we
>> think that intelligence applied to societal problems is
>> helpful, how can anyone of even moderate intelligence condemn the
>>> mechanism of group selection as irrational.
>
> Unconstrained competition threatens our survival. Cooperation
> can only aid in our survival. The overall tendency is towards an
> increasing amount of cooperation & intercommunication within our species. At
> the same time, more and more constraints are placed
> on competition to avoid dysfunction.
>
> Perhaps a strange but appropriate example of the increase of this
> bee-hive behaviour is the recent popularity of "voyeur" shows such
> as Survivor (people put on an island to fend for themselves) or
> U8TV (people stuck in an apartment and forced to room with each
> other). This is an example of increased constraints on competition
> (allowed only within the forum of TV and following certain rules
> of conduct dictated by a reinforceable legal code that gets more
> complicated by the day).
>
> Since nationalism is a purely competitive behaviour, it's inferior
> as a survival strategy for our species, if not for the people it
> strives to "protect". In our budding global society, nationalism is
> becoming outdated. At the same time, there is a bit of resistence,
> although irrelevant in the grander scheme of things, against this
> direction our species is heading in.
>
> The episodes concerning the Enterprise and Borg on Star Trek are
> not just mindless stories about pretend battles of aliens in deep
> space. Underneath the plot, this human-vs-Borg opposition
> underlines our common fear of what we will become (our far-future
> being represented by the Borg) and our fear in the erosion of what
> it means to be human (that is, emotional, individual,
> self-conflicting, competitive and self-destructive).
>
> In the end, however, resistance truely is futile.
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> gLeNny gEe
> ...wEbDeVEr gOne bEsErK!
>
> home: http://glen_gordon.tripod.com
> email: glengordon01@...
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
>
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>Right on! Cooperation is needed