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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
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To: Father Terrence who wrote (25014)7/20/2000 4:24:12 PM
From: TigerPaw  Read Replies (1) of 769670
 
the government provided no such "protection" money for almost 200 years
This subject fits in nicely with the discussion on evolution. It's in the advanced topic section as social evolution and derivatives have gotten really bad science associated with really bad press over the years (starting with Spencer and his "Survival of the fittest" thesis).

The U.S. 400 years ago was a punctuated event in terms of meme evolution as the large technology meme toolbox of the europeans was introduced into a land with a far smaller meme set. The key to not letting this concept get too bizzare is to realize that there was very little biological gene competition. The natives and the newcomers were practicly the same (with a few divergent disease vectors). It is the evolution of the memes that has marked this event.

At the risk of stretching analogies too far, 400 and 200 years ago there was plenty of room for ideas, no matter how crackpot. There were plenty of mass warfare and burning cities too, but in many cases new ideas, like the mormons, could move on and find a niche. As the population grew there is now an increasing competition for the limited space, both physical and communicative. In meme concepts, we are at the point where new "species" begin to develop into very self contained and specialized areas.

I again want to emphasise that there is very little biological content to this, and memes reproduce with a different set of rules than genes. It is strickly population density of any race, including populations which are not physically near, so long as they are communicatively near, that govern the mix-and match mating and it is the next generation that determines the survivers.
TP
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