Re: virus: Taking Over the World (was: Sign Off)
Paul Prestopnik (pjp66259@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu)
Fri, 24 Oct 1997 14:33:31 -0400
> If too many people are either constantly dealing with day-to-day
> survival, persuing monetary gain for its own sake, or spending all their
> time consuming, there would be less effort spent on advancing memetic
> evolution--an activity which supposedly leads to progress. If you take
the
> view that people's minds are resources worth cultivating, it might be a
> good investment to redistribute wealth so that more people participate in
> memetic evolution, which would pay-off in the long run, since there would
> be faster progress toward, say, harnessing energy more efficiently.
I don't think redistribution of wealth would necessarily cause more people
to participate in memetic evolution, or in any socially productive
activity. As an example look at people who have more than the arithmatic
mean of wealth (I have no idea what this valuew would be, by the way). I
would assume that in this subset of people many of them still consider
increase of wealth a primary goal. Also even if people do not consider
increase in wealth something to strive towards (due to sufficient monatary
worth, or different ideals) that does not mean they will invest their time
in a socially productive activity. They could very well just spend another
2 hrs watching television.