eugenics

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Jordan Mejias:

> "These are thoughts to make jaws drop...Nobody at Eastover Farm seemed
> afraid of a eugenic revival. What in German circles would have released
> violent controversies, here drifts by unopposed under mighty maple trees
> that gently whisper in the breeze."
>  
Should Diabetes, Cancer, Parkinson's disease, etc., fall to genetic
therapy, the people in those circles can forego treatment...

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Well, it's real easy to miss, but the thing that seems to get people in
trouble with discovering wonderful new ways of bringing order to things,
is assuming that more is always better.  It's a rather good guess that
this was what caused the collapse of the Roman empire, for example.  The
cultures of it's royalty needed ever increasing perks, to the bitter
end, even though the amazingly productive new order they brought to the
world around them stopped producing increasing natural perks long
before.

Their solution??  It was for about 400 years to continually increase
taxes on everything in sight.  The error wasn't that their gift of
bringing order to the world ran into diminishing returns.  That's the
most natural of nature's expected developmental stages.  The mistake was
mistaking the gift they had once given the world for free, as one they
could 'bank on' forever.   Treating it that way had the natural effect
of grinding their whole civilization to dust.   This is also clearly
what the 'developed world' is rapidly doing with the earth, in so many
easily substantiated ways... once you ask the question.  Demanding
growing returns from an underperforming asset, is simply a mistake.

I'd of course be glad to have the benefit of the 'good times' for any
explosion of new creativity.  My best friend since childhood is getting
a super high tech bone marrow transplant today.  I don't mind having him
around a bit.   We just need to not 'bank on it', demanding ever greater
returns whatever the cost, and take all our genius down the natural road
to disaster.

I object to the attitude in the Edge, that we can just write off the
whole sweep of failures we've experienced in followed the Roman method
of 'sustainable design' with simply another dose of the glorious old
irrational expectations.


Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 12:02 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] eugenics
>
>
> Jordan Mejias:
>
> > "These are thoughts to make jaws drop...Nobody at Eastover
> Farm seemed
> > afraid of a eugenic revival. What in German circles would have
> > released violent controversies, here drifts by unopposed
> under mighty
> > maple trees that gently whisper in the breeze."
> >  
> Should Diabetes, Cancer, Parkinson's disease, etc., fall to genetic
> therapy, the people in those circles can forego treatment...
>
>
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