[extropy-chat] EP and political philosophy was Anarchy?

[Robert Bradbury]

On 4/20/07, Keith Henson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:

> Sorry for harping on this, but understanding EP is really critical toward
> making sense out of the social world.


Keith, I have no argument with this.  However, one runs the risk of thinking
that the forest is more significant than the trees.  EP is a social and
therefore an "average" perspective way of viewing things.  If one watches
society at large adopting the internet, cell phones, Blackberries, iPods,
assaulting Nigerian oil platforms, various bombings in many countries [1],
one might be struck by the copy-cat they seem to have.  If XYZZY is doing
thus-and-so then XYZZZ might as well do it too.

However, all brains are not equal, there are those which have selected from
the gene pool the creation of a different vector.  Mostly these probably
fail.  Sometimes they are successful.   I would offer the "spin" that EP is
trailing the successful novel vectors pioneered by single individuals.  You
can attempt to stick your finger in the dam at the EP level -- in which case
you are dealing with many more individuals.  Or you can attempt to stick
your finger into the works at the "pioneer" level -- long before EP becomes
manifest.

Robert

1. http://www.adl.org/terrorism/terrorism_db/default.asp?valuedb=Attacks
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