[ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers

[hkhenson]

At 12:32 AM 2/20/2009, Eschatoon Magic  wrote:

snip

>There are many bad things in religion, and there are also many good
>things. We all know the bad things: irrationality, superstition,
>dogmatism, hatred for the infidels, holy wars, and burning people. The
>good things have in common an aspiration to transcendence and
>greatness, something more and better, which is very transhumanist. My
>dream is repackaging religion with the good things and without the bad
>things, and compatibly with scientific knowledge and method, and
>spreading the new memetic package very wide.

The problem is not the memes or the good things that may happen to 
come out of religion.  The problem is the evolved psychological 
mechanisms in humans.  Comes bad times a looming, and some religious 
meme (or a meme of the larger class that included religions) will 
acquire a xenophobic nature and sooner or later the warriors will 
march off to war.

We don't need a "new memetic package," plain technology (most 
important, birth control) will do just fine.

But the situation as it is shaping up now forecasts wars, lots of 
them, in places where population growth has exceeded economic 
growth.  That will extend to places with low to zero population 
growth if the economic situation looks bleak enough.

Horrible model, but it does tell us where the problems will occur.

Keith