[ExI] Silence in the sky-but why?

[BillK]

On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 8:17 PM, spike wrote:
> We can think of predatory memes such as religions that allow what I call
> voluntary tyranny.  These are religions where people willingly and blindly
> follow some leader, completely surrendering their own will to the group.  We
> can imagine that predatory memes always existed, but every intelligent
> species everywhere will eventually develop some planet-wide communications
> system, which could be used to facilitate the spread of a predatory meme to
> otherwise healthy places.  The existence of such a communication system
> would give an enormous advantage to the meme over the memetic immune system
> under certain circumstances, such as if the meme includes the duty to
> reproduce genetically to the physical limit.
>
> I am compelled to argue this is exactly what is happening today.  We have a
> particular well-known predatory meme, which encourages or demands complete
> obedience to the leaders of that meme-plex, encourages its followers to
> breed like pathogens wherever they are on the globe.  It is easy for me to
> see that predatory meme destroying progress and eventually causing humanity
> to enter another dark age, from which extrication may or may not happen.
>

Social and political systems are temporary structures. All human
empires rise then fall, to be replaced by another version. Atomic
reactors, internet technology, smartphones, etc. are in use all across
the world, by all political and religious systems. Different social
systems do direct R&D in different directions, with the benefits going
to different sections of the population. But it is unlikely that the
past will be totally destroyed. It is too useful for the rulers.


> It is possible to imagine a predatory meme which
> specifically and determinedly destroys at every opportunity the progress of
> past generations, in hopes of supplanting its own memeset.  It would have a
> certain structure and mythology, and come with the attitude that any
> previous mythology is either in agreement with the predatory memeset or not,
> in which case it would be classified as either redundant or heresy, to be
> destroyed in either case.
>

I doubt that any such meme could achieve total world domination. Even
if it did, it would only last for a few generations.

But the main problem I see with this idea is proposing that this
happens to every intelligent civ throughout the galaxy. We shouldn't
apply temporary human problems to the lizard kings of Alpha Centauri.


BillK