From: pete@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Peter Alexander Merel)
Subject: Re: The Marching Morons (was Re: Cindy the Disco Queen)
Organization: Sydney University Computing Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 22:44:09 GMT

pksuk@mothra.syr.EDU (Peter K. Suk) writes:
>In the long run, one benefits most from:
>	1) sharing basic knowledge
>	2) abandoning the notion of secrets

Not to sound reactionary, but I don't think this is necessarily true. Imagine
the sort of world we'd have today if the Manhattan Project folk had shared
their secrets with the Third Reich.

But in principal I guess I agree with you. Releasing information often
results in better information returning to one, and since information is not
lost when released everyone benefits.

>After all, what good is it to have lots of great technology and no one
>to trade with?  Life is with *people*!  And think of how the delusion of
>a nuclear "secret" helped start the arms-race spiral.

However, I think you're missing the point.  The cultured hoard their culture
not by keeping secrets but by controlling the resources required to promulgate
their culture. 

>But can anyone really hoard knowledge?  Just because someone knows something
>doesn't mean that no one else can.  Of course, people can _try_ but that's
>futile in the end.  Hmmm.  I guess _that's_ what you're getting at.

Not quite. Lookit: you're an educated man. Giving you that education required
much by way of resources and expertise. How can we convey such an education
to the masses? 

Hell, just having this conversation with a fellow thousands of miles to the 
south of you, not to mention broadcasting it to thousands of your fellows all 
around the planet gives you power beyond the wildest dreams of most people on
the planet, for whom the twentieth century provides much the same level of
creature comfort and cultural advancement as the 19th, or for that matter the
first.

>>The result of all this hoarding is that the ignorant masses get more ignorant
>>and more massive while the cultured develop their culture behind ever higher
>>walls of economic, social and military advantage.
>Here, I agree with you entirely.  This is EXACTLY what is happening.  

>No.  We, through an unfortunate concordance of economic and cultural
>influences, are creating morons.  The one thing that our primary and
>secondary school system does with undeniable success is discourage
>learning.  

And yet you are learned. How did that happen? Your parents saw to it. And if
they were morons do you think they would have?

>>Woah Jim, while I agree that the US government is noxious, the morons are
>>breeding far faster beneath the considerably less enlightened governments 
>>that afflict most of the human race.  

>Just a moment, exactly HOW does breeding get correlated with moron-ness
>for EVERYONE?  When it comes down to it, not everyone is as free to choose
>NOT to reproduce as we are here in the US.  (Don't even MENTION abstinence.)

Well, that's what this thread is all about; moronic attitudes (or memes ...)
can use human reproduction as a vector, and some of the most successful moron 
memes encourage overpopulation. Cultures that discourage overpopulation 
eventually are out-bred by cultures that don't.

>It's very easy to blame folks, but we've got to walk around in folk's
>shoes a bit.  Poverty and social pressure are heavy things to deal with.

Well, so far no one seems to have found much of a hole in Kornbluth's thesis.
I don't know if that makes us doomed, but it does mean we should think hard
about what to do. Direct opposition of religions and cultural forces is not
possible. Perhaps some kind soul could engineer a strain of influenza that
sterilizes its subjects? That's surely not beyond the abilities of modern 
science. Then all we'd have to do is develop a vaccine and make it available
only to High School graduates. A generation later the problem would be solved.

<Pete awaits howls of outrage>


-- 
Internet: pete@extro.su.oz.au             UUCP: {uunet,mcvax}!munnari!extro!pete
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