XPost: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo   
   From: xqo@localhost.localdomain   
      
   Sometimes I wonder just what it is that we humans are doing on this   
   planet. I'm not really asking the question why are we here, let's just   
   ignore that for a second. Rather, I wonder what it is that we are doing as   
   a species since we are already here. Billions of individual lives on this   
   planet, all of them humming along at their own speed to their own   
   destination. Yet they are just one species, dominating, manipulating,   
   controlling the whole world. The only thing that these animals have going   
   for them, as far as I can see, are that they are all capable of sharing   
   some kind of mass hallucination.   
      
   This is how societies have risen, in my view. Back in the beginnings of   
   humanity, some of our ancestors shcizmed with their previous animal   
   concoiusness. Abstract reasoning increased. The clan structure increased.   
   All the while the population is increasing. You need more and more food.   
   People, in general, became very defensive of their land, their families,   
   etc. Larger and larger groups of people start living together in order to   
   protect their selves and food from groups/animals that would try to have   
   it for their own. More technology to feed the masses, more social order to   
   keep things safe inside the group, more jealously between the humans   
   themselves.   
      
   Why are we different from the majority of animals? Is it strictly that we   
   have larger brains, or is it because of the thoughts that go through them?   
   This is about where I usually start thinking about memes. Suppose that a   
   humans greatest advantage is communication within the species. Another   
   assumption is that human nature, the nature to lie, manipulate, etc for   
   personal gain, has always been around. Our ideas, the memes, were in the   
   beginning very small, in other words, less complex. Also, there were less   
   copies and mutations. Fast forward a few miliniea, and all of a sudden   
   meme population has EXPLOADED. Not only have the memes been able grow more   
   complex, but they also have an exponentially larger host population.   
   Earlier, memes had to replicate through word of mouth, but now the humans   
   have gone and done something just amazing for meme survival: They have   
   started writing. With the rise of the memes come culture, society,   
   civilization.   
      
   What does any of this mean, in the end, to come full circle? Since meaning   
   is just a meme thats been replicated in some variant in my head at this   
    moment, and all the other billions of the planet have a slightly more or   
    less different version of this meme running in their minds, is there a   
    meaning at all? Are we all in essence running around screaming "What the   
    Fuck?" to the cosmic void in our species never ending search for meaning?   
    If you think about it, that's what we've been doing all along, searching   
    for some meaning at different scales. If the memes obey some sort of   
    fitness factor in the evolution, could it bet that at least one of our   
    goals is to search for some kind of meaning? Or is the search for meaning   
    just another meme that enough people have comunicated over the years to   
    give it a life of it's own? I guess the question you could ask at this   
    point is if all memes are or equal quality, or if certain ones contain   
    trueness, if indeed such a thing exists.   
      
   None the less, we keep on doing what we are doing, humanity keeps kicking   
   along and I don't really think it's showing signs of stopping. We will   
   eventually move off this planet, and if the human race can become a space   
   fairing race, then it might not stop for an astronomicaly significant time   
   period. What bizzare memes will be sparking along the neurons then? What   
   will we have done? In the short time we've been in this one place we've   
   almost mastered control of our environment, we have a global culture, we   
   have killed a lot of our own species for some very stupid reasons, we've   
   erected countries and empires and killed some more people for them. We've   
   created religions that span the globe, and killed some more people in   
   their name. I wonder what the ratio, if you counted from the very   
   beginnings, of human caused death and naturally occurring death is.  ¶   
   12:52 AM   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)