fractalnavel

not mine, though.

from craig: Coding Viruses for the Mind

thoughts:

• religion as virus, or otherly constructed meme, is kind of overdone, but it sure seems to have spurred some interesting posts there.
• meme virulence: was watching law & order, some cultist thing, occurred to me that successful cults have to have some limit to self-destructive behaviors.  diseases that kill before they can spread don't go far or last long.
• the initial article's description of viral mechanisms reminds me of the behavior of persons with borderline personality disorder towards family, friends, etc.  of course, stockholm syndrome and anything of the brainwashing family falls in the same camp.  but all acculturation is brainwashing.  wonder what a collection of humans who each individually developed in the raw state would look like.  actually, it looks like speciation, if allowed to progress for millions of years.
• perhaps it's better to consider such things in terms of “agents”, as the interaction of these things take on aspects of virusness or immune systemness or whatever depending on viewpoint.  the generality of masses of interacting agents along with emergence would enhance the viral concepts.
• religion as disease, rather than the other way around ?  using language with value based connotations might be best avoided.  we're sort of prejudiced against diseases.  all forms of life, right ? 
• aha, i see some comments approaching my “inevitable irrational certitude” formulation.  it's all mechanism papered over with 'lusions.

generally good discussion there, with the usual misconceptions and naivetes mixed in.

”you stomp anyone, we stomp you”

now, what's wrong with that ? since you really can't prevent nuclear - or other wmd - proliferation in the long run, why not use one half of the old mad (mutually assured destruction) equation on the newcomers ?  apparently, it's the u.s.'s desire to be the promulgator and protector of “democracy“.  and we have/like the role of superpower / world-cop.  so, let's do it up, eh ?  so iran wants a bomb, or north korea.  ok, not a problem.  go ahead, try and use it - the u.s. has a policy to retalitate in kind for any country not so able.  and this applies to all nuclear capable countries / organizations, like pakistan, india, france, great britain, israel, former soviet republics. 

pax romana.

but we need to become much more militarized for that.  and we need to essentially force the participation of any protectorate states in that militarization.  you want an umbrella ? then you have to be a rib.  and that means they need to invest in their own military build up, and allow u.s. bases and control of such build up. 

this also means the u.s. has to be willing to forego national interests in those countries not willing to participate, at least insofar as they succumb to incursions from hostile parties.  or can we force our “help”, and demand payment ?  are we ready to run a global protection racket ?

verrry eeenteresting - ?:

http://www.fuckthesouth.com/

worth a post of its own, nothing like a rant with references ;-)   and nice domain name; so where is fuckthenorth.com ?  coming soon, i'm sure.

but “the south” ? - maybe this time, but it's the western states historically that have been a thorn in the liberal/progressive's side.

blah blah blah.  blah blah blah blah blah,  blah blah blah.   blah blah blah blah ?  blah blah.   blah,  blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

blah blah -  blah blah blah blah.   blah blah blah,  blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,  blah blah.   blah blah blah blah blah;  blah blah,  blah blah blah blah.  blah ?  blah,  blah blah blah blah blah -  blah blah,  blah blah blah blah.  blah blah blah blah (blah blah blah blah,  blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah)  blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

blah blah blah:

• blah blah blah,  blah blah blah blah blah¹;
• blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,  blah blah blah blah blah blah;
• blah,  blah blah.

blah,  blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.   blah blah blah blah blah;  blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.  blah blah blah,  blah blah blah blah blah.   blah blah - blah blah blah blah.

blah blah blah.

¹blah blah blah.  blah blah blah blah  “blah blah blah blah blah blah”,  blah blah blah blah blah blah. (blah blah,  blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah)