Cultures and wars

[Murthy Yenamandra]

Thanks for a post that expresses some of what I've been trying to say!

Monte Davis writes:
> [...]If cancer means explosive growth, exploitation of every
> resource, and where-will-it-end, then:
> 
> Life is a cancer on the crust of the earth [...]
> 
> Humanity is a cancer among mammals,

Agree with the rest of the list, but not with these - what I've been
trying to point out is that it's not humanity that's the cancer (because
other humans have been living fine before and after the agriculturist,
urban, empire-building cultures came along), but specific cultural
traits that have more or less defeated nature's feedback loops (so far)
and are successfully eliminating any other alternatives. It may look
like an irrelevant nit to pick, but there is hope only if we realize
that it's not us, but the road we're taking.

> Agriculture and cities and writing are a cancer on the much older way of
> the hunter-gatherers,
> 
> And, yes, Western Europe was the focus of a cancer on "traditional"
> civilization (however you want to define that).
> [...] 
> Entropy sez the fall is inescapable; history sez we keep finding new
> ways to open the system and pour more energy through it to find some new,
> even more precarious balance. It's our modus operandi, our specialty, and
> maybe all we know how to do.

A big part of finding a possible way off the brink involves realizing
that it's not human nature that's screwed up, but the specific culture
that we've built. The sad part about the dominant culture going down the
tubes is that we are wiping out other perfectly fine but hopelessly
outmatched cultures (and a lot of the other species) with us. It's hard
enough in the near future without having to worry about long-term
entropy or the sun burning out.

Murthy

-- 
Murthy Yenamandra, Dept of CompSci, U of Minnesota. mailto:yenamand at cs.umn.edu
    "I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that time can not decay
     I'm junk, but I'm holding up this little wild bouquet
     Democracy is coming to the USA" - Leonard Cohen