From: Patrick McCuller (patrick@kia.net)
Date: Mon Nov 13 2000 - 22:33:54 MST
>
> Of course, humans have particular biological quirks as regards social
> dominance, but the
> desire on the part of each agent for more resources is pretty much an
> inevitable consequence
> of evolution... which leads at least to a kind of abstract social dominance
> hierarchy...
>
> ben
But does the 'abstract social dominance' become actual social dominance? This
is an interesting question. I should very much like to ask this of a
post-singularity entity, or at least something very much smarter than I am. I
suppose we'll have to make do...
As a layman, I would propose that social organization is flexible in all
ways - that it may have no concrete points. As such it may be abstract even in
itself and so the original question becomes almost meaningless unless
restated.
Daniel Quinn may have some light to shed on this, related directly to humans.
He argues in After Civilization that the only lasting social structure for
humans was evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago - 'evolved' not in a
social darwinism sense but in a biological evolution sense. This social
structure is tribal. Resource-gathering within a tribal social structure would
not seem to equate immediately to individual social dominance.
I'm on very weak ground, as this is not exactly my field. Still I think the
question is sufficiently interesting as to give it some exploration.
And perhaps it is too early to discuss ideal transhuman social organization.
Patrick McCuller
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:35 MDT