Ok, I promise this rant will be shorter, since there was less material to respond too.
Also, I only really have 2 things that I want to respond to.First, and on topic, survival of the fittest depends on reproduction, and the survival and reproductive viability of the offspring. By this reasoning, poor people who have tons of kids are probably more 'fit' than rich people with no kids. The way in richness affects your fitness today can be seen in rich old men who score 20 something super models. In this way, they are able to propagate themselves, and it is their wealth that makes them more fit. One can also examine the Darwinian success of various religions. Catholicism, although rather against Darwin, proves his theories quite well. Since Catholics do not believe in contraception, they tend to have more children. More children is a sign of fitness, so Catholicism is much more fit by Darwin's standards than say, an Atheistic faith that allows for contraception and abortion. Gays, also, are contradictions to Darwin. Without the ability to reproduce, they should die out. I dont know if any of you have heard of them before, but the Shaker faith was similar to this. They didnt believe in converting people to their faith, so they died out. The gays, in choosing their sexual preference, have ruled out reproduction, and so have in effect made their survival rate zero. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against gays, I'm just saying their sexual preference is not viable in the long run, barring some technological advancements. Maybe in the future, we will have technology to implant DNA from sperm into an egg, have the egg be fertilized by sperm, and then gays may have the ability to pass down their genes. One thing about today's society is that attraction is still based upon traits that were useful in hunter-gatherer society, ie. strength, for men, and ability to nurture young well, for women. Today, these are less necessary, with robots working in factories, and tractors working on farms, and with all the advancements in baby care technology. What this means is that what people are attracted to in the opposite sex, and are more likely to reproduce with, might be someone who does not necessarily provide anything useful to the gene pool. Their contribution would have been invaluable if we were still cavemen, but we're not. Thats it on the topic of natural selection for me.
2. The Matrix, specifically Agent Smith's condemnation of humankind. This was one freaky speech. It raises all sorts of questions, the same sort of questions raised by social Darwinism. Does might really make right? Because they are better able to survive, does that mean they should? It really messes with your head. Personally, I'm not sure whether I agree with the Agents or not. They have a point. Maybe the machines are an evolution of humankind. On the flip side, well, I don't really know how to put this. Basically, do we really want such a subsisting entity to be in control of the planet. Based on the limited footage of the machines civilization, it seems all they do is make energy so they can remain operating. One could argue that that is what we humans do, grow food to remain alive, but I disagree. I was going to argue that we do more, but in fact all we do is produce more people to grow food, better ways to grow food, and if its not food we are producing, its other things to allow us to subsist with less effort.
Ok, off topic time - Andromeda Strain. I think this kind of relates to the whole idea I just talked about with the Matrix. A big question in this book is 'What defines life?' The characters couldn't define it, and I'd like to know if anyone here would like to take a shot at it.
Well, it wasn't supposed to be long, I apologize.
This thread has allowed me to talk about all the things I've never had the impetus to discuss with any of my friends for fear of being considered loony, thanks!
