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It we accept this analogy, the question that arises is - if nature hasn't figured out how to eliminate allergies over millions of years of evolution, what magic
by Sven7 13y ago
It we accept this analogy, the question that arises is - if nature hasn't figured out how to eliminate allergies over millions of years of evolution, what magic do we expect a government to perform?
- macspoofing 13y agoWell, an analogy can only take you so far.
- Amadou 13y agoNot everyone is susceptible to allergic reactions. Without modern medicine, the people who are susceptible tend to die relatively quickly. Seems like the analogy leads to the decline of the united states and the rise of some other country that doesn't suffer from this particular affliction. They will probably have other problems though.
- gcb0 13y agoSo the corrupt govt challenge is to be a benign allergy?
- zipfle 13y agoThe hygiene hypothesis "is used to explain the increase in allergic diseases that has been seen since industrialization, and the higher incidence of allergic diseases in more developed countries." This is to say that it's a relatively recent problem; one that has not applied selective pressure over the millions of years of evolution you're talking about, but rather the past ~200 years or so. My non-biologist understanding is that you can expect evolution to a relatively good job of adapting to slowly changing conditions over a long period by selecting for the vanishingly small number of mutations that happen to be beneficial. My citizen understanding of government is that we should expect more of it than that, or it will continue to suck.
- joesb 13y agoYou don't need magic, you only need to be able to think; nature cannot think. Otherwise you would see nature making spacecraft or using binary search everywhere.
- mattdw 13y agoAssuming those would be beneficial adaptations, which is arguable :). Why binary search when you can pattern-match?