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RE: Capitalism and XML (was RELAX NG Marketing)

• To: 'Alain Rogister' <arg@u...>
• Subject: RE: Capitalism and XML (was RELAX NG Marketing)
• From: Nicolas LEHUEN <nicolas.lehuen@u...>
• Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 16:11:22 +0100
• Cc: "'xml-dev@l...'" <xml-dev@l...>

Hi Alain,

>I very much dislike the idea that "human nature" would entirely be a
>consequence of genes. This smells badly of socio-biology and 
>bogus theories
>such as Dawkins' "selfish genes". Culture is definitely more 
>important, and
>mankind is not yet an ant colony, at least I hope so. That's 
>why a baby can
>grow into another Hitler or another Montaigne with just the same genes.

If you can read French (which is guess is possible given your .be domain
name), then you should have a look at this book :

http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2227139412/

It's a pretty interesting criticism of socio-biology, Dawkin's selfish gene
and other related falacies, by two French experts in genetical engineering.
They precisely show that the "human nature" as we call it is not 100%
genetical, but is for a good part determined by social contingencies. They
conclude that there is no link between biological evolution, sociological
evolution and Darwinism applied to economics, and that justifying the two
latter by the former is simply meaningless.

>#2 Nicolas Lehuen wrote:
>
>>Genetic algorithms and selection are indeed effective is selecting the
>>"best" entities according to their success. That's fine. But what is
>success
>>? What is the direction of progress ? Can you tell what is 
>the objective of
>>biological evolution ? I guess not. What about economical 
>evolution ? Is
>>there any economical evolution, to begin with ? Are we forced 
>to play this
>>game ?
>
>Yes, all good questions, but obviously they don't have 
>"natural" answers,
>only theories that reflect ideologies. That's why citizens 
>have to debate
>these issues at election time instead of blow-job stories or demagogues
>babbling about "security" and the dealth penalty as main 
>social engineering
>tool.

France is currently in the campaign for presidential elections, taking place
at the end of April. Don't tell me about those ideas. Sigh.

>>When you are using selection and competition in a capitalist 
>environment,
>>success is simply measured in terms of the wealth an entity 
>can gather from
>>its environment. Sharing with other entities ? Yep, only if 
>it will bring
>>you more wealth in the future. Look at the state of the world 
>right now,
>>it's just a consequence of playing this game.
>
>I think you assume too much rationality here. Much of economic 
>orthodoxy
>assumes a simplistic model whereby "consumers" and "producers" 
>have perfect
>price information, take every decision based upon their sole personal
>interest (gain), and the whole process leads to a Global 
>Optimum. Although
>it was demonstrated ages ago (don't have exact reference on 
>hand) that the
>process actually leads to disaster and has to be tightly 
>controlled by...
>state intervention.

French economics student and teachers have protested against the
consequences of this "simplification" in 2000 :

http://www.btinternet.com/~pae_news/texts/Fr-t-petition.htm

I'll stop posting on this thread now, but I would be happy to keep on
discussing this in private.

Regards,
Nicolas Lehuen

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