permaculture

[Mark <mpludwig@facstaff.wisc.edu>]

At 09:20 AM 11/15/02 -0800, you wrote:
> What an interesting concept. (I actually had been musing about it since 
> you brought it up earlier). Since a virus has no independent "life" of its 
> own, but hijacks a host's metabolism to complete its life cycle, just 
> about anything that makes up our social cultures could be considered 
> "viral" by nature. How do we define culture? Just a belief system about 
> how life works? What's important, what's not? What's right, what's 
> wrong?  The way I see it it all starts from thoughts / ideas, language 
> being the carrier of thoughts. Instead of "idea's catching on", we then 
> have people catching ideas (like catching a virus).  Just as people are 
> immune to some viruses, they are"immune" to some ideas.

I also have been musing on this notion.  I personally like the notion of 
the tipping point (title of a recent book on the subject); the notion that 
ideas or trends build a base of support until the tipping point is reached, 
at which point it spills over into the general public and spreads 
broadly.  Immunity is also an interesting analogy, what blocks acceptance 
of these ideas?  So often it is money which I never understand here in the 
USA; I mean if we don't have the money who does?

> Then are are those who purposely spread ideas for their own benefit 
> (chemical warfare in this analogy?). That's were politics fits in in my 
> mind, especially of exploitive and war mongering kind. I think I'd better 
> keep the rest of my musings to myself....
> Cheers, Heide

I can't help myself, perhaps I'll finish your thought.  This war mongering 
by the Bushies is totally viral, all evil scare mongering with no 
substance, RNA in need of a cell, fear seeking a poorly informed populous 
ripe for exploitation.  Once again the reactionary and poorly informed 
American populous is getting rolled for the dubious ends of the 
elites.  And these ends are IMO more dubious and the possible downsides 
larger than we have faced before. Scary.

Mark P. Ludwig
Poultry Research Lab
University of Wisconsin -Madison
608-262-1730 WK
608-846-7125 HM