[FRIAM] Democracy and evolution

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Mike Oliker wrote:
> The Genius of James Madison was to see that a large country with many 
> factions would be freer from factionalism that a small country would be. 
Seems to me what matters is the number of truly independent factions an 
individual can be affiliated.   A company like Nokia, for example, has a 
fundamental influence on Finland while only a small fraction in the 
country have a share in the company.   Throughout the world, Microsoft 
tells hardware suppliers what and when to do it.   WalMart can provide 
`protection' for a supplier at a scale a mere mafia goon couldn't even 
imagine.   A large country has larger organizations that yield more 
leverage on their government.    The individual, vastly overshadowed by 
her true representatives in government, can thus put aside her posited 
evolutionary drive to create diversity, and either attempt to rise 
through the ranks at such a company, move between companies without 
conviction, or make new viable companies (where viability is strongly 
correlated to the status quo which is also strongly autocorrelated). 

Getting back to Phil's original question about why people don't 
understand or listen to one another:  In the evolutionary view, it's 
posited that individuals acted independently because there was some 
survival benefit from the diversity.   Today the path of least 
resistance seems to be to suppress that.   To be a middle class baby 
maker in Japan or the United States or Europe, you're better of to 
conform to corporate requirements.   I could see there is some 
possibility of having the state of China come eat up your corporation, 
but come on, how many middle class individuals will act with any 
ferocity in response to an abstract threat like that?  I emphasize the 
individual here because we are ultimately taking about reproductive 
fitness.

People do communicate a great deal.   Mobile phones are a huge business 
and seem to be in constant use.  I'd argue that, if anything, there is 
too much communication and not enough said.   So those of us that still 
have the posited evolutionary drive toward diversity like to try to 
*make* some by picking each other apart.   To illustrate what seems to 
be the same on first glance is different!    Whew!