From: flat.eric@freeuk.com (Nine Of Eight)
Subject: The Borg, The Federation and competing meme-sets.
wingsley@penn.com decided to put finger to keyboard on the Wed, 30 Jun
1999 21:14:12 -0400. In doing so, they felt we would all like to know:
>Corbomite Axiom argues for negotiation and restraint in dealing with the
>unknown; they may be no better or worse than we are. At the same time, it
>implies a kind of interstellar Darwinism.
>TNGšs Borg fall within the tolerances of the Corbomite Axiom only for "Q
>Who." We didnšt know enough about them to understand their motives. Were
>they another machine out of control? We couldnšt be sure. Subtlety and
>foresight were definitely not evident in TNGšs makers, as every mention of
>the Borg since "Q Who" has portayed them as a race that should never have
>survived its own twentieth century.
This is going to be rather long-winded and at first will seem totally
off-topic. don't worry, it gets there in the end.
Firstly, there would seem to be a lack of understanding of the
implications of neo-darwinism esp. in the domain of behavioural
genetics.
Our purpose is ultimately survival and, more accurately, survival of
the genetic material. Neo-darwinism operates in such a way as for
short-term survival to be the most effective strategy. One must only
be more survivable than your competitors in the short-term - it
doesn't matter if your competitors possess a mutation that would be
preferable in the long-term if it makes them less survivable in the
short-term as that mutation will not be able to establish itself.
Behavioural genetics suggests that altruistic behaviour is a
phenotypic behaviour that arises from selfishness. It allows for
task-sharing and specialisation amongst individuals within a group
thereby increasing the chances of survival for any individual within
that group. Therefore altruistic behaviour arises because it offers
better opportunities for survival of the gene-set than isolationist
behaviour. But it is still an inherently selfish act - if it did not
improve the chances for survival then it would not establish itself.
Now that we have explored altruism, we move onto exploring its context
within the interactions between differing groups. This is where
behavioural genetics and the concept of memes come into play.
Those who are within your population grouping will be genetically most
similar to yourself, but - more importantly - they will share more of
your memes.
Moving onto the twentieth century paradigm, we look at the
relationship that existed between the Soviet Union and the USA. The
memes they represent were in direct competition with each other.
However, for most of the period that they were in competition neither
meme-set could establish itself over the other without being destroyed
in the process itself - and the objective is always short-term
survival - so no conflict occurs.The meme-sets were held in check
because one had superior military technology whilst the other had
greater numbers.
This competition, however, led to advances in their specialist areas
for both meme-sets but these tended to hold the other in check. Once
one of the meme-sets had made an advancement that the other could not
check, it triumphed by removing the competing meme-set.
With regards to the Cold War, this was achieved by the USA developing
stealth technology. Once it had the means to remove its oppositions
capacity to harm it before that enemy was aware of the fact, the enemy
collapsed. The meme-set represented by the USA won the competition.
It is still neo-darwinism, but operating at a societal-behavioural
level as opposed to remaining at a biological-behavioural level.
All meme-sets seek to preserve their own existence, those that don't
will very quickly disappear. The best way to preserve ones own
existence is to remove the competition, and the Federation are as
guilty of this as possible. The Prime Directive only prevents
interference in developing cultures - but they represent no immediate
threat anyway.
The Federation spreads its meme-set, and this undermines the meme-sets
of other civilisations if it is superior for short-term survival.
These societies collapse in the face of this competing meme-set, they
either destroy themselves, are destroyed by the competing meme-set or
assimilated into it.
One of the Maquis says as much in an episode of ST:DS9.
Moving onto the Borg, they represent the ultimate in viral memes. They
also represnt one of the ways in which a meme-set can develop - theirs
is one that seeks to ensure its own survival by converting all other
meme-sets into copies of itself as ruthlessly as possible.
From a darwinian perspective, this actually does make them perfect -
they are perfectly suited to ensuring short-term survival of their
meme-set. The only hazard arises when it threatens a culture that is
immune to the meme-set that they represent, a la Species 8472.
At which point it promptly faces annihilation.
However viral memes are just like any other viral - they are virtually
impossible to defeat. They adapt incredibly quickly and the only
successful ways to remove it almost inevitably destroy the host.
So the Borg - in their current form - are perfectly viable as they are
almost totally unlikely to come up against a competing meme-set likely
of defeating them.
The question therefore must be, could they arise in the first place.
The clue to the answer in this comes courtesy of the Borg Queen in
ST:FC - "We were once like you.". We have survived our twentieth
century, and it is likely that many of the problems such a time-point
represents would inevitably come before the development of cybernetics
esp. as the situation that the Cold War etc represent provide much of
the motivation for initial development of the technology.
The technology would come to fruition when a group that schisms off
from the main population grouping chooses to make the move towards
interfacing directly with its technology to become post-human.
The post-human meme-set is technologically superior and more
survivable than its competing meme-sets, although those have sheer
wieght of numbers.
However sheer weight of numbers does not counter against a viral
meme-set - in fact it improves its chances of success as it represents
more potential hosts.
The meme-set that the Borg represent would quickly overwhelm its
competitors, and once it has established itself it is
self-perpetuating.
As a result of this, i would actually suggest that the philosophical
premises at the heart of the Star Trek universe form Best of Both
Worlds onwards is actually far more plausible than the one in it prior
to this point.
Feel free to disagree with me, but at least it was an interesting
trawl...
As a slight aside - the Borg definitely represent a hegemonising swarm
that could be characterised as Excessionary within the Banksian
universe.
__
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