The defect would be that memetics needs the equivalent of the gene to make good on the analogy of the natural selection of ideas. There are physical memes on social media (those cartoonish jokey images that are passed around), but they’re not found in the brain. And what does memetics add that you can’t find in psychology, sociology, and the other established special sciences? What predictions does memetics makes that go beyond the older forms of understanding?
Assuming the prehistoric bands were more egalitarian, there was much less competition within them than in the later, hierarchical societies. There might have been competition between bands, but there was also competition between the later kingdoms and empires. So the math seems straightforward.
Of course, technology changes the environment. But why expect the same science that deals with animals that are enslaved to natural selection, to handle just as well the behaviour of people who’ve freed themselves from many animal norms? This game theoretic approach is just too reductionistic to be fair to the data. We’ve changed the environment so much that we’ve created a new geological age called the Anthropocene. We’re no longer so subject to natural selection because we have relatively godlike knowledge and power. So game theory comes across as a distortion or as crypto-corporate propaganda, not as a form of adequate understanding.
As does this fixation on plus-sum versus zero-sum outcomes. That’s a technical distinction that’s unlikely to capture many of the grand patterns we see in evolution and human history. It’s not as though evolution favours plus-sum or potentially cooperative games. All kinds of strategies are tried in evolution and in human history. I think you’re saying that we tend to prefer plus-sum outcomes that are based on cooperation or economic growth, while I say certain plus-sum outcomes are illusory since they have long-term disastrous consequences.
But why are we talking so much about this technical game-theoretic distinction? Why not just deal directly with the real issues of capitalism, economic growth, egoism, altruism, parasitism, and so on? This games discourse is a straitjacket as far as I can tell. Maybe I’m missing its utility.
You say you’re agreeing with me on environmentalism, but a “win” for me would entail that you adjust your analysis accordingly. What does it say about our esteemed plus-sum games if they can be wildly self-destructive? What does this say about the sufficiency of game theory or about the game-theoretic defense of capitalism? If there are no such consequences, that might be because game theory is empty and unfalsifiable.
You say it’s “benighted” to attempt to reconstruct morality in aesthetic terms. But wouldn’t we be left much further in the dark if it turned out that all our talk of values were wrongheaded, and nothing is remotely good or bad in reality? Of course, just because we want something to be true doesn’t make it so. But if scientists can pursue hunches and test them out, why can’t philosophers or anyone else?
