Interesting Articles Lead to Thoughts

I read (what I think) are a couple of interesting articles. One described a new computer game called "Spore" (by the creator of Sims - the all time highest selling computer game in history) in which the player (a god figure) gets to help guide the creation and, to a degree, the evolution of one cell creatures. Although I haven't played Spore yet (although I am looking forward to doing so), it presents the chance to see the different ways in which a world can evolve. I am reminded of the theme of a series of books by Daniel Quinn. The theme is that our world and our civilization could have evolve in a very different way. In other words, the world in which we live is not the only world that could have come about. For Quinn, the turning point was the agricultural revolution (probably more properly an agricultural evolution) for it was at that point that man (human, that is) moved from true tribal societies living in harmony with the land to systems in which the land was cultivated and controlled (to a degree) so that there was more food than any one person , group or tribe needed. As a result, the food had to be stored and the stored food had to be protected. Armed forces were raised for such protection and those forces had to be fed and paid. I could go on with manner in which this led to cities, writing, accounting, etc., but suffice it to say that we could have remained in a tribal (socialist) form rather than a capitalist form. Quinn also wrote a book entitled "After Dachau" which examines the world that arises if Hitler and his policies had won World War II. Without revealing the outcome, suffice it to say that when the world changes those living in it often are blind to the other possibilities. At least with Spore, you can go back and experiment with different scenarios and try to get it right (assuming there is a right, but that is the topic for another journal entry).

The second article discussed a new recent discovery that the Wooly Mammoth migrated to North America and then tens of thousands of years migrated back across the Bering Strait. During the period that the Wooly Mammoth lived in North America, it developed differently from its Asian cousins. Whatever those differences were, they allowed the Wooly Mammoth to survive while the Asian Woolies were dying off. So, from a common starting point, different animals and different outcomes resulted. In Spore, one probably witness a similar situation by starting with a single creature, duplicating it and then making slight variations. How interesting.

Thought For The Day: At every level in the history of humans, choices are made by individuals, by groups and by civilizations, and those choices can change every aspect of world and our lives. For most of us, the ability to truly understand the effects of these choices is beyond our reach for a variety of reasons including the fact that we do not act in a vacuum. There are so many other decision makers that impact the impact of our individual decisions. Much like trying to understand all of the factors that determine the weather. So, perhaps the best we can do is to study the past (whether the distant past and the paths to the present or the immediate past (earlier today) current outcome (but how will it change. In any event, I am tired and feel like I am just rambling so I will come back to this concept later and, in the meantime, hope that what I have left unsaid doesn't have any world changing impacts - I think I am safe.