I don't mind "crafty", I don't mind "devil", but "old"?!
We both know that my son could be your age, Richard, but before you
call someone "old" you should look at your picture on the Web! :-).
Having the funny part dealt with, let's return to YYN people or the
hypocrites, as described in the "Virus of the Mind" (or neo-
cheaters, by Dr.Jekyll). The evolutionary explanation for
hypocrisy is "to participate in spreading mores, but to secretly
ignore them whenever an opportunity arose to mate counter to them"
(quote from VotM).
When caught in the act, a hypocrite will say: "how can I sleep with
one woman if a painter is using more than one colour in his
paintings?"
The YYN people are deliberately brainwashing other people with
concepts as absurd as Level-3 to gain power over them and exploit
them. I love this experiment, where Richard jokingly brainwashes us
and at the same time (as David) provides a model of neo-cheating
and a good introduction to philosophy of Ayn Rand, so we can
understand how it works. Keep up the good job, Richard.
Next time you can add something about Nathaniel Branden and his
excellent book "The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem". For example, the
"Urgent Issues" in the "Nurturing a Child's Self-Esteem" chapter:
"When you were a child, did your parents' manner of behaving and of
dealing with you give you the impression that you were living in a
world that was rational, predictable, intelligible? Or a world
that was contradictory, bewildering, unknowable? In your home, did
you have the sense the evident facts were acknowledged and
respected or avoided and denied?"
And here is what the "crafty old devil" thinks about it. A belief
in a rational world increases self-esteem and chances for success,
as people like Bill Gates and his old friends must know very well (even if
they pretend to be idiots). The optimal selfish-meme strategy is to
participate in spreading beliefs in an "unknowable" world, but to secretly
ignore them.
This way more people with lower self-esteem will follow them and
work for them (longer hours). Those people are easier to control.
They can be told what they *should do* and what a "principled life"
is. A good myth like god, memetics, or Level-3 helps too!
Regards, Tadeusz (Tad) Niwinski from planet TeTa
tad@teta.ai http://www.teta.ai (604) 985-4159