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Life Arts    H4'ed 5/16/11
  

Morals are the genes of societal evolution.

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Frish Frishberg
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So, morals are relative, not a big surprise, even in our own lives morals are relative depending on our age, (or, even, other circumstances that would change our behavior - an adult having sex with a 9 year old would be considered immoral world wide, but when both are 25 it's expected...).

But, morals are culturally RELEVANT as well.

People and pigs compete for grain in the middle east.  Grain is tough enough to grow, no need for a competing mouth to feed.  Cows eat grass, pigs eat what people eat, bad combo.

In the Islands: Plenty of tubers are available, and since there are more tubers than humans can stomach, why not feed them to the pigs, since a pork chop tastes so much better than poi, and is a measure of wealth, dowry, payment in lawsuits, barter, etc.

So, in each case the morals/behaviors were consistent with the societal goal of continuance, and, even diametrically opposed behaviors are seen to be moral (in context).

This also provides a high yield example of how natural selection can operate on human populations, differentially.

If swine flu really did leap the porcine/human barrier...the Polynesians would be decimated (by the death of the resource, and the disease to boot!)

Morality is natural AND functions as the means by which societies evolve, providing the same natural selection mechanism as biologic evolution with morals acting as the genes of social evolution.

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Concerned CITIZEN of the USA, Frish decided at age 8 (1963) that, since there were "starving children in China" he would never have children, as there obviously were too many! BA Archaeology, MBA Marketing, 15 years of new product development (more...)
 
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