To unsubscribe ================================================================= To remove your address from the Mind Control Cult Newsletter list, just send a message to the address in the ``List-Unsubscribe'' header of any list message. If you haven't changed addresses since subscribing, you can also send a message to: ================================================================= Mind Control Cult Newsletter -- Issue #3 In This Issue =============== * the Second Key to Power, Wealth and Influence The second Key to Power, Wealth, and Influence is something known as evolutionary efficiency. Evolutionary efficiency is a term you rarely hear, in fact, I may have made the term up myself. However, we humans have many linguistic euphemisms for evolutionary efficiency. The first of these is something called "known behavioural response to known stimulus". Or, in other words, a predictable reaction. For example, if someone becomes livid when another makes a joke at their expense, then that is a known behavioural response to a known stimulus. Why is this evolutionary efficiency? Because, the other members of the pride, group or community don't have to put up with an unpleasant experience each time a joke is made at that person's expense. They can pick and choose their experiences this way, and so consciously direct, in some small way the evolution of their species. The second evolutionary efficiency is something we refer to as habit. Habit differs from the known response, in that a habit is something that is performed on a continuing and periodic basis, regardless of the surrounding stimuli. It is here that we first come close to a notion of WILL. When we are hungry, we eat. When we are thirsty we sleep. And yet, with a habit, we begin the notion that we perform an action, simply because we desire to. We believe with our habits, that the habit is performed, merely because we have the will to do so. The counterpointe to the habit, is an evolutionary efficiency known as an addiction. In evolutionary and genetic models of the world, addiction is not only given, it is an essentially obvious one. Imagine if, after eating twenty different types of foods, we ignored the fact that 3 of those foods made us feel good and strong and powerful, and 7 of those foods merely fill the stomach in times of lack? Do you think, that another animal, rather than eat all ten foods, simply ate the three that made them strong, healthy and fertile, would not have an evolutionary advantage ? Of course they would. "But what about drug addiction!?" I hear you shout. Yes, why would we become addicted to something so obviously destructive to our bodies? And the answer, as always, simply lies in the facts. When the population of the earth was perhaps in the tens of millions, there were probably no more than 2-300,000 intoxicants taken by humans throughout the world. In modern times however, we have not only developed nearly a million synthetic pharmaceuticals, ON TOP OFF the Old World herbs, and psychoactive plants still in use today, we have taken the most potent of the old world plants, and have refined them to between 100 and 10,000 times stronger. And our population currently stands at over 6 billion. So as distasteful and embarassing as it is to admit, the drugs confered to our species SOME kind of evolutionary advantage, one which we were never able to give up, with the exception of a few religious eccentrics. Note, this is not a condemnation or condonation for drug taking. After all, there are many hundreds of things that our species are addicted to that don't usually come under the category of drugs. It's just to say that the addiction mechanism was ALREADY present, for very good evolutionary advantages, before our species discovered psychoactive plants. The whole notion of addiction, however, has profound philosophical and religious problems. If we are truly addicted, then our FREE WILL is an illusion. We are simply tugged and pulled by evolution where-ever it is most advantageous to survive and replicate. In the view of philosophies and religions that believe in FREE WILL, the final proof of the will is to deny any addictive or repetitive behaviour. From an evolutionary point of view however, this is simply suicide. "Why on earth would you give up one thing if it offered you a survival and reproductive advantage??" our DNA asks us. Our answer must be a testament to the allure of the idea of a free will, or even the *illusion* of free will, if we proceed with this endeavour without even having an answer to that question. Back issues of this newsletter are available here http://mcc.hundred-monkey-software.com/backissues/index.html To your continuing obedience and future liberation Master Mind Control Manipulator Mind Control Cult http://mcc.hundred-monkey-software.com -- Mind Control Cult, mmcm@hundred-monkey-software.com on 04/06/2002