freedom
Why is - or should be - freedom the most valuable asset of any human society?
Can’t order, rule of law, morality, solidarity, respect and ethos be equally or more important?
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The single most important feature that differentiates the human race from other living forms on Earth is the ability to create, disseminate and live by memes.
The ability to adapt, or even excel, in a changing environment is dramatically raised with the deployment of memes. Evolution of genes can be way too slow in many cases, especially with more complex genetic organisms. The memetic evolution can equip humans much faster with necessary organizational, psychological and technological tools, than genetic evolution could do.
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Memes can be destructive, too. Some memes seek longer life and greater survival rate by slowing down the memes evolution in the memetic race they inhibit - the society. Prohibiting other memes to compete with them helps these memes succeed on the short run, but in the longer term, it might very likely afflict a deadly blow to the memetic race, which, in turn, could kill these destructive memes, too.
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Any healthy memetic race should ensure, that meme evolution is fast enough to provide the society with the necessary tools to excel in a competitive or hostile environment.
This is my definition of freedom.
Every other feature that used to be recounted as important building stones of an excelling society - solidarity, fraternity, order, justice, egality, good morales, discipline, national pride, etc. - are just functions or outcomes of a vivid memes metabolism.
