Internet Meme

Dawkins compares the meme, with genetic evolution. A system of replicating ideas from mind to mind. Dawkins states that memes "propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation."(192) The 2012 Kony Campaign is an example form a guy who wanted change in a particular region. he therefore used the media and practically all social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Spreading awareness of the atrocities  committed by Joesph Konya and his liberation army.  

Hunger Games 2.0

Common sense has still proved hard to the human race. The Prisoner's Dilemna is the effect example on social interaction: cheating will have its quick vicotires in the short run but in the long-run. Holding hands seems to be the most effective option. Even the Tit for Tat, no matter tif its "...a forgiving strategy"(227), the world rewards a forgiving indiduval.
But I believe that "forgiveness" has nothing to do with the strategy, so therefore in my opion. I see a flaw in the system. No conscious human will ever do something out of pure charity, nn other words: human seek a profit always. So forgiveness haas nothing to it. The reason why humans decide to Cooperate is becuase both are gaining something from mutual cooperation. This is where the common sense kicks in: if cooperation pays off on both sides, then why is defection still a variable in the human's mind?
This variation of defection, then adds another variable to the equation: Grudgers. The addition of Grudgers plus Cheaters produces a never ending cycle of mistrust. Hence producing no progress. So this leads my next question: what if everything is uncontrollable?
"It is more exciting for crowds to watch players striving mightily against one another than to watch them conniving amicably." (224) The next ideas that will you will read will be purely founded on the "What If?" so please bear with me.
I personally don't know anyone who controls their genes. A person who can tell its body to perform more ATP production, or to activate meiosis or mitosis. We cannot control what are genes are, and what their actions will be. So I ask: what if the world has been programmed to be anti-boring? What if the human race is programmed to purposely place itself in hellish messes, and try to get out? Maybe the world has the utmost fear of reaching a utopian community. In all honesty, I'd rather live in a Favela than to be placed utopian community. If anyone has read The Giver, we should be on the same page. Eternal perfection and cooperation has never been on the world's schedule. History's most admired character's have come from the most horrible situations human race has produced. Thus one can explain this by saying that the world enjoys watching gladiator show-downs because from every hell-hole something or someone interesting will surge.
What else can we use to explain the utter stupidity of human-race: Take one hundred dollars but be shot tomorrow? Or take 50 dollars every day and everybody wins?

"I would probably take Option A"- The Human Race

Let's Get Real

Altruism is a blatant myth. A definition that was made up by some guy who probably had a little bit too much to drink. Genes do not way up one morning and say "let's help people for no reason." This never happens, people help only to be helped in the future. So would say that it would be perfect to construct a community that revolves are "you scratch my back, and I will scratch yours."
Unfortunately the world is not so pretty, and cheaters will always break this process, due to the simple fact that: “Cheats do better than indiscriminate altruists because they gain the benefits without paying the costs.” (184) Each organism wants to waste the least energy possible to be helped and to be help. It's as simple as that. I like to think of this process as a system of government. 
One would be labeled as in a complete idiot if one said that no government consists of corruption. Not even the most minimal form of surpassing the margin of the law. My analogy might be a little too "made-in-Hollywood" but it is quite clear. Government officials exchange favors all the time, whether it be money related or power related: there is something being produced behind all the work. But when the scandals explode a few officials are left in the spotlight. These men can be considered to be the cheated or the suckers. The suckers who were involved in a cycle of favor, and once the cycle is discovered by someone who probably was cheated on, the ones who can save themselves will. Thus creating the other two divisions. The Grudgers who: “if any individual cheats them, they remember the incident and bear a grudge: they refuse to groom that individual in the future.” (185) And the Cheaters who in this case don't return the favor and leave the suckers alone. The Grudgers can either be the ones who expose the scandal with wanting to avenge a past moment. Or the Grudgers can evolve from being the suckers to a Grudger. Remebering the betrayal he experienced. 
If one steps back and analyze the situation: you see self-interest everywhere. Whether it be to: avenge, save oneself, or one hundred percent profit. No one works to receive nothing at the end of the day. So the question I ask myself is: if knowing that a world with no cheaters would prosper, then why not construct it? 
Silly me! That's a pretty easy question to answer: Self-Interest.

Live To Die Another Day

Dawkins explains that genes: the creators of the survival machine, the organism. Is the utter most essential piece of life. Genes determine who war are, what we do, and why. Everything. But Dawkins makes it clear that genes don't take their positions for granted.

Thinking of survival machines, I can't stop thinking of a varsity soccer team. The survival machine is the team, the players are the genes, and the school is the gene pool. Unfortunately not every one can play with the big boys, meaning only the best of the best are chosen to represent. But one must start form the beginning of the building process of an elite team: try-outs. Try-outs is where the players show their talent, for this process an "I" is inserted in the word "team." Every player must prove themselves to the coach (the environment: "...I preferred to think of th gene as the fundamental unit of natural selection, therefore the fundamental unit of self-interest."(33) In other words: Dawkins makes it clear that personal gain is the only thing on the players' minds. As the hours go by, the fitness of the players starts to be noted. It becomes a matter of who can still give the most to the cause, no matter the time passed. Survival of the fittest kicks in: who can best adapt to the style of play, and produce the most? Once this process of handpicking the player is executed. The second step commences. 

"Each entity must exist in the forms of lots of copies and at least some of the entities must be potentially capable of surviving, in the forms of copies, for a significant period of evolutionary time."(33) Each player must now prove that besides beginning the best at what he does, he must be able to play the tournament (evolution) with his ten other peers. Because it makes no sense to have the best players but not being able to use them efficiently because no teamwork is accomplished. And like the tournament is so long, the team will eliminated quickly if teamwork isn't present. Every team wants to win, because winning brings reproduction. A chance that maybe the team will be able to win more tournaments throughout their time as a whole. To leave a foundation for the future players to come. 

At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is survival. Evolution only plays with the best, nd the best are the ones who adapt the quickest, and reproduce efficiently. If not the system goes down the drain, and that only leaves three words to describe the consequences: YOU ARE SCREWED!

Lost

Zobeide: the city of dreams. Or it can also be named, the city of pity. "...they set out in search of the city; they never found it, but they found another; they decided to build a city like the one in the dream...but none of them ever saw the woman again." The men had a dream: a woman. The women then lead to another: building a city to pursue a dream. The dream city then inspires a dream of constructing till perfection: always with the dream of finding the woman. Two dreams raveled in a one dream, which creates a trap. A never-ending cycle that only creates melancholy.
A sense of incompetence that develops a city into a nest of deception. This situation in which the founders and the visitors of Zobeide are in, resembles the plot of the movie: Inception. A movie where the only place where DiCaprio can live up to his expectations and forget his utter failures, is continuing living in his dream. What I get this from this connection is a hint to Calvino's connection with the real world. A rather pessimistic idea expressed and quite cheesy: fair to say that its pretty cliche. More than an idea, this theme poses a question: what if we didn't expect so much? What if our expectations were lower? Would we be happier, would the world rid itself of melancholy? if the simplest things made us happy once again? Maybe, just maybe, no dreams are the answer for happiness.

Cycle Of Genes

Approaching the end of Invisible Cities, Calvino starts to extend the writing only on Marco Polo's thoughts and encounters. The reader starts to illustrate a finer picture of both Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. In other words blog-material galore. But I restrained myself from righting and continued to dive into Marco's encounters. But on page one hundred fifty five/one hundred fifty three, a lightbulb clicked in my brain. A connection was established. Invisible Cities and Selfish Gene. Dawkins and Calvino? Biology and Kublai Khan? Prepare to be enlightened.
The second chapter of Selfish Gene, has everything to do with evolution: how the ancestor is never lost, it only grows more complex throughout generations. What I mean is that no matter the mutation or process of swift or gradual evolution that takes place: the original block will still be present. "When the turns exhaust their variety and come apart, the end of the cities begins." An endless cycle, but once this separation occurs, the original seed is carried by both cities.
The same has to do with the Selfish Gene, without getting too scientific: speciation. Speciation is what happens when one species divides into two. At  one point of this isolation (the scientific term: geographic, behavioral, temporal isolation) the species can no longer breed efficiently, thus creating a species. A cycle which is called natural selection: in my words a cycle of ever/complexity. Never stopping, always paving the road for the world's existence.
Cities pave our world, and never stop overlapping itself, but the foundations are never altered. No matter the years, there was once a beginning and there will always be a beginning.

With no End.

Don't Try Too Hard

Invisible Cities is the complete opposite of what we have been reading the last month. A complete contrast   to Simple Heart and Cathedral. Flaubert and Carver include such detail that the reader doesn't think twice upon the scenario. It is almost as though Flaubert and Carver want to give the reader only one road to choose. Calvino's text is quite the opposite of such fruitful detail. In fact the descriptions bestowed on each city can sometimes be vague.
Much this lack of detail idea has me thinking that Calvino wants the reader to choose his own train of thought. The cities are delivered with enough detail for the reader t create its own world. Containing no interference with overwhelming detail as in Flaubert's or Carver's works. So the whole idea of show don't tell works counter/clock wise in Invisible Cities. Calvino expresses the basic, but then the reader is left to create (show) his own world. However this idea not only applies to the reader. Kublai Khan is situated in the same position as the reader. "The Great Khan deciphered the signs, but the connection between them and the places visited remained uncertain; he never knew whether Marco wished to enact an adventure that had befallen him on his journey, an exploit of the city's founder, the prophecy of an astrologer, a rebus or a charade to indicate a name."(22) The Great Emperor finds himself making his own path based on the deciphered ideas from Marco.

This idea of uncertainty becomes clear when the Khan becomes curious if he will ever fully comprehend his empire. "On the day when I know all the emblems...shall I be able to posses my empire, at last?" In response to the Emperor " Sire, do not believe it. On that day you will be an emblem among emblems." In other words the uncertainty that Calvino implicates in his writing signifies a teaching. A teaching that in my opinion means that uncertainty is what keeps the world in motion. And that this motion will never be fully comprehensible. One revolves around the world: not the world around one. Not even great kings will ever comprehend. So don't try too hard, because the situation will never be under control.