From: Michelle (michelle@barrymenasherealtors.com)
Date: Wed Feb 13 2002 - 10:02:39 MST
Richard,
My interest in memetics is mainly in the possibility of manufacturing
immunity. My (casual) study of it is more on the lines of "know thy enemy".
While ideas may come in meme form, far too often they are in memePLEX
situations where an uneducated (or un-immunized) person cannot separate the
good from the bad in the package - like canned chili: pretty tasty, kind of
good for you, but there's a bunch of stuff in there you really wouldn't want
to consume, given the choice, and you can't really have some without the
rest. I suppose in the case of memetics I am in favor of a more full and
total digestion before choices are made, which I don't think is too far off
the ideals of most people on the list. At the heart of it, IMO, is that
most people aren't secure enough to try ideas on before accepting them - as
you mentioned, most people must fill the hole left by whatever they were
raised believing and aren't able to be without assigned belief for any
period of time. But is that a concrete aspect of being human, or can it be
overcome? It seems like it's overcome in some, so it could be overcome in
all - in which case we'd be much less suceptible to _crap_, as a species.
And you are correct, there are lots of sad truths about memetic propagation.
I admit to being an idealist, and I do wish that people weren't such willing
and indescriminate hosts. What's always bothered me, however, is the
scientific (and sometimes elitist) resignation about the dumb masses and
their fate (in which the observer almost never believes they share). When
you learn about current events, are you sad, curious or patiently hopeful?
Detached? Something else?
PS- Even new-age self-help books have _a few_ nuggets of truth in them. Do
you always throw out the baby with the bathwater? (But my casual sex
example was merely a spontaneous attempt at finding something that would
illustrate my point. I've never read it in any book that I recall.)
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Ridge <richard_ridge@tao-group.com>
To: virus@lucifer.com <virus@lucifer.com>
Date: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 4:18 AM
Subject: RE: virus: Cannabinoid receptors and munchies : reprise
>
>>I would not say I'm a puritan - in fact, no one ever has till just now!
>
>Fair enough, but phrases like 'money grubbing crassness' and 'the desire to
>elevate humanity above this pettiness' wouldn't be out of place in a sermon
>(say, for example "but it does boil down to Christ and the desire to
elevate
>humanity above this pettiness.") See what I mean?
>
>> Just because a business that fabricates need will fail in the long run
>> doesn't mean it doesn't harm in the short run. Yes, the dot-coms
crashed.
>> But didn't they fool a bunch of people into losing a bunch of
>> money/jobs/security? Investing their self-worth in worthless stock
>> portfolios that tanked?
>
>Indeed, but none of those actually relate to your original contention
>concerning engineering demand for a product. This really doesn't apply to
>investing, which should always be a significantly more considered process
>than buying t-shirts. My point was that most companies rely on appealing
to
>existing markets and demands, not creating them in the first place. My
point
>is that if your argument was correct those dot coms should currently all
>still be in business and making vast profits on the back of their allegedly
>zombified customers.
>
>> Just because
>> Cosmo says it's good for you doesn't mean it's good for _you_ . I don't
>> care what the gratification is, so long as the motivation comes
>> from within.
>
>That does beg the question of what you are doing on a memetics list then -
>correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the entire point of memetics that much of
>the concepts to which we adhere cannot be depicted as being internally
>generated per se (and I would be dishonest if I didn't say that that last
>sentence of yours just howls 'meme' to me - it reads like something out of
a
>new age self help book. Or what I think a new age self help book would be
>like, if I actually read one). The theory of memetics is an evolutionary
>account of culture, by which concepts can be transmitted through
>communication, which can then be instantiated in memory. From this point
the
>success of a meme is determined by such considerations as fecundity and
>longevity - in order to replicate it must adapt into mutational variants
>which will then compete with each other in transmission, the most amenable
>to reception being the most successful.
>
>That seems to be quite a good description of the memetics of advertising -
>in order words, if a meme (advert) is not adapted to its environment
(host),
>it will fail. In which case, the host is not an entirely passive agent in
>the process in the way that all of the descriptions of advertising I've
>heard here seem to assume. The fundamental assumption being made is that
>people are so easily permeable that they allow themselves to be controlled
>by even potentially unsuccessful memes. It seems to me that the psychology
>being advocated is of a markedly different order - namely that of operant
>conditioning which does assume individuals to be easily malleable (given
>that said psychology accords well with the Marxist view of individuals as
>being environmentally determined, it doesn't come as any surprise that
Bodie
>should find it amenable to the concatenation of kneejerks present within
his
>cranium). In short, the problem I have with the leftist doctrine of
>advertising is what happens when you examine its foundations and
extrapolate
>them - if we are not competent to make decisions on shopping, why should we
>be deemed capable of making any other decisions? Like voting, for example?
>
>Incidentally, the other thing is that leftist complaints about advertising
>seem to be a mirror image of right wing complaints about media violence,
>which also assume us to be puny and pathetic creatures so easily swayed by
>TV that we pick up rifles and blast granny away the minute after we watch
>any Hollywood film. As the arguments are essentially identical I've always
>wondered why I've never come across anyone who accepted both arguments (bit
>like right wingers who oppose abortion but support the death penalty) - of
>course, I reject both.
>
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