From: Richard Ridge (richard_ridge@tao-group.com)
Date: Thu Feb 14 2002 - 10:58:38 MST
> It's certainly not a clean cause-effect relationship.
I'm not sure it's a relationship at all. As far as I'm aware, studies have
showed heightened levels of adrenaline present within the bloodstream after
playing violent video games. But you'd expect that. Again, I suspect it
would require a certain mindset to incorporate violent memes into their
personal memeplex, or as the psychopath in Scream put it in a quote I'm fond
of; 'movies don't create sociopaths, they just make sociopaths more
creative.'
> Just to clarify, I endorse materialism 100%. What I worry about is the
> people for whom the goodies are not enjoyed as goods but purely as status
> symbols.
Or as some means of group identification? I'd have to admit to some
ambivalence on that score, as I don't see group identification as
necessarily a problem, as long as it doesn't preclude further memetic
inclusion or lead to UTistic behaviour. There's nothing that irritates me
more than goths saying how they want to escape the trappings of conformism
of mainstream society, when their clothes render them indistinguishable from
their chosen group of peers. Suggesting that this is assertion of
individuality rather than group identification is something I find intensely
annoying. I don't know to what extent this would be a cultural phenomenon or
a genetic one - I'd suspect the former. That said, my instinct would be to
agree with you on this point.
> They parrot what's told to them - by their parents, their
> president, their teachers and their televisions. I would agree with you,
> though, that the number of influences is pulling people into comparing
> competing memes more than ever before, and choosing the ones that
> work. So I'd say yes, we are more individualistic at this point in
history, but I'd
> also say we have a long way to go.
I don't think there's anything to disagree with there. Quite disappointing
really :-)
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