> Nathan wrote:
> > Hi, I'm new on this mailing list
>
> Welcome aboard.
>
> > Can morality, and the entire system of ethical behavior within a given
> >religion or culture, be considered a meme?
>
> Yes. The most important thing to remember when analyzing memes and
> meme-complexes is who is spreading the meme. Unfortunatly, a great
> deal of meme are transmitted just because they transmit. These memes
> might not have any basis in fact, but they spread well, and so survive.
>
I can think of several examples:
Belief that a certain feast day, etc., is spiritually necessary to the survival
of the culture/world - once a meme of this type becomes established, nobody is
willing to take the risk of testing it.
Elvis' and Jimmy Hoffa's survivial
Religion (I recognize that this debatable, so don't flame me)
The notion along many girls in my high school (I'm a sophomore) that flirting
with male teachers/wearing insufficient clothing to an oral will improve their
grades
Many others
> >As AIDS becomes more common, it occurs to me that morality
> >may become more traditional and restrictive due to the
> >counterselection of memes.
>
> I certainly hope not! Actually, I'm not too worried about it. I don't
> think
> that we will ever go back to that horrid set of so called 'morals' that
> were propogated by the various offshoots of Christianity.
>
It just occured to me that with AIDS those who are more ethical are selected
for. I'm not saying that that is right (in the sense of moral acceptability, not
of 2+2=4 being right) or wrong - that would be saying like that photosynthesis
or the strong nuclear force is morally right or wrong
> >Homosexuality (and the subtle influences which promote it, both genetic
> >and due to environmentally transmitted memes i.e. contact with
> >homosexuals) would now be selected against for multiple reasons.
>
> I doubt this strongly. Homosexuality isn't the largest spreader of AIDS.
> Promiscuity and needle swapping are. These two behaviors will probably
> be selected against. Although, it seems that the promiscuity drive might be
> able to overcome the survival drive. There are definite cases of the smack
> drive overcoming the survival drive.
>
In addition, genetic or memetic survival means getting 2 accurate copies of the
meme or 3 children out before you die - anyone who is promiscous enough -
especially men - is easily capable of having 3 kids before dying of AIDS
> >It is, however, difficult to think of an evolutionary
> >advantage to memes which, for instance, require burnt offerings of food
> >or massive donations to charity.
>
> >From the view point of the priest-class, memes that require offering of food
> or donations are not only useful, but linked to their survival. That's the
> point,
> priests don't really care about your survival. They are more concerned with
> their own.
>
I wish some extreme theists of my acuantance would realize this :-) But, how can
genetic survival for (usually celebate) priests make any sense? Of course, they
have more than sufficient capacity to spread memes - this could be an instance of
gene/meme competition.
-Nathan Russell
> CA Cook, LF
> coreycook12@email.msn.com