>Personally, I'm for an unmoderated list-- in fact, email Spam(tm),
>when it makes its way to the list, might prove for interesting
>discussion-- ever thought of the memetic aspects of the Good Times
>virus?
Silly,
An extract from:
http://www.hok.no/marius/memetics/communique.on.net.viruses.html
Communique on Net Viruses
From the Memetic Watchforce
Regarding the "Good Times" memetic virus and its companion virus
"Virus Warning". Please be informed by this communique and act
accordingly. Propagation is advised.
> **Warning**
> If you recieve a message with the subject, "Good Times", *do
not* read
> it! Delete it right when you see it!
This is memetic warfare at work. For the "Good Times" chain letter is
a virus, and its target is to spread using soft hearts as a vector of
infection. It belongs to the same class of viruses as the ".sig" virus
and the "MAKE.MONEY.FAST" virus. They work as memetic attractors,
luring the mind to act as a site of reproduction by promising small
pleasures (in the instance of "Good Times" the bait is literally *good
times*, whereas the more insiduous "MAKE.MONEY.FAST" promises actual
money and the ".sig" only a moment of whimsical delight). So baited,
the human mind in all its simple glory will act as a womb from which
new instances of the virus emerges, sometimes in as large numbers as
20 at a time, ensuring exponential growth of the virus population.
Some infected sites are so deeply affected that they will in fact
ensure survival of the virus by re-posting it without prodding when
the population seems low. In this way, the net becomes a petri dish
for the ASCII lifeform.