Re: virus: "Religion"?

KMO (c538128@mizzou1.missouri.edu)
Sat, 10 Aug 1996 23:29:53 -0500


I've been away for a week and I missed the genesis of this thread, but
it seems to have a lot of life in it. Personally I like the church shell
for the memetic complex to which we seem to have a collective interst in
propagating. Given that the CoV deals explicitly with topics in
psychological manipulation, it strikes me as an anti-church because
we're honest about the tactics we use and their intended impact.
Traditional religions use the ame means, but they do so clandestinely so
as to direct the behavior and suppess the conscious awareness of the
layity. Wow, I've already said more on this topic than I'd planned to.

Ken Pantheists wrote:

>
> But I was not aware that the purpose was to disinfect people. I thought the
> purpose was
> to give people the power to choose and to exercise critical awareness.

Boy, we just can't say this often and clearly enough.

David McFadzean wrote:>

> I think this memetic niche we are attempting to take over is largely defined
> by the same language game (a la Wittengenstein) you want to avoid. Sure there
> are unwanted connotations associated with the terms we use, but is inventing
> a new vocabulary really a viable solution? And even if it is, wouldn't we
> be better off pursuing both vectors rather than choosing one over the other?
> That is essentially what I was getting at by offering free webspace to any
> takers. The more vectors the better: why not spread the Meme through religion,
> comics, philosophy, fiction, theatre, fine art, music, political parties
> and Saturday morning cartoons?

Yes. We shold employ a variety of vectors to reach a wider audience and
to move past knee-jerk rejections by people whose filters are atuned to
a particular vector. One of my aspirations for C is to turn it into a
cartoon (Saturday morning or prime time) and get They Might Be Giants to
do the theme song. John and John are first-rate memetic engineers.

Take care, gang. -KMO