> .........
> .........
> After all of this, though, I must admit that whether it is beneficial
> to be a level-3 thinker or not is debatable. Most likely, level-3 thinking
> would result in borderline narcicism, arrogance, and paranoia (a result of
> the required increased defenses of his basic concepts), as well as an
> increased succeptibility to depression if the individual could not
> adequately refute attacks on his basic memes. In addition, level-3 thinkers
> would be harder to control, from a law-and-order point of view.
The expression "Fools! I'll destroy 'em all!" came to my mind immediately when I read the quoted paragraph.
In fact there is a "Far Side" cartoon where at a Mad Scientists Convention they honoured the first Mad
Scientist to coin the phrase.
I must say you 'Noctem' over with that post - I was really impressed. Now we have a frame of reference for
analyzing Level-3 behavior. At the risk of blowing my own horn I would have to say that the majority of
people on the Virus List fit the Level-3 profile. Earlier on, Vicki wanted to know why she should buy
Brodie's book and forsake the others, here's why : because you know what it's about already. The fact that
you're reading and posting here says something of your resident memes. The reason why I pick up "Time"
magazine before "GQ" at the newsstand is I know up front the former would click with my intellectual
interests while the latter is just a male "Cosmo". I suspect that Vicki was being pedantic with Brodie, she
knew even while she protested, that his book would sooner click with her intellectual leanings than any
Scientology or whatever. Without this process of successive installments to basic resident memes, we could
not have experts in any field including the arts.
I would expect as Noctem stated that the hardest thing for Level-3 thinkers would be dealing with the urge
to disconnect from a world which, on average, is Level-2, if even. Again without trying to sound too
arrogant, I believe that I have the ability to "size-up" people that I meet within minutes of meeting them.
Almost automatically I adjust to what I consider to be their intellectual level. This I consider to be
beneficial to me and the other person. I believe our conversation, business transaction or whatever we need
to accomplish would be best served if I refrain from subjects that, in my arrogant opinion, would be lost on
the other party. In the case of meeting someone of superior intellect, then there's no problem because, by
definition, I wouldn't even be aware if I was being patronized.
The Level-3s are definitely a minority and have to suffer all the trappings of minorities. Of course one way
to "deal" with being a minority is joining a group for the sake of companionship. If the memetic engineers
among us look into it, I'm sure they'll find that the "companionship" hook is the most powerful of memetic
glues because human nature forces us to seek out and live in groups.
I would like to reiterate my position that one cannot choose one's Level any more than one can choose one's
intelligence. Therefore any poor Level-3 slob who finds himself a total social outcast can only infiltrate a
Level-2 world by disguising his Level-3-ness. Whether this is important to him is an individual choice
unless he can link up with a hard-core Level-3 partying crowd. The ones who choose not to align themselves
with any crowd, we need to keep an eye on less they decide to go up in a tower with a rifle.
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* Hakeeb A. Nandalal "What was Kiri-Kin-Tha's First Law of Metaphysics?" *
* nanco@trinidad.net "Nothing unreal exists" *
* *
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