Re: virus: Manipulation Lesson 12

David McFadzean (morpheus@lucifer.com)
Sun, 23 Feb 1997 21:51:54 -0700


> From: David Rosdeitcher <76473.3041@compuserve.com>
> Date: Sunday, February 23, 1997 7:47 PM
>
> This morning I posted a question about possible names for memes that
are
> detrimental. I came back this evening to find 2 good suggestions
('parasitic
> meme' from Martz and 'low-profit meme' from Corey) but there was no
indication
> by anyone that such a word existed to convey a detrimental meme. So, here
is--

I don't think 'parasitic meme' is a good description because it already
has another meaning, namely a meme that is dependent or predicated on
another, as in "objectivism is parasitic on rationality". Personally I
would just call a bad meme a bad meme.

> great and had credibility. People did not have the word *non-sequitur*
> (meaning--it does not follow logically) to help them understand that
there
> really was no logical connection between, say, Michelangelo's work and a
silly
> religion. (A memetic term I've seen that is similar to a non-sequitur is
"Trojan
> horse".)

Good concept but bad example. The works of Michelangelo are not logically
independent of the Catholic church.

> In the field of memetics there is a language problem in which people
have
> trouble identifying which memes are detrimental to people and which are
> beneficial. This is partly because the term "good meme" refers to memes
which
> spread well among the human population. And, the term "bad meme" is for
memes
> that don't spread too well.

Wouldn't it make more sense to call memes that spread well 'successful' and
ones
that didn't 'unsuccesful'? That way we could talk about successful bad
memes
to describe ones we don't agree with that happen to have proliferated
(e.g. neocheating :) and unsuccessful good memes that we are working to
spread (e.g. critical thinking).

--
David McFadzean                 david@lucifer.com
Memetic Engineer                http://www.lucifer.com/~david/
Church of Virus                 http://www.lucifer.com/virus/