Bad/good behaviour was often associated with demons/angels. The same
behaviour may be judged bad in one religion and good in another. It all
depends on who is the judge. With demons it used to be the clergy. When
we say "let's program ourselves with best possible memes" it's like saying
"let's follow what angels tell us rather than listening to devils". The
only problem is who those angels and devils work for. We tend to follow a
priest if we believe he understands God better than we do. We tend to
follow an authority in memetics in "programming ourselves with memes". The
problem of what we consider "good" and what we consider "bad" is still the
same. A "meme" is just a new name for the old problem. It's not a solution.
If I say "angel" I will tend to turn to a priest for answers, if I say
"meme" I will tend to listen to experts in memetics (and let them become my
priests). I suggest we try replacing "memes" with "angels" and "devils"
(just as an "Angelica de Meme" experiment) and see how it changes our
perspective in each case.
>Alot of this seems
>related to the four priciples stuff: controlling rewards/punishment (e.g.,
>who lives or dies); association (e.g., don't associate with witches);
>information (e.g., God speaks to Us only); control of thoughts/language
>(e.g., don't say God's name).
This is a very interesting observation. It means it was not only Hitler,
but many other social systems (religions) were using the four principles.
Do you seriously think Richard (or others) were trying to use the 4P's on
this list? Can we consider some specific examples?
Regards, Tadeusz (Tad) Niwinski from planet TeTa
tad@teta.ai http://www.teta.ai (604) 985-4159