RE: virus: Four Principles Digest

Richard Brodie (RBrodie@brodietech.com)
Tue, 1 Apr 1997 12:26:00 -0800


Richard Jones wrote:

>> > I want to know Brodie's true reasons for holding
>> >back before I say any more, 'cos if this is one of his biazarre
>> >experiments,
>> >then I don't want to get involved.
>>
>> It should be obvious to anyone who understands the first thing about
>> memetics why I don't want to repeat harmful memes.
>
>This is obviously a fallacy in your argument. If you know these memes,
>then one of 2 things has happened: You've become infected, and thus
>are
>currently in the process of becoming a raving Nazi, or: You do not let
>the memes affect your actions. Therefore, you must either be convinced
>that the memes be passed on, since this is inherantly one of the
>characteristics of the meme, or you must be convinced that the memes in
>question are controllable. Either way, the only reason you won't tell
>us is because you think we're all stupid enough to be taken in, which I
>find rather insulting ;P

When my brother and I were kids, I used to play tricks on him all the
time. Since I was older, I usually got away with it. One time, the
episode of Captain America was on in which Cap was going to take off his
mask. My brother locked the door of the living room, where the TV was! I
became enraged, grabbed my mother's old Smith-Corona manual typewriter
and began to smash in the sliding wooden door that separated the kitchen
from the living room.

Meme transmission is a statistical thing. I, and all the members of this
list, are unusual minds. I wouldn't extrapolate any empirical data about
meme transmission from what happens on this list.

As for insulting you, research shows intelligent people are far more
suggestible than stupid ones!

Richard Brodie RBrodie@brodietech.com +1.206.688.8600
CEO, Brodie Technology Group, Inc., Bellevue, WA, USA
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie
Do you know what a "meme" is?
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
>