Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA07552 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 18 Feb 2002 20:48:09 GMT Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020218152044.02ca4ea0@pop.cogeco.ca> X-Sender: hkhenson@pop.cogeco.ca (Unverified) X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 15:44:59 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@cogeco.ca> Subject: Re: Memes Meta-Memes and Politics 1 of 3 (1988, updates 2002) In-Reply-To: <LAW2-F36vL0ECUwWIkx0000fb08@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 07:44 AM 18/02/02 -0800, Grant wrote:
>>Subject: Re: Memes Meta-Memes and Politics 1 of 3 (1988, updates 2002)
>>Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 10:00:11 -0500
>>
>>At 09:51 PM 17/02/02 -0800, you wrote:
>>
>>snip
>>
>>> >Japan, are all too well known. I have proposed the term "memeoid" for
>>> >people whose behavior is so strongly influenced by a replicating
>>> >information pattern (meme) that their survival becomes inconsequential
>>> >in their own minds.
>>> >
>>>I use the term "memebots" to refer to the same phenomenon.
>>
>>I might have used "memebot" myself if I was coining the word today, but in
>>the early 80s the -bot was not yet being used. It will be interesting to
>>see which term survives if one of them goes out of use.
>>
>>To put a measure on it, today memeoid gets 38 hits in Google, memebot gets
>>18. The varient spelling memoid get 170 hits but most may not be related.
>>
>>Keith Henson
>Google would probably make a good substitute for polling if some people
>didn't get so many more votes for what they believe than others. The
>silent majority get no votes at all. As on any other media, on the Net a
>(relatively) few people shape the impressions of the reader as to what the
>masses are talking and thinking about.
There is no particular reason for Google to be biased along
memeoid/memebot, but there is a bit more to the story. In responding to
your comment I wondered how many of these hits had both memebot and
memeoid. There was only one, but Google suggested I might have meant
membot. *That* spelling and memeoid gave 21 hits, among them this:
membot: A person whose entire life has become subordinated to the
propagation of a meme, robotically and at any opportunity. (Such as many
Jehovah's Witnesses, Krishnas, and Scientologists.) Due to internal
competition, the most vocal and extreme membots tend to rise to top of
their sociotype Us hierarchy. A self-destructive membot is a memeoid. (GMG)
http://www.art.a.se/best_before/news/meme/membot.html
Keith Henson
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