RE: Imitation or transmission?

From: Lawrence H. de Bivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Thu Jun 15 2000 - 04:26:12 BST

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    Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 23:26:12 -0400 (EDT)
    From: "Lawrence H. de Bivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
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    To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    Subject: RE: Imitation or transmission?
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    I use the term engineering in the same sense that Diana posted a couple of
    days ago. It has nothing to do with 'information warfare', as you have
    defined it, IMO.

    - Lawrence

    On Wed, 14 Jun 2000, Montie S. wrote:

    > What about day trading? Day trading firms here in the US aggressively
    >promoted day trading as a means to make you wealthy. These same firms
    >received fees for each transaction that was placed, so it was in their own
    >economic self interest to promote day trading. The media even got involved
    >and started raving about how easy it was to make it big in the stock market.
    > Studies by security regulators have found that most day traders (75%)
    >don't turn a profit. This, get rich quick, meme was engineered by the firms
    >for the firms.
    > Also, have you checked out Information Warfare? The following is a
    >pretty good description of what IW is:
    > "Information warfare is the offensive and defensive use of information
    >and information systems to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy, an
    >adversary's information, information-based processes, information systems,
    >and computer-based networks while protecting one's own. Such actions are
    >designed to achieve advantages over military or
    >business adversaries."(Dr. Ivan Goldberg)
    > I believe that this is very similar to what is called memetic
    >engineering although it could be argued that psychological warfare is a much
    >better fit with what has been defined for memetic engineering. Do you
    >agree, disagree?
    >
    >Montie Schmiege
    >
    >
    >From: "Joseph" <neohuman@goldenfuture.net>
    >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    >To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    >Subject: RE: Imitation or transmission?
    >Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 08:20:20 -0400
    >
    >Diana Stevenson wrote:
    >
    > > I would call all this memetic engineering but maybe I've misunderstood
    >the
    > > term. Couldn't all propaganda and PR "spin" be regarded as the concious
    > > transmission of memes? And what else is advertising and viral marketing?
    >
    >To my mind (and admittedly I'm an amateur and a newcomer to the list), these
    >"single-shot" examples don't count as true "memetic engineering" because the
    >memes involved weren't specifically engineered to self-replicate.
    >
    >That is, they rely on a single point of repetitive transmission in order to
    >take root in the target audience. The memes in question weren't designed for
    >self-replication, they weren't engineered to make themselves more efficient
    >at rooting themselves in a host medium. (Memes that are engineered to
    >specifically capitalize on these abilities would be "designer memes"; they
    >deliberately hit the triggers that make them more likely to be reproduced.)
    >I make the same argument in regards to most modern advertising; spitting out
    >memes isn't memetic engineering, it's memetic propagation.
    >
    >True, elegant, memetic engineering would take advantage of the meme's
    >natural tendency to be transmitted and form memeplexes with other memes
    >(often ones that on the surface appear to be completely unrelated). National
    >Socialism would seem to be an example of a nascent form of this; a complex
    >of ideas-- racism, expansionist geopolitics, back-to-nature ideology,
    >totalitarianism, the cult of the Leader, etc.-- that work together to
    >reinforce one another and are chosen to promote their own replication. I say
    >that National Socialism is only a nascent form, because elements of the
    >memeplex weren't deliberately chosen, but were grafted on to the memeplex at
    >various stages through "natural" means.
    >
    >I can't honestly think of a real-world example of the sort of memetic
    >engineering I'm talking about, completely using designer memes to effect a
    >particular outcome, but I can imagine one. Let's say you want to promote the
    >"we should irradiate food" meme among a target population. Step one:
    >introduce the "prepackaged food can be dangerous" meme (which hits the
    >"danger" trigger). Give it time to penetrate. Step two: introduce the
    >"radiation can be safe" meme-- completely unconnected to food, irradiation,
    >or anything else-- and give it time to penetrate. Step three: introduce the
    >"food can be irradiated to make it safe" meme. When all three of the memes
    >hit the same subject-- food is dangerous, radiation is safe, food can be
    >irradiated-- they combine to form the "we should irradiate food" meme.
    >
    >I realize it's a crude example, but hopefully it illustrates what I would
    >mean by the difference between "mere" advertising and true memetic
    >engineering. Advertising presents a single meme which relies on repetition
    >for reproduction, while memetic engineering uses designer memes that more
    >efficiently replicate themselves and self-organizing memeplexes (and ideally
    >a combination of the two) to achieve the desired outcome.
    >
    >Joseph
    >
    >
    >===============================================================
    >This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    >Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    >For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    >see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >
    >
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    >===============================================================
    >This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    >Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    >For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    >see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >

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    ===============================================================
    This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit



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