From: Brent Scofield (brent@atomicphotography.com)
Date: Mon 08 Sep 2003 - 22:33:46 GMT
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of joedees@bellsouth.net
> Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 2:55 PM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: I find it sad yet hilarious...
>
>
> From: "Brent Scofield"
> <brent@atomicphotography.com>
> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: I find it sad yet hilarious...
> Date sent: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 14:32:57 -0700
> Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
> >
> > I joined this mailing list about a week ago, hoping to first listen in
> > on and then eventually join in discussions surrounding the concept of
> > memes and the development on memetics. My problem with your posts is
> > not the politics of them, but the vague and undeveloped ways in which
> > you relate your interpretation of current issues to memetics. You do
> > use words like "memebot" and "memeplex" in some of your posts, and
> > while I think new vocabulary is super-fun, I also think you should at
> > very least spend some time with each of your posts relating what makes
> > it relevant to this mailing list. The concept that ideas spread is not
> > new to memetics, and if people post every article which contains in it
> > something about the spread of a particular idea or the development of
> > an idea, or the definition of an idea, etc., then this list will be
> > innundated with links to articles and peices of articles.
> >
> Actually, those words, and the concepts that they describe,
> have been used on this list for years. A memebot is someone who acts
> robotically, in thrall to a meme or memeplex (which is a collection of
> interrelated and mutually supporting memes, like its synonym
> 'memeset').
I didn't mean to imply that the words were new, or that you had invented
them, merely that the only relation that some of the posts here seem to have
to memetics is the replacement of common words with the vocabulary of
memetics, with little if any clear application of memetics to the topic.
> I do find it interesting to see the "Hate Bush" Ummah rear up on
> their hind legs and wage their slanderous and emotional jihad in the
> name of 'Peace', which seems, for them, to mean a Stalinist silencing of
> all discussion, debate and dissent (just as in Islamofascism 'Peace' will
> result when the infidel dar-el-Harb is irretrievably destroyed and Dar-el-
> Islam encompasses the globe). It is indeed an object lesson that being
> aware of memetics does not necessarily insulate one from virulent and
> continuing memetic infestation, if one simply possesses that awareness
> as a knowledge datum rather than as an evaluative principle, and
> refuses to challenge the preconceptions with which such memetic
> phages infect one.
An "emtional jihad", a "Stalinist silencing"!? Things must be getting
serious. But my only feeling on the matter is this might a better place to
discuss memetics than to post articles prosylitizing your political point of
view while occasionally tying them to the expressed purpose of this list. I
feel well insulated from virulent memes, personally, but despite the
insulation from the memes you are intent on spreading, it still takes time
to sift through the stuff you post to get to the memetics.
Brent
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