Memetic vulnerability: was: Faking It

From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 18 2001 - 15:09:34 BST

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From: "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Memetic vulnerability: was: Faking It
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 10:09:34 -0400
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    Greetings,
    I don't think memes are so robust as to be 'unbeatable' once launched. They
    may be well-crafted (deliberately or inadvertently) to occupy existing
    meme-space, but once ensconced they are relatively passive and subject to
    outframing from later memes competing for the same meme-space. The earlier
    meme cannot be designed with all its potential future competitors in mind,
    but a new competing meme can be designed to counter an earlier meme using
    linguistic tactics that target the earlier memes specific characteristics
    and weaknesses. The later meme can thus more requisite variety than the
    earlier one. True the earlier meme has the advantage of being ensconced
    (Chris's term: resident), but the new meme is not without significant
    responsive advantage.

    - Lawrence

    > From: Chris Taylor

    > The memetic point I was (perhaps clumsily) making is that if there is a
    > set of memes from fiction, predating the real existence of a thing (the
    > web for example), then the head start they get from already existing
    > means that they'll occupy the new niches, preventing anything from
    > evolving 'de novo'. Resident's advantage.

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