Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA18020 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 13 Feb 2002 11:04:02 GMT From: <dgatherer@talk21.com> X-Mailer: talk21 v1.24 - http://talk21.btopenworld.com To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk X-Talk21Ref: none Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 10:53:23 GMT Subject: Re: Words and memes: criteria for acceptance of new belief or Message-Id: <20020213105830.BYIU26290.wmpmta02-app.mail-store.com@wmpmtavirtual> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
meme
Philip:
Memes that can persuade the host to adopt will outdo the ones who are
less adept in that.
Derek:
This is the biased transmission effect of Takahasi (1998, 1999), also referred to as 'cultural selection' by Cavalli-sforza and Feldman (1981). The problem is that it is often just a post hoc explanation. You can model biased transmission and get epidemic-like effects, ceteris paribus. However, showing biased transmission empirically is tricky.
(there are a handful of reasonble examples)
Philip:
If the memes were generally too bad
in the sense of killing off a large part of the human population for a long
enough period the people with high skeptical barriers would flourish.
Derek:
Not necessarily. My own simulations indicate that even when a population of agents is maximally susceptible, the presence of a pool of cultural information to which they can refer, puts the brakes on any epidemic of disadvantageous memes. Contagion only really works well for advantageous memes.
Philip:
This has
not happened yet, so people have low enough skeptical barriers for (evil)
memes to overcome
Derek:
they probably do, but my own simulations indicate that any epidemic effects will be short lived and local. A lot of people have previously concluded that 'incomplete information' is an important factor in social contagion effects (see JoM reviews by Marsden and Frank, or Caginalp's work in J Psych Finan Markts). This effect is 'emergent' (hey-hey!) when simple contagious agents are allowed to play with each other in a virtual environment in which they either have cultural information or rely wholly on agent-to-agent transmission. I have a JoM paper under review on this, and all the above refs will be in it. (If it doesn't get accepted, I'll post the refs in a separate message).
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