From: "Tim Rhodes" <proftim@speakeasy.org>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>, "Church of Virus" <virus@lucifer.com>
Subject: Re: Machiavellian Memes
Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 19:28:28 -0700
(On JoM) Aaron Lynch writes:
>>From a scientific standpoint, the main issue is not theological, but
>rather, the idea of doing memetics (or any science) by "revelation." In a
>world where all too many people regard memetics as "light-weight" at best
>and pseudoscience at worst, it is a suggestion not even to make in jest.
Speaking of making memetics a more "heavy-weight" science, what are your
thoughts on the possible merging of memetics and diffussion studies? This
seems like a natural pairing that might help produce some of the hard data
that memetics, on its own, is so sadly lacking.
(And BTW, I don't remember if it was here on JoM or on lucifer.com, but
whoever recommended Everett M. Rogers _Diffussion of Innovations_, thank
you! It is a wonderful complement to the study of memetics and points the
way to a better understanding of the manner and rates at which ideas
propigate through a culture.)
Is memetics a subset of diffusion studies? Or are they simply two joined
sets with a great deal of overlap?
-Tim Rhodes
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