From: "Aaron Agassi" <agassi@erols.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Memetic engineering challenge
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 01:33:44 -0400
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.95q.990707171937.32191B-100000@marple.umd.edu>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Lawrence H. de Bivort
> Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 5:53 PM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: Memetic engineering challenge
>
>
> On Wed, 7 Jul 1999, Wade T.Smith wrote:
>
> >>Bad people are memetic engineers
>
> Meme 'engineers' are all 'bad people'? Is this what you are saying?
>
> >Quite often the only effective ones, too. Bad things have been and
> >continue to be territorially advantageous to perform. 'Feel good'
> >policies have little consequence, whereas 'kill the other' policies are
> >rather, um, effective.
Exactly. Nice guys finish last. My challenge, in short and broadest terms,
is to change that.
>
> I would have to disagree with this. I think that doing good things in the
> world can be done effectively, and with consequence. I can think of a
> million examples. Perhaps I'm just an optimist, and believe in human
> progress.
But I cannot help but see short term Darwinian advantage in evil, and short
term disadvantage in good, that accounts for ubiquitous domination by
bullies, and all the consequent adversity. I believe that something is
missing and needed for good to triumph over evil, sooner rather than later.
>
> >But memes are not just behavior modification devices- (we can go on and
> >on wondering what they in fact are, of course)- but certainly
> the memetic
> >model can be used to support and construct behavior modifying
> agendas and
> >programs, which is what, it appears, ESI is in business to do.
>
> No, ESI is not in the business of constructing behavior modifying agendas
> and programs. The Memetics Group seeks to understand memes and their
> architecture, and the way the work in society. We have constructed a
> couple of memes and released them, mostly to test how the spread of a meme
> can be limited. The memes accomplished beneficial results for those it was
> intended, and produced no negative side-effects. (This is the main purpose
> to looking at the kind of questions that I posed re. Aaron's challenge to
> design a meme.
>
> >But supposing that there could be some way to force memetics to
> offer its
> >secrets only to a cognoscenti of do-good illuminati is, well, delirious
> >thinking at best.
>
> Agreed.
>
> Lawrence de Bivort
> The Memetics Group
>
> |---------------------------------------------|
> | ESI |
> | Evolutionary Services Institute |
> | "Crafting opportunities for a better world" |
> | 5504 Scioto Road, Bethesda, MD 20816, USA |
> | (301) 320-3941 |
> |---------------------------------------------|
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
>
===============================================================
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