From: "Paul Marsden" <paulmarsden@msn.com>
To: "memetics" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: memetic fitness and suicide
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 15:44:15 +0200
Derek:
Actually, paracetamol is really quite a bad method, as the LD-50 is rather
high, and you need to take a lot to do the job properly.
Paul:
Perhaps that is the point - gets your memes access to the means of memetic
(re)production, without killing you - until the BBC stopped news reports on
attempted suicides, because it kept pushing up suicide rates.
Derek:
which is defined as 'parasuicide'.
Paul:
Huh?? In medical parlance, parasuicide is a synonym for attempted suicide,
i.e. a form of non-fatal deliberate self-harm, and is contrasted with
completed suicide or suicide ideation. Are we talking about the same thing?
Nick:
Perhaps
suicide is hitch hiking along with fitter concepts - e.g.
making people appreciate you, or feel guilty about
something they've done.
Paul:
Like a Trojan Horse? Copy the memetically successful, i.e. celebrities,
especially when their behavioural strategies are widely broadcast (in a
positive manner?) could become a lethal strategy if the memetic model was
Marilyn Monroe. Like it - can we do any better?
Paul Marsden
Graduate Research Centre in the Social Sciences
University of Sussex
P.Marsden@sussex.ac.uk
Paul.Marsden@newscientist.net
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/hbpe2/darwinia.htm
ICQ 35642304
Tel (44) (0) 958 733 414
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