Selfish memes of power

From: hingh@xs4all.nl (Ph. I)
Newsgroups: alt.society.neutopia,alt.memetics
Subject: selfish memes of power
Date: 28 Jan 1995 10:29:47 GMT

_

see  how  our  memetic  theories  unambiguously  demonstrate  that  the 
p o w e r  of  man  evolutionarily  optimizes  its  p r o p a g a t i o n 
through  time  rather  than  whatever  man  would  like  to  use  his  
worldly  power  for.
a  specific  type  of  power,  or  s t r a t e g y,  can  offer  its  host 
many  capacities  for  manipulating  other  people,  but  if  it  fails  to 
r e p l i c a t e  its  own  structure  into  new  hosts,  it  will  loose 
the  'struggle'  with  strategies  that  do  better.

woe  betide  the  man  who  tries  to  use  but  not  propagate  his  power 
memes,  since  (by  trial  and  error)  these  have  learnt  how  to  fix 
such  m u t a n t s.    
no,  this  is  by  no  means  a  man  we  are  likely  to  see  in  a 
powerful  position.

in  the  powerful  positions  are  the  powerless,  the  r o b o t s,  who 
want  the  power  they  dream  of  so  badly,  that  they  are  eager  to
believe  they  a r e  in  control.
setting  any  goal  they  want,  and  knowing  that  they  will  r e a c h 
any  goal  they  set,  they  forget  that  they  cannot  w a n t  anything 
but  what  their  power  memes  demand.

m a r c
http://xs4all.nl/~hingh/

Subject: Re: selfish memes of power
From: dbayly@homebase.tiac.net (David Bayly)

In article <3gd6ar$qdk@news.xs4all.nl>, hingh@xs4all.nl (Ph. I) wrote:

> _
>
> see  how  our  memetic  theories  unambiguously  demonstrate  that  the
> p o w e r	of  man  evolutionarily  optimizes  its  p r o p a g a t i o n
> through  time  rather  than  whatever  man  would	like  to  use  his
> worldly  power  for.
> [......]
> setting  any  goal  they  want,  and  knowing  that  they	will  r e a c h
> any  goal	they  set,  they  forget  that	they  cannot  w a n t  anything
> but  what	their  power  memes  demand.
>
That's a parasitic strategy, were it viable there's no reason why
symbiotic memes couldn't evolve too. Life is not quite that bleak.


(A plague on the news programs that insist on more answer than quote)
-- 
- David Bayly      mailto://dbayly@homebase.tiac.net       
Opinions herein are mine, all mine. <<Evil laugh>>

Subject: Re: selfish memes of power
From: dbennett@crl.com (Andrea Chen)

hingh@xs4all.nl (Karl Marx) writes:


>MEMES OFTEN live in symbiosis with the g e n e t i c needs of their hosts.
>Memes can be symbiotic with other m e m e s as well.  In that case we call
>them co-memes, or part of the same meme complex.

>POWER MEMES are in a luxury position: they are v e r y interesting co-meme
>candidates for virtually ALL memes.  So power memes are in a position to
>'choose' the co-memes that suit t h e i r replication best.
>This choice <no teleology intended> does not lead to a partnership based
>on equality: the power meme will get full support from its chosen co-meme,
>and the latter will get a minimum of support in return.

>IF YOU accommodate a nice ideology that you would like the world to be
>infected with, DO NOT look after power that allows you to spread your
>message.  The price your memes will have to pay to the co-memes that give
>you this power will be too high.
>You would probably end up with a parody of the ideology you started with,
>spending most of your time and energy replicating the memes of power.
>(possibly without even being aware of it...)
>This is exactly what happened to all the great ideologies from the past...

This is a fascinating concept and does have a great deal of historical
confirmation.   The ideas which thrive are often rendered into triviality
while the mechanism which propagates them becomes the purpose.

Unfortunatly this leaves us with a serious problem,  we push memes
because they matter, to forsake "propagation memes" is to abandon
our ideas,  to make them no more than a thought on a rainy night,
there for a moment and then gone.

I think a partial solution does pragamtically exist.  Though science
and other fields are imperfect (power memes do distort things), they
seem to also provide corrective mechanisms that at least partially
overcome the political.

One of the goals of neu neu topian thought (pursued in alt.cyberspace)
is to create a more "conscious net" in which "virtual neurons" (humans,
AIs (referred to as nodes in the work of McGowan) watch patterns of
threads and attempt actions which provide some correction.  This is
a "meta level" of awareness.

I think it time that we develop some new terminology for our "glass beads"
"Karl Marx" has proposed a preliminary division between straightforward
idea and propagater.  I would suggest a 3 part division based on Monads
and Jacobs work in microbiology.  We shall (borrowing their terminology
slavishly) call this an "operon". The "structural bead" is the pure idea.
The "operater bead" that which spreads it.  The third is the "regulator
meme" (which in DNA resides separately from these two) whose general
logic is to suppress (when necessary the operater).

This incidently is the simplest form of known cybernetic feedback 
system and more complex logics do exist.

As a note, I use the term "glassbead" (or bad) interchangeably with
"meme",  however I think we should move towards the former in our
Internet development. Dawkins logics are an inspiration and bear
similarities to what we are trying to do,  but they are an independant
development.  Sharing terms may muddle his work and our own.

"Buttons" are a special form of bead designed to instigate certain
activities in the "neurons".	At this time I would say that they
include (at least in some aspects) features of both "operaters"
and "regulaters".  The "operater" is a fairly easily observed
event.	"Regulators" are just being explored.

    - Doctress Andrea -

Subject: Re: selfish memes of power
From: karl@skat.usc.edu (Karl Geiger)

In article <3grren$abn@crl3.crl.com>, Andrea Chen <dbennett@crl.com> wrote:
>hingh@xs4all.nl (Karl Marx) writes:
>
>>MEMES OFTEN live in symbiosis with the g e n e t i c needs of their hosts.

 [ Long, dreary quotation deleted. ]

>
>This is a fascinating concept and does have a great deal of historical
>confirmation.

 [ Longer, drearier reply deleted.]

>	- Doctress Andrea -

Y'know, it must be the teevee.  Dbennett is def'nitly not watching enough.

"Andrea", sweetheart, it's just not funny.  You'll never program
cybermemespace if you put the audience to sleep.  You gotta try
harder, be more loopy; try some antiyonicentric consonanterpolation;
disemvowel a few o' them dollar-ninety-five words you're using.

The "Doctress Neutopia Pro-Tem" gig is just that: pro tempore.  Keep
snoozing the yokels and your ratings will continue to drop,
advertizing support will fall off, and you'll be shuffling off after
Chevy Chase.

If Leno can turn it around, so can you.

Look, babe, gotta run.  Hey, let's do lunch.  Love ya.  Kiss-kiss.

Ciao,

:Karl "Scatman" Chief MTN Sanitation Engineer


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Subject: Re: selfish memes of power
From: dbennett@crl.com (Andrea Chen)

karl@skat.usc.edu (Karl Geiger) writes:


>"Andrea", sweetheart, it's just not funny.  You'll never program
>cybermemespace if you put the audience to sleep.  You gotta try
>harder, be more loopy; try some antiyonicentric consonanterpolation;
>disemvowel a few o' them dollar-ninety-five words you're using.


"Karl", you still don't get it.  This is many waved meme attack. We
have already silenced many of your more vocal nodes.  This "dry"
stuff is a further assault on your "umbrella nodes".	Wear you
down like water. Get you looking in one direction and then the
unexpected attack occurs.  Do you think Mother Foundress was
a coincidence?  We gave you a choice, convert or be banished.  We
are patient, we practice the tactics of Sun Tzu, but soon there
will be no more monster truck neutopians in alt.society.neutopia

We are playing within your skull.  Pretty soon the "silly memes"
which drive you will cause you to unsubscribe from this group.
It will be ours, to do with as we please.

     - Doctress Andrea -