Re: virus: Four Principles Digest
Tony Hindle (t.hindle@joney.demon.co.uk)
Thu, 3 Apr 1997 11:02:23 +0100
In message <33427348@smtpgw.ccc.phelpsd.com>, "Wright, James 7929"
<Jwright@phelpsd.com> writes
>
>Tony Hindle wrote:
>
>> What about spreading benign strains of the smallpox virus so
>that to allow imuninty systems to evolve?<
>
>This is an interesting proposition. How do you test a "benign strain" of
>a virulent toxic meme? How do you contain it?
These are difficult and important questions. I am skeptical
about any reasons for censorship whatsoever (except self
censorship, a personal choice I believe we all have and use). What
I find I cannot believe is that there exists a written record of a
set of memes that can be used by anyone to start a mass movement
that was as evil as Natziism. I know this is not true (because the
alternative is simply inconceivable, too frightening). I believe
the war was our disease from which we acquired imunity to Natziism.
However that imunity (rife as I believe it is in this list) needs
to be spread everywhere. Censorship/control of free information
channels is what could let our imunity fade..
>Imagine that a given meme-ecology, say the French body-politic (randomly
>chosen) needs innoculation against a virulent toxic-meme complex, say
>Nazism. How can you test a hopefully-benign strain of French National
>Socialism for efficacy? Do you later deliberately introduce virulent
>French National Socialism and observe for atrocities?
>The penalties for failure are enormous.
I see the problem thus: suppose you and I were working on
the imunity to all strains of natziism memes. The original natziism
which caused the war is never going to spread because imunity today
is too rife. But we might memetically engineer new versions of it
and realise that unless people realised [X] it could take off and
cause evil once more. X would be a vaccine we would spread.
The Danger in all this would be that both of us became
convinced that a meme we had engineered would be a great way of
making the world a better place and released it. Whereas in reality
the meme was a strain of evil-causing natziism that bypassed our
imunity system.( this would be a case of X being the evil meme) Mmm
I think if ever we begin such work it might be better to have more
than just the two of us. We should work in an isolated area and be
prepared to execute one another if one of us became infected with a
truly evil natziism meme.
>Should we be trying to develop antibody memes for general application
>against widespread forms of antisocial behavior? What might such memes
>be, and what test protocol would demonstrate their efficacy? How do we
>locate a control group (uninfected) for comparison purposes?
>I realize the above stretches the meme/virus analogy to difficult limits,
>and it may already break down in the above examples. If CofV is to create
>product memes that improve the global societies, however, I suspect that
>some type of resolution must be found for the questions/problems above.
>What do you think, Tony?
I think the meta-meme "memetics" is an antibody meme for
general application. That is why I am ready to run naked through
buckingham palace screaming
"I FEAR I NEED TO EAT THE QUEENS PUSSY, MEMETICS CAN EMPOWER US"
I am still awaiting Tad/David's refutation of this.
All this gives me the eery feeling that it is here in CoV
that the memetic engineering is all being done. It makes me
thankfull that we have a big presence of pancritical rationality
but in my nightmares we are just evolving the next deadly mind
virus. I hope we never have to execute one another.
Of course I am wrong again. It is in the big corporate
advertising and marketing agencies that the real evil is being
done. Which means I feel compeled beyond resistance to use this
sig. file again.
Tony Hindle
...By the way if anybody here is in advertising or marketing
...Kill yourself.
Seriously, if you are do.
really do, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you
are Satan's little helpers O.K.
Kill yourselves, seriously.
You are the ruiners of all things good
Seriously this is not a joke......
....You are satan's spawn filling the world with
vile and garbage, you are fucked and you are fucking us
Kill yourselves.
It's the only way to save your fucking souls....Kill yourself.
.....Just trying to plant seeds. ...BILL HICKS.