Re: virus: New Ideas
Chris Lacey (chlacey@hotmail.com)
Sat, 24 May 1997 01:50:49 PDT
Several people have replied to this section already, but I'ld like to add a
slightly different twist to it.
>
>>If you do things like go along with someone else's vocabulary, I think
>>you're fighting a kind of more undercover, behind-the-lines kind of battle.
>>Cos in the end, "lead[ing someone] to our viewpoint" is, IMO, making sure
>>the memes dominant in their minds are replaced with memes transmitted from
>>ours. It's just that the way you do it is to introduce your memes in
>>disguise as their memes. If this seems nastily machiavellian to you, sorry,
>>but I'm a bit of a darwinist.
>
Specifically, how does a person who is good at being "Machiavellian" bring
another person around to their own veiwpoint? One might start by asking
questions, either directly or inderectly - much like a psychologist, or judge,
or salesman. Why would they do this? Well, if one wants to communicate a concept
or value (self-esteem, law, a product), it often helps to understand the other's
assumptions and predispositions (low self-esteem, moral development, desire/need
to buy). Questions can also build rapor, and desolve new meme barriers. (They
can also effect the reverse as well.) However, my main point here is that human
communication is almost never direct, and certainly a frontal assault is often
the least effective of long term meme infection/replication devices.
Also, the quoted passage above seems to assume a linear relationship of
one-to-one communication. Consider that communicationbetween humans happens in
many modes (touch, smell, taste, and sound) in a non-directional manner. These
modes take on a spatial orientaion when combined with a visual/spatial
orientation. (I can smell a good restaraunt, but I can't find it until I feel
the touch of which way the wind is blowing, or see the sign of a likely
establishment, or perhaps ask someone.)
Must go,
Chris
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