AWESOME, so glad i found this post / substack. I think you and i are in a similar space, but your knowledge of evolution and biology look much more complex that mine.
Here's some thoughts i've had in the space:
- do you think memes exhibit r/k selection dichotomies?
what do you think of the notion of a 'memetic superorganism' ?
or, say, 'memetic innoculuation', where being exposed to a shitty copy of a complex idea can 'innoculate' a thinker against the complex idea, by making them consider the complex idea as being not worth investigating, by comparison to the simple one?
sorry these thoughts are all disconnected / rambly - i'm a parent too and this is how i spend my time off duty - hah
We seem to be in a VERY similar place! It sounds like you're where I was at the beginning of the year.
- I hadn't thought about memes and r/k selection, but I don't see why not- there's very obviously memes like useful academic and scientific theory that require a huge amount of upfront investment but receive nearly universal adoption in their domain, whereas others like urban legends and wive's tails that achieve much more widespread adoption but at lower rates by being short and easy to communicate.
- The first three posts of the blog are actually about memetic parasitism, superorganism, and informational life, they are definitely scruffier than this post though: https://laulpogan.substack.com/p/eosv-tldr
- I read something on memetic inoculation somewhere but I'm having trouble remembering where. I think it's possible, but much more likely that there's just selection occurring on a different level. IMO most of the reason memetics failed was an addiction to darwinian "fitness" thinking, such that theories expected "fit" ideas to spread on their own- which just isn't the case.
please DM me on twitter or reach out on reddit or something- I'd love to chat more :)
Sure thing - do you have a reddit link? I'm guessing you are hesitant to share your email here; my reddit is reddit.com/u/gomboloid; DM me there for an email.
AWESOME, so glad i found this post / substack. I think you and i are in a similar space, but your knowledge of evolution and biology look much more complex that mine.
Here's some thoughts i've had in the space:
- do you think memes exhibit r/k selection dichotomies?
- https://apxhard.com/2021/03/17/are-you-hosting-a-mimetic-parasite/ - suggests that memetic parasites exist
what do you think of the notion of a 'memetic superorganism' ?
or, say, 'memetic innoculuation', where being exposed to a shitty copy of a complex idea can 'innoculate' a thinker against the complex idea, by making them consider the complex idea as being not worth investigating, by comparison to the simple one?
sorry these thoughts are all disconnected / rambly - i'm a parent too and this is how i spend my time off duty - hah
We seem to be in a VERY similar place! It sounds like you're where I was at the beginning of the year.
- I hadn't thought about memes and r/k selection, but I don't see why not- there's very obviously memes like useful academic and scientific theory that require a huge amount of upfront investment but receive nearly universal adoption in their domain, whereas others like urban legends and wive's tails that achieve much more widespread adoption but at lower rates by being short and easy to communicate.
- The first three posts of the blog are actually about memetic parasitism, superorganism, and informational life, they are definitely scruffier than this post though: https://laulpogan.substack.com/p/eosv-tldr
https://laulpogan.substack.com/p/20-things-i-hate-about-you
https://laulpogan.substack.com/p/abstraction-and-informational-mediums
- I read something on memetic inoculation somewhere but I'm having trouble remembering where. I think it's possible, but much more likely that there's just selection occurring on a different level. IMO most of the reason memetics failed was an addiction to darwinian "fitness" thinking, such that theories expected "fit" ideas to spread on their own- which just isn't the case.
please DM me on twitter or reach out on reddit or something- I'd love to chat more :)
Sure thing - do you have a reddit link? I'm guessing you are hesitant to share your email here; my reddit is reddit.com/u/gomboloid; DM me there for an email.