Re: virus: Meme, the Underlying Cause

Brett Lane Robertson (unameit@tctc.com)
Tue, 07 Oct 1997 12:39:27 -0500


At 10:13 AM 10/7/97 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
>
>On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Brett Lane Robertson wrote:
>
>> By IQ.
>
>Going up or down the list? Should I take being called soulless pagan
>early on as complement or a dis? :-)
>
>-Tim
>
I thought you'd like the answer and I'm not sure why. I also thought about
the question "going up or down the list". Have you ever been to an AA
meeting? Someone throws out a topic...everyone speaks to it in order of
their ranking in the group...and the person who is at the top of the
hiearchy sums everything up (or sometimes it's the person at the bottom--an
inverted pyramid...sometimes the person who started the mess--a circular
dynamic)? In such a case, the dynamic can't be the predominant determinant
of the response order...would it be "group ranking"? And if group
ranking...by what criteria are the members ranked (I.Q., money, attendence,
longevitiy, "sobriety")?

In AA, it's kind of clear cut...the lowest members of the group are
newcomers and are picked on by everyone else who hopes that the newbies will
go back out and drink while the oldtimers survive off of the newbies
hardships. In this group, there are those who rise through opposition to
the established power base (confronting Richard every time he posts)...those
who rise on the coat-tails of the up-and-coming through agreement and
support...those who contribute new ideas and wish to rise on their own
merits, etc.

I don't really know why people are becoming offended nor what their ranking
is or by what standards. I have noticed that when my logic reaches a
certain point, people start making excuses and dropping like flies. Most do
not survive long enough to merit my pointed comments (shaking off the last
hangers-on). I would say that you *do*...that my own standard is IQ
(loosely interpreted to mean lack of defense mechanisms against an inate
ability to form good conclusions). ..and therefore that you rank high on the
list of intellligence...but that the point where insult occurs depends on
the dynamics of the thread being discussed (and that an insult is not an
insult unless someone takes offense).

Brett

Returning,
rBERTS%n
Rabble Sonnet Retort
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left
to chance.

Robert R. Coveyou
Oak Ridge National Laboratory