To be honest, I don't even really know who he is. I understand he has written
a book about memes and memetics, which I have never seen nor read myself.
Most of the published stuff I have read about memes is through Daniel Dennet,
Richard Dawkins, and Aaron Lynch. To my memory, I don't recall any of them
mentioning or citing Mr. Brodie. So if I made no effort to penetrate his
fantasy, I really apologize. I didn't know it was important.
All that aside, I can appreciate his February comments that this list becomes
vacuous at times. I agree. Any indefinitely long conversation is bound to
lapse at times. Call it punctuated equillibrium, or equillibriated
punctuation. If you are relying on only one multilogue for intellectual
stimulation, no matter how enlightened everyone in the discussion is, it will
lag at times. There are periods of time where I don't read the list at all
for this reason. My posting is even more sporadic. Brodie's February post
happened during one of those lags so I missed it.
I don't think the answer is to castigate everyone, call them dullards, and
talk about how gullible they are. I think the answer is to branch out and
check back from time to time. If you just look carefully enough there are
islands of intelligence throughout the morass of cyberspace. Better yet,
start up another one or jump start an idling one yourself.
I am not very impressed at Brodie's Brett stunt. I have done this myself a
few times elsewhere in cyberspace, and frankly it bores me anymore. Yes, it
is very easy to fool people, even intelligent ones, if the only cues they have
are words. Big whoop. That's inanely easy and simple. I certainly hope
there was more to Brodie's experiment than getting his jollies out of
decieving people. If not then maybe he needs to get a life or go to a sex
chatroom.
Never-the-less, I think this list is good often enough to keep my subscription
to it. Sure a lot of it goes unread and eventually deleted, but there are
occasional gems and good exchanges that make it worthwhile.
-Jake