Re: virus: playing safe with supernaturalism

Nathan Russell (frussell@frontiernet.net)
Fri, 12 Jun 1998 23:28:54 -0400


Paul Prestopnik wrote:

> I did not mean to imply that I thought <religion> was going to continue to be a
> succesfull meme. In fact, I think that within my life time the %infected by
> <religion> will fall dramatically. In this case I feel it is because the
> environment is changing. <Religion> will either have to mutate (I think so
> radically it will be difficult to still call it <religion> ) or will be replaced
> by a more virulant meme. Possibly psuedo-science.
>
> > Would "genetic time" be faster yet than atomic time? Could you be talking
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by atomic time.
>
> > about rate of change instead of just rate of transmission? This is an
>
> I felt that memes change *and* transmit faster than genes.
>

Also, a host can voluntarily change its own memes before transmitting them - if I want
to go around saying to first graders that communism is a religion which worships
Halley's Comet, some of them may be infected by that concept and link the word and its
new meaning for a very long time, while I myself have an unaltered copy of the true
meaning of the word 'communism'. If I wish to have a child who has black eyes and I
mary a woman who, like myself, has blue eyes, all the wishing in the world won't
affect what is transmitted to that baby.

> > interesting distinction that you make, but I am skeptical to treat memetic
> > time, genetic time, and actual time as distinct. To us it seems like a lot of
>
> I meant to distinguish them as dog years are distinguished. I can't think of a
> better example, but I know it is out there.
>
> > time, because it is important to us. But evolution is full of dead ends that
> > in retrospect do not seem relatively important to anyone today accept a few
> > researchers that discover them.
>
> I agree that religion may very well become a memetic dead end. I do think that it
> has evolved well over the years, but that the environment will change too
> rapidly. Looking at society from 40 years ago, religion was probably evolved
> near to it's utmost virulence.
>

Yes, let's hope so. Quasireligious, unquestioning belief, however, will last.
Examples from the last 100-150 years which endured/endure for extended lengths of time
despite lack of validility or fundamentally manipulative nature would include:

1. Stalinism/Nazism
2. War heroes - look at tolerance of actions of Gen. MacArthur
3. The theory of inheretence of aquired characteristics
4. The modem tax
5. Letter solicitations for Craig Shergold
6. Dan Quayle's national politician status - see recent quote from this week's Time in
my sig below.

> <Religion> may leave us and other memes may infect huge portions of the
> population, but it may be that society (meme's environment (or at least a piece of
> it)) may continue to change so rapidly that no memes will gain a foothold as
> secure (and lasting) as religions (in absolute time).

That sounds likely.

--
"I am confident that the Republicans will pick a nominee that will beat Bill Clinton"
-Dan Quayle on the 2000 presidential election

Nathan Russell frussell@frontiernet.net