virus: How can we compete?
« on: 2003-02-09 14:21:01 »
I missed this first Sunday morning chat due to a prior appointment that I had with my pillow :-) Though I will see if I can make the next one. In lieu of my attendance today, I will make some comments on the chat topic provided by Jonathan "Limbic" as he submitted it to the Email list. Here follows Jonathan's topic teaser, and afterwards my comments:
[Limbic] Given that one of the aims of the CoV is to foster a memetic religion to replace the current set, how can we compete without creating true believers and virulent irrational memes that rely on rhetoric or deceitful propaganda for propagation?
I am wondering this after a series of depressing encounters with bigots and fanatics where they carried the crowd despite denying reality. Rhetoric trumps the truth. Furthermore it is hard to be truthful using rhetoric and near impossible to convince even a neutral audience when you are against someone who is but you do not.
Most terrifyingly, the zeal and anger of these people is taken as evidence of the truth of their claims, and their good faith. I was cast as a calculating villain using clever words and mind games to deceive and deny.
What chance do we stand against such people? Are thee short sharp shock type curatives for virulent chauvinism or fanaticism? Would a pro-CoV fanatic be a good thing or a bad thing?
P.S. Just in from the Philosophers Magazine quote of the day service:
"Look at what Christ said about sin. The sins of the flesh. He said that a man who had looked after a woman lustfully had sinned as much as the man who had seduced her. How absurd! If a man in good health does not experience some kind of sexual reaction when he sees an attractive woman, there is something wrong with him. Paul said some wicked things, but Christ started it."
Bertrand Russell --An Interview with Kenneth Harris
[Jake] I would hope that a pro-CoV "fanatic" would seem more tolerable than the Xian ones. After all we consider dogmatism one of our senseless sins, and I think that represents a lot of the attitude problems we encounter with Xian fanatics. Nonetheless anyone that gets into memetic conflict runs the risk of taking on characteristics of their opponents, and so that alone should serve as some warning to take frequent reality checks.
Secondly, I don't think we should try to convert everyone. I think we have developed a more practical attitude that we know CoV is not for everyone. Indeed such a PoV may give us some memetic advantages in taking a somewhat "elitist" view of ourselves. If you have made it this far and embraced the memes of the CoV, you probably ARE a generally smarter person who does appreciate intelligent rational discussion at least somewhat preferentially to emotionally wrought rhetoric. Go ahead and pat yourself on the back!
But remember this in dealing with other non-CoVers: we should try to maintain empathy even in dealing with people that we know will probably never embrace CoV. This elite feeling should not excuse you from addressing the arguments of the blind or the blinded. If you feel yourself pulling a haughty attitude with them, a little self-deprecation may be line for your memetic toolbox. Even if you know that a person may even be lost to the blindness, I bet you can still "upload" some more reasonable and rational CoV-friendly memes into their brains just by metaphorically flying under their radar. Remember that we are after minds and not bodies, and people can be of "several minds" on an issue even when they display only one. Another advantage we have is that generally we are better at going "off script" than the fundy Xians. As long as they are following their memetic program, they are VERY effective. Possibly more so than your average Virian. But the side effect of that is that if you can pull them off of their program they are generally very lost, whereas I have found that most Virians on the other hand usually enjoy these types of situations. When this happens, this is NOT the opportunity to make them feel like a dumbass as many other vindictive-type atheists may feel tempted to do. The first thing to do is to provide them with some empathy . . . like you or any other animal they need rewards for good behavior. After you have rewarded them a bit, then you can think of your next dialogue changes as you will finally have more of the memetic upper hand.
I think another thing to remember is that in one to one dialogue you probably have the advantage. But facing down a crowd is more difficult. They may "defeat" you through sheer energy alone, though I certainly would recommend being a good sport and refusing to shutdown regardless. With a little reason, and a little empathy, and a little vision, today's defeat can pave the way for tomorrow's victory.
Another thing to remember. Even if you can get a little disoriented, I bet you can always ask a question. Even if you don't know where it leads, it will probably at least lead to another question. One thing that can truly take someone off program is the question that they didn't expect. If you search long enough with enough empathy and vision, I bet you can find that question.
Re: virus: How can we compete?
« Reply #2 on: 2003-02-09 23:18:25 »
[Jake]Indeed such a PoV may give us some memetic advantages in taking a somewhat "elitist" view of ourselves.
(massive snippage)
[Mermaid]I'd like to know more details about this encounter limbic had with the 'bigots and fanatics' in which his virian attributes caused him to be "cast as a calculating villain using clever words and mind games to deceive and deny."
Re: virus: How can we compete?
« Reply #3 on: 2003-02-10 04:20:36 »
> > > [Mermaid]I'd like to know more details about this encounter limbic had > with the 'bigots and fanatics' in which his virian attributes caused > him to be "cast as a calculating villain using clever words and mind > games to deceive and deny."
Yes, me too!
missed the chat, I had a prior appointment with a bridge
Re: virus: How can we compete?
« Reply #4 on: 2003-02-10 06:18:16 »
Hi Mermaid,
Suffice it to say, I have recently taken a walk through Speakers Corner.
Regards
Jonathan
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mermaid ." <britannica@hotmail.com> To: <virus@lucifer.com> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 4:18 AM Subject: Re: virus: How can we compete?
> [Jake]Indeed such a PoV may give us some memetic advantages in taking a > somewhat "elitist" view of ourselves. > > (massive snippage) > > [Mermaid]I'd like to know more details about this encounter limbic had with > the 'bigots and fanatics' in which his virian attributes caused him to be > "cast as a calculating villain using clever words and mind games to deceive > and deny." > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus > > --- > To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
Re: virus: How can we compete?
« Reply #5 on: 2003-02-10 07:43:39 »
...Hi Mermaid...i dont have much time these days, but i would like to offer you a nice sound spank. more for your resiliance and consistancy than for your pure mutual adoration of senor sebby:)
..by the way, whenever people mention the CoV chat sessions, go out of your way to repeat the date and time of them. thanks;)
Suffice it to say, I have recently taken a walk through Speakers Corner.
Regards
Jonathan
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mermaid ." <britannica@hotmail.com> To: <virus@lucifer.com> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 4:18 AM Subject: Re: virus: How can we compete?
> [Jake]Indeed such a PoV may give us some memetic advantages in taking a > somewhat "elitist" view of ourselves. > > (massive snippage) > > [Mermaid]I'd like to know more details about this encounter limbic had with > the 'bigots and fanatics' in which his virian attributes caused him to be > "cast as a calculating villain using clever words and mind games to deceive > and deny." > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus > > --- > To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
Re:virus: How can we compete?
« Reply #6 on: 2003-02-10 08:16:02 »
Given that a CoV fanatic would certainly be as UTistic as any religious fanatic, I don't think that could be described as a good thing, and could be equally described as being counter productive. My prejudice has been that imperviousness to reason and argument on the part of believers probably tends to relate a prior emotional, rather than intellectual, attraction to religion, either for personal or social reasons. Which, by its very nature, can be very difficult to counter.
Apologies for missing the chat, I must have got my wires crossed and thought we were starting next Sunday. I had in any case a prior engagement with the Aztecs exhibition at the Royal Academy. Have we considered use of obsidian knives to faciltate religious conversion at all?
...Hi Mermaid...i dont have much time these days, but i would like to offer you a nice sound spank. more for your resiliance and consistancy than for your pure mutual adoration of senor sebby:)
..by the way, whenever people mention the CoV chat sessions, go out of your way to repeat the date and time of them. thanks;)
[Mermaid]It wasnt about xianity at all, was it? Anyways, assuming that you are referring to the original Speaker's Corner. I dont think you should take the heckling at Speaker's Corner seriously. Heckling on Speaker's Corner is part of British culture which seems to have adopted a new disease which seems to be spreading all over the world.
[Mermaid]On a related note re the new disease, did you hear about the British Govt's ban on the anti-war march to Hyde Park's Speaker's Corner that was to take place on Feb 15, 2003.
[Mermaid]Across the pond, UFP(United for Peace and Justice)will, however, march for peace past the UN plaza and through midtown Manhattan and end the rally in Central Park. On Feb 15th! New York City refused to issue a permit for the parade under any circumstances.
[Mermaid]Coincidence? Must be.
[Mermaid]How does one 'compete' when one is gagged and banned?
I believe it's important not try to "kill" the meme through insecticides, but rather examine the environment that allowed it to evolve in the first place, and destroy that environment.
The fanatic meme(be-great-after-you-die) evolves everywhere life is tough. If living is hard and tough, then the hosts memeological defense system weakens, and the host become a simple target for meme-infection. The solution ? Making people's lives easier would cause their memeological system to strengthen and make them less susceptible to infections. I have phatih that the only way to strengthen people's meme-imunological system is by lessening their tough life conditions. Otherwise, they're set to be infected by auto-toxic memes such as the terrorist martyrdom.
love, Rafael
> [Jake]Indeed such a PoV may give us some memetic advantages in taking a > somewhat "elitist" view of ourselves. > > (massive snippage) > > [Mermaid]I'd like to know more details about this encounter limbic had with > the 'bigots and fanatics' in which his virian attributes caused him to be > "cast as a calculating villain using clever words and mind games to deceive > and deny." > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus > > --- > To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
Re: virus: How can we compete?
« Reply #10 on: 2003-02-10 10:28:43 »
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mermaid ." <britannica@hotmail.com> To: <virus@lucifer.com> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 2:34 PM Subject: Re: virus: How can we compete?
> [Jonathan Davis] Suffice it to say, I have recently taken a walk through > Speakers Corner. > > [Mermaid]I see. I'd still like to know about the topic and your virian > stance that invited that kind of vitriol as you described. > > [Mermaid]Ok. I just went over this very carefully...once again... > http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::HhYJQhNI-XUtn-Qi4x-KAhs-KRBoQT x5W2ZO > .. > > [Mermaid]It wasnt about xianity at all, was it?
Not specifically. Religion, racism, sexism, feminism, communism...whatever the format, the zeal of ideology is more attractive that our calm reasoned positions. You can point out to some angry man on a podium that he is talking rubbish. You show conclusively that he is mistaken and he does not even flinch. It is like hitting a brute with a rock only to have him shake his head and say "Is that your best shot?" What is worse is that the crowd favours the zealot. Humans love emotion. The truth is unpopular. Conversion for us takes huge amounts of time and efforts - often preceded by at least competent education. In the demon-haunted world, we are heavily outnumbered and outgunned by our rivals.
Re: virus: How can we compete?
« Reply #11 on: 2003-02-10 12:48:11 »
In a message dated 2/10/2003 8:39:49 AM Central Standard Time, britannica@hotmail.com writes:
[Mermaid]Across the pond, UFP(United for Peace and Justice)will, however, march for peace past the UN plaza and through midtown Manhattan and end the rally in Central Park. On Feb 15th! New York City refused to issue a permit for the parade under any circumstances.
[Jake] Under ANY circumstances? hmmmmmmm. Well if they really wanted to keep them out they shoulda at least come up with some bogus reasons unrelated to the content of their message, but saying they won't allow the march under ANY circumstances indicates content restriction rather than time, place, and manner restrictions, and at least so far the Supremes still tend to rule against straight content restrictions even though some city will always try it every year, with groups like the KKK or Nazis etc. Sounds like a trip to the judicial system might be in order for the organizers.
Re:virus: How can we compete?
« Reply #12 on: 2003-02-10 17:03:00 »
[rhinoceros] Hmm... How can we compete?
As Jonathan said, you may face fanatism, denial, emotional reactions and all the tricks of the trade of rhetorics... This is true, although I am not sure what Jonathan was trying to argue for in that instance.
As Mermaid said, you may simply be gagged and banned, in which case non-memetic or unrelated memetic factors get in the way of a competition of memes. This works the other way too, when money can buy media.
Well... so much for pure reason, but we already knew that, didn't we. We have always been talking about memetic infections, even about our own memetic infection (although we are not sure yet what exactly that should be).
Now that I think of it, I have never managed to change anyone's mind about anything by using what I considered to be pure reason, except if it was about a trivial issue practically unrelated to anything else. Why?
It seems that memes, reasonable memes, even tautological memes or pure observations, do not go into the brain as spice in a soup. They have to take their place in a framework, a network of other memes, to make any sense. If they don't have their place in someone's memetic framework, they just don't make sense to that someone and they are rejected. Usually, the transmitted memes are not complete. They always have an implied part which is in place in the brain of the receiver.
So, we should not assume that we can possibly change that framework with just a couple of discussions, especially if the memetic framework in someone's brain is the result of a whole live's experience. I think, that is why the failure of a targetted effort to pass a meme to a person can be so frustrating and logically inexplicable to any one of us. And of course, that is also why we believe that we are right -- because what we say fits nicely in our memetic framework.
All that was not about the value of our belief system. It was about the way memes transmit and take hold. If we are interested in targeting persons, rather that just developing our ideas and passing them around, the best we can do with our current resources is building up our community and expecting from people who are interested in whatever we are talking about to adopt our common memetic framework in order to be accepted and to be able to communicate better.
What common framework? Well.. that is a different topic...
Re: virus: How can we compete?
« Reply #13 on: 2003-02-10 19:07:15 »
[Jake] Under ANY circumstances? hmmmmmmm. Well if they really wanted to keep them out they shoulda at least come up with some bogus reasons unrelated to the content of their message, but saying they won't allow the march under ANY circumstances indicates content restriction rather than time, place, and manner restrictions, and at least so far the Supremes still tend to rule against straight content restrictions even though some city will always try it every year, with groups like the KKK or Nazis etc. Sounds like a trip to the judicial system might be in order for the organizers.
[Mermaid]The city is being sued. I dont think it matters. Beware the Ides of March.
>[rhinoceros] >Hmm... How can we compete? > >As Jonathan said, you may face fanatism, denial, emotional reactions and all the tricks of the trade of rhetorics... This is true, although I am not sure what Jonathan was trying to argue for in that instance. > >As Mermaid said, you may simply be gagged and banned, in which case non-memetic or unrelated memetic factors get in the way of a competition of memes. This works the other way too, when money can buy media. > >Well... so much for pure reason, but we already knew that, didn't we. We have always been talking about memetic infections, even about our own memetic infection (although we are not sure yet what exactly that should be). > >Now that I think of it, I have never managed to change anyone's mind about anything by using what I considered to be pure reason, except if it was about a trivial issue practically unrelated to anything else. Why? > >It seems that memes, reasonable memes, even tautological memes or pure observations, do not go into the brain as spice in a soup. They have to take their place in a framework, a network of other memes, to make any sense. If they don't have their place in someone's memetic framework, they just don't make sense to that someone and they are rejected. Usually, the transmitted memes are not complete. They always have an implied part which is in place in the brain of the receiver. > >So, we should not assume that we can possibly change that framework with just a couple of discussions, especially if the memetic framework in someone's brain is the result of a whole live's experience. I think, that is why the failure of a targetted effort to pass a meme to a person can be so frustrating and logically inexplicable to any one of us. And of course, that is also why we believe that we are right -- because what we say fits nicely in our memetic framework. > >All that was not about the value of our belief system. It was about the way memes transmit and take hold. If we are interested in targeting persons, rather that just developing our ideas and passing them around, the best we can do with our current resources is building up our community and expecting from people who are interested in whatever we are talking about to adopt our common memetic framework in order to be accepted and to be able to communicate better. > >What common framework? Well.. that is a different topic... > > > >---- >This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2003 board on Church of Virus BBS. ><http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=54;action=display;threadid=27797> >--- >To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l> > > > One method I've always had at least some success with would be to, in a sense, anchor yourself to something they already believe in, or are willing to accept. With that as a starting point, you could expand that logically to either point it in a more reasonable direction, or in the case of anchoring to complete absurdity you could follow it logically -- using small and obvious steps to make sure they're understanding your logic -- to prove it's obsurdity. Another possibility would be to show the antithesis of the absurd point in a reality anchored way. If the other person has a problem following your logic, or disagrees with it all together, a good tactic typically is to expand your scope, or narrow your logical steps, spelling it out for them like a mathematical proof, confirm all logical steps with your listener. If this doesn't work, well... it's hard to argue with someone who denies logic it's self.
While I'm on the topic, there is a book titled "Changing belief systems with NLP" which I had a chance to glance through at borders the other day. Interesting stuff, and I've had a lot of personal success with NLP as a whole, but have never thought to aply it to such a field... I wish I could remember the authors name for you all, but if you can find it, I'd like to hear some feedback on that.
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