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Topic: virus: More on Memes (1986 L5 News article) (Read 998 times) |
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virus: More on Memes (1986 L5 News article)
« on: 2003-10-28 19:20:23 » |
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Lucifer asked me to post this article because it directly relates to the
motivational problems of CoV.
L5 NEWS. June 1986
Notes. NSI is National Space Institute, founded by Von Braun. It and L5
eventually merged forming the bland National Space Society. SPS, Solar
Power Satellite a proposed way to harvest vast amounts of sunlight and beam
it to Earth on microwaves to solve the energy crisis for good.
More on Memes
by H. Keith Henson
(The below three sentences were picked out and boxed by the editor.)
"There is a great deal of raw data on replicating information patterns in
human cultures, though little of it has been analyzed in terms of memes "
"People who are seriously concerned with the long range future of the race
are extremely rare. "
"A long standing problem with L5 is that the space colony meme has always
been long on motivation and short on possible real actions directed to
developing space colonies. "
In his soon-to-be-published book Society of Mind, L5 director and
world-renowned artificial intelligence investigator Dr. Marvin Minsky
remarks that reasoning by analogy lies at the very heart of our abilities
to solve complex problems by comparing them with problems we can already
solve. Memetics is based on a particularly powerful analogy made by Richard
Dawkins in _The Selfish Gene_ between replicating information patterns
(which he called memes) and living things (genes and organisms). The
analogy leads us to use what we know about biological systems to model,
understand, and predict how ideas will interact with individuals or groups
of people.
The primary theme of Minsky's book is that minds are made of vast
collections of relatively simple "agents" arranged in networks where agents
activate other agents. Memes, I believe, are information patterns that
build some types of agents in the mind.
The agent a successful meme builds activates other agents to get the meme
copied to other minds - in the clearest cases by outright proselytizing.
Less vigorous memes are passed on to new hosts by the written word and
public education. Memes sometimes induce those they have infected to other
actions, ranging from expressing opinions to a pollster to blowing up a
truckload of dynamite from the front seat. People so intensely infected
with a meme that their own survival becomes inconsequential to them are
called memeoids.
There is a great deal of raw data on replicating information patterns in
human cultures, though little of it has been analyzed in terms of
memes/mental agents. A classic example is _When Prophecy Fails_ by
Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter, an "inside" study of a small,
short-lived end-of-the-world cult that attracted considerable media
attention in 1951. The rise and fall of the cult was compressed into an
epidemic-like episode of a few months, declining and dying out when the
predicted disaster failed to occur.
The rise and fall of such groups is closely analogous to epidemics with
memes as the infecting agents. A new meme (such as our space colony/SPS
meme was in 1975) should be expected to spread out to the limits of its
ecological niche. The spread of memes is accurately described by the same
mathematical models used to predict the course of epidemics. Unfortunately,
the space colony meme (SCM) now seems to be on the downhill side of the
epidemic curve.
In "Memes, L5, and the Religion of the Space Colonies" (L5 News, September
1985), I linked the current difficulties of L5 to the space colony meme
losing its power to infect and motivate minds. A major reason for the loss
is discordance between the promise of the space colony meme (large numbers
of people living in space within our lifetimes) and the current reality (no
widely recognized path to space colonies anywhere on the horizon). The
effect on L5 members is similar to what happened to the end-of-world (EOW)
cult members when the world didn't end. A survey would find thousands of
former L5 members who dropped out because they couldn't see any prospects
for progress.
One approach to reducing the discordance is to admit that we have no hope
for significant numbers of people living in space in the next fifty years
or more. I don't believe this will work, but to evaluate this and other
proposals, I will have to speculate on the internal workings of a meme's
host. Eventually work on memes and agents should make this better understood.
The main reason I don't think the long haul approach will induce many
people to work hard on space colonies is the way we discount the future.
People who are seriously concerned with the long-range future of the race
are extremely rare. That there are any is a wonder since the trait is
usually detrimental to genetic survival. If space colonization is well
beyond our personal horizon, members of groups concerned with it must be
drawn from this tiny segment of the population. I was surprised to find in
a recent informal poll of an L5 chapter that virtually all said they were
in for a long haul and did not expect personally to go into space. At
present, L5 may be hanging together more from the social rewards it gives
active members than from any expectation of space colonies in our working
lifetimes.
Conversely, the prospects of being personally involved, living and working
in space open a much larger segment of the population to infection by the
space colony meme. It is interesting to note that surveys following the
Challenger disaster found that about fifty percent of the population would
ride a Shuttle if they got the chance.
As to why the space colony meme is infective, I think the attractiveness of
new lands has a strong genetic and memetic base. We are to a large extent
the genetic and cultural heirs of people who were attracted to and moved
into vacant areas of the planet (perhaps this explains the larger than
proportional number of members from California).
As the space colony meme has become less believable in recent years, the L5
leadership has been trying to redefine L5's supporting memes away from
space colonies to any and all nonmilitary memes related to space such as
dull, expensive NASA Space Stations; splashy, expensive Mars missions;
space manufacturing; and even communications satellites. Unfortunately none
of these tap either the "new lands" factor or offers the possibility of
significant personal involvement (hold up your hand if you think you have a
chance for the Mars mission). An organization based on this complex of
memes will have to draw its members from either the tiny "long-range"
segment of the population or from the vicarious fans of Science (Planetary
Society types).
L5's survival could be based on these memes, but if it goes this way, the
organization will face considerable competition for members. I also doubt
that this group of memes could excite the near memeoid level of dedication
to the SCM we see in L5 members. They certainly don't excite NSI members.
In one way memes are very different from other infectious agents. We can
consciously mold or modify them in ways we think might improve their power
over our minds. Dr. Gerard O'Neill purposely looked around to see if one of
the major issues of the day could be spliced into the space colony
meme/concept/idea. The energy crisis was the big concern of 1974/75, and
the Solar Power Satellite was a good choice to turn an appealing, but
impossible-to-fund concept into an economically justifiable project.
An alternative to moving away from the space colony meme is to modify it
the way Dr. O'Neill did. In the last year or two such an opportunity has
arisen, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Powered by the conflict
between the intolerant communist meme and the pluralistic western metameme
of diversity, SDI does not need economic justification of the same kind as
SPS. It must be cheaper to kill weapons than to make more of them, but this
is a weak constraint.
The highest levels of the Defense Department have endorsed the meme of
using extraterrestrial materials to solve the vulnerability problem of
space-based assets by shielding them. The saga of this meme must be an
interesting one from its first appearance in print, "Space Forts...," L5
News, June 1979 to Dr. James Wade's talk at the Large Scale Technology
Venturing Conference in 1984 (see the excerpt from Dr. Wade's article in
the August 1984 L5 News). It is entirely possible that it has arisen in
several people independently.
Two years ago, just before finding Dr. Wade's article, I was ready to lead
an effort to try to stop destablizing SDI programs (see "Weapons for
Peace," L5 News, June 1984). It is hard to describe how gratifying it is to
discover that the opposition is on your side.
Until we get nanotechnology, the extraterrestrial materials meme (ETM) is
the critical element for space colonies. SDI shielding needs, according to
an article by Dr. Lowell Wood of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, are in the
million-ton region. Given the high level (75%) of public support for SDI,
the US government might contract to buy a million tons of asteroid or moon
rock for shielding if a company would undertake to return it to various
Earth orbits.
There are many technical ways this might be accomplished. The now classic
concept of a mass driver on the Moon (catcher at L2, etc.) is a candidate
though there are still engineering uncertainties in the critical
technologies and Moon rock is a material of limited use. An easier project
(engineering not much advanced over Apollo and Voyager) would put perhaps
6,000-10,000 small chemical or electrical propulsion rock carriers to work
shuttling around the inner solar system, remotely mining some of the 500 to
1,000 accessible asteroids. Given a two-four year trip time, 30-ton loads
per trip, and aerobreaking for Earth-orbit capture, such a fleet could
return 100,000 tons per year over ten years.
A critical element in this project would be to use some of the returned
material to fuel the next trip out. As little as five percent would do
using electrical propulsion. Chemical propulsion could take up to
twenty-five percent of the returned mass.
As large as it is, this project is close enough to current space practice
to analyze its cost, which has not yet been done. If private capital could
do it for perhaps $6 billion, a $20 billion ($10 per pound) guarantee might
be enough to start the equivalent of the '49ers gold rush. And (surprise!)
accessible resources in space and a large and growing level of activity
leads directly to settlements. Just unloading and refurbishing thirty dirt
carriers a day would take several hundred people, and the SDI folks are
interested in structural parts too!
It will take considerable effort to make a rough concept like this into a
meme acceptable to the scientific and engineering communities. We need much
more detailed plans and cost estimates. A summer study like the ones held
in the seventies on space colonies would help. There may be a showstopper,
but if the study results look good, then the project would need to be sold
to the rest of the SDI community, which is far from a monolithic block.
Then the military and the military support block in Congress will need to
be convinced that this is a good use of $2 billion a year of military money
for ten years. And, of course, the public will have to be sold on the
concept both to support the political process leading up to the guarantee
and then to put money into the venture organization.
The major reason L5 has not taken any stand regarding SDI is a perception
by the leadership that the L5 membership is antimilitary. A few very vocal
antimilitary members, many of them active in chapters, have created this
incorrect perception. The bulk of the membership does not care one way or
other (see inset). At worst L5 would lose eight percent of its members
while some seventeen percent would become more active. Also, if discounting
the future is as important a factor in meme attractiveness as it seems to
be, the new space colony meme using the short military shielding path would
become much more effective in recruiting believers, and some of these
should turn into additional members for L5.
Frankly, I think we have only a short window in which to build space
colonies, certainly no more than thirty years. In Engines of Creation, Eric
Drexler doesn't think we have that much time. After that, nanotechnology
will make it easy to do, but could change our deepest mental agents to
where we don't want space colonies, if not entirely destroy the biosphere.
Building space colonies before nanotechnology comes along would give us
both places to try the most dangerous experiments and perhaps a refuge if
disaster strikes.
Recently I asked one L5 officer if he knew of any other course that could
lead to substantial human habitation of space within the next twenty years.
His response was no, and in addition, he thought that our chances were no
better than five percent of getting there on the military bandwagon. I
think a five percent chance is far better then no chance at all.
A long standing problem for L5 is that the space colony meme has always
been long on motivation and short on possible real actions directed to
developing space colonies. This lack of outlets for highly motivated people
may be the reason there have been so many internal fights in L5 independent
of who was in charge. Here we have a specific program (in outline at least)
that leads directly to space colonies in a short time. It will involve a
tremendous amount of work. The reader should consider this article a call
to action on a specific course leading to colonies in space. 15
L5 NEWS. June 1986
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David Lucifer
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Re:virus: More on Memes (1986 L5 News article)
« Reply #1 on: 2003-10-31 09:49:15 » |
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[hkhenson] A long standing problem for L5 is that the space colony meme has always
been long on motivation and short on possible real actions directed to
developing space colonies. This lack of outlets for highly motivated people
may be the reason there have been so many internal fights in L5 independent
of who was in charge. Here we have a specific program (in outline at least)
that leads directly to space colonies in a short time. It will involve a
tremendous amount of work. The reader should consider this article a call
to action on a specific course leading to colonies in space.
[Lucifer] Thanks for scanning and posting this. How did the L5 membership react to
the military-oriented meme? Were your predictions more or less correct (about the
fraction that would resign over it)? Was this proposal the last attempt to kickstart
the L5? Did it die with the SDI?
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hkhenson@rogers...
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Re:virus: More on Memes (1986 L5 News article)
« Reply #2 on: 2003-10-31 22:06:29 » |
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At 07:49 AM 31/10/03 -0700, you wrote:
>[hkhenson] A long standing problem for L5 is that the space colony meme
>has always
>been long on motivation and short on possible real actions directed to
>developing space colonies. This lack of outlets for highly motivated people
>may be the reason there have been so many internal fights in L5 independent
>of who was in charge. Here we have a specific program (in outline at least)
>that leads directly to space colonies in a short time. It will involve a
>tremendous amount of work. The reader should consider this article a call
>to action on a specific course leading to colonies in space.
>
>[Lucifer] Thanks for scanning and posting this. How did the L5 membership
>react to
>the military-oriented meme?
More or less didn't. The "call to action" fell on deaf ears.
>Were your predictions more or less correct (about the
>fraction that would resign over it)?
Since it didn't happen, don't know how they would have reacted.
>Was this proposal the last attempt to kickstart
>the L5?
More or less. The writing had been on the wall for a while. I don't
remember exactly when we published the chapter out of Freeman Dyson's book
_Disturbing the Universe_ but that laid out the problem, space was 10,000
times to expensive to colonize. It would take a rise in income of about
100 (possible during the run up to the singularity) and a reduction of 100
in the cost of going into space . . . which is easy with a skyhook made of
carbon nanotubes.
>Did it die with the SDI?
I think L5 died independent of SDI. For that matter, so did SDI.
Keith Henson
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