virus: Imagine yourself in a movie...
« on: 2005-04-09 22:31:14 »
Okay, here's a simple version -
Memetics is like putting on a television show. Larger than life. Meta is putting everything out larger than life, so that the audience interacts with it.
10x quantity of everything. It's about getting together to brainstorm how a conversation is going to go, and then going out and trying to influence a conversation. What we learn we relay onto each other and figure out more.
Memetics will only work on a grand scale as a collective experiment, an applied science. It's about problem solving, which means we need a problem.
Is there a problem that someone on this list really cares about, that we could use as an example?
deadletterb wrote: >Memetics will only work on a grand scale as a collective experiment, an >applied science. It's about problem solving, which means we need a >problem.
>Is there a problem that someone on this list really cares about, that >we could use as an example?
I have found that for me, the best way to learn a language for conveying information is to examine examples of that language to see how those examples work and why. That seems to apply whether I am talking about natural languages or computer languages. To a certain extent, I think the CoV is trying to learn the language of memetics and write a new text that serves us instead of the text itself. I think the best way to improve the chances of success is to study current examples of the texts the CoV is trying to replace.
I would like to see a categorical memetic analysis of the major tenets of the major religions. I would like to see a breakdown of both the positive and negative effects each of those tenets have on various aspects of society on culture, governance, interpersonal relationships, personal fulfilment, long term global effects, synergistic effects with other related tenets, checks & balances, and anything important facets that I've missed. Basically, I'm talking about establishing a reductionist survey of the major sociological, cultural, psychological, and economic impacts of memetic themes in religion, as seen through a lens of memetic interpretation. I believe this can only be done through a shared effort combining the insights of experts in different disciplines. I think that when similar analyses have been performed in the past, by Marx and others, they have been done with a pre-ordained agenda and focused on the negative aspects without understanding the positive aspects of religions and the roles they play in advancing civilization.
The approach I would expect to take would be to first enumerate the major themes/tenets and their common interpretations categorized within each religion. Analysis of the psychosocial effects of those tenets could then proceed. As the analysis of each of those tenets proceeds, certain patterns of effect should become apparent. The next phase would be to create a new view on the same tenets based on the categories and relationships between tenets which become apparent as a result of the first phase of analysis.
Once that is done, I think it's a lot more feasible to analyze which tenets are desired in a new religion. When some tenets are rejected for inclusion in the CoV because their negative aspects are deemed too strong and dangerous and swamp any positive attributes, the implications of that rejection will be better understood and the need for replacements, if necessary, can be more appropriately addressed due to an understanding of the pros and cons of the current systems.
There's a saying that for a project to be an engineering success, it must be a physical success (ie. the bridge doesn't fall down), a social success (it provides a valuable service and people use it), and an economic success (you don't go broke building it because it was more expensive than the payoff). I think that for a large-scale memetic engineering project (such as designing a new religion) to be a success, it must be a social and economic success, and it must satisfy or help control the major drives ingrained in human nature as a result biological and memetic evolution. I think the best way to achieve an understanding of those drives, and their relative importance, can come as much (or more) from examining how existing religions deal (or fail to deal) with them as it can from a study of psychology and evolutionary biology.
Having been agnostic for all of my adult life, my knowledge of the major religions is very superficial, as is what little knowledge I have of the soft sciences I refer to above. I think establishing a collaborative authoring environment would be good way to achieve such a goal and hope that there would be a wide enough variety of experience in the CoV membership to make such a project feasible. I've considered beginning such a project by myself but find the research involved daunting. However if the CoV found such a project worthwhile and could provide some of the physical resources necessary, I would be willing to make available what time and knowledge I have to initiating such a project and making it feasible.
RE: virus: Imagine yourself in a movie...
« Reply #2 on: 2005-04-10 04:54:49 »
global_hijack Sent: 10 April 2005 04:31 AM
Memetics will only work on a grand scale as a collective experiment, an applied science. It's about problem solving, which means we need a problem.
Is there a problem that someone on this list really cares about, that we could use as an example?
[Blunderov] Hey there GH. Here is a very big problem which I think would fit the bill. <snip> "A philosophical perspective of 9/11" Angelica Nuzzo:
"As the target of this new type of war, terrorism must be defined as "absolute evil," must be located beyond and without all legal jurisdiction, all international order - indeed, without any order as such.... "
..."The Bush administration had to construe 9/11 as uncaused, original evil, because 9/11 had to become the absolute ground of all responses that would follow. This ground could not be presented, in turn, as the effect of a determinate cause that one could investigate, nor could it be the deed of a rational agent who acted from comprehensible motives (albeit wrong or illegitimate ones) and who in consequence could be prosecuted. The definition of evil as the ungrounded original evil is from the outset a form of political expediency." "Thus, terrorism is construed...as a phenomenon lying outside and beyond any law - civil law as well as moral law, international law, the law of peace, as well as the law of war." </snip>
[Blunderov] This is such a big problem that it has become, by concensus, "off topic" at Virus due to the high potential for schism that it has engendered in the past. And we are not alone in this; when I last looked, even the Wikipedia had not advanced beyond first base and was mired in acrimony about the very definition of terrorism. But it ('terrorism') is, in my view anyway, THE central memetic issue at the moment. All of which is a bit awkward.
Perhaps we could form a (Virus sanctioned?) special task group of the like-minded in order to investigate this subject. Or use someone's blog as a venue? Or?
It seems to me that this is a memetic issue which is likely to have profound real-world effects one way or the other. My own view is that, until it is generally understood that classifying methods of struggle* as "moral" or "immoral" is a cynical device of the few to manipulate the many, we will continue to be led by our noses.
Best Regards.
*(This ain't no party, this ain't no disco. This ain't no fooling around!-Talking Heads.)
RE: virus: Imagine yourself in a movie...
« Reply #4 on: 2005-04-10 13:58:06 »
The late pope endorsed evolution.
-Jake
> [Original Message] > From: Z Moser <roachgod69@hotmail.com> > To: <virus@lucifer.com> > Date: 04/10/2005 8:45:32 AM > Subject: RE: virus: Imagine yourself in a movie... > > Mr Hijack: > > ***Is there a problem that someone on this list really cares about, that we > could use as an example?*** > > Zach: > > I want Darwinism and Chritianity to make up. > > zach > > > --- > To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
> [Original Message] > From: Z Moser <roachgod69@hotmail.com> > To: <virus@lucifer.com> > Date: 04/10/2005 8:45:32 AM > Subject: RE: virus: Imagine yourself in a movie... > > Mr Hijack: > > ***Is there a problem that someone on this list really cares about, that we > could use as an example?*** > > Zach: > > I want Darwinism and Chritianity to make up. > > zach > > > --- > To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
Re: virus: Imagine yourself in a movie...
« Reply #6 on: 2005-04-10 14:18:59 »
Oh, sure - give me the hard ones first. Ah well, I asked for it!
Okay, so we have two interpretation problems that we want to rewrite - 9-11 being a sourceless experience of true evil and evolution vs. xtianity
These are hard - but not impossible. Merely very difficult.
For 9-11 we would want to write a new interpretation and begin gluing information on to it that supports that interpretation. A key here is not to focus on what we want it NOT to be (defined in opposition - they still control the definition) - instead to define what we want it to be. Probably more than one interpretation.
I had thought about redefining 9-11 as 'being about the firefighters, the cops, the heroes', and that it is an insult to their brave memory to point to that event and kill MORE heroes (soldiers, American taxpayers). It's like murdering them on their graves.
That was the reinterpretation I had thought of awhile ago.
One difficulty is that the conversation about 9-11 gets brought up by the right, and not by the left. So we will also need ways to bring it up, to layer it into conversations.
Also, a question arises in 'who do we want to spread this meme to'? Where do we want it to come out? In the statements of everyday farmers and such? We would want them to be bringing up OUR way of looking at it _AS A CRITICISM of warmongering with 9-11.
Okay, so this little bit of brainstorming kicks out the following ideas, which I hope you will add to:
1) We need MANY redefinitions of 9-11, all of which point towards using their memory for warmongering as a sin - without directly saying so. 2) One is to focus on an archetype of a 'new american hero' - which is the servant of the people. Farmers, ACLU, Fireman, Police, Truckers, Teachers, Engineers - the real 'backbone of society'. 3) We want this imagery EVERYWHERE - in the language, in videos, in music.
4) Do we have the influence to push this? In the longest term, if CoV begins mapping how to influence the world - YES!
Second one: Evolution vs. xtianity
1) I believe that we could redefine xtianity and begin pushing OUR version of jesus. This would entail taking all our favorite bits of Jesus' life, and then framing them so that they are criticisms of the neoconservative use of Jesus. Then we dump MASSIVE amounts of information about these examples into christian chatrooms and boards all over, in order to provide armor and arguments to the middle of the road xtians who also resent the hijacking of Jesus for neocon efforts.
We infiltrate their boards, en masse, keeping a very subtle, low profile, and we stir up a huge fifth column. If we leave it amidst a raging debate over our points, we know we have succeeded. And if we do it right, NOBODY KNOWS WE WERE THERE!
I'm saying we pick a target, show up, dump massive amounts of information, and watch for synthesis.
The system will react like this:
First it will not notice us, until some critical mass of information exposure. Then it will understand us, supporting our comments without necessarily being able to _make_ our comments. Then it will begin paraphrasing us, helping to make our communications clearer - people stepping into the fray to 'help explain'. Then it will begin starting its own conversations along our lines, in its own way Then it will begin networking and getting ready to duplicate the meme.
When I say 'the system', I mean 'the individuals that make up the system'
If we are secretly conspiring to control that debate from here, we will have a huge advantage! That's all memetics has to be, for now - ONE GROUP META TO ANOTHER.
Am I starting to make sense NOW?
I want to get started, get some WORK going. It doesn't matter what work we try, as long as we try SOMETHING, to begin seeing how a group of people can influence others. With what I have learned, I can point out signs that the system is about to react with 'shutting down' messages, or the subtle signs that negative intent is going to be attributed.
I predict that we will see what NOT to do fairly quickly, and then we will leave these two GIANT memes for slightly later, and begin practicing with ones that are a little more manageable.
Conclusion:
We are in the brainstorming period: dump ideas! What relates to 9-11, terrorism, xtianity, Evolution? Dump it out, don't even bother trying to organize it.
then, we will connect information.
Then we will parse the connections down to the simple version.
Then we will discuss it.
Then we will come up with jokes and movies, and Dead Letter Productions will make the movies.
:-b
On Apr 10, 2005, at 1:54 AM, Blunderov wrote:
> global_hijack > Sent: 10 April 2005 04:31 AM > > Memetics will only work on a grand scale as a collective experiment, an > applied science. It's about problem solving, which means we need a > problem. > > Is there a problem that someone on this list really cares about, that > we could use as an example? > > [Blunderov] Hey there GH. Here is a very big problem which I think > would > fit the bill. > <snip> > "A philosophical perspective of 9/11" Angelica Nuzzo: > > "As the target of this new type of war, terrorism must be defined as > "absolute evil," must be located beyond and without all legal > jurisdiction, all international order - indeed, without any order as > such.... " > > ..."The Bush administration had to construe 9/11 as uncaused, original > evil, because 9/11 had to become the absolute ground of all responses > that would follow. This ground could not be presented, in turn, as the > effect of a determinate cause that one could investigate, nor could it > be the deed of a rational agent who acted from comprehensible motives > (albeit wrong or illegitimate ones) and who in consequence could be > prosecuted. The definition of evil as the ungrounded original evil is > from the outset a form of political expediency." > "Thus, terrorism is construed...as a phenomenon lying outside and > beyond > any law - civil law as well as moral law, international law, the law of > peace, as well as the law of war." </snip> > > [Blunderov] This is such a big problem that it has become, by > concensus, > "off topic" at Virus due to the high potential for schism that it has > engendered in the past. And we are not alone in this; when I last > looked, even the Wikipedia had not advanced beyond first base and was > mired in acrimony about the very definition of terrorism. But it > ('terrorism') is, in my view anyway, THE central memetic issue at the > moment. All of which is a bit awkward. > > Perhaps we could form a (Virus sanctioned?) special task group of the > like-minded in order to investigate this subject. Or use someone's blog > as a venue? Or? > > It seems to me that this is a memetic issue which is likely to have > profound real-world effects one way or the other. My own view is that, > until it is generally understood that classifying methods of struggle* > as "moral" or "immoral" is a cynical device of the few to manipulate > the > many, we will continue to be led by our noses. > > Best Regards. > > *(This ain't no party, this ain't no disco. This ain't no fooling > around!-Talking Heads.) > > > > > > --- > To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to > <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
Re: virus: Imagine yourself in a movie...
« Reply #7 on: 2005-04-11 13:50:34 »
I was actually thinking about Virians returning to churches IRL which they may have abandoned earlier, or in which they feel they could comfortably sit. For me this is easy as I grew up UU, but I've sat in my share of Methodist and Catholic Churches as well. And so what would be the point of this? To aquaint ourselves with various manifestations of the concept of Church. Perhaps have some influence, perhaps no, though at a minimum have something to share with other Virians back here, as we ourselves aspire for churchdom. Some interesting memetic techniques we encounter perhaps, or other thoughts on building community. Also perhaps some creative ideas for dealing with evangelism on their turf. My thinking is that if you have a program to stick to (like the Virtues and Sins), which isn't seriously offensive on its face, you will fare better. That way you don't go in from the position of unbelief, or disbelief, you come into the situation with things you believe in and a vision for dialogue and implementation (whether or not you actually get that far). Just a little cud chewing. . .
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Ah well, I asked for it!
