Re: virus: How did we get here? (from: Un-natural De-selection)

tom.holz (tom.holz@pobox.com)
Sat, 16 Aug 1997 01:10:08 -0400


>What brought you to Church of Virus? to the field of memetics?

6-10 months ago, I was innocently browsing the http://net and found the CoV
page through yahoo. I suspect I was wasting time looking for info on
computer viri. I remember reading the warning on the door-page, and after
.5 hours, I was on the list. From y'all (mainly Richard and the now silent
Dave Pape[1]) I was subsequently infected with <memetics>.

[1] I mourn his silence and re-read his archived posts.

>And what have you read (briefly) on the subject of memetics so far?
>(No need to be ashamed if it isn't much. This is a (meta-)meme after all.
>Word of mouth is as valid a transmission method as any other!)

Until this summer, I had read nothing on memetics. Of course, I had read
very few science type book anyways. But I finally forced myself to read
_The_Selfish_Gene_--and I've built my memetics memeset[2] by translating
genetic darwinism. And though my wish-list is long, my pocket is shallow.
(fortunately WoM is a valid transmission method :)

[2] <meme> denotes the meme for memes. is there a notation for
representing a set of similar memes like the various flavors of
<christianity> or <memetics>.

UNRELATED NEWS:
Just returned from Event Horizon. worse than I expected. It even came
close to Crash and The Feebles. I feel as though some integral part of my
being has been ripped from me . metaphorically speaking.

(reading too much tolkien, and feeling much too self-referential)
tom.