User:Paxuscalta/MemeticsLab

The Memetics Lab (ML) is think tank and test bed for self replicating cultural constructs. Specifically, ML is seeking to identify and refine propsective Super Memes as described below, with the intention of releasing and fostering them.

From a story perspective, our heroes would (perhaps) go to a physical lab somewhere that the concepts below are being discussed and debated. Meme's are being analyzed using the tail, hooks, feet anatomical structure. A debate about Marxism/Communism and Christianity from a memetic anatomy erspective, seems a great potential rant.

Super Meme Construction Kit
The purpose of this document is to outline some of the current thinking on the anatomy and design considerations for building a new generation of memes.

A super meme is a self-replicating idea that is so powerful and popular that once it is identified and expressed it transforms society and culture. Examples of super memes include: Christianity, Communism, Social Darwinism, Islam, the sexual revolution and 12 step programs. Super memes have also been called irresistible ideas.

The prevailing collection of super memes have failed us as a culture, they have not produced societies that value fairness, sustainability or peace. The design of a super meme is complex work; it involves identifying concepts that are both compelling and accessible to listeners and encourages behavior that propagates the meme. Successful memes have a positive feedback mechanism, thus growing the influence of the idea and improving their chances for spreading with each use.

Anatomy: The current thinking is that a meme has three principal body components: feet, hooks and tail.

The feet of a meme are the vehicles with which the idea spreads itself. Capitalists call this part of the anatomy the marketing tools, politicos refer to it as the propaganda method. These delivery systems help carry the meme to those who might embrace it. In the case of Christianity, there are many types of feet including missionaries, televangelism, leaving bibles in hotel rooms, dedicated churches and cathedrals, etc.

The hook of a meme is the what makes it stick to the listener, why they embrace it as both something that is true for them and (potentially via the feet) something they want to tell other people about. There are also many forms of hooks, they can be social in nature, where people embrace ideas and associated behaviors, because they want to be with the other people who believe the same things. Hooks can also be more cognitive, logically, spiritually or emotionally appealing or compelling. There are numerous hooks for Christianity, including the ideas that if you follow this doctrine you will go to heaven, if you don’t you will go to hell, that all these ideas are worthy of teaching and that good Christians have an obligation to save non-believes through spreading the meme. Without a hook or replicator an idea is not a meme. The strength of the hook determines in part whether the meme is largely adopted or if it fades away (Gnosticism had great ideas, a busted hook and is now dusted).

The tail is the belief set or doctrine being advanced. A well designed meme does not have separate and distinct feet, hooks and tail. Instead they are interwoven and integrated in various ways. A classic example of this type of integration is the manifesto, where larger more complex analytical works are condensed, made accessible and call for specific action. From our example of Christianity, the tail is usually the bible, but additional pieces of doctrine are often added (often based on the personality of the individual giving the message).

Beyond anatomy, there are number of design features which are desirable for the meme to propagate.

Monotonic Improvement (aka “getting better all the time”): This principle calls for it to be possible to measure the quality of experience as a function of adopting the meme and for the quality to be improving all the time. Ideally, to access this benefit, the structure of the meme would permit someone to relatively easily try it for a while, stop, evaluate at their leisure and once establishing that it was working for them try again. Monotonic improvement is a desirable attribute for a hook.

Simplicity/Elegance: While not required, this principle eases the transmission of the super meme. The more accessible an idea is, the larger the group of people who can embrace it and transmit it. Simplicity strengthens the feet; elegance creates charm, and charms are charming.

Respectable Origin: Where a super meme comes from can be critical to it's  legitimacy and often it's success. Spiritual super meme are generally considered to be divinely inspired. We need not have word from the goddess to build effective memes however. Communism was inspired by a critical economic analysis, which explained why wealth was being taken from laborers. Laborers introduced to the idea witnessed the truth in what the meme was claiming. This validation of personal experience combined with a call to action, catalyzed one of the successful memetic transformation in history. Darwinism, which is the scientific theory which lead to memetic underpinnings of capitalism (in the form of social darwinism) is inspired by scientific observation. The respectability of origin answers the question “How do you know what you are saying is true?”. For people so inclined “God says so” is a fine answer. Alternatively, “your personal experience (or general history) shows it to be true” or “scientific experiments overwhelmingly demonstrate” can all be strong answers to this central question to replicability.

Super Memetic Components Under Construction
So theory is nice, but what are the current best guesses as to super memetic principals and tactics? Below is a partial list of the ideas which are being considered and more fully elaborated.

Building the Better Party: This principal assumes that before we are a political movement, we are a social movement. People choose to ally with progressive ideas if they are having more fun associating with the people who are advancing them than they were with what ever they were doing before. This memetic fragment is both part hook and part feet. Part of the idea is to practice having parties, to explore what it is that makes social events fabulous and create more of that in our lives and in our political movements.

Iterative Community Principle (“spend more time with people you care for”). Most people believe this, but often have reasons or excuses for why this is not possible or accessible. Part of the development of this principle is coming up with antidotes for these excuses. On the positive side, this idea can be implemented by anyone at almost anytime. It can be implemented in a structural way (by relocating or changing schedules) or as an instance (taking a day off work to be with friends or other intimates). Ultimately, if you are living and working with people who they care for all the time you will have created a complete community around you.

This principal has the characteristic of being monotonic improvement. In other words it can be done in small discontinuous pieces until you have finally moved into a community which consists of people you care for that you live with and work with all the time.

Post-Classical Democracy Principle: This idea claims we have access to better decision making models than simple voting majorities. There are all kinds of tools available for finding out what the group mind is and coming to consensus with it. Part of the hook for this idea could be the critique of what is, specifically the failing of our democratic organizations. On the other side, stories about the successes of using new group mind decision techniques can be used to promote Wisdom Councils, Formal Consensus, etc. Examples of these stores can be found on Tom Atlee's at Co-intelligence Institute and the Innovations in Democracy Project www.cii.org

Sustainability Principle: The idea is that we have a responsibility to following generations to leave a world which is as good as the one we currently have. This feels fair to most listeners and there are a collection of well developed ecological principals which can support this notion (reuse, reduce, recycle. Error Friendliness Principle, polluter pays, etc).

Transparency Contract: This component gets to the origin question. “How do we know this is true?” it is our best guess, we have tried some parts, others are intuitively appealing others seem logical. The transparency part is that there is no divine inspiration and no scientific justification (at least for the principles outlined so far). What we are being transparent about is that we are dissatisfied with the current set of super memes and feel called upon to design new ones.

Radical Honesty: The idea that people really say what is up for them, rather than hiding behind social convention and silence is a highly revolutionary one. This is wonderfully elegant and simple and vastly transformative.

Promoting Compersion: you feel good when someone you are emotionally involved with is enjoying their intimate experience with someone else is socially transformative. [Compersion is often incorrectly simplified to the opposite of jealousy, as pronoia is incorrectly simplified to the opposite of paranoia.] Alternatively, there is the revolutionary love emotive meme directed towards empowering your partner and helping them move through their pains and fears and towards their highest selves.

Delivery Issues
There are several considerations in how to promote and distribute this super meme, which are outlined here:

Naming: It would be great to have a brilliant, sexy name for the entire package ideas collected into this super meme. Personal favorites are TradeLocal for an localism/anti-globalization group and Ecotopia for the euro-youth summer university festival and “Flowing Woman” for our proposed Healing oriented Festival which will hopefully be a sister to the Burning Man event.

Proselytizing: How does this idea spread? There is a general resentment of the idea of missionaries and people actively proselytizing. The 12 step groups use "attraction" rather than promotion, this could be considered a soft sell or "word of mouth" promotion approach. The internet and World Wide Web are obvious choices for soft sell promotion. Other likely tools include a manifesto (perhaps in fingerbook format), better parties, inspiring discussions and social events and some type of political action perhaps, of a form yet defined (direct, indirect, using extant institutions, outside them, whatever). The main principle of unreal estate: locution, locution, locution.

Law of the Few: This principle advises that we are best concentrating our efforts to start memes up on “early adopters” people who already are inclined towards these views and are looking for a way to bring these types of principles into their daily lives. It advocates, in short, to preach to the already (mostly) converted, or to the convertible.