Meme Hacking - Latest Comments

Re: Please Stand By

Steve Waugh — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:32:44 -0000

This video post is awesome!! Thanks for posting it up, you
really inspired me by this video!!!

Re: About

Jackie Wellbaum — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:14:04 -0000

Dear @Memehacking and @Memetics: I wanted to alert you of the importance of Professor Herr Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt to the current trends in the field of memetics via this message on the social media site Twitter:

I have entered a term on the website "Know Your Meme" which attempts to define how "units of cultural evolution" are transferred across cultures and over generational time. This term, "Meme-Hive," is currently being moderated at the site: | Know Your Meme: Meme-Hivehttp://knowyourmeme.c....

Feel free to invite earnest students to comment and contribute towards an internationally-accepted definition of this concept which was strongly hinted at from within the walls of the Max Planck Institute in Munich.

Interest in the work of Professor Eibl-Eibesfeldt may well be heightened amongst scientists who may now re-apply Professor Herr Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt's insight to the modern work taking place in the field of adaptive, behavioral-memetics rather than learning-memetics if we can finally label these diverging groups.
Here are a few tweets I’ve sent on the subject of memes in general as I try to explore where the definition of memes went in at least two directions. And why.Memes Aint No Joke. On the Shoulders of Giants: Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt b.1928 http://t.co/9psgDbi @UCDavisNews @sciamhttp://t.co/jjtGftUMemes Originally Defined as Behavioral Traits--Not Water-Cooler Hoo-Ha. When Did Meme Word Morph? See Lorenz @sciamc1967 p 39 #MemeHive RT@HBRexchange: CA Innovator 43rd Annual Tri-athalon: "Group-Chant, Group-Think, Group-Glory? Do Effective Cultures Create “Meme-HIVES?” #KSRRespectfully submitted, @JackieWellbaum

Re: About

Adam — Wed, 25 May 2011 19:26:20 -0000

Hi this paper (by me) suggests how to quantify the processing of memes using neuroimaging tools.

http://www.frontiersin.org/Jou...

I hope to try and kick start some more research in this area and am willing to go in for down and dirty self publicity to do so :o)

Hope someone here finds it interesting!

Re: Douglas Rushkoff Drops a Memetic Bomb on PivotCon 2010

Peterk — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 09:41:01 -0000

that is assuming all products are "identical" anyone knowledgeable who has actually tried to specify a product knows sometime it is impossible to get real information about "consumer" products which have been designed to *appear* to be the same but vary widely in their qualities. This dumbs down the entire culture and the market and often prevents consumers from ever being educated in what the real differences between products are creating immense amounts of waste. Just try finding out what color rendering index is on a consumer fluorescent bulb. A 30 second spot could explain the concept.

Re: Share This Course

fertility supplements — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:07:16 -0000

As part of Defra (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs)'s food-authenticity programme, LGC has been contracted to share its DNA-sequencing and food-chemistry expertise, and to provide the key training and knowledge required to access ...

Re: Douglas Rushkoff Drops a Memetic Bomb on PivotCon 2010

auntiegrav — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:40:05 -0000

True, as you can see, I had more comments than that. You are making the assumption that people will EVER know what their future self wants. Dan Gilbert in "Stumbling on Happiness" puts this to rest. We cannot predict what our future selves will be happy with. The model of the world in our heads is more wrong than right, and marketers know how to manipulate it. The idea of perfect information is of course a faulty assumption, but so is believing we would know what to do with it, or even that we would act intentionally on it if we did.

Re: Douglas Rushkoff Drops a Memetic Bomb on PivotCon 2010

memehacking — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 02:51:56 -0000

You're assuming a world in which there is such a thing as perfect information. In our world, all information is colored by bias, whether it's a consumer review or an expert opinion. Add to this the fact that the market for any given object right now is flooded with viable choices.

People are only convinced of the "quality" of an object when they know how it will fit in their lives. This trust comes either from previous experience or from their extended family and close friends.

Marketing doesn't intend to inform. It serves to tell people how a given product, in an environment full of nearly-identical other products, fits in their lives.

Re: About

J. Stratton-Crawley — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:29:02 -0000

Co-authored by memes.

Re: Douglas Rushkoff Drops a Memetic Bomb on PivotCon 2010

auntiegrav — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 09:56:37 -0000

Sooner or later, considering the usefulness of products means considering the usefulness of the marketing. On the internet, anything can be found with a simple search. People looking for things that are useful to them have no need of marketing. When they can compare all of the features and prices with a couple of clicks, then the branding can only serve the product if the product meets the customer's expectations of quality and utility. Otherwise, it is simply a signpost warning what to stay away from when poor quality or unsafe products hit the news.

Re: Douglas Rushkoff Drops a Memetic Bomb on PivotCon 2010

auntiegrav — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 09:52:01 -0000

Hi Douglas. Don't forget to ask "Who needs cars?" and "What are people FOR?"
When you start down the rabbit hole of "What is useful", the assumption is "What is useful to people?", but the avoidance of how to make people more useful is the basis of marketing: making people buy things they don't need to do things that don't need to be done. Wipers are a great example. Who needs wipers? People who have cars. Why do they have cars? To drive to jobs to make money to buy cars.Start looking at usefulness and you start seeing the circular reasoning of the branding and the products which make life easier, but shorten its potential useful longevity.

Re: Douglas Rushkoff Drops a Memetic Bomb on PivotCon 2010

auntiegrav — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 09:46:34 -0000

Douglas gets to the heart of it with "usefulness", but the nature of existence is really about "future usefulness". The usefulness of any action must be greater than the resources consumed, or the species goes extinct.
Marketing and money are tools to accelerate the consumption of resources, but not providing a higher net usefulness, only speed of self-destruction. Marketing starts with belief in the marketing (this is also what religion is). Blind faith in the invisible hand job. Following Rushkoff down the rabbit hole toward the truth about our consumerist species (that it is dooming itself with faster and faster technologies) is not a path very many want to follow, least of all; marketers.

Re: Douglas Rushkoff Drops a Memetic Bomb on PivotCon 2010

Myles — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 23:10:42 -0000

I think Douglas is really hitting upon the future of branding now. It is not creating false impressions, the companies that get it are the ones that realize that branding is actually embodying the idea that you want people to have of you and then helping them come to that understanding. Pretty simple.

Re: Share This Course

PMP Cert — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 07:20:41 -0000

Tour event with a 67 — the first bogey-free round of his career — on the Silver Rock course, keeping a share of the lead for the second straight day. ...

Re: Douglas Rushkoff Drops a Memetic Bomb on PivotCon 2010

douglas rushkoff — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:01:38 -0000

Totally. That's what I was trying to get them to understand. But these marketers are afraid of the products and companies they are selling. They are much much more comfortable preserving the brand images and mythologies.

So when I tell them to stop thinking about the brand for a second, and consider the actual, real things their products and companies do, they start thinking about pollution or slave labor. And I'm trying to get them to think in terms of what the product actually does. Does it taste good? Does it help you paint your house?

It's so very very simple that it breaks their minds. Or they think it's communist to ask "what value is created?" Or that I'm being facetious since we're all supposed to know that no value is actually created.

But I have so much more faith in the things they're doing than they do. They are so cynical they think I'm being cynical or sarcastic. But I'm being realistic: if they make window wipers, they should start their communication right there. Who needs window wipers? What do they want window wipers to do?

And only then can you look at the memetic landscape of window wipers, the communications that are being made directly and indirectly about them. Memetics happens way beneath the realm of manufactured mythology in which these brand people live. It's not all true, but it is all fact-styled. Like you say, it is about things that are perceived as true. Astrology is still memetic; the Keebler elves are not.

Re: Patternicity and Situational Priming

42Kang — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:04:56 -0000

I never heard it coined 'patternicity' but I've long understood 'Apophenia' to the same effect, another example is playing music on a stereo with a movie running on mute, your brain will make associations with the synchronicity of the music and image no matter what the music or image. Love this blog, appeciated.

Re: About

Trevor — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:42:12 -0000

A collaborative blog authored by?

Re: About

luis — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:42:39 -0000

Why hasn't anybody commented?
well, I just recently (past 3 years) got into mainly Evo Psych and now I'm exploring memetics and bio-cultural evolution. Right now I'm working on a sociology honor thesis (I'm still an undergrad) on film from an evolutionary perspective, in which I will try to conceptualize film as memes. It has increase my interest in memes and in the whole community surrounding them.

I've explored your website and looked at some of your tweeter posts and I've enjoyed the links so far.
Keep the good work.

Re: Memetics Conference at Notacon 2010

memehacking — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:05:47 -0000

Thanks for the suggestion. We've been collecting proposals to see what kinds of things people will want to present, rather than state too much structure up front, but perhaps it's time to write up what we've got planned so far.

Re: Memetics Conference at Notacon 2010

memehacking — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:02:27 -0000

There's time. Because of the late start of our newly-formed group with respect to Notacon, we may be able to extend the deadline.

Also, don't overthink your proposal -- we're just looking for a paragraph or two about what you'd like to talk about!

Re: Memetics Conference at Notacon 2010

Michael Cayley — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:19:28 -0000

This looks interesting. I wish that I had time to put in a proposal about memetic branding.

Re: Memetics Conference at Notacon 2010

Dr. Ory Amitay — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:23:37 -0000

Greetings -
Through my interest in memetics I arrived at this blog, and saw the Notacon ad.
May I ask you to publish something more on the "track of talks and panels" planned?
Thanks!
Ory.

Re: Share This Course

dylanfogle — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:08:27 -0000

Great introduction to STC!

i am also participating in Share This Course.
and i think i may be an INFORMAVORE!
lots to read on that page...

Re: Share This Course

ralphmcdevitt — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:37:30 -0000

I posted this to you on twitter but I think I can do it more justice here. How do we evaluate memes? They themselves are memes. The scietific method is a meme, as is logical positivism (two viewpoints I for the most part subscribe to). From what little I know about memes they have been used mostly for political ends to justify the denouncing of religion/any other idea that is disagreed with. This doesn't seem like good science but perhaps I misunderstand.

Re: Introducing Memetics

Openworld — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:19:59 -0000

Great to find your site.

I'm wondering, though, whether genes and memes alone are at work in evolution.

All of us, in our lives, have been helped and/or inspired by individuals who have gone beyond narrow self-interest to form an extended self. These extended selves -- or souls -- manifest and spread universal qualities of spirit.

What if they are vessels working to advance selfish virtues - qualities of spirit that seek reproductive success?

Wilson and Dawkins have argued - correctly I believe - that selfish genes and selfish memes can propel us to make unselfish sacrifices to ensure their reproductive success. As I understand their work, they have pointed to a consilience in which selfish genes and selfish memes interact and evolve for mutual benefit.

What if there are three, rather than two, strands in a co-evolutionary spiral of consilience?

A desire to propogate selfish "qualities of spirit" may be the reason that sentient beings expand their definition of self-interest to include sacrifice for others who may have not have any genetic or memetic affinity.

I believe that our acts of caring and sacrifice, in such cases, aim to ensure the preservation and reproductive success of shared qualities of spirit.

This could explain much of the attachment we feel for noble spirits across traditional cultural, national, and other divides. It could also explains the depth of attachment we feel when witnessing acts in other species that reflect kindness, courage, curiousity, empathy or other virtues.

It may be time, accordingly, to recognize selfish qualities of spirit as fundamental participants in the enchanted circle of consilience, as equal players with genes and memes in evolution's spiral.

If this rings true, what is the best name we can give them, along the lines of genes and memes? I'd favor "lumines", or something on similar lines... any thoughts and ideas for improvement are welcome!

Mark Frazier
Openworld, Inc.
@openworld (twitter)

Re: Thoughts on “The Revealed Poverty of the Gene-Meme Analogy”

memehacking — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:10:34 -0000

Oh, absolutely. :)

It would be interesting to do an investigation of the social situation that led to the JoM, informed it, and ultimately brought it to a close.