I don’t know if altruistic, truth seeking, and self aware are all necessary requirements though. It seems very much so to me that we’re never going to be able to convince the vast majority of people to have the excited attitude about EA that most of us do now. Maybe the right focus of the “altruism” meme like this should be on spreading the first two, altruistic and truth seeking.
Self awareness seems almost contrary to the idea of a meme like this, given that it relies on the spreading without too much questioning. Ideas with altruistic frameworks have done well in the past, i.e. ALS ice bucket challenge, but I don’t know how you would go about including a second idea into the existing matrix of a meme like that.
A scientific approach to memetics, I love our weird ideas!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I don’t know if altruistic, truth seeking, and self aware are all necessary requirements though. It seems very much so to me that we’re never going to be able to convince the vast majority of people to have the excited attitude about EA that most of us do now. Maybe the right focus of the “altruism” meme like this should be on spreading the first two, altruistic and truth seeking.
Self awareness seems almost contrary to the idea of a meme like this, given that it relies on the spreading without too much questioning. Ideas with altruistic frameworks have done well in the past, i.e. ALS ice bucket challenge, but I don’t know how you would go about including a second idea into the existing matrix of a meme like that.
A scientific approach to memetics, I love our weird ideas!
Keep up the good posts Owen!
Why does it need to rely on spreading without too much questioning?
(BTW I’m using “meme” in the original general sense not the more specific “internet meme” usage; was that obvious enough?)