Thanks for explaining, really interesting and glad so much careful thinking is going into communication issues!
FWIW I find the “meme” framing you use here offputting. The framing feels kinda uncooperative, as if we’re trying to trick people into believing in something, instead of making arguments to convince people who want to understand the merits of an idea. I associate memes with ideas that are selected for being easy and fun to spread, that likely affirm our biases, and that mostly without the constraint whether the ideas are convincing upon reflection, true or helpful for the brain that gets “infected” by the meme.
Proponents theorize that memes are a viral phenomenon that may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution.[8] Memes do this through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, each of which influences a meme’s reproductive success. Memes spread through the behavior that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Memes that replicate most effectively enjoy more success, and some may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.[9]
Thanks for explaining, really interesting and glad so much careful thinking is going into communication issues!
FWIW I find the “meme” framing you use here offputting. The framing feels kinda uncooperative, as if we’re trying to trick people into believing in something, instead of making arguments to convince people who want to understand the merits of an idea. I associate memes with ideas that are selected for being easy and fun to spread, that likely affirm our biases, and that mostly without the constraint whether the ideas are convincing upon reflection, true or helpful for the brain that gets “infected” by the meme.
Some support for this interpretation from the Wikipedia introduction: