Youtube and Retroviral Memes

Since I presented a paper last weekend on one of the impacts that the internet has had on memetics that is pretty well exemplified through wikipedia, I thought I’d post something on another impact that the state of the internet has had on the memes themselves, and the way they travel.

The more I deal with youtube, the more I realize how incredible it is as a way of transmitting information. It’s not all, what some would consider, “high quality” information (though, since you can actually get access to clips from popular news and television shows, as well as full length lecture, on youtube, so some of it is), but the memes themselves are incredibly viral.

Because of the way that television and radio transmits, with memes only reproduced every so often (a piece of music on the radio might get one play a day), there is a limit to the amount of replication. Not only is the replication limited by the transmission, but by the lack of control listeners have over content, so they can’t replay the same memes over and over, or select which memes (or group of memes) they’re going to focus on.

As a result, the advent of youtube, which allowed for people to pick and choose which memes they wanted to listen to or watch, and to select all of their own content, offered a whole new way of transmitting memes.

There were viral memes in the age before the internet. We can’t forget that there are certain ideas that have absolutely taken over society purely by way of the television, radio and printing presses. Beatle-mania and Bible-mania were both, certainly, viral.

But it’s unfair to classify what has happened in the internet age in the same way we might classify what happened to earlier cultural phenomena. After all, these memes process and fade much quicker, but they also replicate much faster as a result of the medium.

A lot of this is a result of the user-based content on youtube. The fact that people can post their own content means there are far more memes in circulation. This, as a result, means that the memes which permeate the social membrane, which enter our consciousness and conversation are far more viral, having been forced through a far more competitive process.

Still, what’s interesting is the replicating medium for memes.

The memes themselves replicate at a rate which is more than just viral. Viral memes, historically, take some time to evolve and set in. These memes are far more quick.

I’ve been playing a lot with the connection between the retroviral replicators observed in HIV/AIDS as opposed to the replicators of a typical gene. Because HIV/AIDS is a retrovirus, it’s ability to reproduce and mutate are far faster than the species it is competing with, as well as the immune systems of the creatures it infects, this increased replication and method for increasing mutation is a lot like what youtube offers. Of course, one might argue that it happens without the epidemic, but youtube really is a social virus of epic proportions.

The youtube replicator has drastically increased the speed at which memes travel, and the way in which they are transmitted and mutate.

The case study of Susan Boyle is an interesting one, as her performance on Britain’s Got Talent is a meme that probably would never have gotten to the United States without the retroviral replicator, but, at last count, she has close to forty-five million replications on a single copy of the video.

Anyway, it’s just a thought.

It’s impossible to deny that the internet has drastically shifted the way that memes travel and the way that they replicate, as well as the way that they are linked together (which is what I discussed in my paper last weekend). It’s important that the people who really focus on memetics start to consider the impacts of these changes, because I think they are far more powerful, socially, then that of people knowing about a 42 year old singer. Hopefully I’ll post more about that later.

On Pain

I'd say that I've been on an Eastern Philosophy kick lately, but that would be a lie. My entire life is an an acid trip on Eastern Philosophy, it's just been more properly indulged this semester, as I'm taking a Buddhism class that's given me the opportunity to read a lot of first hand documents I usually wouldn't.

There are a lot of things worth talking about, but it's usually good to start at the beginning and, with Buddhist philosophy, that means starting with the First Noble truth:

In life there is suffering.

Now, every western philosophy either dismisses suffering as something that can be overcome, in large part, with the indulgence of joy or it channels our masochism (a la Nietzsche).

This puts me in a problematic state, as I neither want to simply ignore the existence of suffering, nor do I want to pretend that suffering is the be all and the end all. Suffering doesn't need to be the epicenter of our lives, but casting it out is no good.

In my personal life, I have dealt with enough suffering that I do not need to do as Nietzsche sometimes proposes, make that suffering unbearable. Instead, I learn from what suffering I have to deal with, take the lessons as they come, and then work in pursuit of happiness.

Epicurus was on to something when he acknowledged that there is great joy to be had, when he wrote on pleasure. In fairness, the Kama Sutra beat him to the punch, but it's still an excellent point.

Life can be a bitch and life can be good. We don't need to live in one life all the time, and almost nobody does (which is a good thing).

Joy is worth pursuing, and since I've been doing a lot of work with this form of ethos lately, I'm sure I'll get into it a little more later, but let's simplify it.

The Buddha's truth suggests "in life there is suffering." What the Buddha means to say is that life is empty and that even our Epicurean joys are not enough to fulfill ourselves. On this point I politely dissent.

Live through joy, and savor it, but also endure and learn from suffering. There is enough suffering in most lives that it does not need to be enhanced by Nietzschean masochism.

On Love

When I admit that I don't believe in god, or fate, or souls, people often ask me if I believe in "true love." It seems like a jump, but I can see where it comes from.

The part of the phrase that bothers me is the "true" part. Tolkein wrote, in a letter:

Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.

Sometimes people freak out and say "you're not a romantic, then."

If romanticism is defined by the insistence that there is one person out there who I can love for the rest of my life, then I am most expressly not a romantic. However, I don't believe that's what romanticism is, nor do I believe that love is about finding someone and being together forever.

Some people insist that love is instant, that when it comes it is like a bolt of lightening, and it strikes you and you are changed forever.

To me, love is like a flower. You plant it with someone that you care about, someone that you like and think is interesting, then you cultivate it, through experiences and understandings and discoveries about one another. Love is not something we receive, it is something we build through compassion and mutual affection.

It's Valentine's Day, which is an opportunity to cultivate love, if you have it, or simply enjoy the prospect (like I do). Enjoy the day.

What We Call Randomness

I'm reading Dan Dennett's book Freedom Evolves. I'm about 120 pages in, and it's absolutely wonderful. Anyone who likes Dennett will like the book, and anyone who's read his other stuff will find it enriching, as it helps to tie the ideas together.

I've considered what it means to be "random." In acknowledging, as I often have (as a determinist, or at least I think I am) that the outcome of a situation is dictated by the conditions leading up to it, I've been forced to reconsider a definition of the term "random." After all, it'd be silly to throw away perfectly good word.

The point, though, is that I think I've found a way to change my understanding of the adjective without changing the nouns that it speaks for.

When we engage in a "random" coin flip, we are not engaging in randomness in that conventional sense, as the result of the coin flip is predetermined by the nature of physics, the forces exerted by the thumb that does the flipping, gravity, air resistance and any number of other things.

What we are actually doing is availing our decision to forces outside of our mind. What we are doing is taking that internal mechanism, that thought process that leads to decisions, and circumventing it by making the decision contingent, not on our past experience or our current inclinations, but on the laws of physics and the forces on a coin.

Randomness becomes an expression of sacrificing control. When you consider this, you may acknowledge that this is already something that you thought about randomness, that this was already the definition.

Random means, literally, an occurrence without aim.

That is what we need to redefine randomness as. Occurrence without intention, not "occurrence without cause," which is the present definition.

Occurrence without cause is not possible. Occurrence without intention makes sense.

Find Compassion

There has been something sitting at the back of my mind, softly prodding all month as I speak to people, talk about things that are not important. So much of my life, whether I spend it blogging about things that may or may not reshape the world or even about little musings that make me feel a whole universe broad.

The truth is, I spend a great deal of my time angry, I spend a great deal of my time voicing outrage, speaking out to ridicule people with whom I don't agree. It doesn't bother me. In fact, I find a great deal of joy in voicing those opinions, but that's not what's been nagging me.

I hear people talk all of the time about unconditional love, as if it were the most elegant phenomenon they had ever come to understand. I don't agree with that assessment.

Do not look for love in everything, do not soften yourself to the world perpetually. Show it love when love is what it needs, but when there is something that you see as wrong, do not hesitate to wave a finger at it and shriek at the top of your lungs. Create satyr, voice distaste, and then, from time to time, find compassion.

Do not love unconditionally. There are plenty of things in the world worth hating. Hate poverty. Hate starvation. Hate disease. Ridicule irrationality and speak out against the people who propagate it.

At the end of all of that, find compassion for those who suffer as a result. Allow those emotions to be directed properly and to subside. I, from time to time, ridicule Creationists and people who believe in faith healing and all of these other things. Above all, though, I feel compassion for those people, because they suffer for their errors.

I feel compassion for homophobes who will never recognize the legitimacy and the elegance of those relationships. I feel compassion for the racists who will never understand genetics because they insist on differentiating between people.

Do not love unconditionally. Do not feel guilty about hate. Just find compassion.

In the Future

The more I have conversations with my friends about dead people, the great men and women of previous generations, the more I realize that we have a skewed view of ancestors, that we see them as iconic, and while there might be something to that, it creates a pretty unrealistic worldview.

I mean, the average high school graduate knows more about the way the world works than Aristotle. There are many great things that Aristotle said and did, but if he were alive today, talking about the theories presented in Politics, or in Physics or Metaphysics, he would be laughed out of a general education course.

No one accepts Aristotle's political morals anymore, and the modern ethicists (guys like Peter Singer) are so far beyond that it's incredible. Aristotle was a brilliant man, idolized by many, but why? Because he was at the peak of innovation, seems like the obvious reason, but that leads us to totally jump past his shortcomings.

Sitting in a seminar at Saint John's College, touring, I remember listening to students talk about Aristotle's Politics, the section on slavery. I was so sure I wanted to go to Saint John's that I was literally telling complete strangers where I was going to college next year (I had already been accepted, and was looking for a way to pay for it), but watching these students jump through hoops to make Aristotle seem like a modern ethicist was just ridiculous.

There were a lot of reasons why I decided not to go to Saint John's, or at least a lot of reasons I rationalized that decision, but this is one of the biggest.

Every classic has some value to it. Every great book has something to offer, whether fiction or nonfiction, ancient or modern. That doesn't mean it is a revelation from cover to cover. That doesn't make the author, or his philosophy, immaculate.

I like Dave Matthews' song "Where are You Going." I think it's a fantastic song with a great sound and beautiful imagery. Does that mean everything he's written is fantastic? No. I think most of his music is, but I acknowledge the songs that fall short, the couplets that don't quite work.

This isn't a stretch because we don't treat our musicians like messiahs, we don't treat them like prophets who's work is eternal, all transcending. This is how some people treat Aristotle. They love Ethics, and so they apologize for the failures of Politics. This is a mistake, and it's the same one that religious fundamentalists make.

Find the beauty in the context. Find the elegance in the time and place in which the theory was fabricated, but don't expect perfect, all consuming wisdom from individuals long gone. They were, after all, only people.

Happiness: Making It

I've downloaded a video on Daniel Gilbert from the TED Podcast, but you guys can watch it on youtube if you want.

The part that stimulates me the most is this notion of synthesized happiness, not simply on the nature of synthetic happiness, its incompatibility with choice.

We have a remarkable capacity to cope, something I always felt Seneca underestimated. We have an evolutionary need to aim high, to set goals we cannot reach so that we can at least go somewhere when we work towards them.

Whether we reach goals or not, it's nice to have them. Going forward is better than sitting around smoking a joint (though you can be happy that way too).

People ask how I motivate myself to do things, mostly when atheism comes up, and I tell them it's not because I want to make myself happy. Not that I don't like being happy, but because I already am happy and, as Gilbert points out, I could be just as happy not working as I am working.

I do it because I want to push myself and the world around me. There is something to be said for pushing the limits of human thought, and though I am not delusional enough to believe I'm at the forefront of that, joining in and doing what I can is important.

Dan Dennett talks about his soundbite for finding significance and purpose in life: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.

So find purpose. Happiness, synthetic or otherwise (I'm not a huge fan of the differentiation), will show up on its own time.