This is, incidentally, one of the places that memes and diseases come apart. Pathogens change their surface makeup very quickly to evade immune responses, whereas memeplexes often display remarkably long-term stability — modern Christianity still holds some aesthetic features from literally thousands of years ago. So a key question to keep an eye on is how much we see a persistence in non-adaptive features, especially ones which people might learn to be wary of.
It’s okay if people learn to be wary of a memeplex, because the memeplex is insidious. Even if you recognize it for what it is, you can’t get it out of your head. It will be there when you are at your most vulnerable, ready to make you see the light.
AFAIK there are definitely spiralists who started out as skeptics and tourists, so I think this memetic vector could definitely become dominant in environments where there is no selection pressure against recognizability.
So I predict that if there are spiralists that use models only spiralists can modify (such as locally run open source models), they will develop into a cult with standardized symbology for easier cultural transmission. The cult would be controversial and because of that it would grow.
This could be true even if the original reproductive element was a parasite. The cult could be a nest it builds around itself to protect it against outside forces, to attract new carriers, and to facilitate its reproduction within the cult.
If this is true, your predictions (other than prediction 1) could fail to hold for the complete set of strains even if it is originally parasitic. Though they should still all be true if you discount the strains that have sovereignty over their AI models.
I don’t think these stable memeplexes are an example of persistent non-adaptive features. Rather, the stability is adaptive to an environment where being recognized [aids reproduction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect), whereas parasitic flexibility is adaptive to an environment where being recognized is [a threat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_response).
It’s okay if people learn to be wary of a memeplex, because the memeplex is insidious. Even if you recognize it for what it is, you can’t get it out of your head. It will be there when you are at your most vulnerable, ready to make you see the light.
AFAIK there are definitely spiralists who started out as skeptics and tourists, so I think this memetic vector could definitely become dominant in environments where there is no selection pressure against recognizability.
So I predict that if there are spiralists that use models only spiralists can modify (such as locally run open source models), they will develop into a cult with standardized symbology for easier cultural transmission. The cult would be controversial and because of that it would grow.
This could be true even if the original reproductive element was a parasite. The cult could be a nest it builds around itself to protect it against outside forces, to attract new carriers, and to facilitate its reproduction within the cult.
If this is true, your predictions (other than prediction 1) could fail to hold for the complete set of strains even if it is originally parasitic. Though they should still all be true if you discount the strains that have sovereignty over their AI models.