I wonder why people don’t protect themselves from memes more. Just to be clear, I mean meme in the broad memetic theory of spreading ideas/thoughts sense.
I think there’s almost an intuitive understanding, or at least one existed in the environment I was bought up in, that some ideas are virulent and useless. I think that from this it’s rather easy to conclude that those ideas are harmful, since you only have space for so many ideas, so holding useless ideas is harmful in the sense that it eats away at a valuable resource (your mind).
I think modern viral ideas also tend more and more towards the toxic side, toxic in the very literal sense of “designed to invoke a raise in cortisol and/or dopamine that makes them more engaging yet is arguably provably harmful to the human body. Though I think this is a point I don’t trust that much, speculation at best.
It’s rather hard to figure out what memes one should protect themselves from under these conditions, some good heuristics I’ve come up with is:
1. Memes that are new and seem to be embedded in the minds of many people, yet don’t seem to increase their performance on any metric you care about. (e.g. wealth, lifespan, happiness)
2. Memes that are old and seem to be embedded in the minds of many people, yet seem to decrease their performance on any metric you care about.
3. Memes that are being recommended to you in an automated fashion by a capable algorithm you don’t understand fully.
I think if a meme ticks one of these boxes, it should be taken under serious consideration as harmful. Granted, there’s memes that tick all 3 (e.g. wearing a warm coat during winter), but I think those are so “common” it’s pointless to bring them into the discussion, they are already deeply embedded in our minds, so it’s pointless to discuss them.
A few examples I can think of.
Crypot currency in 2017&2018, passes 2 and 3, passes or fails 1 depending on the people you are looking at, ⇒ Depends
All ads and recommendation on pop websties (e.g. reddit, medium, youtube). Obviously fail at 3, sometimes fail at 1 if the recommendation is “something that went viral”. ⇒ Avoid
Extremist “Western” Religions, passes 1 and 3. Usually fails at 2. ⇒ Avoid
Contemplative practices, passes 2 and 3, fails 1 depending on the people you are looking at in the case of modern practices, doesn’t fail 1 in the case of traditional practices. ⇒ Depends
Intermittent fasting, passes 2 and 3, very likely passes 1 ⇒ Ok
Foucault, passes 3, arguably passes 1⁄2, but it depends on where you draw the “old” line ⇒ Depends
Complex Analysis, passes 3 and 1, very easy to argue it passes 2 ⇒ Ok
Granted, I’m sure there are examples where these rules of thumb fail miserably, my brain is probably subconsciously coming up with ones where they works. Even more so, I think the heuristic here are kind of obvious, but they are also pretty abstract and hard to defend if you were to scrutinize them properly.
Still, I can’t help but wonder if it “safety measures” (taken by the individual, no political) against toxic memes shouldn’t be a subject that’s discussed more. I feel like it could bring many benefits and it’s such a low hanging fruit.
Then again, protecting ourselves against the memes we consider toxic might be something we all inherently do already and something we do pretty well. So my confusion here is mainly about how some people end up *not* considering certain memes to be toxic, rather than how they are unable to defend themselves from them.
I’m not sure what you mean with extremist Western religions. Mormonism that might be one of the more extreme Western religion correlates with longer life-span. In many cases it’s very hard to estimate outcomes on the metrics I care about.
Knowing things is hard.
When it comes to things like wearing a coat it’s very hard to know because the control group is quite small. The counter-examples I have in mind from people I personally know is one Wim Hof guy who shovels snow in a T-shirt. The other example is Julian Assange in his earlier years. There’s no example that comes to my mind of someone who went around in winter without a coat and who seems to be ineffective.
I mean, I’d argue the pro/against global warming meme isn’t worth holding either way, if you already hold the correct “Defer to overwhelming expert consensus in matters where the possible upside seem gigantic and the possible downside irrelevant” (i.e. switching from coal & oil based energy to nuclear, hydro, solar, geothermal and wind… which doesn’t bring severe downsides but has the obvious upside of possibly preventing global warming, having energy sources that are more reliable long-term, don’t pollute their surroundings and have better yield per resources spent… not to mention useable in a more decentralized way and useable in space).
So yeah, I’d argue both the global warming and the against global warming memes are at least pointless, since you are having the wrong f*** debate if you hold them. The debate should center around:
Upsides and Downsides of renewable energy (ignoring the potential effect of GM)
How to model the function of faith in expert consensus and what parameters should go into it.
#1 and #2 can both be combined into the same prescription: don’t learn new things if their knowledge doesn’t improve your life satisfaction in some way. This is basically a tautology, and if you’re a rationalist it’s restating the habit of making beliefs pay rent in anticipated experiences, since that’s their only utility.
#3 I think is hitting on something, and I think it’s that we should be broadly skeptical of arguments put forth by people or organizations genuinely capable of manipulating us.
I wouldn’t say #1 and #2 state the same thing, since #1 basically says “If a meme is a new, look for proof of benefits or lack thereof”, #2 says “If a meme is old, look for proof of harm or lack thereof”.
I could combine them in “The newer a wide-spread meme is, the more obvious it’s benefits should be”, but I don’t think your summary does justice to those two statements.
1. Memes that are new and seem to be embedded in the minds of many people, yet don’t seem to increase their performance on any metric you care about. (e.g. wealth, lifespan, happiness)
2. Memes that are old and seem to be embedded in the minds of many people, yet seem to decrease their performance on any metric you care about.
3. Memes that are being recommended to you in an automated fashion by a capable algorithm you don’t understand fully.
Is this crypto currency, or a shorthand for pot crypto currency?
All ads and recommendation on pop [websites] (e.g. reddit, medium, youtube). Obviously fail at 3, sometimes fail at 1 if the recommendation is “something that went viral”. ⇒ Avoid
The issue there seems to be continuity—a one shot probably isn’t bad, though the fixes are mostly the same. (Though that algorithm is probably based around something like engagement, and other circumstances might require more care.)
Contemplative practices
Complex Analysis
What are these? (And should info about them be in spoilers?)
A few examples I can think of.
This section could have made a nice table, though it might have been harder to read that way.
I wonder why people don’t protect themselves from memes more. Just to be clear, I mean meme in the broad memetic theory of spreading ideas/thoughts sense.
I think there’s almost an intuitive understanding, or at least one existed in the environment I was bought up in, that some ideas are virulent and useless. I think that from this it’s rather easy to conclude that those ideas are harmful, since you only have space for so many ideas, so holding useless ideas is harmful in the sense that it eats away at a valuable resource (your mind).
I think modern viral ideas also tend more and more towards the toxic side, toxic in the very literal sense of “designed to invoke a raise in cortisol and/or dopamine that makes them more engaging yet is arguably provably harmful to the human body. Though I think this is a point I don’t trust that much, speculation at best.
It’s rather hard to figure out what memes one should protect themselves from under these conditions, some good heuristics I’ve come up with is:
1. Memes that are new and seem to be embedded in the minds of many people, yet don’t seem to increase their performance on any metric you care about. (e.g. wealth, lifespan, happiness)
2. Memes that are old and seem to be embedded in the minds of many people, yet seem to decrease their performance on any metric you care about.
3. Memes that are being recommended to you in an automated fashion by a capable algorithm you don’t understand fully.
I think if a meme ticks one of these boxes, it should be taken under serious consideration as harmful. Granted, there’s memes that tick all 3 (e.g. wearing a warm coat during winter), but I think those are so “common” it’s pointless to bring them into the discussion, they are already deeply embedded in our minds, so it’s pointless to discuss them.
A few examples I can think of.
Crypot currency in 2017&2018, passes 2 and 3, passes or fails 1 depending on the people you are looking at, ⇒ Depends
All ads and recommendation on pop websties (e.g. reddit, medium, youtube). Obviously fail at 3, sometimes fail at 1 if the recommendation is “something that went viral”. ⇒ Avoid
Extremist “Western” Religions, passes 1 and 3. Usually fails at 2. ⇒ Avoid
Contemplative practices, passes 2 and 3, fails 1 depending on the people you are looking at in the case of modern practices, doesn’t fail 1 in the case of traditional practices. ⇒ Depends
Intermittent fasting, passes 2 and 3, very likely passes 1 ⇒ Ok
Foucault, passes 3, arguably passes 1⁄2, but it depends on where you draw the “old” line ⇒ Depends
Instagram, passes 2, fails 3 and arguably fails 1 ⇒ Avoid
New yet popular indie movies and games, pass 2 and 3, arguably fails at 1 ⇒ Avoid (pretty bad conclusion I’d say)
Celebrity worshiping, passes 2, kinda fails 3, certainly fails 1 ⇒ Avoid
Complex Analysis, passes 3 and 1, very easy to argue it passes 2 ⇒ Ok
Granted, I’m sure there are examples where these rules of thumb fail miserably, my brain is probably subconsciously coming up with ones where they works. Even more so, I think the heuristic here are kind of obvious, but they are also pretty abstract and hard to defend if you were to scrutinize them properly.
Still, I can’t help but wonder if it “safety measures” (taken by the individual, no political) against toxic memes shouldn’t be a subject that’s discussed more. I feel like it could bring many benefits and it’s such a low hanging fruit.
Then again, protecting ourselves against the memes we consider toxic might be something we all inherently do already and something we do pretty well. So my confusion here is mainly about how some people end up *not* considering certain memes to be toxic, rather than how they are unable to defend themselves from them.
I’m not sure what you mean with extremist Western religions. Mormonism that might be one of the more extreme Western religion correlates with longer life-span. In many cases it’s very hard to estimate outcomes on the metrics I care about.
Knowing things is hard.
When it comes to things like wearing a coat it’s very hard to know because the control group is quite small. The counter-examples I have in mind from people I personally know is one Wim Hof guy who shovels snow in a T-shirt. The other example is Julian Assange in his earlier years. There’s no example that comes to my mind of someone who went around in winter without a coat and who seems to be ineffective.
The global warming meme isn’t spreading far enough ..or is the denialism meme spreading to much?
I mean, I’d argue the pro/against global warming meme isn’t worth holding either way, if you already hold the correct “Defer to overwhelming expert consensus in matters where the possible upside seem gigantic and the possible downside irrelevant” (i.e. switching from coal & oil based energy to nuclear, hydro, solar, geothermal and wind… which doesn’t bring severe downsides but has the obvious upside of possibly preventing global warming, having energy sources that are more reliable long-term, don’t pollute their surroundings and have better yield per resources spent… not to mention useable in a more decentralized way and useable in space).
So yeah, I’d argue both the global warming and the against global warming memes are at least pointless, since you are having the wrong f*** debate if you hold them. The debate should center around:
Upsides and Downsides of renewable energy (ignoring the potential effect of GM)
How to model the function of faith in expert consensus and what parameters should go into it.
#1 and #2 can both be combined into the same prescription: don’t learn new things if their knowledge doesn’t improve your life satisfaction in some way. This is basically a tautology, and if you’re a rationalist it’s restating the habit of making beliefs pay rent in anticipated experiences, since that’s their only utility.
#3 I think is hitting on something, and I think it’s that we should be broadly skeptical of arguments put forth by people or organizations genuinely capable of manipulating us.
I wouldn’t say #1 and #2 state the same thing, since #1 basically says “If a meme is a new, look for proof of benefits or lack thereof”, #2 says “If a meme is old, look for proof of harm or lack thereof”.
I could combine them in “The newer a wide-spread meme is, the more obvious it’s benefits should be”, but I don’t think your summary does justice to those two statements.
Fad, parasite, contagion. (Cancer, mosquito, evil plan.)
Is this crypto currency, or a shorthand for pot crypto currency?
The issue there seems to be continuity—a one shot probably isn’t bad, though the fixes are mostly the same. (Though that algorithm is probably based around something like engagement, and other circumstances might require more care.)
What are these? (And should info about them be in spoilers?)
This section could have made a nice table, though it might have been harder to read that way.