Macromemetic Index
Memetics Index
Introduction
I've been doing some work with the kids on a special ed bus, trying to get them to behave well, turn up on time for the bus, and so on. It's worked brilliantly, exceeding even my expectations.
I want to apply my findings to the other busses, which have larger, more "heterogeneous" populations, and no aide to help the driver, but there is still a lot of feeling that an authoritarian approach is the best, or the only way. Telling the kids what to do, giving them no choice, and administering certain and severe punishments for noncompliance. Of course, the driver is forced to survey the situation on the bus with his rearview mirror and has to divide his time between driving and keeping the kids under control. The kids can get away with bad behavior while the driver isn't looking, and so on.
This sort of works, but not well. The drivers are constantly complaining of discipline problems on their busses. Things get paticularly bad when a substitute driver takes over. This is all obvious when examined through the lens of macromemetics.
Authoritarianism Feels Good
Why be an authoritarian when a "democratic" macromemetic approach works so much better? It's more efficient, people are more thoroughly engaged, and they police themselves. In capitalism, workers look for jobs themselves, they train themselves (for the most part), and are often motivated to show up to work and do their jobs without constant supervision.
This is where things get a bit ugly.
Comparing free-market capitalism to voluntary slavery doesn't have great optics. It also doesn't sound good to say that authority figures simply like to give orders, demand obedience, and administer punishments. Why? It's elementary macromemetics. An authority figure is equipped with memes which are guaranteed resonance, and which are unassailable (free from immunomemetic, or "bullying opportunites"). These are the things that all people, all memetic agents, want the most. To have lots of memes at their disposal, lots of deployment opportunities (1), and have these deployments be non-assailable (3).
Since there are social memes, many of them, along the lines of "we have to do something" and the demonization of the people who "need to be controlled," there are rewards in authoritarianism beyond just enjoying direct power over those who are subject to the authoritarian power. Authoritarianism is a huge megamemeplex, like many others, and so can have many complex layers and interconnections.
One question for later is what about non-authoritarian societies? Are native cultures less authoritarian than "Western" ones? If so, are non-authoritarian societies more vulnerable to authoritarian ones?
Summary and Conclusions
Authoritarianism does not have to be ineffective. However, it feels good, and there are memetic rewards to those adopting it and participating in it independent of whether it works. It probably doesn't work very well in general. It's perceived as being some kind of "last resort" or "the one guaranteed way" but in fact none of this may be true. This kinds of ideas, i.e., that authoritarianism works, is the best or only way, may just be immunomemes embedded in authoritarian memamemeplexes, and nothing more.
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FOOTNOTES
(1) A deployment opportunity happens when another agent deploys (or enacts) a meme which calls for a deployment, for example, a child misbehaving on a bus. As I've stated, there is a ready supply of misbehavior, or deployment opportunities, for the driver, to deploy things like firing orders to sit down and shut up, or threats of being kicked off the bus. Even though this seems dysfunctional, and it is, it is a very rich environment for well-marked, well-closed, memetic exchanges between well-defined agents. We start to see how authoritarianism leads directly and inexorably to something approximating a memetic chain reaction (2).
(2) A memetic chain reaction, also known as a memetic orgy is where all deployments of any agent creates more deployment opportunities for others and so on such that rate of deployment is sustained at a high level and involves most or all agents involved.
(3) Non-assailability means that when an agent deploys a meme, there are no opportunities for other agents to deploy immunomemes (4). In other words, non-assailability means that a memetic deployment does not generate immunomemetic deployment opportunities for other agents.
(4) An immunomeme suppresses the effect of a deployed meme. This takes the form of not creating deployment opportunities based on the original meme. This has to do with the "state" of the system not changing, but rather being dragged back to the state it was at before the deployment of the immunomemetically attacked meme.
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