'''Memetic Engineering''' is the process of developing Memes, through meme-splicing and memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the behavior of others. see also Memetic_Engineer The process of creating and developing theories or ideologies based on an analytical study of societies, cultures, their ways of thinking and the evolution of their minds. Memes themselves are neither good nor bad however the application of memes when brought into existence can control the thinking of others and can prove to be catastrophic. This has been seen throughout history. A example of this is the genocide that took place in Rwanda between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Another example of a popular Meme being used today is the Race meme. Race is an ideology that has been created to separate people. When a Meme is introduced, those concepts begin to take on their own process of evolution based on the person who adopts the ideology internalizes it, and reintroduces it into society causing it to spread like a Virus.(2005 G.Burchett) Writers of manifestos and of commercials and political and non-political press releases are typical memetic engineers. Memes have an identifiable physiogonomy, which appears in both natural and engineered memes. If carefully emulated, the result is an engineered meme. ==Physiogonomy of memes== *A '''memeplex''' is a flock of mutally-supporting memes. For example, if Christianity is a religious memeplex, the ideas of God, Sin and Salvation are subsidiary mutually-aiding memes. In bluejeans, the concepts of belt loops, seams and sewing are part of the memeplex of bluejeans, which in turn are part of the memplex of a "personal style." *The '''host''' is the person who carries or is infected with a meme. There are clear gradations of infection, and different types of infection, and these traits are orthogonal. Infection can have an emotional commitment from "How interesting" up to "I'd die for that." The most common reasons for adoption are beauty, utility, and tradition. Beauty and tradition are the longest lived, because utility can be displaced by a minor imporovement in techniques. *The '''vector''' or '''seed''' is the physical unit of transmission. Generally, a seed should contain a simple, infective memeplex, in a pamphlet, video or book. It may contain references to auxiliary information. A vector is usually an infected person who spreads the meme actively. In some cases a memeplex is sufficiently precious or fragile that a person or organization is assigned to generate, protect or propagate it. These professional vectors are called researchers, librarians, teachers, engineers, and designers, working in libraries, schools, and factories respectively. *The '''label''' allows the memeplex to be indexed and described reliably. This is almost the only essential part of a meme that cannot be implicit. *The '''bait''' is the subsidiary meme that rewards, or promises reward. For example, an Earworm, an unforgettable pleasant little song, is self-rewarding. Scientific truth's bait is an implicit promise of applications that increase health, wealth or capabilities. Religions often promise an eternal reward: life, or enlightenment. Bluejeans' bait is sexual or other social success. *The '''threat''' is the part of the meme that attempts to punish misreplication. In religions it is customarily a threat of hell. In Science, it is the threat that an author's reputation might become so bad that he becomes unpublishable. In styles, it is the threat of unpopularity. *The '''vaccime''' is the part of the meme that attempts to suppress competing memes. Comprehensive memes must compete for resources, and this means that they must suppress competing uses for the needed resources. For example, most religions forbid idolatry. Earworms depend on the inability of most people to sing two songs at once. Scientific persons try not to propagate memes labelled "science" if the memes cannot be falsified by experiment. Political memes tend to attack disagreeing persons. As for bluejeans, people can only wear one set of pants at a time, and there are "unstylish" brands. *The '''hook''' is the part of the meme that urges reproduction. For example, in Christianity, non-Christians do not honor God. His Glory demands that everyone acknowledge and submit to Him. Bluejeans are thought by many people to be remarkably comfortable and sturdy. Some bluejeans are explicitly advertised, and therefore have an explicit hook. *The '''priority''' allows a memplex to be scheduled for action and transmission. Some memes explicitly say, "This is the most important meme." Others depend on an indirect evaluation of their bait and threat to establish priority. Many memes use ''all'' because explicit priorities are often ignored, but sometimes effective. For example, if bluejeans are more "stylish" than miniskirts, then this is an example of a priority. *'''Transmission,''' '''replication''' or the '''transmission method''' may be a submeme dictating an infective procedure, or may simply be a side-effect of the way the meme appears. Earworms are sung, and therefore infective. Religions are transmitted by instruction. Science is sold by science-fiction, but actually transmitted rather cumbersomely by seminars, journals, and later textbooks. Bluejeans are transmitted by a complex production and distribution system that ends in a retail store. *'''Glue''' is the method or logic that binds the memeplex together. Some memes are bound by orthodoxy, i.e. "this book is true." Some memes are bound by the physical arrangement of the parts. For example most people learn about bluejeans and automobiles by observation, rather than from a book. Topical memes are associated because they describe the same topic. If a meme lacks glue, it is at risk of disintegrating into several memeplexes that are individually unable to propagate. *The '''sociotype''' is the social manifestation of a meme, the result that it produces in human society. For example, idea of a cellphone produces not only actual cellphones, but organizations selling them, and the behavior of impulsively calling friends, rather than carefully scheduling meetings. These are all part of its sociotype. ==Effective Memetic Design== Effective memes have a reliable memeplex for each item of physiognomy. Standard synonyms for "effective meme" are "good book," "powerful essay," "clever design," "well-run company," or "good personal style." Many of the most infective memes use massive redundancy, backing up each of the items of physiognomy with multiple relations, references to standard seeds or vectors, and unique strategies for raising their priority in people's lives. Many complex memes also have a subsidiary meme of "personal growth" in which one becomes a more-skillful, more spiritual, more standardized, or better-approved member of a group associated with the meme. The end result of the personal-growth sub-meme is that a host becomes self-innoculating for the less-transmissible parts of the meme. Uniqueness is a substantial risk for a meme, because it invites mistrust and rejection. However, novelty is almost the only assurance that a meme can penetrate normal priorities and be transmitted. Further, if a meme's physiognomy is completely nonstandard, it is much harder for many people to evaluate it, and it is therefore much more likely to be valued according to its labels, priority or bait, which can be easily manipulated to be difficult to verify. Memetic engineers generally arrange memetic physiognomy to route resources to benefit themselves or their associated organizations. Often the stream is tied to a subtle, emergent part of the meme's sociotype rather than simply saying "send us money." For example, banks (organizations instantiated from a meme) normally lend out their deposits on short-term loans, realizing significant interest income from the money in people's checking accounts, yet without significantly inconveniencing most people. Occasionally, the resources are routed to benefit the meme itself. In some cases, the meme actually persuades its host to completely obey the meme, in which case the infected person is soemtimes called a "memebot." A reliable meme such as "going to work" is a fairly harmless example. Some such memes though, (e.g. the traditional Japanese meme that "death erases dishonor") can destroy their hosts for no objective benefit. ==Organizational Methods== In academic contexts, memetic physiogonomy is handled in a massively industrial fashion, with bulk indexing and standardized storage of seeds in a library. Curriculum committees carefully program and coordinate a program of professors (professional vectors) in order to inoculate students. In engineering contexts, memetic physiogonomy is handled implicitly. That is, it is built into an object, whose nature and behavior create a sociotype. Often the actual meme, as drawings or parts list, is a closely held trade secret. Popular culture and art create memes with the most powerful physiogonomy that can be cheaply reproduced. These generally link or involve each item of the meme's physiognomy to a common social trait or behavior of the targeted group. Traditional stories and myths show the most highly adapted "entertainment memeplexes" of a culture. Myths and stories that successfully cross cultural boundaries are even more highly adapted to human beings. Some works, (e.g. Star_Wars) are themed by conscious attempts to emulate mythic archetypes. There are gray areas between these approaches, and often in these areas there are very successful organizations and people exploiting peculiar sociotypes of rather odd, complex memes. For example a number of organizations make a very good profit from copyrighting and selling typefonts, precisely described colors, or "standards documents" that describe how machines should attach to each other. ===Cultural Immune Systems=== Traditional cultures reject nontraditional actions and thoughts. Since most innovations fail, there's little benefit to innovate. Traditional cultures are notably successful in extremely hostile environments (e.g. battlefield behavior, or primitive life near the arctic circle), in which the reasoning or knowledge needed to survive may exceed the capacity of an ordinary member of the culture. In these cases, trained, validated procedures become precious. History is the attempt to extend the scope of cultural traditions with formal chronicles, teachers and libraries. Reason attempts to identify contradictions in memes. If contradictory actions are attempted, the result is often failure. Science took a radically different track, simply rejecting all memes that were difficult to evaluate, yet accepting those that could be reliably verified by experience. Much of traditional Ethics, Morality and Religion can be viewed as an attempt to identify harmful and helpful memes, providing widely-applicable vaccimes and prioritization methods. Much of Theology and other theoretical aspects of Religion can be viewed as the careful handling of extremely powerful memeplexes with very odd or difficult traits. ==See also== *Propaganda *Diffusion_of_innovations *Self-replication *Memes Category:Memetics