from Silver Keys album. Listen closely to the lyrics… via YouTube – IKIPR – Profession – Esoterrorist.

A Buddhist temple featuring Superman and a Marvel comic reproducing an actual UFO photo? A pulp fiction editor using his own precognitive dreams to write short stories and a sci-fi master getting zapped by an alien space machine? What is going on here? It would be easy to fall into an either-or mentality, as in [...]

Is there really such thing as “freedom of thought”? Or is some force bigger than myself manipulating my thinking, my consciousness? Is there such thing as “original thinking”? And if so, where do such thoughts come from anyway? Are we really that creative in our thinking, or are we picking up “mind viruses” unconsciously? Consciousness, [...]

A new study suggests that humanity’s sense of fair play and kindness towards strangers is determined by culture, not genetics. Speculation: the finding may be directly related to the rise of religion in human history, as well as more complex economies. via Whence Altruism? | MetaFilter.

The agent changes by learning something new, the information changes by the knowledge the agent already had. Therefore, a meme reaching an agent, will be transmitted in a changed form. Thus, cultural evolution is Lamarckian: characteristics acquired during the lifetime of the meme’s carrier can be transmitted to later carriers selectively, depending on their fitness. [...]

Purple. Polka dot. Grimy white. And even as the bra colors went viral — wildly so — cyber-arguments erupted about what it all meant. Was so openly and brazenly posting something as intimate as one’s bra color an attempt to raise breast cancer awareness? Or was it all just another Facebook time-suck, another “send your [...]

I want you to imagine back in the early days of newspapers and magazines how the effect of coupons could be measured. A store owner put a coupon in a local newspaper, and then counted up the coupons that came back into the store – immediately that store owner had an understanding of the impact [...]

Never before has it been possible to see such quick paced change across the Google SERP. At this years imedia summit Amnesia have started a social experiment in the form of @Hunvalski. The idea of this experiment is to see the amount of search results that can be generated for the term Hunvalski (a term [...]

There is an eBaying of content going on, as people repurpose stuff they find in the digital garage and attic that is the Web. Some people will become the new scavengers, looking through the detritus of the web for things to reuse and remix. Some will build the places where they look, the tools they [...]

A rhizomatic network is one with multiple non-hierarchical entry and exit points. Here’s a particularly compelling visual demonstration: (video) Return to Page

Much more about using triggers can be found in Kevin Hogan’s book Covert Persuasion and Joseph Sugarman’s book Triggers. Dave Lakhani released his book on Persuasion after we’d completed the manuscript for The Art of Memetics, or we would have included it in our print edition’s bibliography. We include it here to rectify that oversight. [...]

Wilson, Robert A. (1990) Quantum Psychology is an important text, as well as Farrell, Nick (2005) Gathering the Magic in finding groups and understanding the effect joining a group can have on the self and one’s self-image. Return to Page

Edward witnessed an interaction very similar to the simplified description above. The more flexible male shut down his competitor to the point that the competitor developed a new option; he drank until he passed out and didn’t have to compete anymore. Return to Page

Please bear in mind that we are not discounting his work, far from it. Thought Contagion, along with Richard Brodie’s Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme, are profoundly accessible works on the way that belief grows and manifests in culture. (Add MindControlMarketing and you’ve got the three books necessary to begin [...]

Feedback loops can be thought of as self-perpetuating situations, or active tautological events. The study of language evolution provides a way of thinking about the effect of feedback loops over time. Note: We were both unaware of the book I Am A Strange Loop (2007) by Douglas Hofstadler at the time we were writing The [...]

A brief introduction to OSO and this podcast – OSO is a meme, a capsid, that encompasses an orientation, belief, and bias I hold toward SEO, SMO, and ORM as it is applied online.  This podcast is my chance to elaborate on these ideas. Join thee RSS feed!

Lynch, Aaron. (1996) Thought Contagion. In this book, his analysis of Mormonism through the lens of memetics places emphasis on generational transmission, and highlights these factors as evolutionary pressures.   Return to Page