Aetheric Research, Ltd.

It should be apparent to most thoughtful persons that, if one seeks to study memetic hazards, it may be wise to take precautions against becoming subject to the memetic concepts and structures represented therein.

One such desirable precaution to take is to inculcate within one’s own mind a sort of anti-meme–a vaccination against future hazards, as it were.

Taking up the practice of meditation, and learning how to quickly clear one’s mind of all thought, is perhaps the best method of producing this effect. Meditation is useful in other ways than merely purging active memetic structures from the mind and can have some desirable effects upon the psyche, but it is difficult for some people to enter the contemplative state that it demands in order to work properly.

I therefore propose a method of conditioning one’s own mind, taking advantage of certain naturally-occurring tendencies of the human mind in order to build for oneself a trigger for interrupting potentially hazardous thought processes–a sort of mind bleach, as it were.

Much like a biological vaccine, this entails introducing a slightly hazardous memetic structure into one’s own mind in a carefully controlled situation in order to bring about a certain immunoresponse.

The equipment required for this technique is reasonably easy to acquire, though one ingredient does require fairly careful consideration–that of the controlled hazard that will be used for the purging trigger.

Selection of an antimemetic agent should be approached with care. Ideally, this agent should be a short, viciously catchy song or jingle that the user is already familiar with from past exposure, and which the user will not mind having played over and over again. This author has had some success with Dschinghis Khan’s “Moskau” and with certain versions of “Cruel Angel’s Thesis” in the past.

The procedure for building the trigger is to use this agent as a wake-up alarm; it is generally possible to set one’s music-playing programs to begin playing a given song at a given time with some small investigation into the particulars of the program that the user has available.

By using this agent as a means of provoking a wakeful state, a Pavlovian response will be instilled into the user’s mind. Upon waking, the brain naturally “resets” to some degree–hence why it is difficult to remember dreams upon waking unless specific effort is made. Associating a memetic trigger with this waking state will, with care, provide a useful method for producing this state of mild forgetfulness upon demand; this state is useful for purging unwanted memetic constructs (e.g. songs stuck in one’s head; unwelcome images; nonsensical and illogical proposals) from the mind and creating a blank slate.

The unfortunate side-effect of this particular method is that the agent used to induce this state will tend to be a fairly constant presence in one’s mind during the inculcation process–hence why the choice of this agent must be approached with care, as a poor choice will result in significant mental stress during the adaptation process. As it may take several weeks for the proper triggering responses to be produced, avoiding the possibility this stress is preeminently important.

Use of this technique may be necessary for anyone seeking to studying memetic hazards, especially “in the wild,” lest they become subject to the potential dangers of such studies.

In the previous entry, a symbol for cautioning against the presence of memetic hazards was proposed. In this entry, the types of hazards that this warning would apply to are defined.

A memetic hazard is defined as information with three main attributes. The first attribute is that it spreads from person to person, whether through personal contact or some form of recording. The second attribute is that this information causes some form of distress, whether as benign as mental stress to the individual or as dangerous as societal dysfunction. The third attribute is that it must cause preoccupation–that is to say, it maintains sufficient presence in the host’s mind that either a significant portion of his attention remains focused on it, or it plays a significant part in his decision-making process.

A relatively benign example of a memetic hazard would be the well-known melody entitled “It’s a Small World.” This melody is well-known for becoming “stuck” in listener’s heads, oftentimes causing mental distress to the listener as the tune is replayed over and over in his mind. The harm caused by this particular construct is relatively small–some slight stress to the person affected is really the limit of it, though if the person resorts to drastic measures to purge this construct from their mind, substantial harm may result to their health–e.g. consuming intoxicants to excess.

A more severe memetic hazard would be the doctrine of Holocaust Denial. This particular construct (defined loosely as “a belief that the events of the Holocaust were either exaggerated or were invented from whole cloth”) has the potential to catalyze other related beliefs and potentially contribute to a societal dysfunction; those who do not believe that this well-known genocide occurred may be vulnerable to memetic complexes denying other potential or actual genocides; additionally, related memetic constructs relating to conspiracies by Jewish peoples may find footholds.

Assessing a memetic construct as “hazardous” requires fulfilling both parts of the definition. Adjudicating transmissibility is relatively trivial; the fact that the adjudicator has learned of this construct is, in and of itself, reasonable evidence to that condition being fulfilled. The second condition is more difficult; adjudging “harm” is, at least partially, a matter of opinion, and memetic constructs within the judge’s own mind may color this perception–for instance, a neo-nazi would hardly consider the doctrine of Holocaust Denial, mentioned earlier, to be a memetic hazard, as he would consider it to be truthful, having been infected with that memetic construct.

The third condition is the most important to determine. The host’s mental state as regards the memetic construct must be assessed–if the construct holds no sway in his thoughts and plays no part in the decision-making process (e.g. the urban legend about the elephant that mistook a Volkswagen for a performance stool; most persons infected by that construct will not use it as a criterion for choosing an automobile) then it does not qualify as a hazard, as such. Only those constructs that retain preeminence for a significant duration or that significantly factor into the host’s decisions will qualify as memetic hazards.

There are steps that may be taken to avoid becoming infected with a memetic hazard; future posts will discuss these methods, as well as methods for removing memetic infections.

The Memetic Hazard Image

Please feel free to use, distribute, modify, or otherwise do what you will with this image, provided it is not for monetary gain.

There have been several recent stories in the news about the Republican party’s relationship with its spokespersons. Of special note to this writer today was a story about a somewhat disturbing anecdote concerning one Limbaugh, a well-known host who regularly dispenses what he claims to be a conservative viewpoint.

This viewpoint in this case was one that, apparently, indicated that one could not be a conservative unless one espoused a doctrine that torture was permissible in order to keep the United States safe.

As Limbaugh has no official standing with the Republican party (being, at least ostensibly, the more conservative of the two well-known parties in American politics) this commentary should have little to no effect on the political climate.

However, Limbaugh has, over the course of his career, amassed sufficient following that his influence is widely felt throughout the conservative arena. Whether or not it was intended, he has, to some small extent, become a voice of leadership for the Republican party–or at least gives the appearance thereof; appearances are often as important as reality in these cases.

It is also a current strategy of the Democratic party to encourage these appearances of leadership on Mr. Limbaugh’s part, as it is politically convenient for them to encourage the appearance of buffoonery and unreasonableness that his comments foment. The more that the Republican party is shown to be allied with Limbaugh–even going to the point of publically apologizing to him–the more they are shown to be politically obstructionist and unable to work within the paradigm of a Democratically-controlled government. This in turn leads to a lessened influence of the Republican party as people see that they have little use, and an enlarged influence for the Democratic party.

This is ultimately harmful to the nation.

An effective opposition party is required for the continued health of any political system. When only one party has a say in the process, without any checks on their proposals nor balancing commentary to prevent ill-advised ideas from becoming policy, the government becomes less of a democracy and more of a dictatorship.

The conservatives of this country are a valuable and necessary resource to prevent excesses by the liberal movement. The concepts traditionally espoused by the conservatives–those of family values, smaller government, and accountability–are absolutely essential to the proper functioning of the nation. Without them, the government grows to an unmanageable behemoth.

This trope of Limbaugh’s relevancy to the Republican party is hazardous to the continued health of the political process as it stands today. Further, those ideas put forth by the conservative media as mainstream conservative opinions (while, in truth, being fringe opinions given currency by charismatic hosts) are hazardous as well.

Conservative America needs to dissociate itself from the fringe elements who are still stuck in the corrupted, heady, intoxicated fervor of the last presidency, and create for themselves a proper identity, freed of the toxic ideology that is currently passed off as conservative. Only then can they form the Loyal Opposition that is so desperately needed by our current government.

I received today a communication from my grandmother, warning me of dangers awaiting in the mail. These dangers were of the usual type–losing all one’s stored information, being unable to use anything useful–and contained the usual warnings against opening attachments to messages.

Of note were a couple of differences between this and previous communications of the same tenor: first, that it was an amalgamation of two previous warnings (in this case, one about a message purporting to contain photos of Osama Bin Laden being hanged and another about an Olympic Torch) and secondly that it purported to have been verified by Snopes, the well-known purveyors of anti-hoax information.

When researched, of course, it turned out to be almost entirely a hoax; the one semi-accurate part was exaggerated and outdated.

As always, the key to keep from being made foolish by passing along a hoax is to carefully research any warnings you receive, especially those asking to be passed along–most of those (nearly all, in my experience) will have no real truth to them.

Remember: real news is passed on in Times 10, not in Impact 36.