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Originally Posted by smurf
I'm not a big fan of Memetics, it appears to do something that something else does but avoids saying that by calling itself Memetics.
If ideas are transferred culturally via Memes and if they are Toxic (seriously how are ideas Toxic and how does it infect your gene pool?) are there antidote or immunisation memes?
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They
don't infect your gene pool. The evolution of memes parallels the evolution of genes to some degree, mainly because they are both evolutionary systems of staggering complexity, but one doesn't infect the other directly.
And of course there are antidote memes (though immunization is harder). "Don't take drugs!" in all its many variants, for instance, and any other kind of meme that tries to prevent self-destructive behavior (or following a particular ideology, religion, and so forth). None of these are 100% effective, of course.
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The problems arise with genetic 'defects' of memes that dictate that the individual is no longer responsible for its actions. The so called 'criminal disposition' because some DNA scientist has 'found' the criminal gene, the driving car fast gene or something totally unfeasable because evolution has not created X because it was created by social means etc.
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Again, memes parallel genes, but don't directly affect them.
But yes, it can be argued that the hosts of particular memes are not in full control of their actions - it was the memes' fault instead. In fact, some memeticists (such as Susan Blackmore, in her "The Meme Machine") go so far and argue that there
is no free will, only memes.
Certainly, the EU and many other jurisdictions will at least lean into that direction with their emphasis of memetic therapy for offenders over punishment. On the other hand, this means that they feel little hesitation about aiming for true personality changes - after all, the memes someone carries is not a true part of his "self" but more akin to a disease that needs to be cured...
Memes that lead to behavior that is either destructive to oneself or to society at large.