Is video game violence memetic?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by smurf

First off I cannot control infection of my body and cellular mutations. Therefore this is not the same thing.

You can't control your replication and emission of culture very well either, except perhaps by quarantine or maybe deliberately inflicting severe brain damage.

Not "believing" in what is a scientifically viable model (which in TS, memetics is) doesn't immunize you to whatever it is modelling. Not "believing" in evolution doesn't mean that you aren't subject to selection pressures or can't get infected by an antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Somewhere the researchers are going to be infected by these dangerous memes.

Somewhere an epidemiologist gets infected with a disease. Somewhere a chemist poisons themselves. Somewhere a physicist irradiates themselves. Science has always been potentially dangerous.

Cannot it be undone, can video game niceness produce the opposite affect?

It can be. There are rules for deprogramming in Toxic Memes!

Are memes transmitted by:

Memes are replicators of culture. They are transmitted the way culture is transmitted: communication. Successful communication transmits memes.

[smurf]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

... It can be. There are rules for deprogramming in Toxic Memes!
Memes are replicators of culture. They are transmitted the way culture is transmitted: communication. Successful communication transmits memes.

This does make THS a bit grim imo. Fun to play but what is defined as a 'Toxic Meme'?

I'm a Marxist is Marxism a toxic meme, would I find myself dragged away and 'deprogrammed' to protect society from Marxist meme pandemic etc.

Memes are spread through what I would call socialisation, however memes therefore have someform of persuasion ability to formulate ideas. Propaganda is one form, education and entertainment, as well as news. If you have a contradictory meme and that could act as a meme resistance until it breaks so best get the contradictory meme topped up.

Also wouldn't the most successful memes reach cultural dominance when a critical mass is reached they would dominate. You would not a non meme compliant person working in your business.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by smurf

I'm a Marxist is Marxism a toxic meme, would I find myself dragged away and 'deprogrammed' to protect society from Marxist meme pandemic etc.

In the EU? No.

[smurf]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

In the EU? No.

Don't see why not, the EU is not exactly the bastion of 'free speech'.

But anyway the point stands that unwanted memes: Marxism, Anarchism etc could find themselves 'de programmed'

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by smurf

Don't see why not, the EU is not exactly the bastion of 'free speech'.

But anyway the point stands that unwanted memes: Marxism, Anarchism etc could find themselves 'de programmed'

Under the right oppressive regime, even my anti-social nature could be seen as pathological. I have social phobia, but even without that am still innately introverted.
The power of the government to control/abuse its citizens doesn't just exist when they can alter your beliefs directly.

I think an important aspect is whether they truly try to control your thoughts, or merely your internal reasons for destructive behavior.
Who here would really have a problem with "helping" habitual criminals to reduce their sentences? Other than vengeance obsessed Americans so common around here.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by smurf

Don't see why not, the EU is not exactly the bastion of 'free speech'.'

Because it's not a freedom hating Pottsylvania. If you want to insist that it is, I'm going to insist on citations. I'm 99% certian that neither Pulver nor Masters intend for the EU to be some kind of grimdark mindcontrolling distopia and that nothing in the game actually supports this view.

[smurf]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Because it's not a freedom hating Pottsylvania. If you want to insist that it is, I'm going to insist on citations. I'm 99% certian that neither Pulver nor Masters intend for the EU to be some kind of grimdark mindcontrolling distopia and that nothing in the game actually supports this view.

Sorry confusion between setting and the real world.

But it still implies a darker side. ROI, Spain and Poland currently have tough anti abortion laws. Therefore, free choice, is a toxic meme. Now it could argued in the future this is not an issue.

Or religions believe that their memes are attacked by atheists and therefore not enough to defend themselves. Or schools that teach religion are infected.

Keynes vs Friedman memes. Which is toxic?

Would it be a case of silencing people before they can reach a critical mass of meme defusion/pollution across the major cities? Everything would have to contain a meme rating that transmission of information could change you and your own memes.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by smurf

Are memes transmitted by:

Touch (excluding physical harm)
Sight (including reading)
Sound
Smell
Taste

Memes are transmitted by *language*. To the extent you can develop a language that works through any sense you want, the can be transmitted through any sense, but only if your target understands that particular language.

Some kinds of sensory input can make you more or less susceptible to memes coming in through other routes - e.g. you learn better in relaxing environments than in the midst of irritating noise - and many of the techniques or memetics as persuasion technique, as opposed to memetics as science, are built around that, but that's packaging not the transmitted meme.

[smurf]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Memes are transmitted by *language*. To the extent you can develop a language that works through any sense you want, the can be transmitted through any sense, but only if your target understands that particular language.

Some kinds of sensory input can make you more or less susceptible to memes coming in through other routes - e.g. you learn better in relaxing environments than in the midst of irritating noise - and many of the techniques or memetics as persuasion technique, as opposed to memetics as science, are built around that, but that's packaging not the transmitted meme.

Ok it is what I thought it was.

So apart from earplugs and blindfolds you can have counter memes.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by smurf

Ok it is what I thought it was.

So apart from earplugs and blindfolds you can have counter memes.

The only way to be truly immune to influence is to be truly immune to all forms of new information, which is a scary form of obstinance.