[extropy-chat] Movie review- Renaissance: Paris 2054

[Keith Henson]

At 10:04 PM 11/27/2006 -0800, Stuart wrote:

snip

>Yes, I am aware of that, so much so that I am doing
>something about it beyond mere debate. I and others
>are forming a memetic antivirus marketed as a
>religion. It's primary directive is to outcompete all
>others by selling cleverly packaged reality instead of
>so-called "truth".

snip

If you are serious, I highly advise reading _Religion Explained_ by Pascal 
Boyer.

Boyer does not have a complete model, but his field work and observations 
have to be incorporated in any model.

I would use extreme caution in marketing any meme set that is intended to 
compete with religions.  I have recently come to the extremely paranoid 
view of religions as xenophobic meme reservoirs.

I suspect that the evolved trait of humans hosting religions at all is 
connected to the irrational state humans enter when they unconsciously 
perceive the need to kill neighbors because of a pending resource 
crisis.  (Think Rwanda.)

I believe functional MRI could determine the actual brain areas involved, 
just as it showed what gets activated when partisans defending their leaders.

Keith Henson

PS.  If history is any guide, your meme set is likely to mutate in ways 
that make it more fit to human needs to justify wars in a time of pending 
resource crunch.