[ExI] My mad memetic mayhem. =P

Mike Dougherty msd001 at gmail.com
Thu Jun 27 11:27:34 UTC 2013


On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 10:09 PM, Alan Grimes <ALONZOTG at verizon.net> wrote:
> My problem right now is that I want to spread a whole new family of memes.
> The story that I've been going on and on about (I'm probably 1 / 10th as
> annoying as the Clinic Seed, which is at the upper bound of annoying at this
> point...)

1) don't start by attacking someone else's success.  Clinic Seed was
pretty cool.  There are literally thousands of books at the store with
less good ideas making tons more money.  You might not agree with the
premise but Keith gave it to us for free.  His story isn't competing
with yours even if you do see it that way.

> Part 1 of my story is really about the direction I want transhumanism to go
> in and so I present a bunch of ideas that you probably never thought about
> before and raise a bunch of issues that I seldom see discussed.

2) you aren't in control, stop thinking that you should be.  If you
really have even 1 genuinely new idea, congratulations.  Most likely
you have a bunch of ideas that aren't worth the level of discussion
that you could casually detect.  You know why nobody I talk to has any
of the ideas I had when I was 15?  Because I don't hang around with 15
year-olds anymore.  Maybe the same selection bias is affecting your
novel ideation?

> Unfortunately, I rambled on for about 37,000 words. Do any of you intend to
> actually read what I wrote? If not, how should I go about spreading my
> memes?

3) stop trying so hard.  It's easy to write too much.  Can you cut
that monster down to 25% of it's current bloat?  A meme, by
definition, is a self-replicator.  You know how difficult it will be
to make a self-replicator that needs an attention span willing to
consume 37,000 words?  Even if you find it, will it be influential
enough in a world of smaller & faster memes to ever propagate itself?
Crafting memes is hard work.  If you want easier success: put on a
funny outfit and hit your head while dancing to a popular song; post
video.

> One of my biggest challenges right now is that the uploaders have
> memetically bulldozed all choices between being uploaded and being some
> miserable wretched creature like Gollum. My story is intended to present a
> set of ideas that are both attractive, to me at least, and have never been
> discussed before. So I really would like to talk them over with SOMEONE,
> even if that someone is viciously(sp?) hostile towards them.

4) another of your biggest challenges is that you have an ax to grind
and that's just not endearing.  If you believe the world (and the
future) is a zero-sum game for attention span, then you would tailor
you message to winning mindshare from that perspective.  If you
believe there is an infinite potential, you need only continue
creating your content and eventually it will find an audience.  Have
you tried a blog?  Develop conversation via commenting on your blog
posts.  If you have no comments, find some free advice for making your
blog more appealing.  Don't be disappointed if the Internet in general
isn't ready for your ideas - there's always post-singularity humanity
embracing a retro fad.

> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d9wiR52hpkGnn3A3tqQqBP43lmflR_pXkj2IITa4olA/edit?usp=sharing

Can you break that down and provide links from one part to another?
My cooling fan went to high-speed as my scroll-bar view indicator
shrank to a tiny line.  I found that noise too distracting to read
your content.  Yeah, I'm being unforgiving.  However, I am providing
this [hopefully helpful] feedback.  Well, to be fair, I waited until
it loaded and everything calmed down.  I skipped around a bunch...

I felt like you are telling me too much by directly stating it.
Illuminati, Georgia Guidestones, etc. just seems grabbed and shoved
into this story.  I'm not really sure what the point is.  I would read
a second draft.  If you share me a comment-enabled version, I'll
likely comment as I read and point out the typos (and lose/loose type
stuff)

> http://www.infowars.com/transhumanism-debunked-why-drinking-the-kurzweil-kool-aid-will-only-make-you-dead-not-immortal/

I saw someone post that in my facebook feed.  I didn't read it there
either.  Honestly, that title slug says enough for me to know I don't
care about kurzweil kool aid one way or the other.



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list