Memes (pronounced “meems”)
are interesting things; they are (for lack of a better term)
thought viruses. They don’t just shape our beliefs, they *ARE* our beliefs. I
don’t have the space to get into a whole thing on memes here; I just wanted to
touch on the subject before diving in.

The Problem

David Brin, in his 1990 book “Earth,” described a phenomenon of the Internet five
years before the Internet exploded into public awareness. He talked about
people using the Net not to expose themselves to new ideas, but to insulate
themselves from them.

Tim O’Reilly, of O’Reilly Publishing, talked about bookbuying
habits that indicate people on the right read books supporting the right, and
people on the left read books supporting the left. Again, people are
insulating themselves from new ideas by surrounding themselves with like-minded
people and literature.

It doesn’t take too much imagination to quickly see how this situation can only
make things worse; people tend to become more and more polarized. People
become more confident that their thought viruses (beliefs) are the only ones
that make sense and “only an idiot could think otherwise.”

In the past, this has easily and quickly lead to wars as the thought viruses
(memes) urge their hosts to destroy the competing thought strain. Am I talking
about religion, empire, or politics? From the point of view of memes, I don’t
think there’s any difference between the three.

So… Now What?

Eric Flint, in his recent “Crown of Slaves” hints at a possible solution to
this parasitic viral war when one character makes some comment about another
along the lines of “decent fellow, a little too inclined to only reading books
he agrees with, but nice enough.”

Where am I going with this? Consider this meme: what if, by not knowing the
other side of the story, you are, by definition, uninformed? And no, this
doesn’t mean you have to read “that tripe the other side is passing off as
fact,” you just have to accept that, if you don’t, you’re uninformed, and, by logical
extrapolation, not fit to judge an issue.

Agree with it or not, but it’s a belief coming in your direction. Are you
prepared, or are you uninformed?

As a last logic bomb, memes, by their very nature, are, themselves, memes.