February 11th, 2021
- intentionality is seeming increasingly important to me
- Mark Lippmann has stuff in his protocol about starting & stopping
- Qiaochu > so, the protocol has this notion of willing the “start” of something and willing the “stopping” of something, and a thought that occurred to me is that some of the stuff i do might be “starting” things without ever “stopping” them and wondering if anyone has generic things to say about “stopping” (hmm is this alexander technique?)
- Mark Lippmann > (loosely speaking, I think most people do like 90% starting and 10% stopping, on average, on net, all the time! big imbalance!)
- relates to "nothing to do" meditation
- someone else said > I got example of this kind of thing from a handbook on telekinesis of all places.
- 1. Place your hand on a wall
- 2. Multiply your two favorite two digit numbers in your head
- 3. You probably still have your hand stuck to the wall
- So you start an action of putting your hand against the wall, then you get distracted from that activity, and then you return to it and find that you have been continuing to do this effortful activity the whole time without any continual doing or upkeep
- Michael "Valentine" Smith > finite incantum
- call with Michael "Valentine" Smith, talking about memes
- thinking about David Deutsch's anti-rational vs rational memes
- Malcolm > seems also "arational" as a type of meme
- which is what typical internet memes are
- they are intentionally optimized for being ideal replicators
- whereas anti-rational unintentionally evolve towards being ideal replicators
- and rational intentionally evolve towards being meaningfully worth spreading
- re DD's "anti-rational vs rational memes" concept…
I think internet memes are a 3rd type
anti-rational = unintentionally evolve to spread
arational = intentionally optimized for being ideal replicators
rational = intentionally evolve towards being meaningfully worth spreading- re DD's "anti-rational vs rational memes"…
internet memes are *nonrational*…?
🦠👿🤬anti-rational: hacks host to spread despite harm to host
😂📈🙃nonrational: host optimizes for viral spread
💡🤯🛠️rational: host shares because beneficial (& maybe improves before sharing) - Thinking out loud about this, to check my initial insight:
1. how are nonrational memes different from anti-rational?
contrast
🧿 old unquestioned dogmas ("Bible tells me so" to "because I said so, that's why!")
💩 creativity & irreverence of internet meme culture - 1b. The important thing is that with anti-rational—aka STATIC—memes, the host is functionally *attempting* to propagate the exact same meme they received, without any changes
And any evolution happens *in spite of* that attempt, because more sticky or spready memes win. - 1c. By contrast, internet memes are *intentionally* changed, & creators hope they'll be picked up and changed *MORE*🚀
The infinite-game-ness of meme-remixing certainly has a fun-theory quality to it, but underlying substrate favors just *change*, not improvement in rationality. - 2. how are nonrational memes different from rational?
contrast
🧪 science needs rationality & vv, democracy needs liberalism & vv
😮 people falling deep into youtube conspiracy holes- is youtube conspiracy the best comparison?
- 2b.
- 2c.
- Michael "Valentine" Smith > maybe not cut, but still "penetrate"
- a vague theory about why am I still surprised when it feels so good after I exercise?