>As for the "Stupid Masses" meme, while I tend to have little respect
>for
>idiots, I also acknowledge that many people in this world are so busy
>simply trying to get through a days work that they typically don't have
>time to think about the deeper questions in life.
Yes! Or rather, I don't even believe it's that they're too busy, just
that they are unconscious. It is possible to bring such people to
another level of consciousness (which I guess religion sometimes does in
a mild way, as do modern personal-growth programs such as Context and
Landmark). I've tried to do that with my books, both my self-help book
(Getting Past OK) and my memetics book (Virus of the Mind). I've come to
the sad provisional conclusion that it's very tough to make much of an
impact on people with nonfiction. (My next book is a memetics novel,
btw. I'll keep trying!)
On the other hand, there have definitely been times in my life when what
I THOUGHT was "thinking about the deeper questions" was more akin to
unproductive mental masturbation. I would have been much better off, and
learned more, by STOPPING those inquiries and going off and living some
fresh, new life experiences.
Sigh. It's so tough to reprogram your memes properly when your software
development tools are all written in the same crufty operating system...
;-)
Richard Brodie RBrodie@brodietech.com +1.206.688.8600
CEO, Brodie Technology Group, Inc., Bellevue, WA, USA
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie
Do you know what a "meme" is?
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
>