At 10:57 PM 12/15/01 +0100, Anders wrote:
>the weapon will be spread, and used for memes like
>"Serbs, lay down your arms!", "Accept Christ as your Saviour!", "Destroy
>the Capitalist System!", "Drink Coca Cola!" and "Relinquish Dangerous
>Technology!". I think we all can imagine the truly awful mess that would
>develop, until somebody finally managed to convince the entire world
>about "Relinquish your meme weapons to me and obey ME as your
>God-Emperor!".
For gruesome fictional depictions of this dreadful proposal, take a gander
at several of John Barnes' novels about viral meme warfare (KALEIDOSCOPE
CENTURY and CANDLE) and Raphael Carter's THE FORTUNATE FALL, for example;
Egan of course has also played with it in various stories. So too does the
novel two of us praised the other day, Geoff Ryman's THE CHILD GARDEN.
Taken literally, a hideous idea. Sorry, Spike.
Damien Broderick
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