From: Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sun Jan 19 1997 - 18:14:48 MST
On Sun, 19 Jan 1997, Dan Fabulich wrote:
> But in the face of what's out there, how can I, and others like
> me, fight a meme of centralization which may be fundamentally more
> powerful than the one I'm trying to spread, simply by virtue of the fact
> that the meme I'm spreading can never be a dogma? Can this meme ever
> surpass authoritarianism?
I think it is possible. Dogmatic memes have their strengths, but also
weaknesses (just as tolerant memes). A dogmatic meme will make its host
resistant to other competing memes, but this will also slow the spread of
useful memes (like, say, life extension methods) into the host, which
might give the tolerant memes increased fitness. If extropianism can
become deeply intertwined with useful memes, then it will spread
regardless of what the dogmatists want.
Tolerant people doesn't pick much fights against others, but I have noted
that once they start, they tend to become very dedicated ("We are
defending liberty!"), sometimes so much they become dogmatic :-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
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