Immunity to Memes

[Cramulus]

New Chaos Marxism pivots to building consciousness, and therefore immunity to memes. Memes work by subverting the rational mind ("slow" mind) in favor of the "heuristic" mind, the "monkey" mind, the mind that works on like/dislike; Chaos Marxist aims to marry the two.

But how?

• It can't be done on an individual basis because there is no way for an isolated individual to know whether she is a noble defender of The Truth who sees things that the slack-jawed yokels can't understand; or just a crank (the two look identical from the inside).
• But it's difficult as hell to do it in a group because most groups are brought down by their own internal bullshit: ego-centricity and meme-based thinking feed off and are fed by clique politics and abusive/authoritarian leadership.

Let's discuss how one can develop meme-immunity

[Doktor Howl]

New Chaos Marxism pivots to building consciousness, and therefore immunity to memes. Memes work by subverting the rational mind ("slow" mind) in favor of the "heuristic" mind, the "monkey" mind, the mind that works on like/dislike; Chaos Marxist aims to marry the two.

But how?

• It can't be done on an individual basis because there is no way for an isolated individual to know whether she is a noble defender of The Truth who sees things that the slack-jawed yokels can't understand; or just a crank (the two look identical from the inside).
• But it's difficult as hell to do it in a group because most groups are brought down by their own internal bullshit: ego-centricity and meme-based thinking feed off and are fed by clique politics and abusive/authoritarian leadership.

Let's discuss how one can develop meme-immunity

I am unsure that's even POSSIBLE.  My brother, for example is a really smart guy, but he never met a right wing viral idea that didn't stick to his brain like stink on shit.  So we can rule out "being smart".

I think memes (pictures or otherwise) either work well on you or they don't.  I mean, there's a reason people to this day sell cars by sticking a girl in a bikini to it in the ads.  Or show the car aggressively violating basic traffic and safety laws.

It would be interesting to find out how many people, as a percentage of the population, become motivated to purchase a car based on those sorts of thing.  It must work on a decent chunk of society.



It is ALSO worth mentioning that the right wing understands on some basic level how memes work.  That is why they make so damn many of them, without regard for quality or even humor.

The left responds with their own.

Neither side is moved to convert by these memes.  Both sides just get irritated.  Which seems to be the actual goal.

[LMNO]

Is the goal to figure out how "I" can attain meme-tolerance*?
How "we" get there?
How to get "them" there?

Three very different goals.

But I'd assume a good start is looking at, as Dok Howl mentioned, television commercials.  How did some people develop tolerance for advertising?  Why do some people seem to fall for a slick ad every time? 





*I feel that "immunity" is impossible.  The minute one thinks they are impervious to memes, they've almost surely been infected.

[Cramulus]

When a meme with a horrible perspective MAKE SENSE*, you can FEEL it

(** I don't mean when it's right, I mean when you can understand its logic)

this is a good place to observe how your monkey mind reacts FIRST, and your rational mind comes in huffing and puffing behind it.




If the same point were written out in paragraph form, it would not have the same effect. For it to be effective, it NEEDS to hit your emotions, fast.

it really is an emotional logic


in developing a better immune system, I can think of two roads --

One is an ideological buffer - MAGA memes bounce off of me because I'm a liberal cuck. This also sucks though, because it makes me really vulnerable to memes that lean on my liberal sensibilities. Even if they are stupid, the emotional logic appeals to me. Though this might be what Dolores talks about when she writes about developing consciousness -- like, if you have a lot of friends who post socialist memes, you develop an awareness of that logic, its passions, etc, you become (almost unconsciously) friendly to that logic.

The second is to develop a distance between the observation and the reaction. This is easier said than done. It requires you to recognize emotional hijacking as it's happening, which is hard, becuase your emotions are being hijacked.

But there are ways to put up shields with your slow-rational mind. For example, if you've ever posted youtube content, you know that haters will appear and shit on it. And that's like a law of nature, it doesn't matter what you post, somebody out there will hate it. This knowledge (that shit is like the weather, it happens to everyone) can insulate you against reacting to that on a personal level.

[Cramulus]

How did some people develop tolerance for advertising?  Why do some people seem to fall for a slick ad every time?

Awareness of advertising techniques can defeat advertising techniques.

Awareness of logical fallacies can protect you against them.

So maybe there is some ontology of memes which can act like a vaccine

[Doktor Howl]

One is an ideological buffer - MAGA memes bounce off of me because I'm a liberal cuck.

Or someone could find them ALL cringey.

[LMNO]

Interesting observation: That Trump meme you posted above 100% didn't work for me, and not just because it's Trump.  I think it was the format.

Either, "Isn't it interesting how [single focus issue] has more agreement from people than [vast, sprawling systemic problems]?" is immediately an identifiable logical flaw, or something about a Political Impact-Font Meme triggers me to look for what's "wrong" with it.

I find myself more suckered by out-of-context Twitter posts.  The proof I have of this is I just looked through my meme stash for an example of something I liked before I realized it was jingoistic, and I couldn't find one. 

Which means they're in there, somewhere.

[Doktor Howl]

Those things referred to as memes nowdays do not seem to convert anyone at all.  They just seem to reinforce existing beliefs.

[Frontside Back]

What I've noticed is that consuming enemy memes makes my brain turn on. My brain is so much more critical when I know beforehand that I'm looking for something I disagree with. I think it has also to do with the context and the state of mind I'm in, since I have to go outside my bubble to even find enemy memes.

Friend memes tend to pop up while I'm just trying to relax and figure out what people I know have been up to lately. They strike when I'm comfortable and defenseless. I don't examine them as they pass by, why should I? They seem to be in line with my worldview.

[Doktor Howl]

Well, yeah.  I think the principle application of memes isn't to convert and unify, but to solidify people's positions and thereby increase division.

[Frontside Back]

For very long I was afraid of looking at nazi shit. For I felt that my views were so feeble and my mind so easily altered, that just browsing through their shit could convert me into a genocidal maniac. That meme from Niechehszhhehhrese about fighting monsters and becoming one kept echoing inside my brain.

So I let the secondhand knowledge about my enemies from friendly memes build my view about them, never getting them, never realizing what is actually going on inside their heads. You don't really get how dangerous nazis are if you just assume they are idiots, don't you.

If it's true that the memes are no longer able to convert people, best way to build up immunity gotta be taking a swim in a pool of shit. The mechanic behind reactionary memes are basically the same, but disagreeing, you'd be much more likely to spot the hooks.

I could also be wrong in a really horrific way.

[Cramulus]

btw, I think that conversion via meme is alive and well

what happens, I think, is that the Kids These Days congregate in facebook groups and discord servers, where there are "meme dumps". And I think that being in a "friendly space" helps you ingest the ideas behind the meme without triggering defenses. And a lot of it is subtle.


like, this meme, on the surface, is just mocking someone's outrage
but it has a whole ideology connected to it -- and if you laugh at the meme but are ignorant of the ideology, you've been subtly influenced - the next time you encounter that ideology, your brain will continue building a case

[altered]

For me what it is is developing an emotional distance, as Cram said. I do it in a weird way: I let myself be hijacked emotionally, then I map that ride out afterward.

There's a reason I started doing this this way. Hindsight is 20/20, and Pavlovian response means eventually, if you examine every emotional trip you go on, it becomes automatic to examine them. (The initial impetus was to figure out my brain damage which prevents me from stepping into an emotion reaction before it's full bore freak out time, meme immunity has been a beneficial side effect.)

This might sound unlikely because it's a complex meta cognitive process, but the electric meat is nothing if not efficient at automating repeated reactions. Also, it just automates flipping the "let's dissect this" switch, the dissection (at least for me, currently) is still consciously directed.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Let's talk about Memetic Immune Response, rather than immunity.

You can develop antibodies to a specific meme, and you do naturally and rapidly for most. Think about a joke you've heard a million times. This immunity may fade for some things (a joke may become novel again after a sufficient downtime) and for some things you may never develop a strong immune reaction (Richard Spencer getting punched in the face will never not be funny), but for the most part the common cold analogy works.

Where our discussions about Memetic Immunity are flawed is in thinking this is transferable. You cannot inoculate yourself against All Memes as a class. Brains don't work that way, and neither do societies. While one meme may make you more susceptible to others, or increase your Memetic Immune Response to others, you cannot become immune to memes.

So, what can we do? Harm reduction.

     > Identify memes that are catastrophic to the individual and to the society.
     > Create logical, emotional, and memetic framework that increases the Memetic Immune Reaction to those specific memes
     > Expose people to the framework before they have encountered the memes
     > Quarantine those exposed to reduce the harm done

Oh hey, all that looks like Doing A Fascism, doesn't it?

Ideas are Inherently Dangerous. They change things. Supercondensed Ideas are super dangerous, and we're swimming in them 24/7. There's no easy answers, fuck there might not BE any answers, but we're here and we have to learn to live in it.

[LMNO]

QG, bringing the fire.