Interesting comments on the MEME THEME...

PSYCHOHISTORY

In his Foundation Trilogy (later to be extended in additional books), the
prolific science fiction/fact writer Isaac Asimov told a story of a small
group of people who secretly steered the course of history using technology
that we would now recognize as an outgrowth of memetics. By recognizing
group psychology and the effect of various memes on populations, they were
able (Asimov creates) to shorten the intergalactic Dark Ages by millennia.

Is such a thing possible? We are seeing the beginnings of attempts at
memetic engineering today. Advertisers are designing memes that are
becoming fairly effective at penetrating populations, in hope that they
will carry with them a message influencing consumer buying behavior. Have
you heard someone say "I love ya, man!" lately? Anheuser-Busch is delighted
if you have.

More broadly, I'm seeing a steady trickle of organizations copying and
mutating successful Profit Viruses (MLMs) and Power Viruses (cults). It's
an interesting question whether the population as a whole will ever build
up an "immunity" to this kind of thing, or whether the
evolutionary-psychology buttons of lust, power, fear, and so on are too
powerful to overcome.

Who knows? There may have been a small group of Illuminati steering us for
millennia past without us even knowing...

from: http://www.memecentral.com/mu/mu0005.htm

 

selfish gene theory

The gene-centered view of evolution, gene selection theory or selfish gene theory holds that natural selection acts through differential survival of competing genes, increasing the frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic effects successfully promote their own propagation. According to this theory, adaptations are the phenotypic effects through which genes achieve their propagation.

memes and memplexes

Memeplexes have been employed recently in attempts to understand religion. In the case of Christianity, the idea suggests, the Christian memeplex "evolved" based upon the Jewish religious teachings, among others, to eventually form the Catholic church, followed by various schisms leading to the Eastern Orthodox churches and various Protestant churches. In this process, various theologians, political leaders, writers, and religious visionaries have added and deleted individual memes from the Christian memeplex resulting in the formation of new but related memeplexes, or (religions/sects). The process of schism, like evolution, is ongoing, and as a result smaller and less differentiated memeplexes have arisen within the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. The same process could be said to be occurring in the case of many sets of belief.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memeplex

 

Inspiration and Free Minds

New article of mine on Inspiration:

 

http://www.freeminds.org/Inspiration.htm

 

I'm not big on inspirational dailies (last one was Far Side), but as of last week I now get Seth Grodin's blogcast. I quote him from today, in reference to his prediction of changes in society due to the internet:

 

You're not going to win a Pulitzer Prize

What an opportunity (for someone) to start taking advantage of the huge pool of talent and passion that is moving online, and to work to raise the bar. We don't need more gossip sites from celebrity magazine editors. We need to identify and reward voices that push hard against the status quo, that report eagerly and accurately and that speak truth to power.

Here's what we're going to miss, and quite soon: the cost of having a printing press and the money to run one meant that there were newspapers with gravitas. Newspapers that invested for the long haul, that stood for something, that spoke up. When you can launch a blog for nothing and disappear quite easily if it doesn't work, the gravitas is a lot more difficult to find. When the newspapers are gone (and it's happening a lot faster than the people in the industry are able to admit) that's what we're going to miss the most.

The opportunity, then, is to organize and network and identify and reward that activity when it happens online. Not because the site is owned by a paper or because the founder has connections to the old media. No, because they're doing work that matters.

I think what Grodin means is a branding of a collective. When people work in tandem to produce community, coupled with tolerance for dissent and a vision for the future, the demands of cooperation will necessitate policies insuring their continued stability and trustworthiness. People will come to trust you, and believe in your vision.

For an example of a great writing style, take a look at this article re: Gary Larson's The Far Side. In my opinion, it is a work of art. Note the richness and depth of the content, cloaked in a satirist' wit:

"The Far Side" was eventually picked up by 1,900 newspapers and translated into 17 languages. Twice the Dayton Daily News inadvertently translated it into "Dennis the Menace," by switching the captions on the side-by-side panels. (It didn't do much for "The Far Side," but greatly improved "Dennis the Menace," as in the cartoon in which Dennis tells his doting mother, "I see your little, petrified skull ... labeled and resting on a shelf somewhere," a line that had been intended for a Neolithic fortune-teller.)

If you want to read some home-grown examples of art in words, read our own CoCo's Blog, and Gary's Armageddon Okies. How could I pass up this talent?

No one is a fool for assuming something as factual--until it requires a greater commitment to that fact, and one proceeds to ignore the damning evidence otherwise. A Dogzism

 

word of the day: mind-hacking

 

It's admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any. -- Dick Cavett

the failure of seeking perfection

For those seeking moral perfection and a perfect society, a free market is not the answer. In the course of history, the search for perfect societies - that is, the failure to acknowledge human imperfection - almost always ended in one or another form of theocracy, authoritarianism, or violent anarchy. But for those who seek to work with human flaws of every stripe, and to increase the sum total of individual happiness, the free market, combined with political freedom, is the best way.  - Ayaan Hirsi Ali

a free market

It is possible there would be less suffering in a world in which man desired harmony and contentment more than competition and achievement. But that world does not exist. We are the product of our ancient struggle to survive. And we deny our instincts at great peril. If the market is not free, it must be controlled - and controlled by someone or some group. When confronted with our natural human desire to achieve, an enlightened craving for equality soon turns to enforced equality. Self-generating incentives for moral behavior are replaced by edicts and punishments. Carrots give way to sticks. - Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion

Why Not?

"You see things: you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never are: and say 'Why not?'"
by George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

Alpha Males

Alpha male is a term used in describing any group or society of animals that live closely together and have a dominant leader. Alpha dog is often used in both domesticated breeds of dogs and in wolf societies to express the leadership characteristics of the dog to which all other dogs defer. There are also alpha females or leading females in many pack animal societies (including human societies), with the alpha female having dominance over all females in the pack and possibly some of the lower beta males or omega males.

In human societies alpha male can mean very different things. Some use the term to mean the guy who seems most at ease with women and can essentially marry or date any woman of his choice. In this sense the alpha male is often good-looking, has a great build, and may have a relatively high socioeconomic status. These distinctions may be less noticed in human groups like high school settings. Generally the alpha male (or a group of alpha males) are the cutest guys, usually muscle-bound, sometimes the "jocks," while beta males may be less assured around females and may participate in less "male" activities.

The guys who join math teams or play chess at lunch are usually the beta males and may be thought less attractive by girls. It should be noted that "nerds" (and here we use the term fondly and affectionately), are becoming increasingly popular. As long-term mates or "boyfriends," they stereotypically on average tend to be nicer and more respectful toward girls. This article also does not imply that all attractive males are necessarily alpha. Alpha males are more about exhibiting traits that are essentially masculine or "macho." Many attractive males are beta to the core when it comes to relating with people.

In work settings, the alpha male may be a natural leader, exuding confidence. But he also may be contentious, demanding and difficult to work with. This is thought to be in part due to the alpha male attempting to retain his stature, however unconsciously, as alpha. Being the top salesperson, the quickest worker, the most aggressive boss may contribute to remaining at the top, and the alpha male has a tendency to respond aggressively to any attempts by others to outshine him.

This is true in non-human settings too. The alpha male is continually being tested to see if he remains dominant and may need to stage pitched fights with upcoming males in a group to remain "top dog." In the human setting, the alpha male usually doesn't fight physically, but instead acts with language, brusque or dismissive behavior, or with other tactics to remain at the top.

Though leaders in a company are excellent to have, alpha male characteristics in the workplace may not always be seen as positive. Aggression and disregard for others are not necessarily inspiring. Some people better lead by being "beta" and having good communication skills, sensitivity toward others, and downplaying their strengths so they can showcase the strengths of others.

In adult social settings, alpha males again may be judged not so much by aggression, but by their ability to get the most attractive women as mates. This is the primary reason for alpha behavior in other animals.

The alpha male in adult society is likely to be confident, attractive, and wealthy. Questions remain as to whether the alpha male can retain mates, since relationships often require ability to compromise, to discuss feelings and to be sensitive. Some alpha males have these characteristics typically thought of as beta, but many of them lack such traits. You can certainly point to prominent alpha males in our society who seem to have poor track records with women, either involving themselves in a succession of failed relationships or marrying one woman after another, with no marriage lasting for very long.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-alpha-male.htm

Theodore Jaracz aware of molestation issue in 2001 before Dateline

Well I hope I survive this one, biting the big one:

 

Theodore Jaracz aware of molestation issue in 2001 before Dateline

 

 

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/164271/1.ashx

 

Randy Watters

 

I learn the most from people who others pay no attention to.

 

Herding

Some religions are merely corporations started by alpha males who desire power. Such males are charismatic and have learned the art of using fear, coercion and guilt to get you to do their bidding. Herding people with such high-level weapons is obscene.

 

 

DUNE by Frank Herbert

I will not fear

Fear is the mindkiller,

Fear is the little death

That brings total Oblivion

I will permit my fear to pass

Over me and through me

And where it has gone

I will turn the inner eye

Nothing will be there

Only I will remain.

 

one

i was alone in the beginning,

I will be alone in the end.

I need answer to no one else.

Randy

knowledge...

Is your relationship with God about "knowing things"?

something's missing here...

Nat Geo's 'Inside a Cult': Would you drink the kool-aid?

"Cults are different because they cross the lines of propriety. They are renegades to society and basic human rights, mostly women and children, and are unified by their leaders' hubris, hucksterism and sheer strength of mind power.

"The leaders are God's con men. They are usually always male, charismatic, some are very attractive; they communicate and express their prophecies and beliefs with utter conviction. 

"They are masters of manipulating the broken, the weak, gullible, psychologically damaged and feeble-minded around them in their zeal for what they purport as their rightful leadership as the anointed God-human deity in the presence of their flocks. "

- from National Geographic

El Porto Sunrise

Gary Busselman sez:

I've found the best way to deal with relatives who are shunning me is from a reasonable distance. 100 miles seems to be about right.

Sarcasm is reserved for friends and the friendly.

Believing Witnesses see me as a ridiculer, an opposer, and that's what I am. I actually don't ridicule, I just write Watch Tower policies and practices and they look ridiculous without any help from me. 

people sniff and walk by

Things about these Youtube videos done by amateurs that you really have to appreciate:

they are heartfelt and peoples sense that, and tend to believe it more than a printed page.  In other words, testimonies are very powerful. Cults obviously use that to their advantage as well.

the videos are cathartic, and people watching experience a taste of the same catharsis and want it for themselves; thus prompting the listener to seek what the person in the video is offering.

if humor is used, as in the case of recent Scientology exposé as done by a group called ANON, and the humor is not angry sarcasm or personal attacks, which are traditionally the tools of the cults, and hopefully not those trying to expose them.  A leveling ground is created. All of the façades, the Emperor's new clothes that people are wearing in positions of power, are suddenly seen as having no more power than that of the average peon.  Suddenly, the most powerful are without clothes, and the commoners see that the power person is embarrassed, and the power person wrenches the curtain back in front of the stage so that the façade may continue unabated.  Yet HIS DOOM IS SEALED. His primal fear turns to white rage, as he sweats out the careless poison which eventually destroys him in the end.  Alone and embarrassed. For all charismata is gone now, all is left is a the shell of a man.

People sniff and walk by.

dogz

 

The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World

By Tim Cameron

 

father grief on audio

father grief.

Hi Dawg,

 

I was very touched by your letter at http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/156499/1.ashx.

 

It grieves me more over the years to read letters like this than any other type.  Maybe because I am a man, and I know how much a good father means to me.  I am lucky enough to have a father like the one you wish you had.  This week he will be 84 and is still in relatively good health, along with my mother.

 

Because of my strong family and the love of my father for people, we often took in some of my buds who were temporarily hard up while I was growing up.  They would be the lost a homeless and the down and out, but because they were my buds, my dad saw the need and he took them in.  We always had plenty of friends around, young and old alike.

 

Even with having a good father I have my own issues.  My father is a hard act to follow. He was raised in the Depression in Oklahoma, and his father owned three grocery stores.  My father Ken worked in the stores more like a bouncer than anything. He was the best in hunting and fishing,  sales and people skills more than anyone I knew.  He is still very social, although his audience is much smaller and consists of my mother and my sister and brother-in-law, niece and nephew and a dozen animals. So he still has a kingdom. :-))  But the gift he gave me was FREEDOM. The freedom to choose various ways to disappoint him.

 

I'm sure I disappointed my dad. Yet I think more often than not he kept that a secret. He was successful, but his success was based on working with people. Many years later, I guess mine is, too.

 

Dawg, I wonder how much of this "father mentality" they get it is really personal and not as religious as we think it is? Family members are known to hold grudges much longer than with strangers.  We expect a lot of others we love.  We hold it against them when they do not fit what we want them to be. All of this develops into resentment and anger. The pain of rejection is so strong that we will cover it over with what ever religious smokescreen we can find. Yet I suspect that not only are the perpetrators of this shunning the losers, but that they are also suffering the most pain. I think sometimes it is so strong that it requires an internal "operation," like an incision, to take out the offending pain and cover it with religious nonsense.

 

I've seen letters like this continually for the last 27 years. God, how long will they STRIP men from what I believe to be the most influential and powerful bond available to man - father and son? That's rape in my book people.

 

I think I see this more than anything else in the organization including mental illness, pedophiles, fornicators and so on.  The fathers do not know how to love their children in this organization.  How does this happen?  Just as in any other family, by example.  Having lived with and rubbed shoulders with these Bethel elders educates me as to how out of touch and insular they are.  And judging by the way that they deal with the young brothers at Bethel, they would no doubt treat their own children the same way, if God forbid, they had some. And it is passed on and on to the children and their children. Fatherless children. I loathed that treatment at Bethel, and you can bet I will fight it forward, exposing these sick old men who rape and pillage their own children.

 

I am angry here, not for anything the Watchtower did to me, because they didn't manage to hurt me. I KNEW what a real dad was like, I KNEW how God was supposed to be, and that really led me out in the end.

 

Randy

http://freeminds.org/family/family.htm

 

 

puppies control the universe

on disguising an empty life.

    Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
    The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than a deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without.
    What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes than in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored.
Eric Hoffer.

On Fooling Myself

I start off the day telling myself I have nothing to do.

I am a workaholic so that frees my mind.

Now that I can relax, I start gradually, imperceptibly doing things I want to do,

which will eventually include my work during the day.

I will get more and better work done by fooling myself.

 

April 7, 2008

Well-being is a state of mind: A construct, a fantasy, a portal in which we live out our version of the world. Drugs and alcohol destroy the efficiency of that portal.  Synchronizing and celebrating our energies rebuilds the portal; makes it powerful.  We create new dreams and fantasies, projects and goals; spiritual goals, really... perhaps even more so than physical goals. 

On the advantage of religious belief

Comments based on article, "Where angels no longer fear to tread"
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10875666
discussion:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/155381/1.ashx

I have had a subscription to The Economist for a couple of years now. I must say I really like the magazine. It is more European-based in its perspective, which is vital and you live in the United States and you're surrounded by fundamentalists and Republicans who see this country as "God's country" rather than just a small part of a stream of human history. (Hey, I LOVE the U.S., but life goes on, people!) My foxy neighbor used to work for The Economist in London as a reporter for a few years, covering hot spots in the Middle East. If you want a FRESH outlook that is NOT U.S., try it!

I think Witnesses go through many stages when they leave the Watchtower if they're intellectuals or intellectually inclined. The first one is of course criticism, anger, and attack for many, followed by a lashing out in revenge on the part of some. Anger often has to run its course. For others who still want a religious experience and want to believe in God, anger is not usually their big concern. It wasn't for me. Plus, I was lucky not to have been abused by the system, which is a major plus.

Some ex-JWs are not angry at all. They just want something better.

As the ex-Witness who is determined to get satisfying answers progresses in a non-religious direction, or in a fundamentalistic direction, he/she often adopts a simplistic binary view of life. Black and white; cult or non-cult. The one who demands control over their worldview, whether it be deity-based or atheistic, often becomes an iconoclast, who in their efforts to get a grip on reality and what reality is, will tend to posterize the world as black and white. To them it is necessary for the world to be black and white to survive as life is otherwise dark, cold and ends in death.

I remember that scenario when I was 20 years old, living in Canoga Park, Calif. and swallowing everything their "truth" book had to say about life in our view of eternity. I was deathly afraid it WAS NOT TRUE, yet hoping it was with all my heart. The emotional demands of the situation required that it be true. Otherwise, I was lost completely! Lost child in a very confusing world.
For the insecure, the quest is to establish as true a new worldview that one has decided to adopt for one's own psychological security.

For the one who is relatively secure and is not interested in so much a fantasy world view or simple answers, and (God forbid!) ENJOYS the mystery and complexity of life, learning is an ongoing experience that never peaks and disappoints. Evolutionary "genius" if you ask me!

Randy 03/27/08

Randog and Chef Denot Recipes

El Porto Recipes!
Get 'em while they're hot!
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Notes on The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker

Select Quotes from “The Denial of Death” by Ernest Becker

"An animal who gets his feeling of worth symbolically has to minutely compare himself to those around him, to make sure he doesn't come off second-best. Sibling rivalry is a critical problem that reflects the basic human condition: it is not that children are vicious, selfish, or domineering. It is that they so openly express man's tragic destiny: he must des­perately justify himself as an object of primary value in the uni­verse; he must stand out, be a hero, make the biggest possible con­tribution to world life, show that he counts more than anything or anyone else. "
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