The irritation often does not come from the bad ideas, but the unwillingness to even acknowledge true information in conflict with them. It just tells me that they don't care about the truth or falsehood of the statements they make, which I find totally contemptible. The mark of education is having increasingly better understanding of where the line between what you know and what you don't know lies.
I wish more people knew that they need to evaluate sources, and how to find good sources, before adopting their memes. Facebook is a roach infested source, for instance.
The way you compared a heroin addict to a person who's been convinced of a bad meme was genius. I've had this video in an open tab for more than a week and I'm so glad I watched it. I'm definitely subbing.
This is a genius observation. Everyone feels the pull to believe nonsense that compliments what they want to hear. Part of being a good person is prioritizing truth.
Its because we just want everything around us to go our way. Its dangerous to see how pseudoscience is spreading across the globe at an alarming rate. More and.more people are falling for this trap.
@@diranshouse7061 is right lol Rationalism is a meme, empiricism is a meme, postmodernism is a meme, your self-concept is a meme. Read the damn book before you start talkin some shit. Go read some Heidegger, Nietzsche, Piaget, and Burke while you're at it.
Been teaching this to students in my biology class for the past year, but this'll be a really good video to help flesh out the idea more. Thanks for articulating it pretty well.
Are you also teaching a woke agenda ? Are you teaching them the tactics of propaganda,fear mongering, and subliminal programing ? You have as much to learn as your students.
Some years ago I heard Dawkins describe memes. It reinforced the idea that I must be honest with myself and question the memes I may have accepted out of lazyness or social conformity.
Me reading this comment makes me feel attacked. It's like when you listen to a song & you accept whatever lyrics they display because it sounds good. Or, you can't understand the lyrics, don't remember the lyrics, or don't even care about the lyrics but you like the song purely because it sounds good, which may somehow lead you to accept the song out of laziness or social conformity.
I'm sooooo glad you're tackling this topic. I've used the word meme in it's original context for years, and people look at me like I have two heads, even after I explain the original idea. I even go out of my way to use the word memetic instead so it's hopefully less confusing. It's like people struggle to separate the joke pics on the interwebs from the overall idea.
Yes, but those photographs are also memes and fully fall within the original definition. You just have to explain that the word has a much more broader definition than how it's commonly used.
it's called semantic narrowing. "meme" as a joke picture template is just one type of meme, but the word was always much broader than that. semantic (meaning) narrowing.
My observation is that 'modern day meme culture' is actively degrading people's capacity to think. Partly due to the heavy use of 'deformed imagery' like the 'pepe frog', but heavily due to the satiric application for them. I stand by my statement that if you need satire to discuss a (mature) topic, you are not mature / equipped enough to discuss said topic. The only solution is to properly educate oneself using sources... other than memes.
So glad I found this channel while searching for content on poverty. Well-researched data, astute interpretations, compassionate application -- and that fun final question. This also made me reflect on the memes I hold to that are just attractive, not necessarily truthful. (Makes me wonder what it is about a person that determines a meme's attractiveness or repulsiveness, all things being equal.) Thanks, Ryan!
It is like your genes. You are born with it. The good news is : good or bad is only temporary like rain and sunshine. Think of rain when the sun shines, and think of sunshine when it rains. It's that simple. This is ancient Chinese secret. May the love and the peace of Jesus be with us.
You're a legend, Ryan! Watching your videos, I am reminded of the quote, “if you can't explain it simply you don't understand it well enough”. Absolutely love how well you encapsulate these ideas. Would you consider adding book references to each video to get a sense of the material that inspires your content? Maybe this could be something you add to Patreon. Anyway, thanks for trying to make sense of this world with an open mind.
Yeah, I love that Feynman quote you paraphrase. But he also said: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." Some things are actually just complicated and unintuitive. ;)
Jeez, this video has literally nothing to do with memes except that the word meme is in it, if you decide to tell your friends about this video, is this video a meme? No. It’s not, it would be if a bunch of people would make fun of this video with the intentions of making it a meme.
People who believed in an idea become the idea itself. It is more appropriate to criticize the people than to criticize the idea. Some people do not believe in popular ideas anyways. May the love and the peace of Jesus be with us.
@@jwu1950 "people who believed in an idea become the idea itself," is a pretty extreme idea lol, I hope you dont believe it too much or you will become it.... oooooo.... spooooooky,
@@willisverynice Jesus is extreme and he got himself killed. He was nailed to the cross. But he is alive today in spirit which is in his teachings recorded in history books called Gospels. Ideas never died, you see ? May the love and the peace of Jesus be with us.
Just want to say I appreciate your channel so much Ryan! I love the way you break things down and model a non-biased, disciplined approach to tackling tough complex ideas.
I can appreciate Dawkins theory but I think it is really shallow. The British have regularly dismissed the entire Kantian a priori tradition. Carl Jung based his entire psychology on the Kantian a priori idea. And what Jung is basically saying is that a meme is basically nothing, it is completely trivial. It only has power when it has an archetypal-instinctual hook. The examples that you gave in the video have very powerful archetypal hooks. Movements like MAGA and BLM are essentially secular-religious movements, so it is easy to explain the archetypal hooks. In other words these movements are coming out of a primary spiritual instinct of projecting onto the nation as the great motherland/fatherland God (MAGA) or the corrupt Demiurge tyrannical God (BLM). In ancient Rome the Great Fatherland religion was expressed by turning Julius Caesar into a God people sacrifice themselves to the state religion. While the Gnostics and Early Christians created a religion of martyred saints, imitatio Christ. Something like that even though more complex. These are powerful archetypal instinctual patterns that allow people to place themselves in first person into Grand Narratives. Strangely it is Darwin’s lack of religious and philosophical education which strikes him blind to what these instincts really are. He has the completely naive belief that if we just ended religion once in for all people would act rationally. He is completely wrong. The deep root of the memes he is most upset about, irrational religious belief, are completely built into our humanity. If we took away all religion, we would still have irrational religiously acting people. The archetype would simply express itself in another way, such as worshiping a dictator or an ideology.
Great channel. I liked the crocidile comparison. Idk if I'm convinced memes explain why people believe things that aren't true. I think it's lack of cognitive ability, lack of logic as a toolbox, and a desire to fit in. I can see the exact same memes as someone else and not fall for them. Tho, the crocodile metaphor kinda led me somewhere else when you mentioned they stopped evolving because they have perfected their function in their chosen environment. Other people, their beliefs, cognitive ability, and personal bias could just be the "environment" that some memes have evolved to dominte inside of. Idk if that explains "why" they believe false truths, but it sheds light on how it is almost like an organism. Helping me understand how it moves, not necessarily why.
Buddy, nice videos. Subscribed. It's hard to find content where people do their best to remain neutral and objective about so many controversial things. Great content. I'm looking forward to more videos.
Memes are attractive to the extent they fit within other preexisting memes. This is why cognitive dissonance is painful, any meme that doesn't fit isn't just unattractive, it is painful. This can snowball into something like Jonestown if one is not careful to become a witness to the whole thinking process. On a much more common level, these thought memes just make us think we are unhappy. Remember...don't believe everything you think. Nice video, thanks.
I am a physicist, and have always felt that if a person favors a particular result in research, it should disqualify him from doing the research. You have to want to get the right answer more than any particular result. Preference for a particular result creates a sort of moral hazard. In day to day life, if something sounds very appealing to you, it is always a very good idea to inspect it very carefully, since its primary reason for existence may be to create that appeal, and not to be true. Ultimately, you have to decide whether it is more important to you for ideas to be appealing or true, and you have to subject ideas that you like to the same scrutiny as those you dislike. I have always thought this was the primary point of education.
This is basically what I have always thought about religiosity: it's spiritual heroine of which the blame shouldn't be placed entirely on the believers, but they do need to hold responsibilities.
I didnt know there was an actual word for this. I've contemplated the advancment of society and how each revolutionary idea only happens because they have a framework of previous idea. For example You can't forge iron without fire, so it was an essential step in advancment to control and understand fire in order to eventually understand and control metals to our advantage.
An excellent summary. So well written and delivered. I’ve been trying to share the concept of memetics, and your video could be an effective tool. There’s not many that are receptive. For the consolation prize, that’s explainable through memetics. 😆 I’d say most are not ready to relinquish their personal agency and imagined creativity in their collection of thoughts.
BTW: My little history of skepticism - banned for 1100 years in Europe before its revival after Galileo - is more than a parable. It is the reason why I am neither a socialist, nor a conservative. The revival in skepticism led to progress, capitalism and science. Which led me to writing this comment on Ryan's post; explaining why skepticism is NOT a meme. Science, like skepticism, is NOT a meme either. It is a method. It must be practiced in order to be understood. It is not enough to know how science and skepticism are supposed to work. You can write a book on either - without practicing either - but you will only understand them when you do them. From my experience in society I have NO confidence in either socialism nor conservatism to keep science and skepticism healthy. Without healthy skepticism society will die.
Sorry, you lost me at “dating person”. But your video does explain how you came to believe that lie. My question: what do you do to those who do not accept your ideas as truth? Can we live in harmony if two have opposing ideas of truth? Or does one side HAVE to make the other come to their way of thinking?
I'm confused by this comment. What lie does the phrase "dating person" indicate that he believes? I'm not trying to argue or anything, just genuinely curious as to what you're saying.
I’ve been exploring the concept of how humans process information. We like to think that we analyze ideas before making a decision but the neurological evidence suggests we filter information on a much lower level. This is an interesting approach.
Ideas are adopted as a part of the individual that believes them, insulting said idea is processed as a direct insult to that person. Ct scans can’t see the difference.
part of the problem of how popular bad ideas seem to always become is that there aren't enough people to act as filters. i believe such people were far more common in earlier times, at least compared to the rest. i believe this filter is necessary for an early human tribe to survive in nature. i'm talking about highly perceptive (HSP - highly sensitive person) and highly intelligent (i think they're called "highly gifted" but i find that term is used way too broadly) people able to perceive the world as it is, regardless of the bs people tell them. in their lifetime they form an extremly robust frame of reality and kind of intuitive understanding of natures laws, based on their extremely fine overall perception and everything they learn must hold up against that frame. that's the filter. the vast majority of modernity's ideas just shatters on impact against their skull. you could say the population of that kind of people has stayed more or less constant while relatively dull and dumb people have multiplied beyond measure. it's the idiocracy-principle
Wonderful video. I think each of us should assume we are likely carriers of some number of false memes, no matter how diligent we are in trying to root them out. In addition to being sympathetic to those addicted to certain falsehoods, we ought to be humble our abilities to spot our own bullshit.
Have you heard of moral foundation theory? Dr Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, proposed this idea. It goes beautifully with what you talk about here.
Can we say for sure that nest-building is not a meme in birds? They grow up in nests, and see other birds building nests. I think the line between memes and instictual behaviour is harder to place than we often think.
When you study pragmatism as a philosophy, especially the work of Alexander Bain, William James and C.S. Peirce, it becomes more clear that the reason why everyone believes things that aren't true alot of the time nor matter their level of education is because belief is not aimed at truth contrary to what we'd love to think but is aimed at utility or success. All false and true believes have something in common-utility to the believer and it's natural.
Actually, yes, I knew where memes came from. I read The Selfish Gene but The Blind Watchmaker was my favorite book for a long time. This is a great subject but I didn't recognize it as "memetics."
I think the technological advance at this particular time changes the memes reproduction cost/rate. But, I wonder fact by definition has a higher reproduction cost (lower rate), after all, once it is mutated, it may no longer be a fact. But rumors can keep mutating however it is beneficial.
To me, why someone would believe the earth is flat is so very important. To me the gems at the bottom of that barrel would provide answers to humanity that are so bright it will unlock the nature of humanity in a way that could possible end violence. I would imagine the answer to that question would require people to understand what they are, and why they draw the conclusions they do. So to ignore the most violent aspects of meme's is to give up on the most important answers society could need. Because if a smart person can think the world is flat, then a smart person could give up truth for their tribes meme's. Relative to absolute knowledge we are all flat earthers.
The meme concept papers-over psychological and sociological insight with a metaphor with an oblique effect similar to behaviorism. The fact that the metaphor applies to any idea, such as the one I'm saying right now and to the concept itself, is a shallow intellectual feint or trick which gives the meme concept a certain beauty that is only skin deep. It fails to truly explain the effectiveness of particular ideas and merely states a tautology in a clever way - that ideas that spread are the ideas that spread. Granted, the metaphor allows for more wonder than that tautology; that's it's real value; but, the cost of papering-over specific psychological and social understanding is too great.
We, scientifically speaking, do not really know how thoughts come to us, we have some general understanding of some sources and reasons, but it's unclear why one though or an idea dawns on us instead of another one at a given time. Some of that contributes to concept of determinism, but it could be a basis for "life as a movie" or "a ride in an amusement park" theory too. Then how some memes are born and why takes on a whole new interesting spin too
0:01 Because people grow up with safety nets that allow them to think things they wouldn’t otherwise put into practice. The best way to prove to someone whether their ideas are true or not is to let them realize their own ideas. In other words, restrict their ability to force their unproven ideas on people they’ll never meet. This will force people to find like-minded individuals who will work towards the same vision, and it will deprive them of the excuse of “well, government didn’t do it right.” 1:30 What Dawkins failed to realize was that genes merely encode ideas which are passed on through replication. An idea is just meaning applied to a physical pattern. As such, ideas can be represented by DNA, neuronal groups, magnetic particles, transistors, or even grooves on a vinyl disk. DNA is a very stable bit slow form of idea storage and execution. Neurons are a more chaotic form of idea storage and execution. Genetic evolution occurs over centuries, while ideological innovation can happen in the blink of an eye. Most psychological disorders are the consequence of slow genetic evolution engaging in rapid technological innovation. Our bodies and brains do not keep pace with the technologically rapid evolution of the environment. We have a sweet tooth because high calorie foods were “good” when food was scarce. Now that food is plentiful and life is less active, high calorie foods are “bad”. Our sweet tooth is a consequence of our genetically programmed biology coding for a food scarce environment we no longer exist in. 2:00 Genes code for ideas. The idea of a larger claw, or stronger legs, or faster wings, or longer beak all existed before we had brains to virtualize those ideas for rapid simulation and adaptation. 2:45 The Free Market has replaced the Natural Wild. Genetic patterns evolve in the latter, and neuronal patterns evolve in the former. GOVERNment is the antithesis of evolution because evolution requires natural SELECTION and the freedom to make a selection as those selections compete with one another. GOVERNment removes selection and the competition that drives evolution. 5:50 Mass mailing ballots to people who normally wouldn’t vote was the actual fraud. The idea that America is supposed to be a democracy was the justification. Not only should ballots NOT have been mailed, but people should not be resorting to voting their ideas into each other as a FIRST resort. Voting should be the LAST resort. 6:30 When somebody signs an affidavit, they are under threat of punishment for lying. So, when you have one group of people believing hundreds of signed affidavits, and another group of people believing “unnamed sources” that say President Trump called veterans “suckers and losers,” I think I’ll stick with the affidavits. We can also toss in the fact that Soros installed DAs are responsible for handling voter fraud cases… so, there’s that on top of the same DAs playing catch-and-release with violent criminals. So, yeah. There’s a bit more to the “memes” than you are presenting.
We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you! We will spread you!
I've been doing little bits of memetics in my sociology classes for a good decade or so. Really is a good set of ideas for thinking about how society does what it does.
John Tooby in his November 2017, Edge essay on coalitional instincts wrote of an interesting connection between coalitions [teams, tribes] and absurd beliefs. Members of one coalition can best differentiate themselves from other coalitions by sharing (or professing to share) supernatural and other absurd beliefs. The more absurd the beliefs, the better they distinguish a member’s coalition from other coalitions. Profession of the beliefs [memes] shows loyalty to the group. I'll add that memes made Truths, made the dogmas of ideologies, are particularly successful, and that the most successful are often linked (at least in their early years) with other memes that command the shunning, cancelling, exile, and even the smiting of unbelievers.
Except that Dawkins didn't originate the idea of the "Mneme." Some other philosopher did and Dawkins accidentally "not-plagairized" it. I don't know what to believe. But it should be a meme that the mneme concept was not originally Dawkins'. He just changed the spelling.
Millions of people just thought Stay Home was fine though millions are losing their jobs staying around the house not noting people like movie stars and royalty telling them this were in 100 room mansions with pots of money. As the world economy collapses, people in govts who enforce these ideas will also lose their jobs, but being part of the group is great!
Meanwhile 1.5 million have died, 10% of the total battlefield deaths of the Second World War. That is why the lockdown happened and in the rest of the developed world it has been much more effective than in the US, which led to less economic downfall AND less people dead. The US COVID 19 response has been dogshit compared to, say, Germany.
CGP Grey has a great video on this. "This video will make you angry". He argues that some seemingly opposing memes (say, two political ideologies) instead of competing are actually in a symbiotic relationship. As each side angrily talks among themselves about the other side, both memes strengthen. More like flowers and bees than competitors.
Thank you for your interesting and thorough topic coverage. I would like to see one that explains what argument means. Too many people have the idea that argument is a loud almost non-sensical fight instead of the name of one's statement in the pursuit of truth between people. I.e. the kind of arguing that occurs in a debate. 'Debate' would be another good topic to explain.
"Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a PROFOUND tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there." - M. Scott Peck
Your videos are awesome to say the least, if I may suggest one thing; please include list of citing resources in video description (eg. books, articles, etc.), if possible.
Sure thing, just added a list in the bottom of the description. It would be a pain to include all the articles/journals so I just listed the main resources used.
Interesting that this is the least popular of your videos. It might be that addresses an idea that most people don’t want to acknowledge. That we try to make sense by ideas but that sometimes those ideas aren’t true. The fact we imbue them into our worldview and will defend them, even when we know them to be problematic, is so true. The internet is both a blessing and a curse as we seek out and are rewarded by content that reinforces our worldview is the biggest issues. Previously we had to rely on newspapers, then radio, and then television to tell us about the word. Now we have smartphones which we all have in our hands every minute of the day constantly reinforcing these memes.
I've been exploring the idea of purchasing power in a sense of supplanting the actual goal: whatever that may be. Purchasing vs connecting. Rather than connecting with other humans we purchase something as a substitution for human contact.
If you have extremists from both sides claiming bias against you then you're probably telling the truth and they didn't like the taste. Your channel is refreshing. I enjoy some memes like anyone else but I think I might own the record for taking the longest to like any of them and deciding I hate them after all faster than anyone. I hate the unoriginality of it all. With the exception of the original creator of the meme its literally copy and paste. It's abused to the point that many people communicate with memes (other people's ideas, jokes, thoughts etc) than they do their own thoughts. They think "these are my thoughts because I agree" but they have no idea how much the meme led them to the point where they agreed. Its all tribal propaganda mixed with SOME legitimate comedy. This whole era will be remembered as some kind of idiotic dark age that we survived... If we actually survive it.
I think this legitimately explains the trends in popular memes (the humour kind) recently. After a decade of new memes dying faster and faster, evolving to become better, we are now stuck with Among Us memes for two years, and Big Chungus for FOUR years. I think they've just evolved to last longer and longer to a point where we will be stuck with the same types of memes for a while now. This is the third video of yours that I'm watching and they've all been brilliant. Good job! I think your channel will grow a lot. Maybe you could get a Nebula sponsorship later on?
Interesting, informative, insightful video. I learn a lot from this young man, and I have a B.A. in psychology, an M.A. in philosophy, and am ABD in English Literature, plus having been a lifelong student, a bookworm. One of the very most important facts I've learned is that we have no free will; I call people "meat puppets," as does Ryan; therefore, I assume that he agrees with Einstein: "Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."
I actually wrote a poem about something like that. In it, the lie is an extremely handsome vampire, while the truth is a golem so hideous that it hides from sight.
at 9:30 you give two key characteristics of memes: (a) 'theres a Darwinian selection pressure between ideas for us as their carriers and their propagaters' (b) 'truth isn't necessarily the deciding metric for their success' I'm troubled by (b). Consider the meme ' the election was stolen'. To those that accept the meme, it is true. Maybe, an expansion for clarity is needed: 'truth isn't necessariy the deciding metric for their success but the acceptance as it being true is' Maybe I'm just nitpicking so take my criticism for what it's worth.
It's pretty interesting when you are talking to someone and as the conversation unfolds you notice what memes they subscribe to. Even without them explicitly saying it
At 5:22, there's far far more to why people believe weird things. See Haidt "Elephant in the Brain", and "The Righteous Mind". There's more to the story... Haidt is just one intellectual. The truth is kinda scary though.
uh, now I could be wrong here, but it seems a little stretch to call "Mid-century modern" a meme. It's a design movement. And sure it could've been a meme in a parallel universe, if they way it was spreading was through the "word of mouth". But it wasn't. In the same sense ideas spread through state propaganda machine aren't memes. It's not that any idea is a meme, but the "contagious" ideas/jokes/etc, which people tend to "spread" are memes.
I don’t see belief as a bad thing. If I didn’t believe that people were basically good, that good will triumph over evil, that money and power mean nothing and that true love is eternal, I would fall into a depressing abyss.
Memes are something a person can use that is nuanced just enough to allow everyone to interpret its meaning, while convincing the mass to like the purveyor. Memes lack self knowledge to the reader/viewer. They otherwise incite our lowest brain to judge something based on like or not. Meme and the term “Idea” was a bit puzzling. An idea is something that needs to be expressed with enough detail to impress our thinking brain. Memes are merely statements that pursued us to mentally like or not like something.
This video is awesome, thank you for putting words into something i have been thinking about a lot lately. I wonder how this scales to bigger ideas like democracy and such, especially in the context of different cultures? It would also be interesting to study how different memes spread, evolve and develop under different changing circumstances. At the same time i think it would be wise to err on the side of caution when it comes to deciding which memes are better than others, It would be very nice to avoid another social Darwinism situation.
I’m listening to the audio of the episode while grocery shopping and was incredibly disappointed when “the person who popularized the word meme before the internet” wasn’t Hideo Kojima.
So one question that arises is to improve society how do you get someone addicted to a meme based in falsehood to “kick the habit? Just as getting a loved one off of Heroin is often met with violent resistance how do you get a loved one off of a false meme? Letting an addict reach bottom is not the same damage as letting a large group of people live on through a false meme as we have seen in both the “summer of love” as well as January 6th.
That all relates to the fact that the most special feature of the human brain is not an inherent higher/better instinctual set of skills built in into it, but rather being an incredible "sponge" capable of absorbing extrodinary amounts of cultural information. A 2-5 year old kid is incredibly "dumb" or dysfuntional as compared to other animals of that comparable age. Animals have much more "hardware" skills and info built into their genes. What's special about human brain and development is that they have uncanny ability to copy and adapt huge amounts of (culturaly-based) information and skills (software) in their upbringing. And the collective knowledge human society possesses is what makes humans able to perform incredible skills (technology) that is otherwise not instinctual ("natural") to any specific individual. A good book on this is "The Secret of Our Success" by Joseph Henrich
