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Censorware and Memetic Warfare
Everyone's familiar with the term "meme" by now, so I don't have to explain that it's the unit of idea transmission. The struggle over Internet filters, or any other conflict where ideas, facts, opinions, and outlooks collide, is memetic in nature: it's memetic warfare.
All's fair in war, supposedly, but I'm someone who has been infected by the meme that we should all fight fair, even - especially - in the war of ideas.
Will the "fight fair" meme become popular in the long run? I hope so. But the way I see it, that will only happen if it is more successful at reproducing than its alternative: "fight dirty." In the long run, it doesn't matter what's right, or what's good, or what benefits us humans the most. The memes just spread because they're good at spreading.
In early 1999, my friend (now Slashdot writer) Michael Sims started a long process to obtain some Web logs from the state of Utah. Internet access for schools and libraries across the state was provided by a single network, and all their Web traffic went through proxies that had the same blocking software running. Their Web logs were a gold mine of data, showing both blocked and unblocked accesses. When users were blocked from something, the logs showed what category it was blocked in.
Our group, the Censorware Project, had been looking for a real-world test case of this software. Michael did a tremendous amount of work to file the papers, get permission to get the logs, have them delivered, gather them, and analyze them. He then wrote a brilliant report (the rest of us helped too).
What this let us do was see how blocking software's errors show up in the real world. We had known for years that the software has many mistakes in its blacklists, in every product we'd studied. But we had no data on how that affected users.
When all the data was crunched, two numbers surprised us. First, the amount of material blocked was quite small: about 0.6%. People were interested in things besides pornography on the internet. Who would have thought.
Second, just looking at the wrong blocks that we were able to find, the proportion was quite high: about one block in every 20 was Constitutionally protected material. That's a minimum - the minimum we were able to confirm. All in all, we identified over 5,000 occasions when people were blocked from reading protected material (totalling 300 unique Web sites).
Most measures of blocking software effectiveness focus on how much pornography it blocks. We weren't able to test that because we couldn't look through the 99.4% of unblocked material - over 53million URLs. Just too much data. But we did learn that, in Utah, 5% of the time, when the software said "you can't look at that," it was just plain wrong.
Ninety-five percent accuracy might sound like a nice high figure to base a good meme around. Who could argue with a number like 95%? But consider what this means for the 300 Web sites in question: each of them was blocked from being read by a great many public institutions in the state of Utah.
And the First Amendment protects publishers, not readers: it's freedom of the press, not freedom to read the press. When you're blocked from reading your favorite author, you might be annoyed, but if the censor were taken to court, the injured party would be the author.
This is exactly what we fought against the Communications Decency Act for. Except, in many ways, censorware is worse. If your site is one of the 5% that's wrongly blocked, you won't know it. Our government will stop people from reading what you have to say even if your site is completely innocent (like the Candy Land website), and nobody will bother to notify you. You won't ever know.
At least with the CDA, you'd have gotten a letter from the prosecutor telling you your site was censored - and nobody, but nobody, would ever have been censored for publishing the Bible.
(Yes, the Bible was one of the banned books we found in Utah, along with the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, etc. That kind of thing makes good memes.)
Michael put a lot of work into our report, and I even contributed a little, so I'm a little protective of that 5% meme. Which is why it was so jarring to open up a press kit distributed by the Family Research Council, last week, and find our work, cited in black and white, as support for the figure: "one in a million."
That's right, the exact same report which found one bad block in every twenty is now being cited as proving that Web sites are misblocked "one time in a million."
Now that's a good meme. "One in a million" sticks with you. It isn't backed up by any of the facts, but despite that handicap - or perhaps partly because of it - it has thrived.
It was first invented by a fellow named David Burt, who read our report not very carefully, and then decided he was going to do a little numerology of his own.
The first thing he did was ignore all the bad blocks we'd found that he thought were perfectly appropriate. For example, we'd found that the homepage of the band "The Offspring" was wrongly blocked - you may remember their songs from the fall of 1998. "I'm just a sucker with no self-esteem," and so on. (You're humming it now. Catchymeme.)
David Burt decided that The Offspring deserved to be blocked, and to illustrate why, quoted nine words from their Web site:
"These songs have ideas PLUS drugs, sex and ass-kicking"
He also decided it was OK to block BaywatchTV.com, BirthControl.com, the Starr Report, the Yahoo category "Society and Culture: Romance," and Glamour magazine. It was OK to block a page on the NASA Web site about a crackdown on hackers, because it "discusses hacking techniques." Both takedown.com and 2600.com should be blocked, he says, for the same reason. A fellow whose homepage includes a link to a PGP FAQ - no code or binaries - should be blocked for containing "cryptographic software."
Did I mention this man is a librarian?
After trimming out all the fat from our list, he got it down from over 300 sites to just 64. Of course, this was the list of unique sites. If he'd had all our numbers, he would have known that his changes affected our 5% figure by about 0.1% - this because the large majority of blocked sites are blocked few times.
There's some other nonsense he tried, like saying that we were deceitful to ignore blocked banner ads because they were surely all pornographic. In fact, four of the five top blocked ad sites were perfectly ordinary, and counting ads would have made our numbers more impressive, not less.
But his main meme was the number. Armed with his new figure "64", he performed a division by the largest number in our report, which was 54,000,000. Kind of like dividing apples by hydrogen. Of the 54,000,000 URLs, only 29% were page views; only 0.56% of those were blocked; and the previously-mentioned 5% of those were blocked incorrectly. From there he switched from blocks to unique blocks, cutting the actual figure of 5,000 down to his list of 64.
Then, dividing 64 by the original 54,000,000, he got 1 in 1.18... well, for the meme's sake he got one in a million.
Publishing this in April of 1999, David Burt ignored our corrections. Despite our offering all the raw data on CD-ROM, for the cost of the media, he just accused us of lying.
You can't say anything to that, without getting into a yes-you-are no-we're-not. We'd put out two press releases about this already. We told him to order the CD-ROMs and check for himself. Then we moved on.
But his meme began to spread. In June, the company that made the blocking software pulled the same trick, reported the results to Sen. John McCain - and then issued a press release about it. Our group was now cited as supporting their software by proving its accuracy. Since the numbers were so big anyway, they just used the 300 figure and called it an "accuracy rate of 99.9994%."
A group I've never heard of, the American Decency Association, now points to our study and says: "Filters Work!" They source is another group I've never heard of, the Michigan Decency Action Council. Word gets around.
So when I opened up the report "Internet Filtering and Blocking Technology," published by the Family Research Council and distributed at their Holland presentations, I was not surprised when I found the same meme on pages 9 and 14. (I was surprised to see them divide 64 into 54,000,000 and get 6 parts per million. But as long as they've blown the numbers so badly, a little botched division doesn't make any difference.)
I talked to two of the FRC techies about this and tried to explain what was wrong with the numbers. I got some mild interest. Will the FRC correct and reprint this report? Of course not. Admitting that DavidBurt fudges numbers might be a bad tactical move. The concluding two sections of the report have 31 footnotes, 28 of which reference no one but Mr.Burt.
I choose to be an optimist about the marketplace of ideas. I believe that truthful memes will proliferate in the long run, because enough people's brains select for truth.
But in the meantime, it's frustrating when my team takes below-the-belt punches from the guys who don't care about what's true.
I don't expect everyone reading this to share my memeplex on this issue. I know from reading the comments that many Slashdot readers think censorware in libraries is a good thing, and that's fine. In fact, I'll bet many of you are grinding your teeth that I keep using the word "meme" so damn much. That's fine too.
All I ask is that, when your memes start arguing with my memes, you make them fight fair. It's only right.
Would it be unreasonable to bring a libel lawsuit to bear on David Burt, for his damage to you? That could get your meme out; as opposed to you asking each 'family' group who doesn't want to have their most convincing numbers attacked.
Furthermore, these 'family' groups attributing totally ficticious statements to your name. Doesn't that violate fair use? I mean, satire publications (dead tree and web) are routinely brought into court, where their rights are held up <i>on the basis that they are presenting satire, not fact.</i> Attempting to pass fiction off as fact would be libel. And that's ammo.
"Resnet. Because you can't masturbate in the public clusters."
The posters had a screenshot of a newsreader showing a list of some of the nastier pron newsgroups....
Considering there is no country by the name of Holland I'd say that this Holland library is not in that country is a good guess.
Or maybe you ment the Country of the Nethererlands, which has a state called Holland?
In any case this Holland refers to a small town in Michigan, a State of the US.
PS, while you can be forgiven for not knowing where Holland Michigan is, mistaking Holland for the Netherlands is unexcusable, even if it is common.
Everyone hears about the $600 hammer (The versions I've heard have all ben $600, not $400, but it doesn't matter), and $1000 toilet seats. Those stories all miss the rest of the picture: when a detailed study is done the govermetn did not pay too much.
That hammer was missing from a tool kit used in explosive enviroments. Therefore the hammer had to not react with the chemicals used, and it could not cause a spark when used! Normal iron doesn't qualify, and the metal they used really is exepnsive enough to justify the hammer being sold for $600. You cannot go to your local hardware store and buy this hammer off the shelf. You might find one that can order one, but you too will pay $600 for it. (probably more, after inflation)
Likewise the $1000 toilet seat is not a normal $20 hardware store model. It was destined to go in the space shuttle, and had to deal with zero g. Those with dirty minds might enjoy figguring out all the things that can go wrong, but I prefer not to go down that path.
I'll agree that goverment spends too much money, but the problem is too many programs, not waste in the accual spending. Many CEOs have discovered that after laying off 1000 people in a year they have exactly the same number of people on the payroll - they didn't cut any projects, and the projects needed to be staffed, so they had to hire that many back. The goverment needs to cut some projects. However now you get into old people who say "Yeah, cut welfare as I don't use it, but keep the FDA so that the medican I need is safe." To which the kid who made a mistake and now has to raise a kid without a good education responds "Cut that FDA, medican is safe enoguh and I don't use any, but keep welfare because I'll need it for anouther year before I can make it on my own." And so on.
This whole meme flap is just silly. The gist of it, that the objective of the battle is to infect enough minds with the idea by voting day, is quite correct. But really the whole issue boils down to a lot of technologically unsophisticated people (the majority of the voters) being caught in a tug of war between the right-wingers and the people who oppose them. It all boils down to who can put more wool over whose eyes, and who can be the most convincing. That's it. There are no ideas wandering around infecting minds or any such nonsense. It's all just a battle of propaganda.
To answer another post, yeah, using "meme" instead of "idea" is just a way to sound l33t.
That's not new, and it's not very different from an idea.
However, it is an idea put forth by my favorite movie: Pump Up The Volume. The truth is like a virus, because it spreads...
"I like the idea that a voice can just go somewhere uninvited and just kind of hang out like a dirty thought in a nice clean mind.Maybe a thought is like a virus. You know, it can just kill all the healthy thoughts and just take over. That would be serious."
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Civil disobedience only works when the "general populace" can see this taking place, and demand action...
If the flow of information is controlled, no-one will ever know that you were "civially disobedient", and the security police will drag you off never to be heard from again...
This sig left unintentionally blank.
An 'intranet' is a network between computers within the same organization, internet a network between organizations. The way you can manage and publish for the two are vastly different.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
None of this "meme" stuff - at least in this article - is new. All of it was common knowlege 50 years the first time an adman came up with the words "4 out of 5 dentists agree."
Memes as a metaphor for human cultural behaviour is interesting, and possibly useful, but not to be taken too seriously. The art and science of good PR incorporates most of the real insights I've seen coming out of memeologists.
As for attacking censorware, let me express my support, my thanks and my encouragement. A good lie can go around the world while the truth is still getting out of bed, so those who have the truth on their side still have to work extra hard despite what ought to be an advantage.
Geez, I thought I had seen the last of David Burt -- I was a long-time member of a library mailing list (web4lib), the very same place David Burt first started rearing his ugly head. David took it upon himself to promote censorware as the One True Way to save "children" (although he made no allowances for adult-access only library terminals) from the scourge of Internet porn. I had to leave the list because it had basically turned into David Burt's soapbox, even though just about everyone else there couldn't stand him either.
David Burt should turn in his MLS degree -- he doesn't deserve to have the title "Librarian" being as he is dedicated to the blocking of information.
adr
What a load of BS.
See, that's what I was talking about in a lower-numbered thread. Censorship is OK to some people, as long as they disapprove of the groups being censored... much as AC wants to censor the Christians he disagrees with by marginalizing them and their beliefs.
Once again, I assert that the right-wing and Christians hold no monopoly on fanatacism and hypocrisy.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Tackhead dun said:
Maybe because, oh, there are a really surprising number of groups that claim to be "Christian" yet use the exact same coercive tactics as Scientology does? (Caveat--I speak from experience on more than one front here. First off, I'm a walkaway from a "Bible-based cult" which uses techniques similar to Scientology. Secondly, it was (in part) various FAQs on coercive groups including Scientology that led me to realise the general techniques used in coercive groups in general. Thirdly, I've lurked off and on on ARS since the "Cancelpoodle" scandal (I was a reader of the various net.abuse groups, and the whole thing led me directly to ARS)...just so folks know.)
The thing is, most folks who are in deep with the various Religious Right groups like FRC and so forth are also members of various Bible-based groups that use coercive tactics. Not only that, but some of the "higher-demand" Religious Right groups may in and of themselves be borderline coercive groups (I know that concerns have been mentioned regarding Promise Keepers, for one). A lot of the issues re coercive tactics between "Bible-based cults" and Scientology are very similar, so (at least to me) it's no surprise whatsoever that they both push for censorware.
Warning: The following comparison will probably not have a whole lot of relevance unless you are intimately familiar with how coercive groups work, and especially not unless you are familiar with the particular coercive tactics used in Scientology and/or Bible-based coercive groups. If you are not familiar with either of these groups' tactics, I strongly recommend that you read Xenu.net (for info on some of the particular coercive tactics used in Scientology and some of the terminology) and Walk Away (for info on some specific tactics used in Bible-based coercive groups), then come back and read. Otherwise it's probably not going to make terrible amounts of sense, especially in regards to effects of the coercion.
Now...I can give just a brief list of Scientology coercive tactics and their analogues in Bible-based cults:
Scientology: Essentially all of your problems are the result of "body engrams" resulting from when you were dumped into Kilahuea 73 million years ago by the evil Xenu. This includes doubt in Scientology.
Bible-based cult analogue: All of your problems, including doubt in the church or your minister, are the result of demons attempting to oppress or possess you. (By the way, this along with the next two sections is commonly termed "Deliverance Ministry".)
Scientology: The only ones worthy to be called human are clears. Everything that could bring negative body engrams--including Supressive Persons who say Scientology is bunk--are to be avoided.
Bible-based cult analogue: Your group is the only ones who are truly saved--everyone else is lukewarm at best, and most are outright in league with Satan. You should avoid all media not done by us, only do business with folks in our church, and vote for whom we tell you to--because everyone else is oppressed or possessed by demons, and info from outside can lead to demonic posession. Those who say bad things about our church are probably demon-possessed.
Scientology: You have to be constantly on alert for bad engrams. You have to do lots of clearing sessions; if someone is acting like an SP, they probably need an intensive "clearing session" whether they want it or not. (Lisa McPherson being held against her will to be "cleared" is the likely cause of her death.)
Bible-based cult analogue: All doubts are the results of demons trying to oppress you; you must constantly "pray the demons out". If someone is acting rebellious, they are probably demon-possessed and need to be exorcised to get the demons out. (Tens of children each year are killed in such "exorcisms"; many more people are probably driven insane, much as Lisa McPherson was before her death. The Walk Away site, mentioned above, has a rather dramatic [and all too factual] description of an exorcism as practiced by most "Bible-based" coercive groups.)
Scientology: We must Clear The Planet, and those who oppose us must be stopped by any means necessary, including dead-agenting. It is permissible to deceive people to get them in for becoming Clears.
Bible-based cult analogue: We are in a war with Satan, and those who oppose us must be stopped by any means necessary. Deception and libeling are perfectly permissible weapons to use in the war. (This is actually called "Heavenly Deception" in some Bible-based cults; the Bible-based cult version of "dead agenting" can be seen in most fundy literature. Bible-based cults have also been known to use deceptive measures (such as "free pizza parties", "anti-drug talks" by athletes associated with fundy groups held in schools, and "hell house" haunted-houses in which people are forced--as in not allowed to leave till it's over--to listen to sermons) to recruit people, especially teens, into such groups.)
Scientology: You need folks to watch out for you, especially to make sure you don't have any bad engrams and to make sure you keep being an OT. They are expected to check up on you and report if you might be becoming a SP.
Bible-based cult analogue: You are divided into groups of five or so, and expected to meet every week for Bible-discussions and to make sure that you aren't backsliding. Your group is expected to check up on you, and report back and take action in case you do backslide. (This is known as "shepherding" or "Cell Churches"; it is increasingly recognised as one of the single most destructive practices of Bible-based cults. It is this practics which is causing serious concern about Promise Keepers.)
Scientology: OTs are expected to influence their legislatures to make sure nothing negative to Scientology passes, and in fact OTs are supported. Lobbying wings exist to fight things that Scientology may disapprove of, often not revealing their links to the main group (such as organisations protesting "psychiatric abuse"). OTs are the only truly fit leaders and eventually OTs will take over the world.
Bible-based cult analogue: Members are expected to join lobbying groups for "Christian" causes; often, lobbying groups are actually run by deacons or ministers, or based out of the church itself. Voter-guides are provided. Groups are set up, usually "concerned parents" groups or "American heritage" groups, which try to fudge their links to the Bible-based group or the Religious Right at all. Christians are seen as the only fit leaders and it is their destiny to turn the US into a fundamentalist theocracy.
Scientology: Members are often lured in with guidebooks, like "Dianetics", which eventually suggest you come to a processing center to get Cleared. It's not mentioned explicitly that Dianetics is a Scientology book on the adverts.
Bible-based cult analogue: We'll promote books, "hell houses", sponsor rod-runs, etc. that suggest you come to our church to get more info and become a member. We don't mention that we're affiliated, other than being a "Christian" or "Faith-based" group. (This tactic is actually used by the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation--a hard-right fundamentalist group that supports Christian Reconstructionism and has even supported racist groups--to hawk "Power For Living" as an innocent "guide for getting closer to God" [what it is, in fact, is a book promoting fundamentalist Christianity, and in particular those varieties that go over the line into being coercive groups].)
Scientology: Use famous people to promote Scientology and show how it's made their lives better.
Bible-based cult analogue: Use famous people to promote the group and show how it's made their lives better. (Again, this tactic is used outright by the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation. Other Bible-based coercive groups have done this too, especially with NFL (American) football players; one player actually seems to have gone insane as a direct result of being involved in a Bible-based cult, and he'd done public speeches on how fundamentalism was a Good Thing beforehand)
Scientology: Psychiatrists, "coercive group info" groups like FACTnet, and folks against Scientology are SPs. One good way to stop them is protests en masse, or suing them into submission so that we own them then keep the site up for folks looking for info on coercive groups. (Scientology actually sued a group that reported on coercive tactics into bankruptcy, then bought the group wholesale.)
Bible-based cult analogue: Gays, women's health providers, anti-censorship groups, and folks who are against us are literally in league with Satan. It is perfectly acceptable to engage in mass protest, or to sue the people claiming that into submission; it's also good to get a name really similar to the group you're fighting so that folks will come to you instead. (This tactic is partly why the American Center for Law and Justice, a group that files lawsuits on behalf of fundamentalist causes, is very similar to the ACLU; it's also why groups like the fundy parents in Paducah are suing nearly the entire entertainment industry (they hope to bankrupt them) and why anti-abortion "counseling centers" get names very similar to women's health providers (sometimes even locating in the same building) so that people will get confused.)
Scientology: It's ok to break the law to advance Scientology.
Bible-based cult analogue: It's ok to break laws to advance the "kingdom of God". (This has shown up everywhere, from outright fraud with the "hell houses", to illegally distributing voter guides in churches, to illegal electioneering IN the churches, to "tax protesters" who refuse to pay taxes because "it supports abortion", to folks who libel and harass people who support gay/les/bi folks being added to civil rights laws, to people who stalk abortion providers...)
Scientology: Don't question what you're being taught. You've got to pay money for each level.
Bible-based cult analogue: Don't question what you're being taught--that's a sign of demonic oppression. You must give at least ten percent, and preferably more, to the church so that we can continue operating. (As an aside--there is evidence that both Scientology and many Bible-based cults are basically money rackets. Hubbard supposedly admitted as much with Scientology; many larger Bible-based cults run networks of TV stations and the like and demand money from their fellowship, and more than a few have been found to be decidedly shifty with their finances.)
Scientology: In Sea Org, you are subject to poor food (beans and rice) and hard work, often doing work around a Scientology office.
Bible-based cult analogue: Members are expected to fast completely (water only), often for long periods (the group I walked away from often had 21-day fasts...to support their damned television station...they also had 40-day fasts that people participated in). "Partial fasts" are done with poor food (the "Mayo Heart Clinic Soup Diet"--which is NOT promoted by the Mayo Clinic, is pretty much nothing but watery cabbage soup, and can actually cause deficiencies in needed nutrients if eaten exclusively for more than two or three days--is often pushed in "partial fasts" in Bible-based cults). Members are expected to participate in church functions (including long revivals extending for tens or even hundreds of days) and are expected to prosyletise often, often going door-to-door.
Want me to list some more examples? ;)
Or, just for fun...get one of the sheets that talks about characteristics in coercive groups. Then compare Scientology to that. Then compare Bible-based cults (as I've described them, and as described on places like Walk Away)...you'll find that the two are nearly identical. About the only major differences are that Scientology has the Sea Orgs (then again, most Bible-based cults are involved in large political networks and have enforcers such as deacons...which is probably worse) and Bible-based cults are even worse as far as deceptive tactics to get you into a group as well as one-on-one mind-control techniques to keep you in and keep you unable to get out. (It also doesn't hurt that there is a very well-funded media industry that caters exclusively to the Religious Right in the US.) The single most destructive practice in Scientology--the idea of "engrams", the constant sessions to clear them, and an almost paranoid avoidance of the non-Clear and involuntary Clearing sessions for SPs trying to leave--is almost identical to the entire practics of deliverance ministry in Bible-based cults (literally the only thing different is the terminology).
You don't hear that much about Bible-based cults, though. Part of it is, well, they've gotten a lot of power. Part of it has to do with, well, the fact they're Bible-based cults--nobody wants to think a Christian group can go coercive, and for some reason "Christian" churches are seen as respectable--they think it's always the WEIRD stuff like Scientology that goes coercive, not the little "Full Gospel" church down the street (that even goes so far as to tell their members who they can and cannot marry, tells them what clothes they can wear, and just happens to be the headquarters of nearly every Religious Right group in the county... :P).
Trust me, though, when I say that the poor sods in the FRC are probably just as brainwashed and lost as your average OT VII is who's spent $300,000 on Clearing sessions and such. :P
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
I have repeatedly found that you can't get action you want to prevent a disaster until after it's happened the first time. Perhaps we have to take a break from fighting the memes and initiate a bunch of legal-system DDoS attacks?
I'm no lawyer, but can't most of these wrongly blocked sites sue for defamation/libel?
There's damage to the reputation (calling them a pr0n/hate/criminal site when they aren't) and probably monetary damages as well (by blocking access to their web site).
One or two class-action lawsuits would probably make these filter programs go away, or at least wise-up and be more careful about what they filter.
I can just see the filter companies filing countersuits though... "Our blocklists are encrypted. If they know that they are on our blocklists then that encryption must have been bypassed, in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act." Ugh!!!
We're allready there. Do it their way or don't do it. Of course your thoughts are owned by someone. But that's not you.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
In the short term, your proposal is likely to be successful. However, arguing this point shoots past the real problem entirely.
If vendors of censorware programs receive negative press because they've failed to block some material that "should" be blocked, then they're going to do the logical, responsible thing (from their business's point of view): they're going to expand their filters so that they block more material.
And the censorware advocates will argue that blocking some of it is better than blocking none of it.
The only way to effectively defeat the censorware movement is by raising awareness of how efforts to "protect" children are in fact cutting off their access to legitimate--perhaps even essential--information resources.
Meme is also an example of a meme =)
Until the term was coined, idea was one of the words used to characterize the concept of a meme. However, ideas are also used to describe the solutions to problems, far fetched concepts, and other things. In a way, the word is an overloaded operator, and to encapsulate a specific concept into a precise term with a defined context, we use the word meme.
The idea(more overuse of the word) that thoughts can infect and spread virally is associated with memes.
In the same way, in the near future, we may need another term to denote free software vs open source free software vs open source non-free software. Or maybe not.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
"The first thing he did was ignore all the bad blocks we'd found that he thought were perfectly appropriate. "
I find this quote quite chilling although accurate. Why do these people feel they have a right to decide what is appropriate, and why doesn't anyone stop them from enforcing it on others?
How did these people get so bold?
--- If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.
...is often what's good for the meme.
Will the "fight fair" meme become popular in the long run? I hope so. But the way I see it, that will only happen if it is more successful at reproducing than its alternative: "fight dirty." In the long run, it doesn't matter what's right, or what's good, or what benefits us humans the most. The memes just spread because they're good at spreading.
So to some extent it does matter what benefits us humans most. Because with very few exceptions, memes need humans in order to spread. Lethal memes, like lethal viruses, kill off their hosts. If you kill your host, who's going to replicate you? This of course does not entirely eliminate deleterious memes. Lethal ones will continue to appear, but they will rise to prominence quickly, and fade even faster as their hosts die out. F'rinstance, the heaven's Gate cult. Not a lot of people propagating that meme anymore. Over the long term, memes that are neutral wrt their hosts - or even beneficial - will tend to persist longer than their deleterious counterparts.
It's useful because it associates ideas explicitly with their evolution as reproducing entities in the human brain environment. You could just substitute a cumbersome phrase such as "ideas which are encapsulated units and are understood to proliferate differentially due to their having "hooks" that facilitate this", but "meme" is a lot shorter. So I don't think it's fair to say that it's to be an 3l33t d4rw1n br41n h4x0r. I don't know that I agree that the 1/million is really a meme though, it seems more like this is just an epiphenomenon of the censorship meme.
Yet again a highly readable article from Jamie. I'm really enjoying this new aspect of /. There is an interesting perspective on memes from Susan Blackmore in Skeptic Vol.5 No.2 entitled "The Power of the Meme Meme", pg.43 1997 which might be interesting for those into this stuff.
--Crush
Or maybe you ment the Country of the Nethererlands, which has a state called Holland?
Actually, holland is a name for a region in the netherlands. It consists of two provinces, noord holland and zuid holland.
PS, while you can be forgiven for not knowing where Holland Michigan is, mistaking Holland for the Netherlands is unexcusable, even if it is common.
I'd hardly call it unexcusable. I live there and I use both.
When I first began the discussion, I was not even really sure that memetics was the right thing to call this popularly-held concept of what we are talking about here: censorship and the filtering of ideas, knowledge, and programming.
Now I am not so sure.
We have not discussed censorship very much (if you would like to start a thread, be my guest) but we have discussed the power of the word and the responsibility to it we must have (or not have), and we have realized that the power of the meme comes with both was is transmitted and what is not.
The power is both in the transmission as well as the restriction of the idea. The barring, filtering, or censuring of the idea is as powerful as is the sharing.
We have steadily realised that it is possible to kill a meme but it is not easy -- and in just the same way that a man's singleminded desire to become immortal through his memory can backfire and result in a self-destruct, the attempt to kill a meme -- idea, image, or the PoMo text -- can result in a more virulent idea altogether!
-- memoid
Remember, "It's for the children" and "If it saves just one life".
It doesn't use the term "meme" because it was published in 1943.
The hacker ethic is antitheical to this New World Order of information control... this is the
:)
real war - it's not one of politics or <b>mimes</b>.</em>
Damn straight, those mimes are even more annoying than politicians.
That's a nice manafesto you've got going, but I'm left wondering which "hacker ethic" you're referring to. Is it the free sharing of information, or the "liberation" of secret or proprietary information?
Of course, after this DeCSS fiasco, I'm no so sure there's much of a difference anymore. When a collection of facts can become property, when encryption can destroy fair use rights, and when stupid ideas like UCITA are passed unaminously because politicians are in the pockets of big corporations, a great deal of civil disobedience may be the only option. I'm just afaid it will lead the world into something like some cyberpunk novel, where you're either a corporate shill or a criminal.
Remember, it's not the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press that applies to the states here, it's the Fourteenth amendment's guarantee of (substantive) due process in abridging liberty. While the freedom to publish ideas is certainly incorporated into that protected "liberty", there's no reason why the freedom to read those ideas should not also be incorporated.
And if it weren't for the Slaughterhouse Cases back in 1873, we could try to get them under the "privileges and immunities" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment also. Bloody conservative reconstructionist court.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Nice Libertarian, *ahem*, analysis there, Jim. Wow, would I have loved to be hearing things like that years ago, when I first set out to oppose censorware. ...
You were, Seth, and one needn't be a libertarian (or a Libertarian) to follow the money (thanks for the links). Years ago, silly me, I had hoped that in the diversity of censorware offerings there'd be one -- just one -- "filtering software company" that:
1. Tried to be at least somewhat-honest about the impossibility of doing their task perfectly, and
2. Marketed to misguided parents, instead of to misguided governments.
Obviously, my hopes were not fulfilled, I was not 100% supportive of your ideas (funny how calling other people "stupid" makes 'em tend to behave that way) and you were right (how many times must it be said?) that ALL censorware companies are 100% venal. As for anyone from my part of the idea-spectrum advocating TAX money to put this crap in libraries (or anywhere else) I don't recall it ever happening. Indeed, I recall (over and over) quite the opposite. Just because idiocy & evil can't be stopped doesn't change my position regarding unwilling subsidies for them out of either of our pockets.
Anyway, at this point the government's appointed regulators of speech are too busy chasing ad puffery ("Better Ingredients, Better Pizza" is now dangerous speech!) to bother with the outright LIES exposed by the Censorware Project. I quit politics, so I won't even try to dole out blame for this unsavory turn of events -- people can (follow that money) figure it out for themselves. Let's not make this another flamewar, I think (for once) that we vehemently agree.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
(Jamie won't be surprised to see me saying this, but) folks, follow the MONEY!!
These people can't sell their crappy software to "families," because it DOESN'T work. (They even have to lie when they say that URLs are checked by a human, among their other lies, I'd link to the report, but it appears censorware.org is slashdotted.) The FRC's point, their battle to win since they've lost out in the "real" marketplace is to sell this crap to politicians! You know, the creatures "stupid" enough to buy $400+ hammers and toilet seats because it's YOUR money but THEIR buddies skimming the loot!
This is all about spending your tax dollars to LIMIT content and information in libraries, and the dishonesty of Burt & company is astounding. There is a big danger with secret blacklists that the content censored will be political content, thus feeding back into the infinite corruption-loop. These are tax-&-spend CENSORS who want to electronically "burn" books with OUR money! It's entirely unacceptable from either an economic or first amendment POV, and must be stopped.
JMR
PS, Jamie, it would not have been a low blow to describe Burt's "retirement" here, also.
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
The answer to this is trivial. Take the battle into their own meme-space.
Listen to me brothers, this person is doing Satan's evil work! He takes the results of hard, clean labor and twists it for his own evil ends. Take that site which discusses PGP cryptology. Now don't you think Satan may want to prevent people of good faith from communicating out of the sight of his minions? (The Lord always sees what Satan's little helpers are up to, of course.) What other sites does Satan want banned... sites that we might also find objectionable until the Lord gives us the sight to see the real reason why they strike fear into Satan's dark soul?
And what about these people who claim to be doing the Lord's work while speaking with forked tongues? Brothers and sisters, have you ever heard of *anyone* being lead to the truth by a lie? These people might not even realize how they are doing the work of the Great Deceiver in these petty lies, but we all know how the road to Hell is paved by good intentions... and how easy it is to find ourself on that dark road if we don't commit to a life of integrity in the service of our Lord.
Brothers, let me close with a single observation. These filters have blocked the Good Book. Oh, that block was removed once the error was pointed out, but it took a lot of hard effort to find that error. Who gains by the widespread adoption of software that blocks the Bible, even "in error"?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
These kinds of battles, ideaological ones, can never be fair. We live in a world that is measured in "mindshare" so when it comes down to a battle of ideas on what is "right" and what is "wrong" fairness doesn't begin to be included into the equation. Those who are waging the battle, fighting the ideaological wars, don't want to get bogged down in complicated ideas like fairness. They want only one thing: The win. We need to remember that history is written by the victors. When, and if, censorware and censorship in general get worked out to any kind of conclusion the side that has won is going to be saying what they will about the side that loss. For the good or ill what is considered fair will take place at that point and not before.
Here's an idea, why doesn't someone put up an explicitly illustrated bible web page, and wait unitl it gets blocked by the censorware. Then you can make then out to be godless commies, or something.
Here's a few freebies, you'll have to find the pics, though:
How beautiful your sandaled feet, O prince's daughter! Your graceful legs are like jewels, the work of a craftsman's hands.
2
Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies.
3
Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
4
Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon looking toward Damascus.
5
Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel. Your hair is like royal tapestry; the king is held captive by its tresses.
6
How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights!
7
Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
8
I said, "I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit." May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples,
9
and your mouth like the best wine. May the wine go straight to my lover, flowing gently over lips and teeth. [1]
10
I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me.
and for the pervs out there:
Judges 19:24-29 "Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light. And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place. And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel."
Thanks mostly to the XXX-rated Bible.
George
Maybe it's a case of o/~onward Christian moderator, marching as to waro/~ after all he's just simplifying what the article is pointing out, that the Christian Right are the dishonest, corrupt bad guys in this case... hey, I got moderated down once for saying much the same thing.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I accept the above as proven fact, and this makes the fundies a dangerous cult in which men are the true gods of the cult. One day, those men may say "kill the heathens" to the followers of the cult, and if the followers are as sheeplike as they seem, they'll do it.
Because of this, I'm not sure exactly what creating propaganda which works on them will do. Sure, the followers might catch on to "Filterware isn't about protecting the children. It's a scam that can never work. The companies that write it and sell it are lying to you" However, the leadership will come back with "We say that isn't so, if you doubt us, you are doubting God's word. Dare you risk eternal damnation?"
You see at this point I don't see the fundies, I mean the followers, as much more than glazed-eyes zombie cultists. I don't think they think for themselves, and I don't think they want to.
In my opinion, we can't convince the fundies of anything, we have to hope that there are more normal people out there than cultists, or everything is lost anyway and it's time to move to a bunker. So, in my opinion, pointing out that the Offspring's site is blocked might be helpful to getting normal people (you know the one's who send their kids out "trick or treating" on Halloween because they don't think it is some kind of Satanic ritual. Note the large selection of Halloween costumes in Walmart near Halloween, I think it's safe to say that the majority of people are still letting their kids get dressed up.) see that this is the behaviour of the extreme, radical, "Carrie's Mom," Right. Actually, it would be really great if we could find sites about the Beetles or the Rolling Stones that are blocked... since we are trying to convince older people (a.k.a. voters, older people are more reliable voters.) that these people are nuts. People tend to get emotionally attached to the bands they listened to in there youth, but are not necessarily up to speed on more modern music... and may even ascribe sinsiter influences to it..
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I'll admit to not being up on the whole meme thing, but I think that as you've described it, "a mental virus," there may be a meme here.(hmm... I remember reading something like this in a story by Henry Kuttner or L. Sprague DeCamp, I think it was called "the Gingerbread Left." Written during the Second World War, it was about a German language phrase being written which was so catchy, it would drive any German speaking person who heard it insane. It was a weapon to be used by the Allies against the Nazi's in the story.)
You see, people like the Family Research Council have been around for years. When I was a kid, their main occupation (as far as I was concerned) was gathering up Dungeons&Dragon books and burning them. The point is they were around, and they got the idea into there heads was that the best way to assert both that they were good Christians and to give external evidence of Christian power was to purge things from society. I think, that the "mental virus" is that this idea, that good Christians purge "evil thoughts" from society has become so prevalent among some types of Christians that it has overcome the ideals of Christianity. For example, a lot of the stuff these people do cannot be sold to the general public without major lying and dishonesty. Christians used to believe that dishonesty was wrong, especially dishonesty done in the name of God. I mean, lying was considered serious. This is why it is so hard to deal with these people, not only do they ignore the "Thou Shalt Not Lie" and "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness" commandments, they also ignore Jesus's warning to the scribes and pharisees about religious hypocrisy. This was when He referred to them as "whited sepulchres" who "indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and all uncleaness." Of course, Jesus was dealing with basically the same political situation as we are now, people who were more interested in maintaining a theocracy than in doing good.
To these people, the idea that the ends justify the means has overcome their suposed religious beliefs, so that the only thing that matters is political victory. If they have to lie to achieve it, well "you can't make an omelet without breking a few eggs." This sort of thing happened before, England under the Rump Parliament (and later "The Parliament of Saints") after the English Civil War is a good example. Political power, cloaked in the guise of religion and justified through an appeal to Christian morality which has no relation to the actions of the political leaders, is what we are seeing here.
Maybe referring to Orwell would be better, whatever the Party leadership did was right because the Party, by definition was acting in the people's interests. People were required to believe it, even though the actions of the Party consistently proved it wasn't true.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Catholics who think about religion as a political issue care about only one issue, abortion, really. This type will ask "Is Wildmon anti-abortion?" "Yes." "Then he must be OK." (Ok, I'll admit not all politically active Catholics are like that, but most of the ones I know are willing to ally with the fundamentalists primarily because of this one issue. It's rare I can feel pride in my priests any more, though I did recently when one of them spoke out against all the Halloween bashing that goes on amongst fundamentalists. That sort of thing doesn't happen as often as it should, though.) Catholics who don't follow the church on abortion or other issues don't have a voice, politically, inside the Catholic Church, so they won't influence the decisions of the Catholic Church.
So, I believe that in supporting these people, the Catholic Church is participating in its own destruction but I doubt very much I could convince my priest of that.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I have no problem with morality, I believe in morality, and will indeed attempt to convince people that my morality is correct.
And according to my morality, these people are evil. According to my morality, these people are trying to take away people's free will (dare I say God-given free will?) and replace it with fear of a government imposed set of rules that have everything to do with giving the FRC power and nothing to do with morality.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
> J.Random Public doesn't want to be confused by the facts. [
> The more the spread [the meme] and get approval and agreement from other citizens, the
>more justified they feel in holding this meme [
> respect laugh at them and tell them what fools they were for buying the meme in the first place.
>
> The only answer I can think of is for us to go out and laugh at anyone we hear propagating these inaccuracies.
Humor is an effective weapon - possibly the best use thereof has been the alt.religion.scientology wars.
Here are a couple of representative USENET posts:
Post 1
Post 2
The effectiveness of humor against the $cieno meme complex has been demonstrated pretty effectively. Of course, it's hard not to laugh at someone who spends $300K to find out that the source of his personal problems involves volcanoes, H-Bombs, and an evil Galactic Overlord named Xenu, particularly when cult doctrine considers "joking and degrading" a high crime. (Solution obvious: Make everything a degrading joke about the cult - then stand back and watch cult members go apeshit, labelling everyone but themselves criminals, much to the amusement of anyone watching. Give a cult enough rope and it'll hang itself.)
And while we're on the subject of the Co$ and censorware, as a followup to my "Censorship is for suckers" thread -- is it any wonder that the very same Cult of $cientology ordered all its members to use it's own custom-branded version of Cybersitter on their home PCs?
For reference:
Co$ Censors Net Access for Members, and The Scientology Net Censor.
Now - if you're a God-fearing Christian, why on earth would you rely on a solution advocated by a satanic cult that believes that the whole Jesus story was merely an "R6 implant" - a false memory artificially-implanted into our collective unconsciousness by evil alien overlords? I'm sure glad my library is following the lead of the Cult of $cientology and using censorware!
This leads to another propagable meme: The only "major" "religious" organization to mandate its members' use of censorware is the Cult of $cientology. Why are we following the lead of a god-denying UFO cult? Do you want to trust your children's safety to a group of software companies, when at least one of them has already demonstrated a willingness to develop a custom version of their product to a nut cult that believes Jesus Himself was merely an fake memory implanted in us by aliens? Do the censorware merchants have no shame? How stupid do the censorware peddlers think we are?
I first came across meme in Richard Dawkins "The Selfish Gene", where he equates the meme with the gene (they rhyme so it must be good :-).
The gene can be made up of many building blocks in different forms, the meme can be a single idea or often a collection of ideas and the way in which those ideas develop.
Powerful Memes can be concepts like "free speach" or equally things like racism and supposed racial superiority, they cover a broader space than the english word idea. A meme seeks to breed and multiply and adapt to its surroundings.
Some of the most powerful memes can be found in things that can't be described as ideas, football (soccer to those in the US) is a meme that has a life of its own and has spread around the globe pretty much unhindered.
An idea can be a meme or could be a part of a meme, but a meme doesn't have to be an idea.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
"Jamie needs to stop mocking the voters in his town and start listening to them."
I have to agree here. You can't tell someone they're an idiot for what they believe and then expect them to listen to you while you try to persaude them that they are wrong.
I had to wince when I saw Jamie on TV8 (WOODTV, a local station). I'm anti-filter and yet Jamie seemed like a radical loonie from the clips that TV8 showed. I thought when I saw it, "he's not doing any good for the cause".
I understand Jamie's passion for the cause. I just hope he can tone it down to a level that might work in Holland MI. Don't slap the people you need to reach out to.
And being a Holland-er all my life I can say that words like "memes" scare a lot of Holland folk. Words like "protect your children" don't.
If you really want to get anywhere with many of these people, you really need to accentuate the false negatives, not the false positives. Most of these censor types will excuse false negatives just as that guy did. Either they'll figure out some reason why it is ok, or imply that it is worth it to mistakenly block a few sites to "save the children". Since most people only half listen to the real arguments, they'll just come away confused.
Instead, accentuate examples of offensive porn that wasn't blocked. Do this even if you don't think porn is bad. The reason is that it undercuts their whole argument. If you can show that censorware will never effectively block porn in the real world, there ceases to be any purpose for censorware and you don't even have to get into an argument about what is "offensive", and whether people have the right to look at offensive stuff. It will be hard for censorware types to respond to this other than to say "the next version will work". Harp on this enough, and people will start to realize that it will never work.
Besides, "Censorware allows your children to see porn!" is a much catchier headline then "Censorware keeps your children from seeing 'The offspring'". It'll make the evening news much more often.
So if I were you, I'd start searching that mass of unblocked data for porn sites. If you can show that a significant percentage of porn is not blocked, you'll win the argument.
The cake is a pie
Essentially what I'm saying is that the urge for control would be much less a problem if the people who were attempting to gain that control were really educated as to what's going on.
It's possible, though, that if these people knew what was really going on, they'd gain a sense of personal responsibility, and they'd lose the urge to gain control of other people. So essentially what I'm saying is, if they weren't ignorant, they wouldn't be the people they are in the first place.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
Sure, we've known ideas spread and change for eons longer than we've known about evolution. Dawkins used the term 'meme' much in the same way he used the term 'animal-space' in his later books; it was a convenient vehicle to make people think of a particular aspect of the thing. 'Animal-space' means an organized three-dimensional set of all lifeforms, and implies that one can draw a straight line between any two and predict by the length of the line how many mutations and how much time is needed for the transition. While 'meme' can be used interchangably with idea, he specifically used it to imply that it was the basic unit of cultural evolution, and the same set of laws that apply to physical evolution apply in the cultural sphere.
Again, merely splitting hairs over a connotation of the same thing, but, eh! Why the heck not!
.sig: Now legally binding!
The hair style and pants/skirt length of teenagers are the classic examples of memes -- they are apparently random parameters of fashion whose spread can be easily seen.
Thank you. That actually makes some amount of sense. You couldn't easily describe that phenomenon using "idea" or "concept".
Based on this, I agree that the author of the story's use of "meme" is gratuitous. "Memetic Warfare"? I think the other term for that is "propaganda". But that's far less l33t. :)
--
Just in passing, on the topic of money, I should note for the thread that Censorware Project (I was a cofounder, have since left) has never gotten a cent from anyone.
Following the library money:
Pro-filter group takes big money lead
Pro-filter factions win money battle
"Thanks to $35,000 gift from AFA, groups pushing for Internet filters have advantage"
I had to take an ethics class in college, and there I learned that morals regard what is (absolutely) right and wrong, and ethics regard a proper code of conduct in a given field (e.g. medical ethics, business ethics). However I think that "ethics" and "morals" as we define them often get confused, and I'm not sure that either my definition or yours is the "correct" one. This seems like one of those cases where everyone's definitions are a little different. I know what you mean, however, and I think you're right, mostly, although I don't think I'd call the common social contract "morals". But it's really just splitting hairs at that point.
Which words refer to what aside, as long as we agree that there are separate entities thus:
- Things that society in general agrees are right and wrong
- Things that you personally think are right and wrong
They definitely exist, whether you choose to acknowledge them or not. But cross them at your own peril.
No kidding :)
The problem arises when a minority group claims that its principles are moral (i.e. they apply to all of society) when they aren't in fact shared by the majority. Abortion is an obvious example - the majority feel that abortion under some circumstances is ok (the set of circumstances varies of course).
This sort of thing (draping yourself in the mantle of morality) seems to happen a lot more now than in the past. I don't know why.
From what I can tell of history, people have always done this. There's just more people now. :) It sort of became more visible in the 90's because of the rise of the Christian Right (at least in America, which is where I'm assuming you are, though I probably shouldn't). The "family values" meme started infecting everyone, and they're still using it to bash people over the head with. (The difference between Democrats and Republicans: Democrats want the government to run everything except morality, and the Republicans want the government to run nothing except morality.)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
> See, that's what I was talking about in a
> lower-numbered thread. Censorship is OK to some
> people, as long as they disapprove of the groups
> being censored... much as AC wants to censor the
> Christians he disagrees with by marginalizing
> them and their beliefs.
How interesting. However I would say that there
is quite a large difference between voicing an
opionion like "they are irrational" and actually
trying to stop people from being able to access
their material.
One is speach, the other is censorship. Contrary
speach is not censorship.
Personally, I think the people who wish to have
censored internet access in libraries should open
their own, privatly run, libraries and offer
censored terminals. Then they get what they
want, without bothering the public at large.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
1) Quit using the word meme. It's stupid, and already covered (based on context) by many other words. It should be thrown into that pile of words like "Enterprise", "Intranet" and "think out of the box" that noone should use. Sorry, personal rant.
2) Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. I remember when Time proved that 99.4% of the 'net was used for pr0n based on a report out of CMU. Statistics will always be used for and against you. Probably the best thing you can do is stand up and refute the statement, especially if someone uses it in your presence.
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
I choose to be an optimist about the marketplace of ideas. I believe that truthful memes will proliferate in the long run, because enough people's brains select for truth. Tnen you are kinda missing the point about memes. If people selected for truth then the whole meme idea would be completely uninteresting because at the end of the day ideas would have no internal dynamics of their own as truth would always win out. What makes memes interesting is that ideas have all sorts of different ways of surviving regardless of their truth value. Islam and Christianity are mutually incompatible and have been around for at least 1500 years - a pretty 'long run' wouldn't you say?
-- SIGFPE
Or don't, and regain the element of surprise. You see, you WILL raise your children, and they WILL acquire your memes, regardless of what laws and rules are imposed on your family by the misguided others. Sure, those others are annoying, but ultimately, your children listen to YOU. So be a good parent, and infect them with your memes. Then make sure they're a little more successful than you, so they pass your memes on to their children. This is happening now, and it has been happening for thousands of years. The idea that information should be suppressed, filtered, hidden, is inherently a dying meme. (It's a little like a genetic predisposition to be homosexual. If there is such a thing, and there might be, it faces hardcoded barriers to reproducing itself. You are free to feel however you want to about that.)
Nevertheless, it's a slowly dying meme, even now. Even with technology advances like the Internet making it more difficult to suppress information, there's still just as many people who WANT to, and will attempt to come up with technology weapons to use against the Internet. Blocking software is one example and there will be others. Fight carefully, fight by educating your children (this is the sort of war you are morally obliged to send your children into), fight with better memes. Critically examine what you read, even here. Critically examine my words. The truth is that we will be a happier species if our ideas are not suppressed, and we are naturally predisposed toward truthful memes.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
The original idea of a meme was an idea that propagates itself in the manner of a gene or a virus.
It was a pretty fuzzy concept when it was originated but it was a way of describing some things that happen in the real world - i.e.
Stories like alligators in the sewers seem to go on forever, passed from person to person.
Some complex 'memes' such as the Mormon religion have a belief that the members should work to gain converts. A lot of people laugh at the ernestness of some young Mormon missionaries, but the growth of the church seems to prove that this is a 'meme' with high survival and growth characteristics.
The only intellectual benefit in calling something a 'meme' is that you can study how the idea survives and propagates without having to pay attention to the actual content of the idea.
The fact that people tend to spread lies that they want to believe is not very surprising, but in the context of the article mixing lies, memes and censorship is simply confusing.
If you give a man a hammer, pretty soon every problem starts looking like a nail.
When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
The fight will never be fair because if it was, they would lose:
"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide that the right balance is between being effective and being honest. "
Stephen Schneider
Environmental activist, in Discover, Oct. '89
"There are lies, damed lies, and statistics."
Mark Twain
The public library is such a crappy place to whack off to pr0n anyway. How many people are actually doing this, beside Pee Wee Herman fans?
Here's a thought I just had, make of what y'all will. How old are the people organizing all the censorship initiatives? I just longing for the "Sixties" and the whole free speech movement at the time--I ain't old enough to remember it, but it sure reads like a good time don't it. Anyway, I got to wondering: Where did all the hippies who engineered all the progressive movements back then disappear to? Have they transformed into these pro censorship types? If not, why aren't those guys flat out horrified by this whole thing and taking action? For that matter where did the pro censorship movement materialize from. Are these people who came of age in the aftermath of that period? Do they even fall into one age group? I'm just trying to figure out where these people got on the whole decency kick. Are they people who are now afraid of the changes they wrought in the first place, or are they people who grew after the change nostalic for the old--and largely imaginary world? The reason I'm asking these questions is that somewhere along the way a meme kinda crept into out collective consciousness: The idea that the world is a dangerous place. With that one idea, censorship in the name of protecting children becomes not only permissible, but mandatory. I'm just trying to figure out when it happened.
Now in terms of relevance to the whole geek/tech side of this community, the debate about censorship vs openess has a direct connection. The protocols which power the interconnectivity we enjoy are products of the memes of the late sixties and seventies. The TCP/IP protocols were designed to be transparent, open, and are not owened by anyone. They were developed out of a consensus. Same thing with Unix and the whole open source movment--which has been around a whole lot longer than Linux. You wonder perhaps what protocols and standards are going to come out of this era? Look at the society the techs live in. Right now, it looks as though we're headed for a closed two-tier where creativity and imagination are attacked. Doesn't bode well.
Reminds me of the little section in Neal Stephenson's Zodiac (What? You still haven't read it?) where Sangamon mentions pH differences and calls it "More than twice what they're licensed for" when he knows that it's really more than 100,000 times what the guilty party is licensed for (pH scale is exponential). Why? People think about it if you say "more than twice" but dismiss you as a flake if you say "over 100,000 times more". There's a point where any discussion of quantities becomes fuzzy because we don't quite have a good picture of what the numbers mean. Even if a million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to, it still has that mystique attached to it of being a 'millionaire'.
In the same vein, I suppose, one can dismiss 'one in a million' but one has to think about 'one in twenty'. To quote The Tick, "I just can't get my mind around it!"
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
Is it possible to tack an EULA onto a published study, along the lines of:
The results and data of this research may only be published with the written permission of the author...
I mean, we all agree that these sort of licenses are detestable. However, there seems to be a sizeable overlap between the group of people who think that those agreements are just fine and the group of people who think that blocking software is peachy keen. In other words, the idiots who would want to misuse the data would be the same ones most likely to follow the "contract" not to.
I just don't wanna be controlled - that's all I want. - The Offspring
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
What really, _really_ gets me pissed off is that when the report was released, the censors censored out the report, filing it into every category: sex, hate speech, etc.
If you're incapable of tolerating *criticism* this immediately indicates that there is something seriously wrong.
While I don't support censorship of any sort (quite different from forcing people to read everything) I would at least be more accepting of censors who welcomed input as to what is and is not acceptable, and who corrected their errors in a responsible fashion.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I'm afraid that's exactly what has to happen - that is the *meaning* of the word morality. Just read any philosohical book on ethics. There's no such thing as morality that only applies to a small group of people - it applies to everyone (under morally similar conditions), or it's not morality at all. Just think about it for one second - take some commonly accepted moral rules:
- It's wrong to kill someone for fun
- It's wrong to steal from a baby
- It's wrong to eat people
Obviously these apply to everyone. Saying "It would be wrong for me to kill someone for fun, but not if you did it" is just ridiculous. The same goes for any other moral principle. I believe that it would be morally wrong for me to choose to eat meat, because of the animal suffering and violence involved. That *automatically* implies, by definition of morality, that it is wrong for everyone else to choose to eat meat. For people for whom it doesn't, they must be confusing morality with something less strong, like just personal taste. There's no getting away from it.I don't agree with compulsory censorware, but your argument is completely illogical - unfortunately it's quite a common mistake.
Your moral principle is that "You shouldn't impose your moral principles on other people." But don't you see - imposing that moral principle on others is totally hypocritical!!
Female Prison Rape in NY
> Besides, "Censorware allows your children to see porn!" is a much catchier headline then "Censorware keeps
your children from seeing 'The offspring'". It'll make the evening news much more often.
I've quoted it here because to me, this is all about propagability of memes. Some people evaluate memes based on truth values, but most don't. Truth is not a predictor of propagability of memes, and in order to win this battle, we need memes that can propagate as well among the fundie crowd as they do among the Slashdot crowd. .
Let's consider the memeset of our "enemy" here, and that Offspring lyric that got posted. Our enemy probably knows "The Offspring" as "that band that sings about beating people up and being a rowdy teenager". Blocking Offspring isn't a bug to these people, it's an accidental feature.
Those Offspring lyrics - put yourself in the brain of a stereotypical fundie and read the lyrics: "When will the world listen to reason / I have a feeling it'll be a long time / When will the truth come into season / I have a feeling it'll be a long time.."
Now, since you're a fundie, and you know that Offspring isn't "Christian Rock", you can only assume that they're not talking about "the world waking up to the realization that Christ is the One True Savior". In fact, you probably suspect that they're trying to get your kids to "wake up" and snap out of their fundie-raised upbringing. What we /.ers think of as "think for yourself" is - in the hardcore fundie mentality, "the sin of pride", a rebellion against God's divine authority that puts man at the center of their universe, not God - oh, the horror!
Do I agree with that logic? Not on your life. But $10 worth of hot grits down Jerry Falwell's pants says that the people who want blocking software do. And THEY'RE the ones propagating the memes right now, which is why we're losing this war.
We need to stop pretending that our opposition cares about the First Amendment. We know damn well they don't. Stop pretending that our audience cares about the First Amendment. They're too ignorant to care about things when the meme of "saving the chiiilllldrun is worthwhile at any cost" shows up. From a memetic warfare standpoint, the logical alternative is to take the battle to a level the sheeple can understand, and that means to start scaring them into submission the same way our opponents have been doing, and that means a memeset that propagates among fundies.
An audience of people who stand up and say "I used your filtering software last year and read about donkeys fucking little girls! You said you made your filters better, but I can still see that goddamn link!" is an audience ready to get my proposed meme:
Filterware isn't about protecting the children. It's a scam that can never work. The companies that write it and sell it are lying to you.
Unlike "You're blocking good sites too", where our idea of "good" is just as bad as pr0n to our enemies, this is a useful meme.
Consider: It appeals on the gut level - to paranoia, by accusing "big business" of running a scam on "the little guy", and describes a world in which Godless Amoral Corporations are trying to pull the wool over Your Preshus Chilldrun's eyes by hawking snake oil that can never work. They're not really for Jesus, they're just trying to make a buck in His name. (The fact that this is true isn't relevant -- it's that it's easily believed to be true that counts.)
More importantly - this meme gives its holder a sense of superiority. "I know censorware doesn't work. I know it's a crock. I know something other people don't know, which makes me better than other people!".
Finally - it doesn't conflict with their existing memeset. Our whining about the First Amendment makes us feel superior, because most of us realize that there are principles at stake beyond religious bickering. But it conflicts directly with the "God Uber Alles" meme that so heavily infects the fundie set. To these people, a theocracy is a Good Thing, and the First Amendment is a threat. But even the most diehard theocrat can see that "Being a Sucker" is a bad thing.
To summarize -- if you wanna do memetic warfare, pick memes that are easily reproduced. Pick memes that make their holders happy by reinforcing their propagators' self-esteem. And make sure you pick a meme that doesn't require modification to the existing memes held by your target audience.
It's what they've done to us so successfully with "We're for God, the children, and apple pie. They're for porn and using the first amendment as a lame excuse." When we whine about the First Amendment - it's taken for whining, because our argument says "there are things more important than your religious beliefs" - our meme conflicts with theirs and gets thrown out.
My proposed "You're being sold snake oil. Don't be a sucker" meme is every bit as true as our arguement about the First Amendment, but unlike the constitutional argument, it doesn't conflict with their existing complex of religious memes. You can go on thumping the bible and beatin' up faggutz and lezzbein' femminizt radikulz or whatever the hell else it is that hardcore fundies get off on - but you can do it without censorware.
Because You're Not A Sucker. And Censorware is for Suckers. Because it doesn't work. Because it never will work. And because it's all a scam being run by people who are invoking the name of God to make a quick buck. May they burn in hell, Amen.
Jamie and his group seem caught up on technicalities and words which most people don't understand. That is not a good way to sway the public to one's viewpoint.
Many parents believe the internet contains threats to their children. These parents feel the library should be a safe place. They will vote to protect their children. The instinct to protect one's offspring is far more powerful than the love of liberty (short sighted as that may be).
The only way the anti-censoreware movement will succeed is to address the fears of these parents/voters. They can scream censorhip until they are blue in the face. It seems they will.
Jamie needs to stop mocking the voters in his town and start listening to them. They will vote and they will make the decision, unless Jamie persuades them to do otherwise.
Memes are terribly hard to shove back in the wrapper after someone takes them out exposes them to the meme collecting sheeple who get sucked in by the meme de jour.
Memes that tend to corkscrew into the brain of J.Random Citizen faster than anything usually include references to children, family, religion, morals (not ethics), sex and violence.
Actual numbers are inconsequential as long as the writer can show that they are in the majority and on the same side of the issue as the readers (or rather convincing the reader that they would be a foul beast for disagreeing with the author.) What kind of monster would allow harm to befall children? These memes are replicated in churches, schools, television, newspaper and anywhere that two or more people get together to try and shock each other with horror stories from the trenches.
J.Random Public doesn't want to be confused by the facts. They don't want someone telling them that politicians trying to peddle their own agenda duped them. They want to feel good about their actions and this only serve to reinforce the meme. The more the spread it and get approval and agreement from other citizens, the more justified they feel in holding this meme, nurturing it, cuddling it, stroking its fur, naming it George. They'll only discard it if enough people whom they respect laugh at them and tell them what fools they were for buying the meme in the first place.
The only answer I can think of is for us to go out and laugh at anyone we hear propagating these inaccuracies. Memes don't just die, they must be terminated with extreme prejudice.
-chaosgrrl
When you can't find your jello don't come screaming at me to remove the weasle from your headgear.
I say we throw in the towel on the concept of promoting change from within the system and focus on civil disobedience. The hacker ethic is antitheical to this New World Order of information control... this is the real war - it's not one of politics or mimes.. it's about the right to the truth.. the freedom of information, and the right to be left alone.
I agree with you on this, however it goes even deeper than that. It's about free thought, and freewill. The first thing each of us needs to focus on is achieving personal awareness, free thought, and free will - i.e. liberty - the ability to get up each morning (or night), do what you believe in all day (or night), and go to bed at night (or morning) knowing you did what you believed in.
The second thing to do is to help other people do what they believe in. Of course this is a personal thing, and if you try to change people's views too much from the direction they are naturally inclined, what you get is divided loyalties. The last thing you want in a tense situation is people questioning their loyalties. So with five billion people on the earth, and the mass of communications, the goal should be to connect people who naturally believe in freewill and liberty. After this happens, the "system" will never be able to get these people back on their side, so the only option they'll have is to try to keep our ideas from spreading to the sheep.
This is the information age. The greatest tool of the status quo is ignorance of any other way of going about things. So they will continue to try to keep their ideas flowing to those people who they think they can control. But awareness is usually a one way journey - once you've seen it, you won't just give in to ignorance.
But anyhow.....
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
What's wrong with the word that has meant the same thing since English began: idea?
Is it just to be extra l33t, or is there some hidden meaning that has escaped me?
--
This is not about the internet. This is not about pornography, it is not about copyright, it is not about piracy, it is not about cryptography. It's about information control.
Information is power. The internet has an unfettered flow of information. Therefore the internet is the ultimate powerbase. The people who control it effectively do what they've been doing for the past two thousand years: they control you, your reality, your neighbors, everything. The worst part is, because you don't know what is and is not truly going on, you don't even know this is occuring.
We got a fleeting glance of the empowerment this medium can provide when the ISP boom occurred alittle over a year ago - and before the letters "AUP" came into being. This was a time when everybody was getting online and seeing that the world is very different depending on who you talk to...
As a result, cultural barriers collapsed, people started judging by ideas instead of the color of your skin or your age, and a private revolution took off in the homes of the average joe.
This is going to come to a screeching halt. It MUST come to a halt for society to preserve it's integrity - the RIAA, the DMCA, piracy, privacy and democracy are all intertwined. This is the ultimate battle, and right now they have 40 frags, and the home team is -1.
I say we throw in the towel on the concept of promoting change from within the system and focus on civil disobedience. The hacker ethic is antitheical to this New World Order of information control... this is the real war - it's not one of politics or mimes.. it's about the right to the truth.. the freedom of information, and the right to be left alone.
Is it just me, or is the number of self-appointed groups crusading to promote "decency" on the rise? "American Decency Association?" Some would claim that title is a joke. Still others would claim it's an oxymoron. It's hard to tell. Their home page is pretty typical; Bible verses mixed with warnings about pornography addiction and the other evils of the Internet. Yawn. (No, I have no problem with the Bible, and I have no problem with people and/or families basing their morality on it. What I do have a problem with is groups that point their fingers at my family and say, "All right, now we'll set your moral standards for you.")
Why isn't there more vocal opposition to groups like this? Sure, on Slashdot, they get raked over the coals, but you would expect it: the average Slashdot reader is a little bit more concerned about his or her freedom than the average person on the street. But this ought to be bigger than Slashdot and a few other forums. I don't care if you're the most rabid of the rabid religious fundamentalists or the most die-hard of the die-hard atheists. If you value personal freedom, then you must be morally opposed to a single group attempting to establish their moral standard as the compulsory baseline for everyone! This certainly includes filtering; by definition filtering consists of a single person or group of people unilaterally deciding that a particular site is inappropriate for everybody.
So start letting people know that you're not going to accept this. Start letting people know that you are more than capable of deciding what you and your children can and cannot see. Start letting people know that it is you, not some fundamentalist group with a three-letter acronym name, that is ultimately responsible for raising your children. Because I'll tell you what folks: what we really need to be protected from are the folks who think they know better than anybody else what's best for us. So to the ADA, the FRC, the CC, and any other "moral watchdog" organization, I say "Thanks, but no thanks." This is something that families can handle by themselves.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground