What are Memes?
To begin with, it is important to understand what exactly memes are and how they work. The term “meme” was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene: Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, in can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain. Additionally, Blackmore says, regarding memes that: “the human language faculty primarily provided a selective advantage to memes, not genes. The memes then changed the environment where genes were selected, and so forced them to build better and better meme spreading apparatus. In other words, the function of language is to spread memes”.
Memes are ideas that spread like a virus from person to person. The fictional universe in the Borges story mentioned earlier functions like a meme that re-writes the rules of reality. Regarding the psychological aspects of memes, Brodie says:“ the memes in your head cause behavioural effects. Likening your mind to a computer, memes are the software part of your programming; the brain and the central nervous system produced by your genes is the hardware part”
Anons have been weaponized against evil.