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The Millennium Thought Contagion
Is Your Mental Software Year 2000 Compliant?
by Aaron Lynch
Thought contagions are beliefs that program for their own copying in humans much as computer viruses do in computers. Their self-spreading effect explains the techno-apocalypse ideas swirling around the Y2K bug, including secular hell-doomsday ideas, logic-resistant strains of myth, and embedded rumors. Educating people about this can reduce the hazards of mass failures in "mental software."
If digital electronics had arrived 100 years earlier, then the multifarious hodgepodge of problems called Y2K would have gone by a completely different name, perhaps Y19C, Y1900, or even C-20. As a century rollover problem, it only strikes by coincidence at the dawn of a millennium. Yet we also have a "bug" that really does relate to the turn of 1000 years. It does not lurk amid the transistors or databases, the ROM memories or old vacuum tubes. It inhabits the minds of human beings. Not a problem with how our brains track time, it arises from a weakness in how we share information amongst each other. It is the millennium thought contagion.
Thought contagions resemble computer viruses in one key respect: they "program" for their own transmission. Such beliefs self-propagate by inducing evangelism, abundant child raising, and dropout prevention. Beliefs harnessing these human functions most effectively out-propagate the "weaker" variants. Evolving like life forms through natural selection, thought contagions vie for ever stronger influence in human lives. Numerous ideas about health, religion, sex, family life, investments, politics, and paranormal claims are affected.
The similarities to biological replicators inspired Zoologist Richard Dawkins to coin the word "meme," rhyming with "dream," to denote a gene-like or virus-like unit of culture. Although thought contagion theory does not depend on having the word "meme," the word does serve as convenient shorthand for items of brain-stored culture. An increasingly robust theory known as memetics can express this in mathematical and symbolic terms without biological metaphors. However, it does not take equations to see that memes exert major effects on the information health of society, in matters ranging from astrology to doomsday beliefs.
Millennial Panic
Millennial panic derives much of its contagion from a synergy with hell ideas. The religious vision of hell has long motivated believers to spread their thoughts in order to save family and friends, making it a thought contagion in its own right. The idea that "the end is near" implies that one must hurry up and spread the beliefs. So the combination spreads faster. As the year 2000 approaches, a secular version of the hell-doomsday combination spreads the same way. This is the infectious panic swirling around Y2K. Predictions that all sorts of vital systems will suffer unrecoverable and catastrophic failure emanate from many sources. As with religious belief, ideas of "hell on earth" spur the most retransmission efforts. Many, for instance, have come to believe that electricity, water, fuel, and food supplies will collapse irreversibly. Airplanes will plunge from the skies. Nuclear weapons will launch at the stroke of midnight. And if the weapons dont fly, then financial chaos will still cause mass starvation and food riots. And so on. A January 1999 TIME/CNN poll found that 59% of Americans were somewhat to very concerned about Y2K, while a remarkably high 9% were expecting "the end of the world as we know it," or TEOTWAWKI in Y2K jargon.
Those accepting the direst predictions have a strong sense that time is running out, since they expect the catastrophe to start immediately after 1999. Survival thus depends upon evacuating urban centers, stockpiling food, drilling water wells, and so forth. But one must first believe in the Y2K cataclysm to be saved. As with the religious End Times memes, the secular strains naturally move believers to save friends and loved ones. So doomsday believers urgently spread the dire news of "what lies ahead" in January of 2000. Their extreme predictions spread well when combined with American survivalist memes, which give detailed instructions for how to save oneself. Like an evangelical religion, the meme package effectively says, "Convert, and you will live." Meanwhile, those who know that prosaic life will continue generally feel unmoved to go forth and tell everyone about it.
The term TEOTWAWKI helps secular and quasi-secular doomsayers distinguish their message from pure religion. In some, the meme arouses fantasies of joining the few survivors to inherit the world. Such a selfish appeal helps it spread. The TEOTWAWKI idea also differs enough from earlier religious thought that adherents try to persuade people ranging from atheists to Pentecostals. The wider base of "eligible" recipients helps the meme spread faster.
Infectious Y2K Panic
Once someone acquires the Y2K "hell on earth" belief, the meme serves itself by deterring dropouts. Like the religious threat of fire and brimstone for those who renounce faith, the secular belief threatens terrible things for those who "erroneously" change their minds. These include visions of starvation, violence, and death to oneself and loved ones. Such dropout prevention helps the belief not only persist, but also spread. Persistent belief enjoys more copying than momentary belief.
When new listeners hear the "hell on earth" warnings, the meme can manipulate their thinking toward accepting it. Like religious hell memes, the Y2K hell memes imply vast suffering for misplaced skepticism but little penalty for misplaced credulity. So the memes of doomsday with hell on earth achieve the three ingredients of major thought contagion: high transmission rates, receptivity in potential converts, and persistent belief in existing converts.
The doomsday belief is also more vivid and emotionally gripping than the prosaic belief. When infected by a vivid, emotionally gripping meme, people have a hard time setting the thought aside. They keep thinking about what it means to them. And people tend to talk about what they are thinking about, if it's not too private. So the vivid, gripping meme provokes more re-tellings per week than does the prosaic, boring meme. If meme A compels 60 minutes of thought per week, and meme B compels just 6 minutes thought per week, then this alone could cause up to ten times more tellings per week for meme A. The growth advantage is compounded weekly for a very fast contagion. Like the effect that powers those vivid, gripping stories called urban legends, it adds to the contagiousness already caused by thinking that "time is running out."
Further dissemination comes from the fact that news writers, reporters, book authors, and movie producers usually prefer vivid, gripping stories. Most of us already like telling exciting stories instead of dull ones, because we crave the extra attention it brings. The only difference with media professionals is that they earn cash for the attention they generate. Those who receive boring news tips or discover bland realities usually know better than to do a story on it. Rather, when they find alarming or sensational ideas, they know they have marketable material. As writers and reporters catch news memes from each other, the effect feeds on itself to produce escalating intensity in everything from royalty scandals to urban legends. Serious topics like Y2K are often distorted by the process.
Even those of us who conscientiously refrain from sensational story telling can unwittingly impart extreme ideas about Y2K. It simply takes less time and effort to explain the worst case Y2K situation than it does to explain why the worst case often does not apply. It also takes more time to explain that many systems such as power plants, water filtration systems, and oil refineries can be reset to fake dates and operated even if they do have date-sensitive software. This makes it easy mislead people and listeners to think that everything digital will fail unrecoverably at the stroke of midnight.
Many "embedded" thought contagions accompany the general apocalypse meme, and arise for the same reason. For example, if someone concludes that Russian nuclear missiles will launch at the stroke of midnight, he tends to keep thinking about it. Eventually, he concludes that he must warn people to get out of the cities and escape an imminent nuclear hell. So his belief out-propagates the belief of someone who knows about the key role of silo operators in launching a missile.
Another "embedded" thought contagion is the idea that civilization will end if the power grid goes down--an electric apocalypse. Even though societies have survived air wars that devastated infrastructure, most of us today have not. This leaves the electric apocalypse widely believable, helping the urgent warnings win converts.
Even embedded myths sustain layers of more deeply embedded myth, such as the notion that gasoline cannot be pumped in a power failure. In an emergency, mechanics could easily re-route the plumbing and re-power the station's air compressor with a gasoline motor, or simply use a generator. But the idea that gas won't flow without electricity is simpler to express and provokes more urge to warn others. Most listeners lack the mechanical knowledge to reject it, too. So visions of an America without gasoline spread widely in the world of Y2K lore.
Other Meltdown Warnings
Along with these apocalyptic memes come a variety lesser meltdown prophesies. Many, for instance, worry enough about the banking system to plan large cash withdrawals--even though the banking system has done an excellent job of fixing Y2K problems. Those who expect a banking cataclysm spend more time thinking about it than those who expect banking as usual. They also feel motivated to spread their beliefs in order to get friends and loved ones to pull their money out. Yet the limited supply of currency in todays banking system will protect it even from self-fulfilling prophecy of bank runs. Long before being forced into insolvency, the banks would run out of currency and pay all large withdrawals by cashiers check. But the only thing to do with a cashiers check is take it to another bank, so customers would stop making large withdrawals. Some people could be inconvenienced by a temporary currency shortage, but the banking system would survive.
Even institutions that publicize their Y2K fixes still face memetic problems. If a large bank, for instance, says it has brought its computers into compliance, some listeners will doubt it. Theyll say the bank is in denial, attempting a cover up, or engaging in conspiracy. Others will sound the alarm unless they see foolishly overpriced "proofs" of compliance. These ideas are more frightening and mentally gripping than bland expectations of normal banking in 2000. So cynical memes about the bank spread quickly on open media like the Internet. The conspiratorial variants also resist logic. The information equivalent of multi-drug resistant bacteria, there are few kinds of facts that could possibly "kill" such memes. After all, trying to refute a conspiracy theory can get you dismissed as either a victim or participant. So multi-refutation resistant strains keep the banking apocalypse meme going strong, especially in those who already like conspiracy thinking. Logic resistant strains emerge for the overall apocalypse meme as well, creating public challenges to more than just banks.
Refutation resistance also comes from regarding the non-doomsayer as a "Pollyanna." Those who learn to apply this word to anyone doubting the apocalypse can easily reject challenges to their beliefs. So they retain belief and the sense of urgency longer. That helps doomsday movements using the term spread faster. This makes the word "Pollyanna" unusually common in Y2K discussions.
The more psychological term "denial" also works this way. Used ever since Freud's four defense mechanisms, the term describes how real people often do react to threatening thoughts. Yet doomsayers can allege "denial" far easier than non-doomsayers can ever disprove it. The non-doomsayers presumably have to explain all the details of why society will function just to clear that single term "denial" from the discussion. Besides, denying denial is still "denial," making it perhaps the perfect source of refutation resistance. "Denial" thus becomes central to Y2K meme complexes that people have not dropped, and helps those meme sets survive and spread.
Thought contagions permeate online technology forums too. If an engineer knows a solution to a critical problem, she may just work diligently to solve it, perhaps marketing the fix to corporations through a new consulting business. But if someone else hastily decides that the problem has no solution, he may feel compelled to warn people in multiple forums. Others feel compelled to publicize problems that don't exist. They might, for instance, think that today's cars incorporate date information in the engine timing, and announce that cars will suddenly stop at midnight. Since public Internet forums are open to postings by non-experts, the misbeliefs that inspire re-transmission are well represented. So even the "high tech" forums act as reservoirs of infection for information viruses.
Not surprisingly, some of those proclaiming the end of the world are also experts in such high technology fields as computer programming. People in many professions regard their line of work as the most important, or nearly the most important in society. Conversely, we more readily choose a profession if we already see it as very important. Programmers and electrical engineers are no exception. This can make them emotionally receptive to ideas that society will collapse if malfunctions hit whole categories of their products. Normally sharp thinkers can therefore become uncritical of extraordinary claims swirling around Y2K. Once they accept such claims, the same professional pride can lead them to spread those thoughts. Saying the world will end from a crashed product line is a roundabout, unconscious way of declaring, "My profession is crucial!" The thought contagion reinforces itself, too: once some technologists express the TEOTWAWKI meme, it becomes more credible to other technologists. Though a minority among their colleagues, they help spread the meme to those lay people who regard technologists as automatic "experts" on the societal impact of Y2K.
Preparedness Movements
Investing heavily in a meme makes the meme harder to shake off. People who have gone so far as to relocate, sell assets, stockpile food, and persuade friends find it hard to consider that it might have been unnecessary. Instead, they may feel fond of including themselves in the minority "smart enough" to prepare for TEOTWAWKI. This helps the meme spread, by keeping the host contagious longer. For many, recovery will not happen until the year 2000. Even after calamity fails to strike that year, some will continue believing in the wisdom of their actions as "better safe than sorry." Those who sounded the most dire warnings will even take credit for saving civilization by pressuring sluggish organizations to act.
A less drastic version of the Y2K preparation movement calls for action focused on a community level instead of moving to remote cabins. The approach is generally more constructive, but still thrives on the contagiousness of dire predictions. The main difference is that this type of Y2K movement tells its adherents that to save themselves, they must save their communities. That means going forth to persuade as many neighbors as possible in order to launch community-wide efforts. It has the benefit of making communities more disaster-resilient and competes for adherents with isolationist messages. Yet the people most motivated to spread the movement in the community are often still the ones with unrealistically dire expectations.
In some cases dire warnings will have spurred sluggish bureaucracies into fixing their software. In other cases, dire warnings will interfere with late work, by inspiring key employees to quit and head for remote cabins. In effect, it gives programmers mental software that founders in an endless loop of terrifying thoughts. Apocalypse warnings also left some administrators thinking, "If this message is true, then I have no reason to bestir myself to elaborate action, because my organization has no function in a collapsed civilization." Others concluded that the whole thing was just hype and hysteria. In other words, irrational beliefs about Y2K acted as conceptually "weakened strains," immunizing some people against the idea that there was any problem to fix at all. Such effects may have slowed software fixes and made Y2K worse, not better. To the panic-stricken, the occasional "Y2K-denyers" looked like captains of the Titanic--and "proof" that a catastrophe really would strike. That, in turn, has strengthened the urge to spread dire warnings.
Y2K apocalypse memes thrive on already prevalent religious doomsaying. Endemic beliefs that "the end is near" make it easier to think that deadly sin of digital sloth will get the End started. Fundamentalists who see the fading plausibility of an End Times coming from the Soviet "evil empire" can turn their attention to the technocrats. So the belief in a technological debacle spreads vigorously in many religious circles, which have produced some of the loudest Y2K doomsayers. This includes conservative Christian activist Gary North, who widely proclaims the Y2K apocalypse in computer terms that persuade even the non-religious. Meanwhile, the secular doomsday meme renders its hosts more susceptible to religious evangelism. Many evangelicals point to the millennium bug as a "sign" that they and the book of Revelation were right all along. Religious hell memes help the evangelism work, since they imply infinite suffering for mistakenly "rejecting Christ" but little penalty for mistakenly converting. In any case, even the most atheistic doomsaying has roots in religion. After all, a religious thought contagion got us counting the years since the birth of Jesus in the first place.
When the year 2000 arrives, many evangelicals who thought the Y2K bug would play a role in the End Times will revert to the more date-neutral Adventism they held before the software story broke. We should, however, expect some extreme cults to have serious problems with a world that refuses to end. We should also expect a few groups to believe not only that the End Times are upon us, but that they have a divinely ordained role in causing it. This could mean a cluster of strange events such as the Heavens Gate tragedy and the Tokyo attack by the doomsday cult Aum Shinri Kyo. Some of these will happen after January 2000, owing to such things as estimates of the birth date of Jesus and the legacy of starting a millennium on 1 AD rather than 0 AD.
The rest of society will also have many people hearing of "the coming anarchy." Unfortunately, some will act accordingly, despite an increased police presence. Being infected with a belief that "the end is near" can make the criminal element more active, since apocalypse implies no penalty for getting caught. A few people may even try to foment chaos, for the simple reason that they have prepared so well for it and do not want their efforts and emotional investment wasted. With extremists viewing Y2K as deliverance from an evil social order, a few may even try to hasten the apocalypse through sabotage. We thus have two problems on our hands: the century bug of the computers, and the millennium thought contagion of the human mind.
Explaining the technological details of why modern life will not collapse will remain an important aspect in countering Y2K hysteria through the end of 1999. Yet many people need what amounts to a combination therapy: they need to see not only the fantastic scenarios refuted, but also why millions of people can all be wrong about it. Asking how an idea was acquired can help in spotting irrational thought contagions and mounting an immune reaction. Thoughts that come from others, are hard to set aside, and that make one impatient to tell new people can be recognized as likely thought contagions. Learning to spot them makes it easier to pause for research before believing or spreading them. This helps with all sorts of irrational ideas besides Y2K as well. Rational inquiry in general can be advanced if more people learn to think about their roles as infectious information carriers. For this, Y2K presents a unique educational opportunity, since the contagious myths will have lasted only a year or two in most cases. Starting in 2000, millions of former doomsayers will have a chance to think about the hysteria in hindsight as a lesson in mass delusion. If we take time to discuss the social phenomenon after it passes, the insights learned may benefit the information health of society well into the next century.
Aaron Lynch is author of the book Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society published by Basic Books in 1996. This article is adapted from a longer version on his web page at http://www.thoughtcontagion.com, but has some new material. A similar version is published in the November/December 1999 issue of The Skeptical Inquirer.
-- Captain Truth (captain@truth.com), November 24, 1999Answers
Truth, If the lights stay on and the water and sewage are okay, then all is well. If they don't, all the proclamations of it only a meme do not mean squat. 37 days will tell the tale. Unless, of course memes make the sewage back up. Frankly, my opinion of you is that truth is something you occassionally accidently connect with, not through logic, but plain dumb luck. Have a nice rollover.
-- Noone (none@none.com), November 24, 1999.
I'm book marking this one to email back to the author after the fact. This one ticks me off.
-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), November 24, 1999.
There is no such thing as concrete material reality, you see.
-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), November 24, 1999.
This is an example of the "You've come to the same conclusion as that nut over there, therefore you must be wrong" logical fallacy.Not a single sentence in this article discusses the crucial question: is the code broken or not?
In an emergency, mechanics could easily re-route the plumbing and re-power the station's air compressor with a gasoline motor, or simply use a generator.
Proof that this author needs to come out for some fresh air. "Easily?" Has he ever tried to find a competent plumber?
-- Alan Rushby (arushby@yahoo.com), November 24, 1999.
Now THERE is a guy without beans in his pantry!
-- W (LOL@home.now), November 24, 1999.
"Thought contagions are beliefs that program for their own copying in humans much as computer viruses do in computers. Their self-spreading effect explains the techno-apocalypse ideas swirling around the Y2K bug, including secular hell-doomsday ideas, logic-resistant strains of myth, and embedded rumors. Educating people about this can reduce the hazards of mass failures in "mental software."This whole concept is philosophically and psychologically puerile. Even as a literary "conceit" (with its juvenile analogies), it falls short.
Oversimplifying (but only barely), "thought contagion" = "something a lot of people are convinced of". Whoa. There's a profound concept.
Ironically, this whole subject of contagions and "memes" is just perfect for a culture that won't do the simple but HARD work of trying to determine whether a given possibility is a realistic possibility/probability. Or, putting it even more classically, that won't try to determine the "claim to truth" of the "assertion", because, after all, there is no truth, is there, except how I feel about something after I've taken my St. John's Wort.
The simple question is whether or not the varied elements which this author transparently, snidely and sarcastically mocks (matters having to do with grid, etc) are realistic possibilities or not. If they're not, drop them. If they are, respond to them.
.... As this forum, collaboratively, has been doing for two and a half years, pollies, middle-grounders and doomers together.
You want some thought contagions?
OK. "Clintonism". "Global warming". "Overpopulation". "Megiddo". "Gun control".
Don't jump, everybody, if I'm nailing a subject you "favor". I'm not putting these things down ON THEIR FACE. Instead, that's why we have had long, exhaustive (exhausting) threads on some of these subjects.
Their truth claims can only be evaluated AFTER they have been carefully examined, not by scapegoating them as "memes".
Since this is a troll post (even though it doesn't give the usual explicitly nasty smell), I hope it's deleted, along with my comment. If it isn't, let this stand as a response to a truly inane concept.
Repeating it ad nauseam doesn't make it any more plausible.
-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 24, 1999.
Captain Truth, Here's another idea you may be able to sink your teeth into. The writing style of this theory is eerily similar to your contributionFLAT EARTH SOCIETY
The International Flat Earth Society is the oldest continuous Society existing on the world today. It began with the Creation of the Creation. First the water...the face of the deep...without form or limits...just Water. Then the Land sitting in and on the Water, the Water then as now being flat and level, as is the very Nature of Water. There are, of course, mountains and valleys on the Land but since most of the World is Water, we say, "The World is Flat." Historical accounts and spoken history tell us the Land part may have been square, all in one mass at one time, then as now, the magnetic north being the Center. Vast cataclysmic events and shaking no doubt broke the land apart, divided the Land to be our present continents or islands as they exist today. One thing we know for sure about this world...the known inhabited world is Flat, Level, a Plain World.
We maintain that what is called 'Science' today and 'scientists' consist of the same old gang of witch doctors, sorcerers, tellers of tales, the 'Priest-Entertainers' for the common people. 'Science' consists of a weird, way-out occult concoction of jibberish theory- theology...unrelated to the real world of facts, technology and inventions, tall buildings and fast cars, airplanes and other Real and Good things in life; technology is not in any way related to the web of idiotic scientific theory. ALL inventors have been anti- science. The Wright brothers said: "Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane." By the way, airplanes all fly level on this Plane earth.
Our Society of Zetetics have existed for at least 6,000 years, the extent of recorded history. Extensive writing from 1492 b.c. We have been and are the Few, the Elite, the Elect, who use Logic Reason are Rational. Summed up, we are Sane and/ or have Common Sense as contrasted to the "herd" who is unthinking and uncaring. We have absorbed the Universal Zetetic Society of America and Great Britian, ZION U.S.A., the work of Alexander Dowie 1888, Wilber Glen Voliva 1942, Samuel Shenton, Lillian J. Shenton of England 1971. Zetetic: from Zeto, to seek and search out; Prove, as contrasted to theoretic which means to guess, to hope, to suppose, but NOT to 'prove'. Science 'proves' earth a 'ball' by 'scripture' words. We PROVE earth Flat by experiment, demonstrated and demonstrable. Earth Flat is a Fact, not a 'theory'!
-- MoVe Immediate (MVI@yepimhere.com), November 24, 1999.
These are a few of my favorite memes: thought contagions which are widely believed in spite of there being little to no evidence to support them, or in spite of evidence to the contrary:Y2K is a hoax.
Y2K is all hype.
Y2K can be solved in the time remaining.
WE have it licked, but it is those OTHER countries that are behind.link
Large companies will be okay. link
Y2K will be like a 3 day winter storm.
Banks are compliant.
Your money is safe in the bank. [Corollary meme - your money is IN the bank.]
Y2K has been solved. Now all we have to fear is people who try to prepare for Y2K.
Social Security is 100% compliant.
Companies want to stay in business... therefore they WILL solve "it".
Companies and gov't agencies have spent a lot of money on Y2K... therefore the problem is solved.
Bill Gates has the solution.
--------
Note - there IS no Y2K hysteria, therefore the hysteria is not a meme. But perhaps the "idea" that there is Y2K hysteria could be considered a meme, as it is widely believed in spite of not being true.
-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), November 24, 1999.
about the gas pumps not working without electricity,,,, they won't. next time you go to a station look at the pumps,, they are electric with electric read-outs for gallons on the pump. notice i have called them pumps,, that is what they are, the electric motors inside the pumps suck the gas/diesel out of underground tanks. compressed air has nothing to do with the process. if they managed to get the gas out of the ground how would they measure the quantity bought and how would they operate the cash registers and or credit machines? If electricity fails for any length of time,, things could get very bad very fast.
-- paul (epaul@pldi.net), November 24, 1999.
Dear Mr. Lynch,No matter how rosy a picture you may paint, no matter what psychological quirks of the human mind you may assign the blame to, no matter what religious, cultural, or extraterrestial influence you may implicate in people's perception about the potential impacts of Y2K, I will not change my caution, precaution, paranoia or sadistic and masochistic pleaures about what may await us in the future.
Why?
I've already lived TEOTWAWKI. I would be an idiot if I would not anticipate the worst again, and not continue to live my life with zest. Not the soapy kind. My motto is to always go for the bestest, the mostest, the fastest, the highest, the lowest, the...
BTW, I did not read further than your first paragraph.
May God bless you.
-- Not Again! (seeit@ww2.com), November 24, 1999.
It's The Broken Computer Code, Stupid!
-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 24, 1999.
Thought contagion:"They" will fix it.
-- Paula (chowbabe@pacbell.net), November 24, 1999.
The projections of both factions in this thread are quite fascinating.
-- Hokie (newportnews@va.com), November 24, 1999.
In contrast to "Not Again!" I read it twice (not because it was enjoyable I might add.) Some points are well taken. Group psychology is a tricky business. The author ignores one little detail: the problems may indeed be as severe the majority of this forum believes. There are many, many facts out there that can be used to legitimately synthesis a pretty gloomy picture.
-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), November 24, 1999.
Entertaining, but a bit much false consciousness for me to take it seriously.
Sincerely,
Stan Faryna
Ready for Y2K? Got 14 days of water, food, way to keep warm and cook?
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http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001q T8Gas masks, potassium iodide, solar ovens, etc
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-- Stan Faryna (faryna@groupmail.com), November 24, 1999.
I'm sure the author has no health insurance since he'll never get sick, no life insurance since he's immortal, no fire insurance since his place couldn't possibly burn, no auto insurance since he'll never be involved in an accident. After all much/most insurance policy money is 'lost' every year.Many of us see Y2K preps as a form of insurance against possible 'unpleasantness' that may begin in a few short weeks now. Unlike the author's "nothing bad will ever happen" ideology I'd just like to be "Y2K-Ready". Just seems to make good (common) sense--something the author lacks totally.
-- Sceptic (istheauthor@forreal.com), November 25, 1999.
Other thought contagions, as per Big Dog: 1. There is no such thing as sin 2. There is no hell 3. There is no God 4. Jesus did not die for your sins. Calling out his names for purposes other than blasphemy is foolishness. 5. Lewd programming is 'cool.' 6. Homosexuality is normal, even for children 7. Technology never causes catastrophes 8. An economy based on pyramided debt can never fail 9. Abortion does not kill babies 10. You will never die
-- Spidey (free@last.Amen), November 25, 1999.
Sheesh. What a dork.
-- Liz Pavek (lizpavek@hotmail.com), November 25, 1999.
Not you, Spidey. I meant Aaron Lynch and/or "Truth."
-- Liz Pavek (lizpavek@hotmail.com), November 25, 1999.
Spidey, that was not meant for you.
-- Liz Pavek (lizpavek@hotmail.com), November 25, 1999.
From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, CaliforniaThe theory of Thought Contagion, while providing good explanitory power as to how compelling false thoughts can spread despite evidence to the contrary, provides no explanitory power as to how true or false any particular thoughts may be.
-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), November 26, 1999.
Big Dog - I agree with your post....MoVe Immediate: My first thought was that Decker started this thread. Don't you think this is just like something he would do? BTW, I'm sure that all who have followed your posts sincerely hope that you will be out of Dee Cee SOON!!
-- jeanne (jeanne@hurry.now), November 26, 1999.
Nah, Decker never traded in abstract concepts: his jejeune fulminations were middle-brow representations of logical positivism. The whole idea that awareness of technical problems that might arise from computer malfunction is a 'thought contagion' is laughable, especially when seen against the backdrop of continual controlled-media propaganda.
-- Spidey (free@last.Amen), November 26, 1999.
I couldn't have said it better myself, Spidey. As a matter of fact, I don't think I could have said it at all. "Jejeune fulminations"... Wow... I gotta write that one down... :)
-- Village Idiot (right@next.door), November 26, 1999.
Who Ya Gonna Call? MEMEBUSTERS! (Service Announcement)For a limited time only, MEMEBUSTERS! is offering to rid your mainframe, PC, or embedded chips of the ANNOYING Y2K MEMEBUG! Since this situation has only developed because of MEMES (NOT faulty code), we will come to your place of business and shout at your systems that they ONLY HAVE A MEME and to SNAP OUT OF IT until all the broken code is fixed! For this service, we only charge $500,000 and a date with Sigourney Weaver. (Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man removal available at extra cost.)
-- Egon (Gotta.make@buck.somewhere), November 26, 1999.
Mara has nailed it.Lynch in saying "Explaining the technological details of why modern life will not collapse will remain an important aspect in countering Y2K hysteria through the end of 1999." is making a statement about reality without any evidence. He may have a clue about psychology, but has failed to include reality in his considerations.
"There is no such thing as concrete material reality, you see. -- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), November 24, 1999. "
-- ng (cantprovideemail@none.com), November 26, 1999.
As is usual in the last months, the misuse of the word and concept, "meme" continues. It really would behoove those who like to throw the word around, as if they knew what it meant, to read about systems replication, read Dawkins' book, The Selfish Gene; Dawkins is the biologist who introduced the word into lexicon. A "little" knowledge can be a dangerous thing. There is good information to be had about the word vis a vis social systems, ideas, and such. Sadly, lazy learners will continue to misuse and bend it to suit their world view.
-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), November 26, 1999.
From an interview with Dawkins on things that comfort,...There are all sorts of things that would be comforting. I expect an injection of morphine would be comforting... But to say that something is comforting is not to say that it's true.
-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 26, 1999.
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit/1998/vol2/gatherer_d.htmlWhy the `Thought Contagion' Metaphor is Retarding the Progress of Memetics,Derek Gatherer, School of Biomolecular Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Byrom St., Liverpool L3 3AF
-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 26, 1999.