Egregores and Identity Memes
“Being an individualist in an environment full of egregores was like being an attractive woman alone at a bar yelling, “I’m single!”—practically calling out for unaligned entities to wear down your psychological defenses and subvert your will.” “Rationalists implicitly seek Aumann-like agreement with perceived peers, he explained: when the other person is visibly unmoved by one’s argument, there’s a tendency to think, “Huh, they must know something I don’t” and update towards their position. Without an understanding of egregoric possession, this is disastrous: the possessed person never budges on anything significant, and the rationalist slowly gets eaten by their egregore.” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RxxqPH3WffQv6ESxj/blanchard-s-dangerous-idea-and-the-plight-of-the-lucid
“And of course, there are lots of other, subtler non-truth-tracking, non-usefulness-tracking features of an idea that could make it more memetically fit. Here’s one: “You are a member of marginalized identity group Y; anyone who notices facts that could be construed to call this narrative into question is thereby hurting you by invalidating your identity.” A human who has accepted—who has been taken hostage by—this idea, will feel genuine pain and distress whenever anyone notices facts that could be construed to call the narrative into question. And so the human’s friends, who love and care about them, will dutifully make sure to pretend not to notice any inconvenient facts, and socially punish anyone who doesn’t pretend not to notice, in order to avoid hurting their friend. Just like they would pay the ransom if their friend were kidnapped by terrorists. And with no one willing to mention any inconvenient facts for fear of being socially punished, the meme spreads. The friends care about the human. The forces of memetic evolution do not.” http://unremediatedgender.space/2018/Jan/dont-negotiate-with-terrorist-memeplexes/
“Some government bureaucracies have the very nasty dynamic that when they screw up, they create bigger problems, and thus get more funding to solve the bigger problem. Often, no one gets fired. The leaders of the problem-creating department now have more employees and thus more status and authority. Thus the system actively rewards those who work against the stated goals of the institution (again, they are not intentionally subverting the institution, they are often deluded).” https://devinhelton.com/meme-theory.html “A symbiotic organism that reproduces with its host, is more likely to be supportive of the host rather than parasitic. Similarly, a memeplex that spreads by reproducing with its host is more likely to be beneficial to the host, and thus pro-social and pro-civilization, than a memeplex that is spread virally. Thus, the family is the optimal place for the transmission of ideas, and the health of the family is the health of the civilization. The religious and intellectual institutions that arose with a civilization, will transmit healthier ideas, than the ideas that spread via the latest fads.” https://devinhelton.com/principles-of-formalism
http://web.archive.org/web/20160319033509/http://sett.com/aesop/memes-are-people-humans-arent