Boom De Ya Da!

This is the sort of thing I'm talking about! The Discovery Channel is challenging all fans of this world to create their own "Boom De Ya Da" video to share their passions with others. What a great idea!

Quotable quotes

Sayings and slogans that stick in the mind are useful weapons in a memetic war. Please add any that you feel go well with the principles of the group. You may also want to use some of these as sig lines, or put them on a t-shirt or bumper sticker. Get the word out!


"The opposite of war isn't peace; it's creation." Rent.

"Hate isn't the opposite of love. Apathy is." Rollo May.

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

"Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed." C.J. Cherryh.

"Truth, joy and hope are among our most powerful weapons. Too often, though, we allow ourselves to be disarmed without making even a token protest."

"Great minds like a think." Anonymous

The Forgotten Half of the Golden Rule

Many religions and philosophies contain their own version of the ethics of reciprocity, encouraging us to use empathy and reason to figure out how best to treat others by thinking about how we want to be treated. We use empathy to put ourselves in the place of the other, to accept the other as having the same value as ourselves, and to begin to understand what the other may want. We use our reason to remind ourselves that not everyone is the same, and generalise from, "I like ice cream, so I'll give everyone ice cream" to "I like when I am able to enjoy an occasional treat that I find pleasurable, so I will provide an opportunity for an other to do the same." We also use our reason to realize that if we were simply handed everything we asked for, we would soon realize it is not what we want.

Complicated, sure, but simple and useful.

What I often see forgotten in discussions about the "Golden rule" is the idea that we should also treat ourselves the way we want to be treated. We can not spread joy if we drain ourselves of energy, share love if we do not consider ourselves worth love, nurture trust if we can not extend trust, create hope if we lose ourselves to despair, inspire wonder if we don't seek wonder, or build dreams if we refuse to dream. Take time, now and then, to do something nice for yourself, or you will be entering this battle unarmed and unarmoured.

Ways and Memes

Sixty years ago, on December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Assembly then called upon all of the Member countries "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories."

That's pretty much straight from the Human Rights Action Center website.

Now, maybe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is distributed all over the place, taught in schools, and memorized on special occasions, but I hadn't heard of it before. As a wall of text, a person can be turned off from reading it, which is a shame.

With music and intriguing graphics, however, the message can be spread much further. I consider this to be an important lesson in tactics.

Validation

Songs, compliments, smiles- these are all memes that can be passed from one person to another, carrying an emotional quality of information with them. This short, award-winning film called, "Validation" portrays a man who spreads compliments and good cheer, trying to make people smile. I think that can be a worthwhile goal, and that we can use some of his techniques in real life.

What do you think?

Happiness is contagious

On December 4, a study was published in the British Medical Journal on the "Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network"

Their conclusion?

People’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected. This provides further justification for seeing happiness, like health, as a collective phenomenon.

What can we do to spread some happiness today?

Mem-what-ics?

Back in 2002, Dan Dennett gave a presentation at TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) during which he briefly described what memes are, and how they spread. I found the idea of memes to be very inspiring. Watch for yourself, and see what you think.

Why I created this group

Memetics is, simply, the idea that ideas, attitudes, and other bits of information spread and evolve much like genetic life does. Ideas that spread more effectively "live" longer and take up more of the environment available for ideas to live in (our minds) and crowd out and thus kill off other ideas. These ideas are not necessarily good for the minds in which they live. The ideas do not, and can not, care.

People take advantage of this, knowingly or not. Some choose to spread ideas such as "you are not good enough" or "you are not safe enough". These are ideas that spread very easily and effectively, taking advantage of our self-doubts and our fears. Some choose to take these easily spreadable ideas and attach the concepts "therefore you must buy our product" or "therefore you must do what we say". This is a successful marketing strategy used by some corporations, politicians, religious groups, news organizations, and others who want our money, time, loyalty, attention, attendance or obedience. They use key words, quotes, facial expressions, colours, musical jingles, body language- memes of all types.

For whatever reason, the idea that we have worth as people, as well as potential to become better as a people, is a hard one to spread. Part of the problem is