Progress through Positive Memes!

Last Friday I wrote about the power and danger of the meme of suppressed truth. In the post, I suggested that one form of countering negative memes is through positive ones. Since creating memes is definitely not my strength, please don’t expect any novel GIFs in this post. But let me start with an example of what I have in mind

via GIPHY

Yes, Captain Picard! Star Trek is a great source of positive memes. The show in its various incarnations is one of the only sustained narratives of a diverse post-scarcity world in which knowledge is valued deeply (both scientific and artistic).

And obviously I am not suggesting that this is just about circulating more GIFs from Star Trek, although that’s a great idea. Rather we generally need more positive memes that extol learning, curiosity, grit, accomplishment, etc. Memes here is to be understood in the broader sense of a “unit of meaning” that gets replicated. Too much effort at the moment is going into academic and even popular writing on these topics and not enough into condensing them into the kind of tight unit that can really replicate. My own writing in World After Capital, is unfortunately part of the former and not the latter.

The biggest meme machines on the internet, such as 4chan, are unfortunately infested by a deep seated cynicism/nihilism, where “trolling for the lulz” dominates. For a while it seemed that sites like Buzzfeed, Upworthy or Mic might be a source of progress oriented memes, but they have succumbed to a cheap commercialism. So if you care about progress, one of the biggest opportunities for impact is to work on positive memes. One interesting place to do this might be Andrew Yang’s campaign for president.