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TUTORIAL: MILITARY MEMETICS

Presented By:

Dr. Robert Finkelstein

President, Robotic Technology Inc.

BobF@RoboticTechnologyInc.com

Phone: 301-983-4194 ; Fax: 301-983-3921

Collegiate Professor

Graduate School Of Management and Technology

University of Maryland University College

Presented At:

Social Media for Defense Summit

Alexandria, Virginia

24- 26 October 2011

This presentation is based on

projects Robotic Technology

Inc. performed for the Defense

Advanced Research Projects

Agency (DARPA), 2006-2009,

and we thank DARPA for their

vision and support

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: MOTIVATION

➢ The “long war” against terrorism and the

ongoing conflicts with asymmetric

adversaries are, fundamentally, wars of ideas

➢ We are losing the war of ideas

➢ “We are in an information war, and we're losing

that war.” -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

➢ “[Our enemy] has said that 50 percent of the

current struggle is taking place in the arena of

public information. That may be an

understatement.” -- Secretary of Defense

Donald Rumsfeld

➢ “Challenge disinformation. Turn our enemies’

extremist ideologies, oppressive practices, and

indiscriminate violence against them.” -- Gen.

David Petraeus, issuing guidelines for an

aggressive information war in Afghanistan

➢ “The other half [of the battle] is the arena of

ideas, and countering the rhetoric and methods

that extremists use to recruit. -- Ali H. Soufan,

FBI Al Qaeda interrogator

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: WHAT IS A MEME?

➢ Our pragmatic definition: a meme is

information which propagates, has

impact, and persists

➢ Memetics is the study and application of

memes

➢ Military Memetics is the application of

memes for national security

➢ It is a subset of Neuro-Cognitive Warfare,

a revolutionary tool in the information war

➢ It can provide a coherent, scientific

approach for information operations,

psychological warfare, and the general

war against terrorists

➢ It can prevent or mitigate irrational

conflict, reduce the probability of war or

defeat, and increase the probability of

peace or victory

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: MEME ASPECTS

➢ Example memes: words, ideas, symbols,

icons, logos, tunes, poems, catch-phrases,

fashion, technological processes (e.g.,

making arrowheads or gumbo), fables,

religion, graffiti, images, novels, movies,

narratives, culture (functional or

dysfunctional; national, tribal, or

organizational)

➢ Memes can be described by their external

phenomena (e-memes) and internal

phenomena (i-memes)

➢ E-memes are manifested by their effects on

human behavior and culture

➢ I-memes are manifested by their effects on

an individual‟s neuronal behavior and brain

➢ E-memes and i-memes are not two types of

memes, but rather two effects or

manifestations of memes

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: E-MEMES

➢ The tools and techniques for studying

both manifestations of memes differ

➢ E-memes can be studied via their

simulated or actual propagation over

social networks (modern social media

are especially efficient and effective for

propagating memes)

➢ Tools and techniques include: Internet

and phone text and voice message

propagation; rumor and gossip

propagation; buzz and viral marketing

➢ Also neuroeconomics behavioral

experiments involving: game theory, risk,

attention and awareness, learning,

valuation, motivation, emotion, behavior,

trust and attachment, and addictive

behavior

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: I-MEMES

➢ I-memes can be studied using tools

and techniques such as:

➢ Functional magnetic resonance

imaging (fMRI) or other kinds of neuro-

imaging; genetic profiling; psycho-

pharmacological manipulations;

psycho-physiology (EMG, ERP, and

EEG); behavioral measures;

psychological testing; blood chemistry;

hormone analysis; and neuro-chemical

reactions; and single neuron recording

➢ The study of both aspects of memes

must be integrated with a synthesis of

the phenomena and the multi-

disciplinary study of the phenomena

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: MEME ORIGIN

➢ The word “meme” is a neologism coined by

Richard Dawkins in “The Selfish Gene”

(1976), (although it may have had earlier

roots)

➢ Dawkins defined it as a self-reproducing and

propagating information structure analogous

to a gene in biology

➢ He focused on the meme as a replicator,

analogous to the gene, able to affect human

evolution through the evolutionary algorithm

of variation, replication, and differential fitness

➢ The meme had evolutionary effects on human

culture and physiology

➢ A meme‟s information structure can have

many forms, including

➢ Words, symbols, images, icons, artifacts

➢ The information content of a meme can be

concise, middling, or lengthy

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: MILITARY MEMETICS

➢ For national security applications (Military

Memetics), most memes of interest are

concise (e.g., 1-10 words) or middling (e.g.,

10 words – 10 pages), for optimum

propagation over social media

➢ The meme definition for Military Memetics is:

information which propagates, has impact,

and persists (Info-PIP)

➢ Where metrics can be defined and evaluated

for the variables of information, propagation,

and persistence

➢ The desired impacts of memes for national

security are immediate, not evolutionary

➢ Memes can change individual and group

values and behavior

➢ Memes can enhance dysfunctional cultures or

sub-cultures

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: MEMETICS

RESEARCH

➢ In the decades since 1976, research on memes

has been scattered and unfocused, limited

largely to individual academics

➢ As part of our Military Memetics project, we

prepared a 1680-page Compendium is to provide

a broad overview of memetics based on a variety

of papers by various authors

➢ We also prepared a 37-page Excerpts of the

Compendium containing its highlights

➢ The Defense Advanced Projects Research

Agency (DARPA) has supported a series of

memetics-related projects with multidisciplinary

teams from industry and academia

➢ Epidemiology of Ideas (2006)

➢ Military Memetics (2006-2009)

➢ Social Media in Strategic Communications

(SMISC) (2011-in progress)

➢ Narrative Networks (N2) (2011-in progress)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: DARPA MEMETICS

RELATED RESEARCH

➢ Epidemiology of Ideas (DSO, 2006)

➢ To predict changing culture and examine the

creation, propagation, and impact of ideas

➢ Military Memetics (DSO, 2006-2009)

➢ To determine whether memetics can be established

as a science with the ability to explain and predict

phenomena; to define memes and memetic metrics;

and to use tools and techniques (e.g., fMRI and

social network simulations) to examine Info-PIP

➢ Social Media in Strategic Communications

(SMISC) (I2O, 2011-in progress)

➢ To develop automatic tools and techniques for

detecting, identifying, evaluating, and countering

adversarial memes

➢ Narrative Networks (N2) (DSO, 2011-in progress)

➢ To perform quantitative analysis of narratives,

understanding their effects on human psychology

and neurobiology, and determine their influence on

individuals and culture

PURPOSE OF A MILITARY MEMETICS

PROGRAM

➢ To develop a new approach to

➢ Countering terrorists and insurgents

before and after they become

terrorists and insurgents: influencing

beliefs in a scientific way

➢ Preventing or mitigate irrational

conflict and promoting rational

solutions to national and international

problems

➢ Strengthening the U.S. military in

➢ Peacekeeping missions

➢ Psychological operations

➢ Recruitment

➢ Training

➢ To make new discoveries concerning

the human brain, cognition, and

social networks

MILITARY MEMETICS CONGRUENT WITH

NOTION OF EPIDEMIOLOGY OF IDEAS

➢ The “long war” against terrorism is,

fundamentally, a war of ideas

➢ “Today the centers of gravity of the conflict in Iraq

and the global war on terror are not on the

battlefields overseas. Rather, the center of gravity

of this war are on the centers of public opinion in

the U.S. and in the capitals of free nations. The

gateways to those centers are the international

media hubs and the capitals of the world. Zawahiri

has said that 50 percent of the current struggle is

taking place in the arena of public information.

That may be an understatement. Osama bin Laden,

Zawahari, Zarqawi had media committees that

consistently outpace our ability to respond.”

[Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld,

“Illustrative New 21st Century Institutions and

Approaches,” Secret Memorandum, 1 May 06, as

quoted by Bob Woodward, Washington Post, 8 Oct.

06, P. B5]

MILITARY MEMETICS CONGRUENT WITH

NOTION OF EPIDEMIOLOGY OF IDEAS

➢ DARPA and the Defense Sciences

Research Council (DSRC) held

workshops on the Epidemiology of

Ideas

➢ Goals of Epidemiology of Ideas

➢ Ability to predict changing cultural

values

➢ Identify techniques to assure

propagation of an idea

➢ Identify who is vulnerable to a

propagating idea

➢ Determine characteristics of networks

that facilitate spread of ideas

➢ Predict the consequences of

propagating an idea

MILITARY MEMETICS CONGRUENT WITH

NOTION OF EPIDEMIOLOGY OF IDEAS

➢ DARPA/DSRC Workshop definition

(characterization) of idea similar to

concept of meme

➢ Epidemiology of ideas a function of

biology, culture, and

communications

➢ Biology: knowledge of brain – fMRI,

neurochemical reactions (e.g.,

dopamine, oxytocin)

➢ Culture: cultural values, linguistics,

demographic market segmentation

buzz (i.e., viral) marketing

➢ Communications: network models,

cyberspace jihad, smart mobs via

texting

EARLY CONCEPT OF THE MEME

Meme (Dawkins‟s Concept):

➢ Self-reproducing and propagating

information structures analogous to genes in

biology

➢ Able to replicate using hosts and to influence

behavior to promote replication

➢ Mneme (Pre-Dawkins)

➢ Notion of a unit of social evolution

➢ Transliteration of the Greek word

➢ Introduced (1904) by German evolutionary

biologist Richard Semon in Die Mnemische

Empfindungen in ihren Beziehungen zu den

Originalenempfindungen (English translation

1921)

➢ Analogous to Darwinian natural selection

➢ A unit of cultural inheritance

➢ Alters individual (psychological) and group

(sociological) behavior – and ultimately

evolution of the species

Memes and genes may have cooperative or

adversarial relationships

Becoming mainstream: “Witness

the explosion of a new hip-hop

meme into white culture,” Picking

Up the Lyric but Missing the Beat,

Washington Post, Tuesday, March

7, 2006; P. C01

RELEVANT MEME PROPERTIES

➢ For the purposes of national

defense, the relevant and important

characteristics of the meme are its

ability to:

➢ Propagate

➢ Influence behavior (i.e., have impact)

➢ Persist

➢ Exclude from consideration:

➢ Evolutionary effects

➢ Genetic relationships

➢ The meme will be examined as a type

of culturally transmitted information

➢ Variables of propagation, influence,

and persistence, defined to achieve

military worth

MEMETICS AS A SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINE

➢ Since Dawkins‟ revelation

➢ Coterie of proponents, skeptics,

opponents

➢ Few coherent, well-funded,

significant R&D projects of

concept

➢ No refutation

➢ Memetics needs

➢ A general theory – a theoretical

foundation for development of a

scientific discipline, not pseudo-

science

➢ Better focus, pragmatic definition

➢ Ability to make testable

predictions & falsifiable

hypotheses

MEMETICS AS A SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINE

➢ The discrete meme must be

defined, identified, and

distinguished in the near-

continuum of information

➢ Just as the discrete gene can be

identified (more or less) in long

string of DNA nucleotides

➢ Quantitative basis for memes

must be established, e.g.,

➢ Physiological effects

➢ Information theory and entropy

➢ Genetic, memetic, and

evolutionary algorithms

➢ Modeling and simulation

➢ Neuroeconomics tools

WHY DEFINE MEMES?

➢ Some say a crisp definition of

“unit of information” or “unit of

cultural transmission” is not

critical to a theory of memes

➢ E.g., Darwin‟s Theory of Evolution

was scientifically useful before

anyone knew about genes and

DNA

➢ But a pragmatic definition and

associated metrics would provide

a better foundation for research

and the ability to make testable

predictions and falsifiable

hypotheses, and control effects

➢ Which DNA and genetic

engineering now provides to

Darwin‟s Theory

➢ Memetic engineering or applied

memetics

WHY DEFINE MEMES?

➢ Darwin‟s Theory of Evolution

was scientifically useful before

anyone knew about genes and

DNA

➢ Because Darwin and other

scientists had physical objects

(e.g., fossils or living

physiological structures) to

measure

➢ Metrics existed with which to

compare and contrast entities

➢ A coherent theory could be

developed in which phenomena

can be quantified and predicted

➢ This is not the case for Memes

➢ There is not an analogous

Theory of Memetics

EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ Extensive memetics literature reveals a plethora of definitions for the

meme, with most being variations of Dawkins original notion

➢ Most agree that a meme is a unit (whatever that means) of cultural

transmission (or a unit of information - whatever that means), where

culture may be defined as the total pattern of behavior (and its products) of

a population of agents, embodied in thought, behavior, and artifacts, and

dependent upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to

succeeding generations

➢ None of these definitions is sufficient to allow a meme to be clearly

recognized or measured

EXAMPLE EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ A self-reproducing and propagating

information structure analogous to a

gene in biology

➢ A unit of cultural transmission (or a unit

of imitation) that is a replicator that

propagates themselves in the meme

pool leaping from brain to brain via (in

a broad sense) imitation; examples:

“tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes

fashions, ways of making pots or of

building arches”

➢ Ideas that program for their own

retransmission or propagation

➢ Actively contagious idea or thought

➢ Shared elements of a culture learned

through imitation from others – with

culture being defined rather broadly to

include ideas, behaviors, and physical

objects

EXAMPLE EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ An element of a culture that may be

considered to be passed on by non-

genetic means, especially imitation

➢ Whatever is passed on by imitation

➢ Constellations of activated and non-

activated synapses within neural

memory networks

➢ Information patterns infecting human

minds

➢ While the internal meme is equivalent

to the genotype, its expression in

behavior (or the way it affects things

in its environment) is its phenotype

Meme: “It Ain‟t Over „Till The Fat Lady Sings”

EXAMPLE EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ Any information that is copied from

person to person or between books,

computers, or other storage devices

➢ Many mental contents are not memes

because they are not acquired by

imitation or copying, including

perceptions, visual memories, and

emotional feelings; skills or

knowledge acquired by ordinary

learning are not memes

➢ A unit of cultural information; a

piece of knowledge, an idea [with an

anchor, carrier, and payload]

➢ Biological Definition: Basic unit of

cultural transmission, or imitation

➢ Psychological definition: The unit of

cultural heredity analogous to the

gene; the internal representation of

knowledge

EXAMPLE EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ Cognitive definition: An idea, the

kind of complex idea that forms itself

into a distinctive memorable unit,

spread by vehicles that are physical

manifestations of the meme

➢ Working definition: A unit of

information in a mind whose

existence influences events such

that more copies of itself get created

in other minds

➢ A memory item, or portion of an

organisms neurally-stored

information, identified using the

abstraction system of the observer,

whose instantiation depended

critically on causation by prior

instantiation of the same memory

item in one or more other organisms‟

nervous systems

EXAMPLE EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ A heterogeneous class of

entities, primarily including

(observable) behavior and

artifacts

➢ An element of culture that may

be considered to be passed on

by non-genetic means,

especially imitation

➢ The least unit of socio-cultural

information relative to a

selection process that has

favorable or unfavorable

selection bias that exceeds its

endogenous tendency to

change

EXAMPLE EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ Cultural replicators propagated through

imitation, undergoing a process of

selection, and standing to be selected not

because they benefit their human carriers,

but because they benefit themselves

➢ A symbolic representation of any state of

affairs, either internal and implemented in

the mind or external implemented in an

external (non-mental) objects such as

artifacts, products, behaviors

➢ Replicating conceptual units – the largest

reliably replicating unit within our text

corpus

➢ A (cognitive) information-structure able to

replicate using human hosts and to

influence their behavior to promote

replication

EXAMPLE EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ Cultural information units that are the

smallest elements that replicate

themselves with reliability and

fecundity

➢ A rule of behavior, encoded by

functional neuronal groups or

pathways. [Behavior is action, whether

mental or physical. Ideas such as tying

shoe-laces or opening a door represent

rules of physical action, i.e., rules of

patterned neural-muscular interaction.

Concepts such as apple, seven, or

causality, represent rules of mental

action, or rules of cognition, i.e., rules

of patterned neural-neural interaction.

Hence, physical movement is governed

by memes which represent rules of

physical action and thought is

governed by memes which represent

rules of mental action]

EXAMPLE EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ Any kind, amount, and

configuration of information in

culture that shows both variation

and coherent transmission

➢ A pattern of information (a state

within a space of possible states)]

➢ A unit of cultural information as it

is represented in the brain

➢ An idea, behavior, style, or usage

that spreads from person to

person within a culture

EXAMPLE EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ A unit of information residing in

a brain

➢ An observable cultural

phenomenon, such as a

behavior, artifact or an objective

piece of information, which is

copied, imitated or learned, and

thus may replicate within a

cultural system. Objective

information includes

instructions, norms, rules,

institutions and social practices

provided they are observable

➢ A pattern of information, one

that happens to have evolved a

form which induces people to

repeat that pattern

EXAMPLE EXTANT MEME DEFINITIONS

➢ A contagious information pattern that replicates

by parasitically infecting human minds and

altering their behavior, causing them to propagate

the pattern. Individual slogans, catch-phrases,

melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions are

typical memes. An idea or information pattern is

not a meme until it causes someone to replicate it,

to repeat it to someone else. All transmitted

knowledge is memetic

➢ The smallest idea that can copy itself while

remaining self contained and intact … essentially

sets of instructions that can be followed to

produce behavior. Instructions can be encoded in

either: 1) musical notation; 2) written text; 3)

visible (or vocal) action; 4) the neural structure of

the brain; 5) digitized structures in a computer

➢ The least unit of socio-cultural information

relative to a selection process that has favorable

or unfavorable selection bias that exceeds its

endogenous tendency to change

OUR PRAGMATIC DEFINITION OF MEME

➢ We created a pragmatic

definition of a meme

➢ To elicit comments and

improvements

➢ Eventually converge to a

canonical definition that

will be useful in

establishing a scientific

basis for memetics

OUR PRAGMATIC DEFINITION OF MEME

The concise version:

➢ A meme is information which propagates, has impact, and persists

We will elaborate on this definition

And we will elaborate on the meanings of the terms of this definition:

information, propagation, impact, and persistence

ELABORATING ON OUR DEFINITION OF THE

MEME

➢ A meme is information (using Shannon‟s definition as that which

reduces uncertainty) transmitted by one or more primary sources to

recipients who, as secondary sources, retransmit the information to at

least an order of magnitude more recipients than primary sources,

where propagation or the information persist at least ten hours and

the information has observable impact in addition to its transmission

➢ To distinguish a meme from other sorts of information (e.g., from common

daily utterances), we invoke an order of magnitude rule and place an

emphasis on the necessity of a threshold for propagation and persistence

OUR PRAGMATIC DEFINITION OF MEME:

EXPLANATION

➢ Information: Claude Shannon‟s

definition: information is that which

reduces uncertainty

➢ The difference between two states

of uncertainty before and after a

message has been received

➢ A message carries information

inasmuch as it conveys something

not already known

➢ The same message can have

different influence or impacts,

depending on the states of the

recipients; a meme, as a subset of

information, could have different

consequences for different

recipients

OUR PRAGMATIC DEFINITION OF MEME:

EXPLANATION

➢ Transmitted by one or more primary

sources

➢ A primary source either originates a

new, original meme, or a variation of an

existing meme, or resuscitates a

previous meme (e.g., one that has been

dormant or otherwise unknown to the

current recipients)

➢ A single primary source can be

sufficient for a meme (and is usually the

case for original memes)

➢ Because communication is now

inexpensive, a single primary source

can transmit the meme to hundreds or

thousands of recipients

➢ A group may also originate a meme, and

one or more members of the group may

then transmit the meme to any number

of recipients

OUR PRAGMATIC DEFINITION OF MEME:

EXPLANATION

➢ Transmitted to recipients who, as

secondary sources, retransmit the

information to at least an order of

magnitude more recipients than

primary sources

➢ At a minimum, if there is one primary

source, then there must be at least 10

recipients of the meme when it is re-

transmitted by one or more secondary

sources (i.e., initial recipients)

➢ While “10” is an arbitrary number, as an

order of magnitude increment (at a

minimum) it serves a filter to distinguish

memes from ordinary discourse

➢ The requirement that a meme be re-

transmitted in at least one cycle also

serves as filter to distinguish memes

from non-memes

OUR PRAGMATIC DEFINITION OF MEME:

EXPLANATION

➢ Where propagation and/or the

information persists at least ten

hours

➢ As another constraint to distinguish

memes from ordinary discourse, at

a minimum, the meme must be

transmitted (e.g., constant emailing

or text messaging or hits on a

website) over a period of 10 hours

or persist (e.g., in a file or on a

website or in memory) for at least

10 hours

➢ The 10-hour minimum applies to

either propagation or persistence or

as a minimum total for both

➢ While 10 hours is arbitrary, it

serves as a minimal propagation

and persistence filter

OUR PRAGMATIC DEFINITION OF MEME:

EXPLANATION

➢ The information has observable

impact in addition to its

transmission

➢ Information may be ascribed to

have impact from the act of

transmitting or re-transmitting it -

but our definition requires

additional kinds of impact

➢ Impact might be evidenced, for

example, as identifiable neuronal

patterns in the brain or other

physiological effects in

individuals, or as resulting

behavior in an individual or a

group of individuals

➢ The significance (or degree) of

the impact may be determined

objectively or subjectively or a

combination of methods

OUR PRAGMATIC DEFINITION OF MEME:

EXPLANATION

➢ Our definition of the meme has

metrics contained within it, to

distinguish memes from non-

memes

➢ In addition, we defined metrics

and submetrics so that memes

can be evaluated against each

other, to

➢ (1) Estimate which prospective

meme might be preferable for a

particular application

➢ (2) Examine why some memes

are more successful than others

➢ While (1) requires that the values

of the metrics and submetrics be

estimated, (2) requires that the

values be obtained as measured

data

MEMETIC METRICS AND SUBMETRICS

MEMETIC METRICS

MEMETIC METRICS

PROPAGATION

PERSISTENCE

ENTROPY

IMPACT

Number Of

Recipients

Type Of

Recipients

Dispersion Of

Recipients

Duration Of

Transmission

Duration Of

Memory

Small

<100K Bits

Medium

<100M Bits

Large

>100M Bits

Individual

Consequence

Societal

Consequence

We defined metrics and submetrics for evaluating memes

CHARACTERIZATION OF MEME PROPAGATION AND

PERSISTENCE (MINIMUMS)

LEVEL

(Order of Magnitude)

PROPAGATION

(NO. OF PEOPLE)

PERSISTENCE

No. Hours

No. Years

EXAMPLE CHARACTERIZATION

(Minimal Meme)

0

1

1

Origin of meme

1

10

10

Neighborhood gossip, Text Message

2

100

100

Newspaper article

3

1,000

1000

0.1

Urban legend

4

10,000

10000

1

Cookbook

5

100,000

100000

10

Fundamentalist insurgency

6

1,000,000

1000000

100

Political ideology

7

10,000,000

10000000

1,000

Major religious canon

8

100,000,000

100000000

10,000

Instructions on growing wheat

9

1,000,000,000

1000000000 100,000

Human burial ritual

10

10,000,000,000

10000000000 1,000,000 Instructions on making flint cutting tool

CHARACTERIZATION OF MEME

PROPAGATION AND PERSISTENCE

➢ The previous characterizations of

memes (e.g., neighborhood

gossip, political ideology) are

intended to relate a (rough) order-

of-magnitude, represented by

Level or scale of values from 0 to

10, to examples representing the

population size of recipients and

duration of these categories of

memes

➢ Example: neighborhood gossip

(Level 1) may propagate among 10

people and persist for 10 hours,

while a fundamentalist insurgency

(Level 5) may propagate among

100,000 people and persist for

100,000 hours (about 10 years)

ENTROPY AND INFORMATION

➢ Entropy as a metric of information: entropy is probably a better

information sizing metric than the number of words (or bits) because it

can be applied to any language as well as symbols, signs, and images –

semiotics in general

➢ The relative importance of meme size (e.g., small, medium, large) remains to

be determined, but we have initially weighted it lower than the other metrics

➢ At this time, we consider smaller memes to be more important than larger

memes

➢ Larger memes may all be memeplexes (e.g., the typical human brain cannot

hold more than 10 “chunks” of information in short-term memory)

ENTROPY AND INFORMATION

➢ Entropy as a metric of

information: Claude Shannon‟s

mathematical theory of

communication measures the

amount of information in any

message using a function

identical to that of Boltzmann‟s

formulation of entropy

➢ The use of this entropy is

noncontroversial as long as it is

used to measure the freedom of

choice in messages and not

semantic content (i.e., a specific

message is selected from a

larger set)

ENTROPY AND INFORMATION

➢ Example: information (entropy) needed to select one word out of a

vocabulary of 200 words is 7.6 bits (S = log

2

200 = 7.6 bits)

➢ That is, the word is within the first 100 words or the second 100 words

➢ It takes one bit to determine that, or one guess to as to which of the two

sets it was in - if the word is in the first 100 words, it takes another bit

(guess) to determine which of the two sets of 50 words it is in; and so on

➢ It takes between 7 and 8 bits (guesses) to find the one word in 200 words

➢ Likewise, a 50-word meme requires 380 bits (for a 200-word vocabulary).

Nothing is indicated about the meaning or significance of the message that

results from selecting and stringing together the 50 words

ENTROPY AND INFORMATION

➢ Because of its logarithmic

nature, the quantity of

information (entropy) needed

to isolate one item remains

very modest as the total set of

items increases enormously

➢ If, for example, the sample

space is a 20,000-word

vocabulary, a 50-word meme

requires only 714 bits

ENTROPY AND INFORMATION

➢ A problem arises when entropy is used as a

measure of informational order and disorder

➢ For example, a manager has a desk with

mounds of paper covering it - is this a high or

low entropy case?

➢ The manager‟s associate cannot find a paper

he is searching for until he has made a large

number of guesses, separating the piles of

papers – a very high entropy case

➢ But the manager knows exactly where every

paper is located – the mounds of paper are

quite organized in her mind; it would take her

no guesses to find the crucial paper – a very

low entropy case

➢ Both cases concern the same set of items,

but two different observers

➢ Entropy then becomes a subjective measure

of information (or a measure of the

information contained in the brain of the

observer), and this can be a disturbing

concept to some

ENTROPY AND INFORMATION

➢ The entropy of a meme, whether long or

short, can be estimated and calculated

from the individual letters or symbols

➢ Based on the total number in the originating

set, or from the individual words, based on

the vocabulary in the originating set

➢ Example: the Oxford English Dictionary

contains 616,500 words and spelling bee

contestants study perhaps 614,000 of those

words; but, in reality, the average

vocabulary of an American English speaker

is estimated by various linguists as between

10,000 and 20,000 words, or optimistically

between 50,000 and 70,000 words)

➢ The average American would actively use

only a fraction of that vocabulary

ENTROPY AND INFORMATION

➢ Typically, there are about 800 words per

page with 12-point Times Roman font,

although publications vary considerably in

the number of words, based on page size,

format, and number of pages

➢ Shannon calculated the entropy per letter of

an 8-letter chunk of English as 2.3 bits per

letter, using a 26-character set (although a

76-symbol, including 26 letters, set might be

generally more appropriate)

➢ Assuming a vocabulary of 30,000 words the

entropy of a single word is about 15 bits (S =

log

2

30,000 = 15 bits)

➢ The following Table shows the entropy as a

function of the number of (English) words in

memes

➢ Most memes of military worth are 10 – 100,000

words, or an entropy of 150 – 1,500,000 bits

ENTROPY AS A FUNCTION OF MEME SIZE

MEME SIZE (Words)

MEME SIZE

(No. of Pages)

ENTROPY

(Bits)

EXAMPLE CHARACTERIZATIONS

(Approximate)

1

0.001

15

Exclamation (Hooah! Oorah! Allah!)

10

0.01

150

Catchphrase, Slogan, Exhortation (Remember the

Maine! Death to America! Jesus loves you! When it

absolutely, positively has to get there overnight! You’ll

wonder where the yellow went when you brush your

teeth with Pepsodent!)

100

0.1

1,500

Sound-bite, Prayer, Incitement, Joke

1,000

1

15,000

Flyer, Poster, Advertisement, Notice, Propaganda

10,0000

10

150,000

Political speech, Sermon, Polemic, Article, Blog

100,000

100

1,500,000

Field manual, Ideological indoctrination, Manifesto

1,000,000

1,000

15,000,000

Bible, Koran, Abridged dictionary

10,000,000

10,000

150,000,000

Unabridged dictionary, Religious canon

100,000,000

100,000

1,500,000,000 Federal Register, Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia

1,000,000,000

1,000,000

15,000,000,000 Instructions for building nuclear submarine or Apollo

spacecraft

MEMETIC METRICS AND SUBMETRICS

➢ A Threshold Metric is Propagation

➢ The submetrics for Propagation are

➢ Number of Recipients

➢ Type of Recipients and

➢ Dispersion of Recipients

➢ Depending on the problem under

consideration, the type of

recipients might be characterized

or categorized by their economic,

social, or educational class,

ethnicity or culture, religion,

gender, age, tribe, politics, etc.

➢ Depending on the problem under

consideration, the dispersion of

recipients might categorized as

local, tribal, familial, regional,

national, global, etc.

MEMETIC METRICS AND SUBMETRICS

➢ Another Threshold Metric is

Persistence

➢ The submetrics for Persistence

distinguish between the Duration of

Transmission of the meme and Duration

in Memory or storage

➢ Submetrics for metric Entropy (or size)

➢ Distinguish among Small, Medium, and

Large, which are (using an order of

magnitude rule) characterized as less

than or equal to 100K bits, less than or

equal to 100M bits, & greater than 100 M

bits, respectively

➢ Submetrics for metric Impact

➢ Distinguish between the impact (or

potential impact) of the meme on the

individual (individual consequence) and

its impact (or potential impact) on

society as a whole (societal

consequence)

MEMETIC METRICS AND SUBMETRICS

MEMETIC METRICS

MEMETIC METRICS

PROPAGATION

PERSISTENCE

ENTROPY

IMPACT

Number Of

Recipients

Type Of

Recipients

Dispersion Of

Recipients

Duration Of

Transmission

Duration Of

Memory

Small

<100K Bits

Medium

<100M Bits

Large

>100M Bits

Individual

Consequence

Societal

Consequence

MEMETIC METRICS AND SUBMETRICS

➢ Memetic metrics were weighted using the

Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

➢ This is an initial effort and not etched in stone –

it should be revised as necessary, including

because of experimental evidence

➢ The AHP is used to determine the relative

importance (weights or priorities) of the metrics,

and can be used to evaluate (score or prioritize)

alternative memes and then rank-order them

➢ The AHP simplifies decision processes through

problem structuring, decomposition and

pairwise comparisons and can accommodate

both quantitative and subjective inputs, merge

them into single overall measure for ranking

alternative choices (the underlying mathematics

mostly involves solving for matrix Eigenvalues)

➢ After defining metrics and submetrics, pairwise

comparisons and a numerical scoring system

are used to weight the metrics and submetrics,

then evaluate and rank alternative memes

against the weighted metrics and submetrics

MEMETIC METRICS AND SUBMETRICS

WEIGHTED METRICS AND SUBMETRICS

➢ The Propagation metric is deemed more

important (weighted more) than Persistence (and

the other metrics) because it is more easily

measured or estimated and more relevant

concerning memes of military worth, especially

in the near-term

➢ The Impact metric is deemed somewhat less

important than Persistence because it is more

difficult to measure, especially in the real-world,

in the near-term (in a model, with a God‟s-eye

view, Impact might be considered the most

important metric)

➢ The Entropy metric is deemed least important

because the size of the meme, while influential,

is not critical in its ability to propagate, persist,

and impact (alter behavior), especially for digital

media (e.g., images and videos)

WEIGHTED METRICS AND SUBMETRICS

➢ For the Propagation submetrics,

the Number of Recipients is more

heavily weighted than the Type or

Dispersion of Recipients

submetrics because it is more

easily measured than the other

submetrics and it alone can serve

as a useful crude indicator of

successful propagation

➢ The Type and Dispersion of

Recipients are demographic details

which refine the efficacy of the

meme‟s dispersion but are not as

important as the sheer Number of

Recipients

WEIGHTED METRICS AND SUBMETRICS

➢ For the Persistence submetrics,

the Duration of the Transmission

of the meme is deemed somewhat

more important than Duration of

the Memory (in mind or artifact) of

the meme because

➢ It is easier to measure and more

important for meme‟s of immediate

military worth

WEIGHTED METRICS AND SUBMETRICS

➢ For the Entropy submetrics, the Small

categorization is deemed more

important than Medium, which is

deemed more important than Large

➢ Despite meme size being less important

with digital media, the human brain is

still size and retention limited and is

generally more responsive to briefer

memes

➢ For Impact submetrics, the Societal

Consequences of memes are deemed

more important than the Individual

Consequences (e.g., the altered

behavior of many is generally of

greater consequence than that of a

single person, even if a single person

may sometimes alter history)

A MEMETICS FITNESS FACTOR

➢ We made an initial attempt to

create a method (equation) for

deriving numbers to

characterize memes so they

can be conveniently evaluated

against one another

➢ The equation includes the

previously defined metrics

➢ The equation is an initial hack

at the problem and is intended

to elicit comments and

suggestions for improvement

➢ Experimental results are likely

to alter the notion (and

equation) of memetic fitness

A MEMETICS FITNESS FACTOR

➢ M = P

r

P

e

I/S

➢ Where: P

r

= Propagation (number of

people [transformation])

➢ P

e

= Persistence (time [transformation])

➢ I = Impact (dimensionless number)

➢ S = Entropy (number of bits

[transformation])

➢ M = Memetic Fitness (person-hours/bit)

➢ Memetic Fitness is given in

(transformed) units of person-hours/bit

➢ This seems appropriate in that it

characterizes a level of effort expended,

in various ways, per unit of information in

the meme

➢ With a different derivation, Memetic

Fitness might be defined as a

dimensionless number

MEMETICS FITNESS FACTOR VARIABLES:

PROPAGATION

Pr =

iRi

➢ Where: P

r

= Propagation

➢ R

1

= Log

10

N (where N = number of recipients) (0≥R

1

≤10)

➢ R

2

= Characterization of types of recipients (0≥R

2

≤10)

➢ R

3

= Characterization of dispersion of recipients (0≥R

3

≤10)

➢ W

1

, W

2

, W

3

= Weighting factors for R

1

, R

2

, R

3

, respectively

MEMETICS FITNESS FACTOR VARIABLES:

PERSISTENCE

➢ Where: P

e

= Persistence

➢ D

1

= Characterization of duration of transmission ((0≥D

1

≤10)

➢ D

2

= Characterization of duration of memory (0≥D

2

≤10)

➢ W

1

, W

2

= Weighting factors for D

1

, D

2

, respectively

i

D

i

P

e

=

MEMETICS FITNESS FACTOR VARIABLES:

IMPACT

➢ Where: I = Impact

➢ C

1

= Characterization of consequence of the meme on individual (0≥C

1

≤10)

➢ C

2

= Characterization of consequence of the meme on society (0≥C

2

≤10)

➢ W

1

, W

2

= Weighting factors for C

1

, C

2

, respectively

i

C

i

I =

MEMETICS FITNESS FACTOR VARIABLES:

ENTROPY

S = WLog

10

S

m

➢ Where: S = Fitness entropy characterization

➢ S

m

= Entropy of meme (bits); S

m

= log

2

n (where n = vocabulary size)

➢ W = Weighting factor

MEMETICS FITNESS FACTOR

➢ M = P

r

P

e

I/S

➢ In this definition, M is directly proportional to Propagation,

Persistence, and Impact, and inversely proportional to entropy

➢ A conjecture is that smaller memes (lower entropy) lead to a higher

fitness factor than larger memes

➢ Units are person-hours/bit

➢ The hypothesis is that the greater the “effort”/bit in the meme, the

more important the meme

MEME REPLICATION & PROPAGATION

➢ Successful replication and propagation

of meme independent of usual social

criteria of “good” or “bad” (e.g., truth,

ethics, or science)

➢ Good ideas can become extinct while bad

ideas flourish

➢ A successful insurgency requires the

active support of few and the

acquiescence of many

MEME REPLICATION & PROPAGATION

Memes (like genes) do not have cognition or foresight – they (like

genes) have algorithms which drive natural selection

MEMES: EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHM

➢ The evolutionary algorithm

generates complex entities from

simple entities – a process for

creating design out of chaos

without the aid of mind:

➢ Variation: Abundance of different

elements

➢ Heredity or replication: Elements

can create copies or replicas of

themselves

➢ Differential fitness: Number of

copies of created elements varies

depending on interactions among

features of the elements

(whatever makes it different from

other elements) and features of

the environment in which it

persists

MEMES: EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHM

Replicators: The evolutionary algorithm

(heredity, variation, selection) can run

on different substrates (genes and

memes)

➢ Humans are the product of two

replicators: genes and memes

➢ Memes might explain

➢ Why humans constantly think and talk

➢ “Excessively” large human brains

➢ Non-genetic altruism & suicide bombers

➢ Any behavior adverse to genetic survival

➢ Example Memes

➢ Ideas, tunes, poems, catch-phrases,

fashion, technological processes (e.g.,

making arrowheads or gumbo), fables,

religion, graffiti, images, novels,

movies, insurgent or terrorist culture,

military culture (training, tactics,

strategy, doctrine, policy)

MEME LIFECYCLE

➢

Host transmits meme intentionally or unintentionally

➢

Transmission Vector

➢

Meme received and encoded by host

➢

Meme transmitted to new host via stone engraving, speech, text, image,

observed behavior, email

MEME LIFECYCLE

Meme Lifecycle resembles Claude Shannon‟s iconic schematic of

a general communications system

Information

Source

Message

Transmitter

Signal

Received

Signal

Receiver

Destination

Message

Noise

Source

MEME LIFECYCLE

➢ New Potential Host

➢ Meme received and decoded

➢ Becomes host if meme satisfies selection and

fitness criteria

➢ New host replicates and transmits meme

(perhaps with different vector)

➢ There is a great excess of potential memes

over available brains

MEME LIFECYCLE

Selection and Fitness Criteria

➢

Motivation & Hooks

➢

Threats: hell or failure

➢

Rewards: heaven or success

➢

Beneficial or entertaining

➢

Appreciative Direct Feedback

➢

Fit Existing Constructs

➢

Receptive paradigms or belief

systems

➢

Memes aggregate and reinforce in

complexes

➢

Suitable Storage

➢

Memory or media

➢

Enduring Vectors

➢

E.g., chiseled in stone; certain books

MEME LIFECYCLE

➢ Memes can be transmitted without true

communication

➢ The sender can pass memes to the

receiver using deception where the intent

of the sender is not communicated to the

receiver

➢ Or memes might be diffused through a

population without overt imitation by

receivers

➢ Memetic mutations can be directed by

purposeful human decision-making as

well as by random processes

➢ Lamarckian as well as Darwinian evolution

➢ With directed (Lamarckian) processes,

memetics becomes analogous to genetic

engineering

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

➢ Information Operations

➢ Military culture

➢ Recruitment

➢ Training

➢ Deterrence

➢ Tactics, Strategy,

Doctrine

➢ Peacekeeping and

occupation

➢ Nation building

➢ Adversarial culture

➢ Military, insurgents,

terrorists, civilians

➢ Reduce probability of

war or defeat

➢ Increase probability of

peace or victory

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

➢ Information Operations (IO)

➢ The integrated employment of

the core capabilities of:

➢ Electronic warfare

➢ Computer network operations

➢ Psychological operations

➢ Military deception and

operations security

➢ In concert with specified

supporting and related

capabilities, to influence,

disrupt, corrupt or usurp

adversarial human and

automated decision making

while protecting our own

➢ According to Joint

Publication 3-13 Information

Operations (13 February 2006)

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

➢ Psychological Operations (PSYOP)

➢ Purpose: to induce or reinforce foreign

attitudes and behavior favorable to the

originator‟s objectives

➢ To convey selected information and

indicators to foreign audiences to influence

their emotions, motives, objective

reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of

foreign governments, organizations, groups,

and individuals

➢ Focuses on cognitive domain of the

battlespace and targets the mind of the

adversary

➢ Seeks to induce, influence, or reinforce the

perceptions, attitudes, reasoning, and

behavior of foreign leaders, groups, and

organizations in a manner favorable to

friendly national and military objectives

➢ Exploits the psychological vulnerabilities of

hostile forces to create fear, confusion, and

paralysis, thus undermining their morale

and fighting spirit

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

Psychological Operations

From “Information Age Psychological Operations,” Commander Randall G. Bowdish, US

Navy, Military Review, Dec 98 – Feb 99

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

➢ Psychological Operations (PSYOP)

➢ According to Information

Operations Roadmap, DOD, 30 Oct.

03:

➢ PSYOP capabilities have

deteriorated and remedial action is

required

➢ PSYOP is a “low-density, high-

demand asset which is particularly

valued in the war on terrorism”

➢ “Well-documented PSYOP

limitations include:

➢ Inability to rapidly generate and

immediately disseminate

sophisticated, commercial-quality

products targeted against diverse

audiences

➢ Limited ability to disseminate

PSYOP products into denied areas”

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

➢ Military Deception (MILDEC)

➢ Actions executed to deliberately

mislead adversary military decision

makers as to friendly military

capabilities, intentions, and

operations, thereby causing the

adversary to take specific actions (or

inactions) that will contribute to the

accomplishment of the friendly forces

mission

➢ Military deception will not

intentionally target or mislead the US

public, Congress, or the news media

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

➢ Military Deception (MILDEC)

➢ According to Information Operations

Roadmap, DOD, 30 Oct. 03:

➢ “Military deception should be one of

the five core capabilities of IO..”

➢ “The value of military deception…is

intuitive”

➢ “Effective military deception requires

centralized planning, security, and

close integration with operational

planning”

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

➢ Counterpropaganda

➢ Activities to identify and counter

adversary propaganda and expose

adversary attempts to influence

friendly populations and military

forces situational understanding

➢ Efforts to negate, neutralize,

diminish the effects of, or gain an

advantage from foreign

psychological operations or

propaganda efforts

➢ Commanders at all levels should

integrate activities designed to:

➢ Disseminate truthful information

➢ Mitigate adversary messages

➢ Disrupt, degrade, and disable

adversary psychological operations

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

➢ Public Affairs Operations (PA)

➢ Assess the information environment in

areas such as public opinion and to

recognize political, social, and cultural

shifts

➢ A key component of informational flexible

deterrent options

➢ Build commanders‟ predictive awareness

of the international public information

environment and the means to use

information to take offensive and

preemptive defensive actions

➢ Lead activity and the first line of defense

against adversary propaganda and

disinformation

➢ Must never be used to mislead the public,

national leaders, or the media

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

➢ Public Affairs

➢ According to Field Manual FM 46-

1, Public Affairs Operations, HQ,

Department of the Army,

Washington, DC, 30 May 1997

➢ Public Affairs operations are

combat multipliers by:

➢ Keeping soldiers informed

➢ Maintaining public support for the

soldier in the field

➢ Mitigating the impact of

misinformation and propaganda

POTENTIAL MILITARY WORTH OF MEMETICS

➢ Military and adversarial culture

➢ Recruitment

➢ Motivation

➢ Enhance image of military

➢ Service awareness (“branding”)

➢ National service perspective

➢ Global situational context

➢ Training

➢ Motivation

➢ Explanation

➢ Comprehension

➢ Retention

➢ Culture (traditions, customs, mores)

MEMES AND SOCIAL MEDIA

➢ Social media (e.g., smart phones) have

provided highly effective and efficient

means for propagating memes (e.g.,

voice, texting, and tweeting)

➢ For state and non-state actors

➢ For strategic and tactical objectives

➢ Popular uprisings (e.g., the Middle East)

demonstrated the efficacy of social

media

➢ Tools and techniques are being

developed to (1) rapidly detect, identify,

and evaluate memes propagated by

social media; (2) rapidly create and

propagate counter-memes

➢ A framework for Meme-War is the Meme

Control Center

MEME CONTROL CENTER

➢ A conceptual Meme Control Center

(MCC) consists of a Meme Processing

Center (MPC) and a Counter-Meme

Processing Center (CPC)

➢ A Memetics for Intelligence and National

Defense (MIND) Research and

Development Center provides the tools

and techniques employed by the MPC

and CPC)

➢ The MPC is highly automated with, for

example, information mining and

semantic processing)

➢ The CPC includes a multi-disciplinary

meme engineering staff (e.g., cultural

anthropologists, linguists, semanticists,

psychologists, social network analysts,

O.R. analysts, intelligence and psyops

analysts, economists)

MEMES AND CULTURE

➢ Culture: set of values (and the attitudes

and beliefs generated by values) shared by

a group

➢ Values: general criteria, standards, or

guiding principles that people use to

determine which types of behaviors,

events, situations, and outcomes are

desirable or undesirable; the basis for

making a decision

➢ Terminal value: a desired end state or

outcome that people seek to achieve

➢ Instrumental value: a desired mode of

behavior

➢ Norms: standards or styles of behavior that

are considered acceptable or typical for a

group of people

➢ Some values are genetically determined (i.e.,

nature); other values are environmentally

(culturally) determined (i.e., nurture)

MEMES AND CULTURE

➢ Culture sets the standards of behavior

required for continued acceptance and

participation in the group

➢ The group might be a nation, ethnic

group, religion, corporation, or other

institution or organization

➢ Culture is based on common

experiences and heritage

➢ Example: food is often cultural – people

tend to prefer the same daily fare they

experienced as children

➢ Example: religion is often cultural –

people tend to prefer the same religion

they experienced as children

MEMES AND CULTURE

➢ Culture, as nurture, (partially)

determines values

➢ Values are the bases of decisions

➢ Decisions lead to behavior

➢ Therefore, culture drives behavior

➢ Examples: preferences in food;

religious practices; social interactions,

transactions, and manners; choices of

self-actualization and lifestyles; choice

of marriage partners

➢ Cultures develop like natural evolution,

with punctuated equilibrium

➢ Long static periods of little or no

change, punctuated by dynamic

intervals of rapid or revolutionary

changes

MEMES AND CULTURE

➢ Culture determines whether people will

strive to better their condition or accept

their lot as the will of God or fate

➢ Culture determines, in general:

➢ How people work and play

➢ Whether they prefer cooperation or

competition, individuality or social

conformity

➢ How much they defer to authority

➢ Whether they prefer tradition or change

➢ How much they value education

➢ Whether they prefer peace or war

➢ Whether they tend to be optimistic or

pessimistic

➢ Whether they are sectarian or secular

➢ Whether they prefer critical thinking or

magical thinking

➢ What and how they eat and drink

MEMES AND CULTURE

➢ Culture is passed on from generation to

generation by behavioral examples of

family, friends, and other members of the

group (e.g., nation, tribe, sect)

➢ Culture is also shaped, exemplified, and

propagated by memes and narratives

(which are a type of meme)

➢ Stories: oral, written, or multi-media

➢ Aphorisms, fables, legends, mythology

➢ Celebrated heroes and role models

(historical and contemporary),

➢ Iconic graphics (fine and popular art,

paintings, statues, posters, prints, and

advertising)

➢ Catch phrases, exhortations, declarations,

gossip, jingles, songs, speeches

➢ Semiotics (signs and symbols)

➢ Narratives can strongly shape or modify a

culture

➢ Cultural narratives and strategic narratives

MEMES AND NARRATIVES

➢ A narrative is a story: long or short; past,

present, or future; with or without much

detail; told for any purpose

➢ A story has a beginning, middle, and (hopefully

happy) ending

➢ Cultural narratives are important in forming

and maintaining cultures (of nations or other

groups), in giving a sense of identity and

purpose to individuals within a culture

➢ What is our past? Why are we here? What is

our future?

➢ National strategic narratives describe the core

interests of a nation and provide a foundation

for statecraft and national security

➢ Example: the U.S. post World War II strategic

narrative provided the basis for the global

struggle against communism

➢ A post-communism narrative is needed for the

global struggle against asymmetric adversaries

MEMES AND NARRATIVES

➢ There is not yet a suitable

narrative theory or

narrative engineering to

counter adverse

individual and social

behavior originating from

narratives

➢ Not yet an integrated

system of tools and

techniques for

automating the ability to

detect, identify, and

evaluate narratives and

for creating and

propagating counter-

narratives

MEMES AND NARRATIVES

➢ Research shows that narratives are fundamental to

the human mind and perception

➢ Sensory data and subsequent perception are

intermittent, with only the illusion and delusion of

continuity and coherence

➢ Plagues with uncertainty and flawed information, the

subconscious mind creates an illusion of a coherent

narrative, constructing relationships, motives, and

intentions based on limited or incorrect information

➢ The mind fills in details and revises its narratives as

needed, with or without evidence, even retroactively

➢ The mind autonomically, unconsciously, and

continuously constructs narratives, weaving the weft

of subjective reality among the warp of physical

reality

➢ Thus individuals create personal stories about who

they are and what the world is like; narratives by

which they live their lives

➢ These individual narratives can aggregate and evolve

into cultural narratives influencing the behavior of

the tribe or nation

MEMES AND NARRATIVES

➢ The structure, function, and ontology of narratives

are shaped by their building blocks, including:

metaphors, symbols, symbolic actions, semiotics,

myths, frames, scenarios, etc.

➢ For example, metaphors shape and express

cultural thought and style as embedded in

language, artifacts, and behavior

➢ They shape ideology and religion and can spark

insurgencies

➢ The major sources of metaphor vary from culture

to culture, whether the human body, animals,

dwellings, landscapes, sport, war, etc.

➢ Many cultures have common metaphors, i.e.,

identical mapping of metaphor sources into target

domains; but seemingly identical metaphors might

have different implications in different cultures

➢ Examples: “Arab street” has negative connotations,

including instability, irrationality, and violence; but

“Arab spring” has positive connotations – the

overthrow of tyrannical regimes

MEMES AND CULTURE

➢ Cultures and subcultures can be

functional or dysfunctional or something

in between

➢ Cultural anthropologists are loath to

judge the functionality – the value or

worth – of cultures

➢ Anyone judging a culture is from within a

culture and thus deemed biased; such

judgments are judged too subjective

➢ If dysfunctional cultures and

subcultures can be properly identified

and evaluated, they can be enhanced

➢ Memetics can be used to enhance

dysfunctional cultures and subcultures

MEMES AND CULTURE

➢ Maslow‟s Hierarchy of human needs

and wants can provide a reasonable

basis for developing metrics to

evaluate the degree to which a

culture is dysfunctional

➢ Maslow was immersed in American

culture, so his hierarchy can be

criticized for its composition and

characterization of relative

importance

➢ The specified needs and wants are

nevertheless generally valid, if not

for every individual or culture

➢ The relative importance of some

needs and wants can be shifted

without invalidating the ability to

identify dysfunctional cultures or

subcultures

MEMES AND CULTURE

➢ Maslow‟s Hierarchy of Human Needs and

Wants

➢ Physiological: air, water, food, clothing, shelter

➢ Safety: personal security, economic security,

health (physical and mental)

➢ Social: relationships and sense of belonging

(family, friends, neighbors, society, spiritual)

➢ Esteem: self-respect and respect by others (e.g.,

status, recognition, fame, prestige, attention;

strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence,

independence, and freedom)

➢ Self Actualization: achieve one‟s full potential

➢ To the extent that a culture or subculture

provides these needs and wants it is

functional – or dysfunctional

➢ Metrics can be developed and cultures can be

evaluated

➢ Dysfunctional cultures can be changed with

memetics

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ The dynamics of mass movements and

“True Believers” have significant

implications for memetics

➢ In the 21st century the true believer still

infests the world in every nation and

culture, whether of ideological, religious,

social, or political orientation

➢ If anything, the threat from the True Believer

seems greater now than it has been in since

World War II

➢ Mass movements of all sorts, good and bad,

have altered history over the centuries - they

were particularly bloody in the 20th century,

and they are with us to the present moment

➢ Eric Hoffer, the longshoreman philosopher

of the mid-twentieth century, expounded his

views of this phenomena in his 1951 book

“The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature

of Mass Movements”

➢ Following are excerpts from Hoffer that I

have paraphrased or interpreted as

aphorisms (occasionally injecting my own

views) – and which offer clues to the design

of effective memes

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ True believers are functionally

identical

➢ Regardless of the causes people die

for, they die for basically the same

thing

➢ While all mass movements are

taxonomically equivalent, not all mass

movements are equally good or evil

➢ We must know all we can about the

nature and potentialities of the true

believer

➢ The true believer is everywhere on the

march, shaping the world in his image

by both converting and antagonizing

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ True believers arise primarily from

the among frustrated

➢ The frustrated predominate among

the early adherents of all mass

movements, and they join of their

own accord, without the need for

proselytizing from the outside

➢ Frustration alone can generate most

of the peculiar characteristics of the

true believer, including readiness to

sacrifice his life for a holy cause

➢ A proselytizing mass movement

deliberately fosters in its adherents a

frustrated state of mind, increasing

the propensities of the frustrated

➢ While those with a sense of

fulfillment want to conserve the world

as it is, the frustrated favor radical

change

➢ To the frustrated the present is

irremediably spoiled so that only

hope provides comfort

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ True believers are drawn primarily by

hope

➢ Extravagant hope, even when not backed

by actual power, is likely to generate a

most reckless daring; for the hopeful can

draw strength from the most ridiculous

sources of power – a slogan, a word, a

button

➢ There is a difference between immediate

hope and distant hope: a rising mass

movement preaches immediate hope that

prompts people to act, but an established

mass movement is preoccupied with

preservation of the present, prizing

obedience and patience over spontaneous

action, and thus preaches distant hope as

an opium to dull the impatience of the

masses and reconcile them with their lot in

life

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ True believers are drawn primarily by hope

➢ If a movement (e.g., Al Qaeda) wins a chunk

of the world, it is not because they know

how to stir up discontent or how to infect

people with hatred, but because they know

how to preach hope

➢ One of the most potent attractions of a

mass movement is its offering of a

substitute for individual hope

➢ The unemployed are more likely to follow

the peddlers of hope than the handers-out

of relief

➢ Those who would transform a nation or the

world cannot do so by breeding and

captaining discontent or by demonstrating

the reasonableness and desirability of the

intended changes or by coercing people

into a new way of life – they must know how

to kindle and fan extravagant hope, and it

matters not whether it be hope of a

heavenly kingdom, of heaven on earth, of

plunder and untold riches, or fabulous

achievement or world dominion

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ Give the powerless a sense of power as

well as hope for the future

➢ Those who plunge into movements of

vast social change feel they possess

some irresistible power, whether based

on notions of reason and intelligence

(e.g., the French revolution), political

ideology (e.g., Marxism), religion (e.g.,

Christianity and Islam), or nationalistic

mythology (e.g., Nazism)

➢ An effective doctrine, as well as being a

source of power, must also claim to be a

key to the book of the future; faith in the

future is even more important than the

instruments of power for driving change

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ Give the powerless a sense of power as

well as hope for the future and self-

esteem

➢ To plunge into an undertaking of vast

change, people must be intensely

discontented yet not destitute, and they

must have the feeling that by

possession of some potent doctrine,

infallible leader, or some new technique,

they have access to a source of

irresistible power – they must also have

an extravagant conception of the

prospects and potentialities of the

future and must be wholly ignorant of

the difficulties in their vast undertaking

(experience is a handicap)

➢ Take away our holy duties and our lives

become puny and meaningless; in

exchanging a self-centered for a selfless

life we gain enormously in self-esteem –

and the vanity of the selfless, even

those who practice utmost humility, is

boundless

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ The true believer is willing to die for his

belief

➢ When individual interests and prospects

do not seem worth living for, then one

seeks worth and meaning in all forms of

dedication, devotion, loyalty, and self-

surrender – the embracing of a

substitute will necessarily be

passionate and extreme, the faith in

nation, religion, race, or holy cause will

be extravagant and uncompromising

➢ We cannot be sure we have something

worth living for unless we are ready to

die for it

➢ The readiness to die is evidence, to

themselves and others, that those who

have taken a substitute for an

irrevocably missed or spoiled first

choice is indeed the best there ever was

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ All true-believer mass movements are

taxonomically equivalent

➢ When people are ripe for a mass

movement, they are usually ripe for

any effective movement, not solely for

one with a particular doctrine or

program

➢ The receptivity to all movements does

not always cease even after the

potential true believer has become the

ardent convert of a specific movement

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ Each proselytizing mass movement seems to

regard the zealous adherents to its antagonist

as its own potential converts

➢ Since all mass movements draw their adherents

from the same types of humanity and appeal to

the same types of mind, it follows: (1) all mass

movements are competitive, and the gain of

one in adherents is a loss of all the others; (2)

all mass movements are interchangeable and

transformable (so that a religious movement

may develop into a social revolution or a

nationalistic movement; a social revolution may

transform into militant nationalism or a

religious movement; and nationalist movement

may transform into a social revolution or a

religious movement)

➢ It is rare for a mass movement too be wholly of

one character; it usually displays some facets

of other types of movement, and sometimes it

is two or three movements in one (such as

religious, social, and nationalistic)

➢ The problem of stopping a mass movement is

often a matter of substituting one movement for

another

➢ A religious revolution can be stopped by

promoting a social or nationalistic movement

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ It is usually the newly poor, often from a

ruined middle class, who ferment with

frustration at the memory of relative

affluence and who respond to every rising

mass movement

➢ The chronically unemployed feel

degraded, disinherited, and injured by an

unjust order of things and will to listen to

instigators of mass movements

➢ The poor on the borderline of starvation

live purposeful lives desperately

struggling for survival; with every meal a

triumph, they are immune to the appeal of

a mass movement

➢ Misery does not automatically generate

discontent, nor is the intensity of

discontent directly proportionate to the

degree of misery

➢ Discontent is likely to be highest when

misery is bearable; when conditions have

so improved that an ideal state seems

almost within reach

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢Unless a person has the talent for

achievement, freedom is an irksome

burden; people join a mass movement to

escape individual responsibility, to be

free from freedom

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ The most fertile ground for a mass movement is a society with

considerable freedom but lacking in the palliatives of frustration

➢ Even mass movements which rise in the name of freedom

against an oppressive order do not realize individual liberty once

they start rolling – its chief preoccupation will be unity and self-

sacrifice, which requires surrender of the individual‟s will,

judgment, and advantage

➢ Fanatics fear liberty more than they fear persecution

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted

crave equality and fraternity more than they do

freedom

➢ Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of

the masses; where equality is real, freedom is the

passion of a small minority

➢ Equality without freedom creates a more stable

social pattern than freedom without equality

➢ A rising mass movement attracts and holds a

following not by its doctrine and promises but by

the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness,

and meaninglessness of an individual existence

➢ Where new creeds vie with one another for the

allegiance of the populace, the one which comes

with the most perfected collective framework wins

➢ The fiercest fanatics are often selfish people who

were forced, by innate shortcomings or external

circumstances, to lose faith in their own selves;

they separate the instrument of their selfishness

and attach it to the service of some holy cause

➢ The inordinately selfish are likely to be the most

persuasive champions of selflessness

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ In their earliest stages, mass movements are

more likely to find sympathizers and support

among the bored than among the exploited

and oppressed

➢ Fervent patriotism as well as religious and

revolutionary enthusiasm often serves as a

refuge from a guilty conscience

➢ The technique of a proselytizing mass

movement aims to evoke in the faithful the

mood and frame of mind of a repentant

criminal

➢ The technique of a mass movement aims to

infect people with a malady and then offer

the movement as a cure

➢ The vigor of a mass movement stems from

the propensity of its followers for united

action and self-sacrifice

➢ The success of a mass movement, usually

ascribed to its faith, doctrine, propaganda,

leadership, ruthlessness, etc., actually

arises from its instruments of unification

and the means used to inculcate a readiness

for self-sacrifice

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ The angst of the frustrated stems from a

consciousness of an irredeemably

blemished self; the desire to escape that

self is manifested in a propensity for united

action and self-sacrifice

➢ The capacities for united action and self-

sacrifice almost always go together; a

group that is particularly contemptuous of

death is usually close-knit and thoroughly

unified

➢ To ripen a person for self-sacrifice he must

be stripped of his individual identity, most

drastically by complete assimilation of the

individual in the collective body

➢ The individual fully assimilated into the

collective never feels alone; to be cast out

from the group is the equivalent of being

cut off from life

➢ The collectivized individual is in a primitive

state of being, equivalent to that in

primitive tribes – mass movements strive

to approximate this primitive perfection

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ The capacity to resist coercion, torture, or

annihilation stems partly from the individual‟s

identification with a group; individualists crush

easily

➢ Dying and killing seem easy when they are part

of a ritual, ceremonial, dramatic performance,

or game; there is a need for some kind of

make-believe to face death unflinchingly

➢ One of the main tasks of the leader of a mass

movement is to mask the grim reality of dying

and killing by evoking in his followers the

illusion that they are participating in a

grandiose spectacle, a solemn or light-hearted

dramatic spectacle

➢ Glory is largely a theatrical concept which

requires a vivid awareness of an audience (and

a definition of terrorism is the act of violence,

or the threat of violence, against non-

combatants to influence an audience)

➢ In the practice of mass movements, make-

believe plays perhaps a more enduring role

than any other factor; when faith and the power

to persuade are gone, make-believe lingers on

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ Once the mass movement starts rolling, the

present is shoved off the stage and its

place taken by posterity; the battle line is

drawn between things that are and have

been, and the things that are not yet

➢ To lose one‟s life in a defiled, worthless

present is not to lose much

➢ The mass movement decries pleasures and

comforts and extols the rigorous life,

fashioning individual existence as dour,

hard, repressive, and dull; ordinary

enjoyment is deemed trivial or

discreditable, and the pursuit of individual

happiness is immoral

➢ The very impracticality of many of the goals

which a mass movement sets itself is part

of the campaign against the present – all

that is practical, feasible, and possible is

part of the present

➢ All mass movements deprecate the present

by depicting it as a mean preliminary to a

glorious future, a mere doormat on the

threshold of the millennium

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ To a religious movement, the

present is a place of exile, a

vale of tears leading to the

heavenly kingdom; to a social

revolution it is a mean way

station on the road to Utopia;

to a nationalist movement it is

an ignoble episode preceding

the final triumph

➢ Possessed of a vivid vision of

past and future, the true

believer sees himself as part of

something that stretches

endlessly backward and

forward, something eternal; he

can sacrifice his life because it

is not the beginning and end of

all things

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ The frustrated derive as much

satisfaction (if not more) from

the means a mass movement

uses as from the ends it

advocates; chaos and

destruction are at least as

satisfying as that which will

follow

➢ People are less ready to die for

what they have or are than

what they wish to have or

become

➢ Self-sacrifice is an

unreasonable act; so all mass

movements strive to interpose

a fact-proof screen between

the faithful and the realities of

the world by claiming that

absolute truth is already

embodied in their doctrine and

there is neither truth nor

certitude outside it

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ It is the certitude of his infallible

doctrine that renders the true believer

impervious to the uncertainties,

surprises, and unpleasant realities of

the world around him

➢ In order to be effective a doctrine

must not be understood, but rather

has to be believed – we can be

absolutely certain only about things

we do not understand

➢ The devout are always urged to seek

the absolute truth with their hearts

and not their minds; when a

movement begins to rationalize its

doctrine and make it intelligible, it is a

sign that its dynamic span is over and

that it is interested primarily in

stability

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ If a doctrine is not unintelligible it has

to be vague; and if neither

unintelligible nor vague, it has to be

unverifiable – one has to get to

heaven or the distant future to

determine the truth of an effective

doctrine

➢ There is an illiterate air about the

most literate true believer, using

words as if he were ignorant of their

true meaning; hence his taste for

quibbling, hair-splitting, and

scholastic tortuousness

➢ The true believer is without wonder

and hesitation; the true doctrine is

the master key to all the world‟s

problems

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ The fanatic is not a stickler to principle – he

embraces a cause not primarily because it is just

or holy but because he has a desperate need to

hold onto something

➢ The fanatic can swing suddenly and wildly from

one cause to another

➢ Fanatics of all kinds are similar to one another, at

one end of the pole despite seemingly at opposite

ends of religious, social, or ideological poles

➢ The radical and reactionary have more in common

than either has with the liberal or conservative

➢ Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive

of all unifying agents

➢ Mass movements can rise and spread without

belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil

➢ Common hatred unites the most heterogeneous

elements, even erstwhile enemies

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ The genius of a great leader consists in

concentrating all hatred on a single foe,

making even adversaries far removed from

one another seem to belong to a single

category

➢ The ideal devil is a foreigner; to qualify as a

devil, a domestic enemy must be given a

foreign ancestry

➢ A sublime religion inevitably generates a

strong feeling of guilt (given the disparity

between the lofty doctrine and the imperfect

practice), and the feeling of guilt promotes

hate and brazenness

➢ The more sublime the faith, the more virulent

the hatred it breeds

➢ The influence of the fanatic is out of all

proportion to his abilities; by converting and

antagonizing he shapes the world to his own

image (such as causing democracies to

become zealous, intolerant, and ruthless)

➢ Hatred is a convenient instrument for

mobilizing a community for defense, but we

often pay for it by losing all or many of the

values we have set out to defend

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ Part of the attractiveness of the mass

movement to its adherents is the emergence

of a new freedom from the loss of individual

judgment: the freedom to hate, bully, lie,

torture, murder, and betray without shame

or remorse

➢ Hatred is not only a means of unification but

also its product

➢ Imitation is an essential unifying agent

➢ The one-mindedness prized by every mass

movement is achieved as much by imitation

as obedience

➢ There is a connection between frustration

and the readiness to imitate – the frustrated

imitate to search for a new identity or

camouflage their individual distinctness, to

be like others

➢ The ready imitativeness of a unified

following is both an advantage and a peril to

a mass movement: while the faithful are

easily led and molded, they are also

particularly susceptible to outside

influences – a unified group is easily

seduced and corrupted

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ The preaching of all mass movements warns

against copying foreign models – the imitation

of outsiders is branded as treason and

apostasy

➢ Contempt for the outside world is the most

effective defense against disruptive imitation –

every device is used to cut of the faithful from

interaction with unbelievers

➢ We tend to exaggerate the effectiveness of

persuasion as a means of inculcating opinion

and shaping behavior – we falsely attribute to

propaganda the startling successes of mass

movements

➢ Propaganda on its own cannot force its way

into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate

something new; nor can it keep people

persuaded once they have ceased to believe

➢ Propaganda penetrates only into minds

already open, articulating and justifying

opinions already present in the minds of its

hearers

➢ Where opinion is not coerced, people can be

made to believe only in what they already

“know”

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ Propaganda by itself succeeds mainly with

the frustrated

➢ Even skillful propaganda cannot keep people

persuaded once they have ceased to believe

– force must then be used for the mass

movement to maintain itself

➢ Propaganda becomes more fervent and

importunate when it operates in conjunction

with coercion than when it has to rely solely

on its own effectiveness

➢ Propaganda serves more to justify ourselves

than to convince others; the proselytizing

terrorist must reinforce the conviction that

his faith is the only true one or he will feel

himself to be a criminal

➢ The more blood the terrorist sheds, the more

he needs to believe in his principles as

absolutes – only the absolute will absolve

him in his own eyes

➢ The practice of terror serves the true believer

not only to cow and crush his opponents, but

also to invigorate and intensify his own faith

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ Where a mass movement can either persuade

or coerce, it usually chooses the latter

➢ Force can stop and crush even the most

vigorous mass movement, but to do so the

force must be ruthless and persistent

➢ Ruthless and persistent force can only come

from fanatical conviction – the violence needed

to counter a mass movement must spring from

a spiritual base to avoid being wavering and

uncertain (fanaticism is needed to counter

fanaticism)

➢ The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own

faith by converting others – the creed whose

legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to

develop the strongest proselytizing impulse

➢ The leader cannot create the conditions which

make the rise of a mass movement possible –

he cannot conjure a movement out of the void

➢ There has to an intense dissatisfaction and an

eagerness to follow before the movement and

the leader can make their appearance

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ Once the stage is set, the presence of an

outstanding leader is indispensable – without

the leader there will be no movement

➢ It needs the iron will, daring, and vision of an

exceptional leader to concert and mobilize

existing attitudes and impulses into the

collective drive of a mass movement and kindle

the vision of a breathtaking future

➢ The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role

in mass movement leadership – what counts is

the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of

the opinions of others, the single-handed

defiance of the world

➢ Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable

to effective mass movement leadership; there

can be no mass movement without some

deliberate misrepresentation of facts

➢ The true believer, no matter how lawless and

violent his acts, is basically an obedient and

submissive person

MEMETICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS

➢ The literati and intellectuals often set the

stage for the fanatics

➢ There is a moment (before he formulates a

philosophy and a program) when the

articulate finder of fault may be won over by a

deferential or conciliatory gesture from those

in power

➢ A mass movement is pioneered by articulate

intellectuals, materialized by fanatics, and

consolidated by leaders of action (usually

different people, men or women, play these

roles in succession, as conditions require)

➢ The leader of action saves the movement

from the suicidal dissensions and

recklessness of the fanatics, marking the end

of the dynamic phase of the movement

➢ The leader of action fixes and perpetuates the

mass movement‟s unity and readiness for

self-sacrifice, relying mainly on drill and

coercion but preserving as a façade the

earlier enthusiasm of faith

➢ At the end of its vigorous span, the mass

movement is an instrument of power for the

successful and an opiate for the frustrated

MEMETICS AND THE TIPPING POINT

➢ “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell

(2002): how ideas, products, messages,

and behavior spread like viruses – the

moment when everything changes all at

once

➢ Contagious behavior (e.g., viral marketing)

➢ Small number of people in small number of

situations start behaving differently and that

behavior spreads and changes the behavior

of others in similar situations

➢ Examples: trends in: fashion, crime or anti-

crime, music, fads, religion, ideology

➢ Small changes can have big effects

➢ A few percent change in initial conditions

can lead to non-linear outcomes (like a

single match with limited energy can start a

forest fire)

➢ Changes can occur quickly, not gradually

(e.g., epidemics or punctuated equilibrium

in evolution)

MEMETICS AND THE TIPPING POINT

➢ People are conditioned for linearity and

gradualness, not exponential or geometric

progression

➢ But social change can be as sudden as the

phase change of rain to snow

➢ The 95/5 rule (a more extreme version of

the 80/20 rule): 5% of people cause 95% of

new ideas to spread

➢ Stickiness in messages (sticks in memory

and has impact)

➢ Simple changes in presentation or

structuring of information can make a big

difference in impact

➢ Examples: “Winston Tastes Good Like a

Cigarette Should” (1954)

➢ “It Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking”

(1956)

➢ “Good to the Last Drop” (1926)

MEMETICS AND THE TIPPING POINT

➢ Three rules of the Tipping Point

➢ (1) The law of the few: few

people can cause large effects

(e.g., changes in mass behavior)

➢ (2) The stickiness factor:

message stays in memory

➢ (3) The power of context: impact

on behavior depends on context

MEMETICS AND THE TIPPING POINT

➢ The Law of the Few

➢ Starting an information epidemic requires

concentrating resources on a few key

areas

➢ Success of social epidemic heavily

depends on involvement of three types of

people:

➢ “Connectors”: gregarious and know many

people, active in many different social and

professional niches and subcultures

➢ “Mavens”: experts, socially motivated to

share information

➢ “Salesman”: persuaders, articulate and

inherently good at convincing others after

rapidly obtaining their trust and support

➢ Mavens generate the message,

Connectors spread it, and Salesmen

persuade the unconvinced to heed the

message

MEMETICS AND THE TIPPING POINT

➢ Stickiness: message should be made

practical and personal

➢ Information should be packaged in a

simple way to make it irresistible

➢ Context

➢ Behavior is a function of social context

➢ Little things matter

➢ When interpreting the behavior of others,

people overestimate the importance of

fundamental character traits and

underestimate the importance of situation

and context

➢ Humans are more attuned to personal

cues than contextual cues (a simpler, but

inaccurate, description of reality)

➢ Groups have a critical role in social

epidemics

MEMETICS AND THE TIPPING POINT

➢ To bring about a fundamental change

in people‟s belief and behavior, a

change that would persist and serve

as an example to others, a community

must be created around the beliefs

➢ For groups to serve as incubators of

messages (or ideas) they should be

kept below 150 members (the maximum

size for informal, person-to-person

contact and cohesive group loyalty

(e.g., an Infantry Company)

➢ Larger groups spontaneously become

divided and alienated

➢ To create one contiguous movement

(e.g., an “epidemic”), first create many

small movements

MEMETICS AND THE TIPPING POINT

➢ Rumor: most contagious of all social

messages

➢ Kernel of truth in rumor (or urban legend)

is distorted in 3 directions:

➢ (1) Level story (i.e., leave out details

essential for understanding true meaning of

incident)

➢ (2) Sharpen story (i.e., make remaining

details more specific)

➢ (3) Assimilate story (i.e., change story so it

makes sense to those spreading the rumor)

➢ Example: rumors of 9/11

➢ Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen make

an idea contagious by dropping

extraneous details and exaggerating other

details so that message acquires a deeper

meaning and is better understood by the

intended recipients

MEMETICS AND THE TIPPING POINT

➢ Suicide is contagious

➢ In Micronesia, suicide among young

males went from near zero to highest

rate in world (7 times higher than

U.S.)

➢ Triggered by minor incident, suicide

rituals became embedded in local

culture, an important form of self-

expression, imitated by younger and

younger boys

➢ In the U.S., newspaper stories of

suicides temporarily increase suicide

rates in local or national coverage

area

➢ Influence of peers is more important

than parents in shaping personality

and intelligence

MEMETICS AND THE TIPPING POINT

➢ People can transform behavior or beliefs

with the right impetus

➢ Seemingly intransigent, implacable

people can be tipped with the slightest

push in the right place at the right time

➢ Social change is volatile and often

inexplicable because people are

naturally volatile and inexplicable

NEUROECONOMICS AND MEMETICS

➢ Neuroeconomics

➢ The study of how the brain

interacts with the external

environment to make choices

(decisions)

➢ Examples: Choices among

competing alternatives; strategic

choices with other individuals;

choices under uncertainty, etc.

➢ Combines neuroscience,

economics, and psychology

➢ Examines role of the brain in

evaluating decisions, categorizing

risks and rewards

➢ Focuses on high-level concepts of

personal choices and decisions,

and how these are represented in

neurons and biochemistry

NEUROECONOMICS AND MEMETICS

➢ Neuroeconomics: More Definitions

➢ An interdisciplinary research

program with the goal of building a

biological model of decision making

in economic environments

➢ Neuroeconomics is a subset of

economics that focuses on personal

choices and decisions and mental

changes that correlate with the

choices (and may cause them)

➢ Neuroeconomics is a subset of

psychology that focuses on thought

about choices (especially the

cognition for understanding and

choosing options

Steps In Decision Making

NEUROECONOMICS AND MEMETICS

➢ Experimental focus includes studies of:

➢ Game theory, risk, attention and awareness,

learning, valuation, motivation, emotion, behavior,

trust and attachment, and addictive behavior

➢ Experimental methodologies include:

➢ Neuroimaging (MRI), genetic profiling,

psychopharmacological manipulations,

psychophysiology (EMG, ERP, and EEG),

behavioral measures, psychological testing,

blood chemistry (and hormone) analysis, and

single neuron recording, among others

➢ New field of neuromarketing investigates:

➢ Product branding, preference, and purchase

decisions using neuroscientific techniques

➢ Experiments confirm that emotions are an

important factor in many choices

➢ Memetics research can leverage research in

neuroeconomics

MEMETICS: IMPLICATIONS FOR INTELLIGENT

MACHINES

➢ Intelligent machines can far exceed

biological intelligence in memetic behavior

➢ Information (Entropy)

➢ Example: large to small almost functionally

equivalent

➢ Propagation

➢ Example: global dispersion and mind-to-mind

at speed of light, with very high accuracy

➢ Impact

➢ Example: behavioral responses can be

immediate for the individual or the collective

➢ Persistence

➢ Example: indefinite duration of transmission

and memory, with very high accuracy

POTENTIAL NATIONAL SECURITY USERS

➢ Central Intelligence Agency

➢ U.S. Army Civil Affairs and

Psychological Operations Command

➢ Reserve Psyops Units

➢ Naval Network Warfare Command

(NETWARCOM)

➢ Air Force Psyops Commands

➢ Joint Forces MILDEC

➢ Joint Forces Information Operations

➢ Defense Intelligence Agency

➢ Public Affairs (all services)

➢ Recruitment (all services)

➢ Training (all services)

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

➢ Surveys and interviews

➢ Information theory and entropy

➢ Genetic, memetic, and evolutionary

algorithms

➢ Modeling and simulation

➢ Rumor propagation models (e.g., NSF

program); epidemic-like models

➢ Social media and networking

➢ Rumor and gossip theory and

psychological models (e.g., Naval

Postgraduate School)

➢ Rumor propagation dynamics on

networks

➢ Modeling theory of mind with decision-

theoretic agents (e.g., PsychSim)

➢ Agent-based simulation of geo-

political conflict

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

➢ Neuroeconomics tools

➢ Neuroimaging

➢ Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

(fMRI)

➢ Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

➢ Genetic profiling

➢ Psychopharmacological manipulations

➢ Psychophysiology (electromyography

(EMG), event related potential (ERP), and

electroencephalogram (EEG))

➢ Behavioral measures

➢ Psychological testing

➢ Blood chemistry (and hormone) analysis

➢ Single neuron recording

➢ Example: FMRI scans have revealed:

➢ Political disparities in brain areas

➢ Mirror neurons reflecting social cues and

behavior of others and related to empathy

and altruism