Memetic Security: An Introduction
Introducing “MEMSEC” and the examination of memetic infectiousness vs longevity
Defining Memes
In his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins defined a meme as a “unit of cultural transmission” and proposed that in the same way genes spread through a biological “gene pool”, memes propagate through a cultural “meme pool”, passed from person to person through imitation.
According to Dawkins's theory, memes replicate, mutate, and undergo a form of natural selection. Those that are more successful at being copied and remembered by people are those that survive and become more common in the “meme pool.”
Today, the term “meme” has become more broad, and is used to represent really any thought or idea that can be shared between people.
Defining COGSEC
“Cognitive Security”, usually shortened as “COGSEC”, is the domain of study for assessing and fortifying an individual's vulnerability to outside forces, especially malicious ones, influencing their decision-making or perception.
Your COGSEC is effectively your intellectual immune system—if it is weak you are more easily “infected” by novel memes, if it is strong then you are more resistant.
Defining MEMSEC
I require the existence of a similar concept but which does not appear to exist. So I guess I have to invent it. “Memetic Security”—henceforth referred to as MEMSEC— is the domain of study for assessing and fortifying a memes vulnerability to being mutated or replaced by other memes in an individual or the broader meme pool.
A meme’s MEMSEC is effectively it’s ability to avoid excision from a host—those with weak MEMSEC are removed more easily; strong, less so.
Infectiousness vs MEMSEC
A meme’s infectiousness and its MEMSEC are two different Things. Infectiousness (the slope of it’s adoption) is offense, MEMSEC (the longevity of its infection) is defense.
A meme that is highly infectious may not have great MEMSEC. In fact, infectiousness is usually inversely correlated to MEMSEC.
Let’s consider a few internet memes to demonstrate this. Remember “a third more complex thing”? It took over Twitter for a few weeks then quickly died off. Same with Studio Ghibli images. “Wifejak” has had a bit more staying power, but not by much.
Compare this to “Doge” which is over a decade old now. While it is infrequently used as a meme directly, it’s still recognized by billions and generally respected as a quality meme. Or even better, “Pepe” and “Gigachad” which have seemingly only grown in their usage and respect over the years.
All will likely eventually fall to the same fate as “Lolcats” and “Advice Animals”, but it is hard to argue that they haven’t achieved outlier levels of longevity. Why? I argue it is because they have good MEMSEC.
Can you think of an internet meme where it had both a meteoric rise but then stuck around long term? Better internet historians that I could certainly come up with a few. But the fact that I can’t think of any off the top of my head seems evidence enough to say this is very rare, and that a meme generally must choose whether to optimize for infectiousness or for longevity.
Obviously, internet memes are only a small subset of memes. But you should get the point enough to apply this concept to popular musicians, fashion trends, art styles, philosophical schools of thought, religions, or whatever else.
What makes a meme infectious?
The more a meme exhibits the following, the more infectious it will be:
Simple: basic, uncomplicated structure which makes it easy to transmit. Ex a single sentence or picture.
Shallow: Amplifies or latches on to the momentum of other memes, especially short term or fleeting trends.
Inclusive: Non-judgmental. Seeks to share cognitive space with other memes. Doesn’t challenge the hosts existing beliefs, making it non-threatening and easy to adopt (but also easy to replace).
Parasitic: Take’s the hosts time or energy while providing little in return. Results in it garnering far more attention and energy early on, but eventually being abandoned when its novelty wears off.
Low-Integrity: Willing to sacrifice its own meaning or form to achieve a wider audience.
What makes a meme secure?
In contrast, the more a meme exhibits the following, the more longevity it will have:
Complex: Hard to understand. Require significant time or energy investment prior to infection. This provides more “tendrils” to attach itself to a host, a sunk cost which makes them less likely to abandon it, as well as just the fact of the host simply having less free time to pursue other memes.
Deep: Contains profound, enduring truths which reward continued engagement. Always something novel and interesting to derive from diving deeper, which maintains interest long term.
Exclusionary: Selective and judgmental. Refuses to share cognitive space with other memes. Demands the host reject competitors which could mutate or replace it.
Symbiotic: Cooperates with the host, helping them improve their own fitness in exchange for continued infection.
High-integrity: principled and resistant to change. Has a core set of tenets or structure without which it is no longer itself.
Additional Notes
These categories are unlikely to be complete. But are the best I could come up with after arguing with Gemini for an hour. I will refine them over time and update the article. They should be good enough to get the conversation started.
A meme cannot completely neglect infectiousness in favor of MEMSEC as it must infect you in the first place before it can defend its occupied territory from competitors.
Lindy ideas (long standing cultural practices, religions, etc) have high MEMSEC. Short term trends have low MEMSEC.
Most memes have both poor infectiousness and weak MEMSEC, and thus are extremely fleeting. Most never even escape the mind of the host they were instantiated in. Those that do may only spread as far as an “inside joke” between friends.
Low MEMSEC, high infectiousness memes function somewhat similarly to biological viral infections. A catchy song for example will, like a cold, hit you hard for a few hours or a few days, but then you will be immune to it moving forward. However, the reason is different. In a biological immune system it is because you build up antibodies against it. In your cognitive immune system it is rather that your mind requires constant novelty and value to maintain attention. A meme that has too many properties of the high infectious types simply lose their novelty rather quickly and provide no additional value to maintain their infection long term.
It’s possible for a meme to be simple but deep. Or shallow but complex. For example, a Naval Ravikant tweet is simple in that it is one sentence, but deep in the sense that it can continue to haunt you for years. Inversely, grifters and charlatans often try to make superficial things sound very complex to trick you into thinking they are deeper than they are.
High MEMSEC ideas often start trends while high infectiousness ideas often chase trends. This might be a property worth adding in the future.
High infectiousness memes generally spread between people while the highest MEMSEC memes spread down through generations. Also a potential property to consider adding.
I will reference this concept in the future when I eventually finish my work on Religions and, in particular, why Protestant Christianity is a high infectiousness, low MEMSEC version of Christianity that allowed it to take over Western Civilization quickly but then just as quickly killed itself (balkanizing into hundreds of sub sects, including modern Progressivism), taking Western Civilization with it.
Much more can and should be said on this topic. But this should be a sufficient introduction to get this out there into the meme pool.
Very good! You could model it mathematically in terms of information, attractors, high vs low entropy, etc.
Mmm love me some study of memetic fitness