The One Defense Against Weaponized Memes
How to strengthen our cultural immune response in the trigger wars
The technologies through which memes are being transmitted change so rapidly that it is impossible to recognize their new forms — their shells — in advance. We must instead build our collective immune system by strengthening our organic coherence — our resistance to the socially destructive memes within them.
This is particularly difficult when the enemies of Team Human are busy escalating memetic warfare with artificial intelligence. Each of their algorithms is designed to engage with us individually, disconnect us from one another, neutralize our defense mechanisms, and program our behavior as if we were computers. Television advertisers may have normalized the idea that consumers can be experimented on like lab rats, but social media weaponizes these techniques.
At least television happened in public. The enormity of the audience was the source of its power, but also its regulating force. TV stations censored ads they found offensive for fear of losing viewers. In contrast, social media messages may cost pennies or nothing at all, are seen only by the individuals who have been targeted, and are placed by bots with no qualms about their origins or content.
