Re: <nettime> why isn't memetics a thing?

philosophically then, why isn't memetics *the* science?

or is this just a stupid question, and I should shut up and go to sleep?

I read too much sci-fi, including Max Barry's lexicon and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, but why do I not see courses in memetics, how to engineer memes, and more importantly how to engineer anti-memes and vaccinate against existing memes?

I could blather on in some kind of passive-aggressive tone for a while, but hopefully I can go back to sleep.

If this is massively off-topic, and should be ignored, just let me know.

#off topic: no way, it’s the kind of perfect answer / interest in relation to all the recent threads here around

art-science, pseudo-neoluddism, alien contact question, social media critique...

There are many people working on that (I am) but one reason why there is so little perception of it is,

That they call it differently. And also, that it is a very difficult topic to establish a serious debate for,

as most of the questions related to it are based on introspection.

You could use your extra awake-time (sic, maybe that thread was good, didn’t read) for wondering

Why that is so - why people working on that topic are using different terms for it (hint: it’s not just the

JohnnyMnemonic:yeah-but-Dawkins:urgh-aspect) and why they aren’t visible. (Morlock Elloi could

Help by stating why he so automatically comes up with the discipline of memetics as would-be heresy.)

If you’re up for extending the idea of the meme to human memory in context of the „real-time archive“,

you could read the „We have always been post-human" chapter of the thesis of algorithmic artist David

Crawford (1970-2009). It’s available online. https://konst.gu.se/english/ArtMonitor/dissertations/david_crawford

Although written in 2009, it presents some interesting and still valid thoughts in relation to the capacity of the

subject to respond to technology, and the idea that technologies alter subjects (produce subject-effects).

Not sure if it is in this or an earlier book of his, he also had some remarkable comments on the role of the gesture,

Sounding close to a prediction of the hype around animated gifs that was occurring in social media a few years

Ago - a success story of a format as meme in itself.