well in this day and age information
emerges from every direction and is
freely distributed a variety of
information gathered by servers
employing the latest in high-speed
communication networks and p2p
technology is rapidly circulated to
individuals in fact the speed of this
circulation process is accelerating on
almost daily basis ask yourself the
following question what is the biggest
problem facing the world today and what
must be done to solve that problem it's
a question we have all asked ourselves
at some point in our lifetimes depending
on your personal affiliations that
problem may be poverty terrorism climate
change access to health care tyrannical
government all our problems we have
considered for the scope and severity
now if you could humor me I would like
to propose a problem that supersedes the
examples I suggested a problem that
affects all of us
a problem that may prevent all other
global issues from being adequately
addressed if not dealt with soon the
problem is memes no not those types of
memes I refer to the term meme in its
most academic sense when richard dawkins
coined the term in his 1976 book The
Selfish Gene before the term was
appropriated by image boards and forums
a meme was defined as any element
associated with human culture a meme
could be an idea a memory or quote that
would be passed from one person or group
to another the concept of memes and
their function came about when the
aforementioned Dawkins tried to explain
the spread of human culture using
evolutionary principles ie natural
selection when applied to nature natural
selection is the process whereby
organisms better adapted to their
environment tend to survive and
replicate their genes through their
offspring when applied to human culture
the weakest most recessive memes would
die off while the strongest and most
dominant would be replicated for example
when the process of natural selection is
applied to memes it can be determined
that the meme of capitalism won over the
meme of communism at the end of the Cold
War now you might be asking how memes
could be the world's biggest
problem when the natural laws that
regulate them are the same that have
evolved our physical existence the
answer lies in the medium through which
we access most of our information today
the internet prior to the invention of
the internet human memories ideas
culture and history went through that
selection process the means of
distributing info weren't as available
to us as they are today
information had to pass through
historians journalists editors and
elders so it could be processed and
judged for its factual intellectual
merit a sturgeons law has any validity
to it that 90% of everything is crap
some form of vetting process would seem
ideal however there's always the
possibility that the gatekeepers of this
information could be corrupt or at least
unfit for the job the socio-political
biases might influence what information
becomes widely perceived as truth and to
an extent that is what happened which is
why the invention of the internet was
originally such a blessing to those who
desired the uncorrupted truth so many
people felt betrayed by how traditional
institutions reported information to us
but now we could report to each other in
the words of the youtuber formerly known
as internet aristocrat we were going to
be the honest people we weren't going to
let other outside factors influence
truth but that is not what happened in
fact truth has become even harder to
discern at least in the era prior to the
internet our society's gatekeepers of
truth had credentials they were scholars
they were at least not as likely to let
their confirmation bias corrupt the
truth so ask yourself what happens when
that power is given to the average human
being with an internet connection but it
may be look like this but in the current
digitized world trivial information is
accumulating every second preserved in
all its triteness
never fading always accessible
about petty issues misinterpretations
slander all this junk data preserved in
an unfiltered state growing at an
alarming rate it will only slow down
social progress reduce the rate of
evolution the reason why memes are such
a problem is because of our ability or
rather inability to access information
determine what is useful and replicate
that information via the Internet
naturally when confronted with somebody
like me who determines the widespread
availability of information to be
problematic our instinct is to assume
fascism but that is not what I'm saying
that's not what I'm advocating my issue
does not lie with our inability to
control content personally I would never
censor any information with the
exception of calls to violence my issue
lies with our inability to create
context create context the digital
society for those human flaws and
selectively rewards development of
convenient half-truths just look at the
strange juxtapositions of morality
around you when the power to determine
what is truth is put into the hands of a
populace as more likely to prefer
feelings over fact to embrace ideology
rather than intellect who is going to
wade through the 90% of crap discern the
10% that is valuable and make sure it is
preserved and unadulterated at all costs
who else could wade through the sea of
garbage you people produce retrieve
valuable truths and even interpret their
meaning for later generations that's
what it means to create context who is
creating that context well you are and I
am with every like/dislike edit delete
tweet share article video podcast and
blog post we are creating our cultures
context if there is any validity
distortions law then there's a good
chance that you have enabled the passage
of lies to suit your predispositions
I've probably done it and you've
probably done it so how are memes the
world's biggest problem with the
invention of the Internet any selection
process that would determine which memes
have the most objective merit
has been erased truths are now
determined by which explanations we
prefer rather than explanations based in
evidence for example I want you to ask
yourself as the American economy
improved under the Obama administration
if you are Democrat you're likely to say
yes if you're a Republican you're likely
to say no if you're a Democrat you'll
point to the shrinking unemployment
number if you're a Republican you might
point to the low labor force
participation rate what is the ultimate
truth and why do we not know it yet well
the answer is at least partially obvious
for the sake of maintaining the
integrity of your party and ideology you
will embrace the arguments that support
your worldview and ignore the dissent
now some of you might be arguing that
the way to counteract this is to have
open discussions and debates well you'd
be correct if only were that easy do in
a minute no you need to get out you're a
[ __ ] white man oh I got agree with
that look at the various dichotomies
plaguing our society today conservative
versus liberal libertarian versus
authoritarian Keynesian versus Austrian
alt-right versus regressive left Trump
versus Hillary how often do you see calm
rational debates on these grounds
oftentimes I see both sides trying to
defame the character of their opponents
rather than engage each other's
arguments and determine their merits
libbed hard cut servitude feminazi
sexist racist homophobic fascist nazi
nobody is a stranger to comment sections
on the Internet and because of this it's
not that irrational to just forego the
conversation altogether retreat into
groups that share our perspectives and
assume the worst in our opponents the
untested truths spun by different
interests continue to churn and
accumulate in the sandbox of political
correctness and value
systems everyone withdraws into their
own small gated community afraid of a
larger forum they stay inside their
little ponds leaking whatever truth
suits them into the growing cesspool of
society at large
the different Cardinal truth neither
clashed nor mesh no one is invalidated
but nobody is right not even natural
selection can take place here the world
is being engulfed in truth and this is
the way the world ends not with a bang
but a whimper imagine if you could
definitively prove to a religious person
that there was no God how would that
person react what would it be like to
know that something you've spent your
whole life believing was a lie what the
revelation be too much to cope with
emotionally it's Universal struggle that
can be applied to any clashing of ideas
pro-choicers is pro-life austerity
versus stimulus etc and oftentimes the
average individual lacks the skills and
civility to engage these ideas
effectively in fact the average
individual can be so lacking and petty
that they will resort to ad homonyms
straw man's and in some cases violence
to uphold their worldview the average
individual is likely to focus on micro
issues like whether or not Donald Trump
is a racist or the state of Hillary
Clinton's health rather than on macro
issues like the exponential growth of
our debt and how to fix our health care
system and if that average individual
has enough charisma to garner a large
audience they could say anything to
explain away life's struggles and their
listeners will accept it wholeheartedly
and attack any dissenters the age of
digitized communication has given even
more power to the individual too much
power for an immature species so those
of you who follow my channel who are not
gamers you might be asking about the
video I keep switching to featuring the
two Talking Heads in the dialogue box
this is footage from a video game called
Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty which
was released back in late 2001 the
footage you are seeing happens at the
end of the game where an artificial
intelligence laments the future of
humanity - the main protagonist it
laments the spread of convenient
half-truths and other trivia
information and how it will lead to a
confused intellectually stunted populace
the ai's plan to solve this issue was to
create an enormous data processing
system for the internet which could act
as a filter to remove any unnecessary
information
this system objective and free of
ideological bias could allow society to
diagnose and solve issues more
effectively and that plan was called
selection for societal sanity now I have
to ask you one final question if our
society continues down the road it is on
now what is the likelihood that our
future will see its reflection in the
reality of this fifteen-year-old video
game when artificial intelligence is
perfected when we have machines that
have a higher processing power than that
of the human brain would it be all that
unlikely for that AI to control human
behavior on a large scale after all
there are large political and social
organizations filled with people that
need a narratives in order to be at
peace with how the world functions if
people can be that easily controlled is
it so hard to believe that an AI could
covertly do the same thing it's a scary
proposition to unknowingly give up
absolute freedom and submit to an
unnamed computer program all because we
abused our freedom so much that we will
avoid nasty truths in favor of
protecting our fragile emotional
personas but I think there's an even
scarier question that we have to
consider it's this what we deserve
you