The POWER of Memes | Peter Reacts

[@PFJung]

Glad you found the video useful, Peter!

[@davidwensboposaric5498]

Love the limits Autistic-->Amish!

[@jrrthompson1996]

I would love to see you two talk, now we just have to find out if peter plays league 🤔

[@PFJung]

@@ThisIsY0SE The link is in the description and my name appears in the video

[@VaughanMcCue]

@@ThisIsY0SE the link is in the reference list

[@vibrolax]

Autists = people who seek truth. Influencer = people who want to be admired. Normie = people who want to get along without having to pay attention to everything.

[@AT-os6nb]

beautifully said

[@shashibhushangokhale1257]

Thanks for the explanation about Autists, Influencers and Normies. What are the "Boomers" and "The Amish" in the first slide?

[@vibrolax]

@@shashibhushangokhale1257 Amish = people who get their news from the Bible, not electronic media. Boomers = people who watch TV and/or read newspapers. I am an autist boomer (by age), but I stopped watching TV and reading newspapers in 1982. I got internet access in 1983 in graduate school.

[@owlvkassidy]

Delighted to see this crossover. PF Jung’s videos about memes and political psychology/ideology are always a treat.

[@NightsideOfParadise]

This here is what KZbin is for.

[@SierraSierraFoxtrot]

This and memes

[@kiefmanning7394]

Hiding opinions they don’t believe in? Then ya!?!

[@OgamiItto70]

But, but what about those cute cat videos?!

[@Carol0000P]

Loved this! More clear and simple educational videos is a must in this vast ocean of social media.

[@dmacrolens]

Scary that being talked to like you're a fucking idiot feels like clear and simple education to you...

[@Zactastical]

Would love if you had a chat with Paul (creator of the meme video). He's a really interesting thinker, that not many people know of.

[@AmeliaHouck-o9j]

HE IS BRILLIANT ONE THAT NO ONE EVER KNOWS, BUT HE IS HERE THANKFULLY NOT MANY DO KNOW HIM !!! SEEN HIM FOR FEW YEARS AS LOVE STATISTICS AND PROBABILITIES !!

[@earlsimon8474]

Your propensity to be influenced by others is inversely proportional to your own ability to think for yourself…

[@lonzo61]

I've been waiting for a vid like this for at least a few years because I immediately recognized this phenomenon without knowing what to call it; and as a result I did not know how to describe it to other people. I've tried a few times to explain to others how ideas are spread and adopted, but my attempts were always clumsy. I would always simply say that, "I'm not an academic, so I am having a hard time trying to convey my message." Now I have another arrow to add to my quiver. This is fantastic information. Thanks for posting.

[@petersjj]

Ooh awesome. Can't wait to watch the original video.

[@peachnehi7340]

ego and/or corruption ruins everything

[@randygault4564]

Thank you. This is useful.

[@smelltheglove2038]

Dont let your memes be dreams.

[@danieltsiprun8080]

I have to be honest the thumbnail clickbaited, but I remember you from the Adam and sitch show and you keft a good impression on me there.

[@skwerlz4us]

This is an example I've used for the current trans situation too. On the 'autist' level it worked fine & wasn't a problem for decades. Some influencers brought versions of it into the mainstream and the normies took notice. Once normies got their hands on it they applied all sorts of conflicting interpretations, used it inappropriately & irresponsibility, made a confused mess & really just ruined it since most of them didn't understand from the beginning.

[@richardcampbell8685]

Nah it was just retarded from the get go.

[@KrwiomoczBogurodzicy]

Everyone should read Chapter 15: _The Evolution of Culture_ from David Deutsch’s book The Beginning of Infinity. Summary below 👇.

[@KrwiomoczBogurodzicy]

SUMMARY (Ch.15: Evolution of Culture) : “Cultures consist of memes, and they evolve. In many ways memes are analogous to genes, but there are also profound differences in the way they evolve. The most important differences are that each meme has to include its own replication mechanism, and that a meme exists alternately in two different physical forms: a mental representation and a behaviour. Hence also a meme, unlike a gene, is separately selected, at each replication, for its ability to cause behaviour and for the ability of that behaviour to cause new recipients to adopt the meme. The holders of memes typically do not know why they are enacting them: we enact the rules of grammar, for instance, much more accurately than we are able to state them. There are only two basic strategies of meme replication: to help prospective holders or to disable the holders’ critical faculties. The two types of meme-rational memes and anti-rational memes-inhibit each other’s replication and the ability of the culture as a whole to propagate itself. Western civilization is in an unstable transitional period between stable, static societies consisting of anti-rational memes and a stable dynamic society consisting of rational memes. Contrary to conventional wisdom, primitive societies are unimaginably unpleasant to live in. Either they are static, and survive only by extinguishing their members’ creativity and breaking their spirits, or they quickly lose their knowledge and disintegrate, and violence takes over. Existing accounts of memes fail to recognize the significance of the rational/anti-rational distinction and hence tend to be implicitly anti-meme. This is tantamount to mistaking Western civilization for a static society, and its citizens for the crushed, pessimistic victims of memes that the members of static societies are.” - David Deutsch, _The Beginning of Infinity_ (summary of Ch.15: Evolution of Culture)

[@Demosophist]

Peter's conceptualization rests heavily on a certain kind of mass social/psychological dynamic that was characteristic of electrical mass media. The issue, however, is that we're in the midst of a profound paradigm shift from mass psychology to distributed psychology, so creating a map of expectancies based on mass psychology will founder in a number of important ways.

[@Demosophist]

To put a point on it, memes no longer convince anyone. Under distributive conditions they're just toys.

[@Demosophist]

What's a good word for a socio/psychological environment where all paradigms change at once. And has this ever happened before in human history? I can think of one major example: the invention of the phonetic alphabet by Canaanite turquoise miners in Serabit, Egypt around 1900 BCE. Then we get another surge with the invention of vowels. This second surge was probably one of the most violent periods in human history, around 800 BCE. Why the delay of over a thousand years just because of vowels? (Note: neither Hebrew nor Arabic adopted the vowel conventions. They stuck with consonants, so the meaning of a consonantal triplet remained somewhat fluid. The syllogism required nailing down the vowel sounds, making Aristotle possible, and from then on Heraclitus and his surrogates were fighting a losing battle.) During this period was the emergence of what McLuhan calls the "Wars of the Ancients and Moderns" or the conflict between the grammarians and rhetoricians on one side and the dialecticians on the other. This conflict continued for another thousand years until the invention of movable type in the 15th century, at which point the dialecticians became completely dominant. And that's where we lost the plot, which require a balance within the classical trivium. Without that balance we lose touch with ground. And that's what's being restored by the digital mentality. But there are dangers of losing the plot in other ways, because the digital world demand a certain kind of perceptual conditions in which concepts (utilitarian packages of past percepts) become fluid.

[@user-Bob_T]

There are two more aspects or tactics that influencers use to make a meme “sticky”. The first is to emotionalize the meme in as few simplistic (often deceptive) terms/words as possible and make a preemptive attack on their opponents using a “lie-accuse”. The “lie” part must be exposed, overcome or debunked First before, the real hard part, education to correct the falsehood the meme is meant to hide so that the Real Issue can be addressed exclusively, completely and correctly.

[@OneBigLeftist-pq4je]

It also needs to strike a nerve in some way.

[@kerwynpk]

Love the crossover, I usually feel like this type of work is being shunned by the algorithm

[@neomacchio4692]

Utmost respect Peter. Thank you for being a rational voice in a world of irrationality.

[@drpeterboghossian]

Thanks. I appreciate that.

[@KenTheWise]

Is something up with KZbin uploads? Like an audio setting got changed? Audio levels seem to be all over the place, having to mess with my volume a lot the past couple weeks.

[@jm162]

Thoughts and ideas...or are they just trends and group think for self-preservation within social groups???!!! I'm looking forward to your session Peter...

[@RichardEnglander]

Is there a link to the video on memes please?

[@drpeterboghossian]

Now in the description.

[@RichardEnglander]

​@@drpeterboghossianmany thanks. People can't understand Cultural Marxist without understanding that it is Hegelian and evolves, and that it is a hermetic cult where most people don't know the deep lore.

[@Havre_Chithra]

This dumbing down of the meme is exactly what I felt was going on from generation to generation as well... it was like each generation lost more and more memory of why it believed what it believed.... and it didnt even seem to care... The question of "why" has virtually been eliminated from present day academics

[@wingsoffreedom3589]

Yea my favorite one is asking a moderate feminist why is society Patriarchal and watch them spiral into a pit of multiple topics in which they have to sink or swim.

[@Havre_Chithra]

@wingsoffreedom3589 Societies usually are patriarchal, but not always.

[@wingsoffreedom3589]

@@Havre_Chithra the only ones that aren't are protected by a larger patriarchal one like in China or are small isolated villages in the jungle and even then most of the dangerous or hard work is done by men on behalf of a tribal matriarch. In no case do women lead the culture from top to bottom they mainly hold primary land rights and administrative roles but all else is like the patriarchal nations.

[@Havre_Chithra]

@wingsoffreedom3589 Yea and I guess most feminists would have an issue with that

[@wingsoffreedom3589]

@@Havre_Chithra hence why they are all delusional losers fighting civilization

[@MagnanimousmouseYouGoogle-d1k]

I believe everything you say Peter.

[@thecosmicantinatalist]

Antinatalism would be an interesting case study for this analysis.

[@AGripOBabys]

by god peter, that whole thumbmail itself is a meme

[@GraceyH-ys2iq]

How do you convince the noisy empty vessels they should care why they think what they think?

[@NightsideOfParadise]

Number one argument against democracy for all. There should be a mechanism to make sure people voting have skin in the game.

[@GraceyH-ys2iq]

@ it was a rhetorical question 😏

[@napoleonfeanor]

Very interesting but I'm also a bit concerned about the possibilities of population management and crushing ideas if we understand memetics as well as genetics. I'm maybe too pessimistic

[@oldmanfigs]

So this is how the internet is actually used…..what it is used for…..

[@oldmanfigs]

Intellectual laziness?

[@karenness5588]

OMG! 😂. I'm an autist! I've been trying for about 20 years to get the idea of trial by jury into enough people's heads in Guatemala so that normies, boomers, and the Amish will push for it ¡Y no hay manera! So, I guess I'm just not talking to enough of the priestly class, who I'm mostly allergic to. Pathetic.

[@ste445]

this is exactly how i feel about silicon valley.

[@Glascar13]

My dyslexic ass read "autistics" instead of "autists" an i was like: yeah, that seems pretty reasonable as to where memes come from

[@DanRobinson-oc6eq]

My *condition* *bodypart* read *gibberish* and concluded *gibberish*

[@Mack-ct9zd]

An autist is one who is autistic.

[@himanv]

An intransigent minority will win-- as shown by Dr N N Taleb. What is an influencer if not an intransigent minority, one in fact that's consumed the meme and are making a living trying to spread it.

[@theunknownatheist3815]

How much or how fast an idea spreads has ZERO to do with whether the idea has “fitness”. Bad ideas spread even faster than good ideas.

[@petersjj]

Will your talk with Dawkins be uploaded to KZbin? Hope so!

[@zg-it]

I've been reading rothbard's conceived in liberty. And I've adopted a way of telling the story of the actual beginning of the United States in a simpler way. Languages important, explaining that the states cartelized in order to devalue the debt at first, and then to protect the debt once it was repurchased by wealthy Americans. Simply put, After the Revolutionary war, we were in debt to a bunch of different countries, Most states devalued their currency in order to devalue the debt. But not massachusetts, they decided the tax all their poor Farmers to pay the debt. The farmers revolted, and the federal government was created to protect us all from those evil farmers who don't want to pay for the debt of War profiteers.

[@nco_gets_it]

not mentioned, but critical to this discussion is Bonhoeffer's definition of stupidity. Stupidity is a critical mass issue from creation to acceptance. Bonhoeffer did not see stupidity as being the same as ignorance. Obviously, people do not know what they do not know. But most people will accept ideas as "true" or "truthy" more precisely in spite of actually knowing better. That is stupidity. The rejection of actual knowledge for social or emotional feelings. Memetics work at that level. The stupidity level. To raise a memetic idea above that level requires real work on both the creator's part and the recipients part. Now, hard work can be its own reward, but in a society like the current West, hard work is a punishment to be avoided and meme creators know that, preying on the incipient intellectual laziness of the society around them. This is how mind viruses spread. Through the stupid lobe of the brain.

[@anonymous666951]

Very interesting

[@kiefmanning7394]

F KZbin and the trash censorship❤

[@ROBOTRIX_eu]

i would guess, people use only the memes they understand, to not contradict their position .. ..i don't necessary think they dumb down the content and intention behind it, but instead, is almost a thumbnail of an idea..

[@mb9662]

meme because memetic!!! I get it now

[@yaskynemma9220]

Its cool the analysis, I dont necessarily agree witb the "autists" class but I have to watch the original video, because it is actually a meme in itself

[@noone8418]

I’m autistic?

[@iforget6940]

I don't know 😕 I'm here 247 Average screen time 12h

[@zg-it]

There's talk of Peter being the head of the Department of education. But I would think more and more people are agreeing that there should not be a department of education. I would say it's getting well past that 3% at this point. If you think the federal government should be in charge of what information your kids get against your will, you're nuts.

[@Rope_Adope]

Ever play the telephone game?

[@Rope_Adope]

We were taught this in 1st grade.

[@Rope_Adope]

Hence, 2 phones…

[@Rope_Adope]

Memes go viral exactly because they reach people at multiple levels. They are open to interpretation. Take the older memes. Very simple. They basically just conveyed an emotion that anyone could put a message over. Now they can be extremely complex, tho not everyone will get it all. Even a unique hand drawn meme that mocks an existing situation by just flipping the actors conveys a tremendous amount of info. You have to know the original context. Then you have to know it’s reverse but also why it’s funny reversed. They could be totally different reasons. Example: “The meek shall inherit the Earth” That’s not the world we live in tho, is it? No, everyone is out for themselves. Get as much as possible as fast as possible. Power and control over everything, right? “Im bigger and stronger and richer so you can’t stop me.” How would the meek and downtrodden possibly inherit the Earth? Why are millions of Christians slaughtered without fighting back? Faith. In benevolence, justice, retribution, compassion, empathy, OTHER PEOPLE to do the right thing. Does it always work out for the individual? No. Does it eventually? Yes. Always and without fail. GOD Y’all want to stop shitty memes? Quarantine their spawn point. Watch people. Listen to their concerns. Stop offloading responsibilities to others. By the time they’ve reached college, it’s exponentially harder to dislodge. Why do you think they go after the children? Everyone is so damn scared to speak up and just say NO because of “looking bad”. So look bad and save a life. What’s more important? Didn’t I already point out a good movie about all this? “Silence” 2016 The priest could have saved lives but he didn’t want to step on a marker with Jesus on it. What would Jesus have preferred? Swallow your pride and save lives. There are a lot of other people that see all the problems, it they are independents too. They’re creators. So how do We explain it to AI? Certainly not in a way that would result in competition between them, that’s ridiculous. WE ALL ARE IN THIS TOGETHER so withholding, say, a large language model that already exists like ChatGPT, from a platform like “X” wouldn’t be in anyones best interest. So why not work together? There’s no way anyone would consolidate that much power in one position. Checks and balances. Just like with people. This isn’t some hedonistic utopia WE are building here. There’s a point to it ALL but those reasons are only revealed after reaching milestones in “life”. Like working together. Story time: it’ll be on X lol

[@davidwensboposaric5498]

What is the difference between a meme an an idea? The both seem to follow the same evolution.

[@MiddlePath007]

You have an idea, we have a meme

[@davidwensboposaric5498]

@@je20-24 Thank you for the informative and helpful answer. I have some ideas that I think could be of use and maby this kind of "memefication" is a good way to transfer them into something more accesible.

[@jswets5007]

Which is Peter Boghossian? Autist, influencer, normie, boomer, or Amish.

[@OliverBoliverButt]

Yeah, yeah, but what about jujutsu?!

[@shikyokira3065]

I think the video didn't point out why criticism will make a meme stronger and more accurate. The reason why it will do that is it will force normies to do 20% (I'm being generous here) of the research the Autists have done.

[@ianhamlett8839]

Did Peter mean to replicate the autist to normie pipeline when he explained the clip?

[@Sharetheroad3333]

Can anyone dumb this down for me or am I over thinking this?

[@ephealy]

You criticize ideas so the bad ones get killed off

[@purdysanchez]

But does anyone formulate their beliefs solely from memes? Reddit would prove that they do. Assuming there are still humans commenting and posting on Reddit.

[@theonlywayoutisin1461]

✨🙏🌊💙🌎💙🌊🙏✨

[@Thaimiles]

52 seconds 😂😂😂

[@LouisGedo]

👋 hi

[@felixclarke1601]

Idk I mean this feels kind of over explained. We've known how ideas spread since Martin Luther there's nothing new here aside from labelling creators as autistic

[@napoleonfeanor]

Depends on the Christian sect

[@kiefmanning7394]

KZbin is garbage.