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# STOP SAYING MEME EVERYONE
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 2:25, archived)
# "stop saying meme" is now a meme
(I helped save b3ta! Shada, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 2:25, archived)
# ANNOUNCING MEMES IS NOW A MEME, AS ARE £5 COINS.
(I helped save b3ta! We are the lemon irked your craw on, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 2:26, archived)
# recognizing the announcement of a meme as a meme is now a meme
(I helped save b3ta! PedroHin Come along & ride on a Flantastic Voyage, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 2:29, archived)
# You didn't mention the £5 coins
maybe they're not a meme.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 2:32, archived)
# I sometimes get confused by the definition of "meme".
From what I've read it's supposed to be a unit of measurement but I've never heard something described as "2.5 memes".

EVERYONE STOP SAYING IT PLEASE
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 2:40, archived)
# IT
(polished turd 404 pixels wide, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 2:42, archived)
# The word unit appears 128 times in The Selfish Gene, but the word measurement zero times.
There are lots of occurrences of "genetic unit", "sub-unit", "basic unit", "working unit", and so on. I think it's mostly used to identify things that don't consist of smaller parts that compete among themselves. (Or, maybe they could do, but are unlikely to, because variations make the thing break. Or something. I'm just making this up.)
Meme: "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation."

Nobody's sure where a gene starts and ends, anyway, it's arbitrary.

　　　"So far I have talked of memes as though
it was obvious what a single unit-meme consisted of. But of course it is
far from obvious. I have said a tune is one meme, but what about a
symphony: how many memes is that? Is each movement one meme, each
recognizable phrase of melody, each bar, each chord, or what?
I appeal to the same verbal trick as I used in Chapter 3. There I divided
the 'gene complex' into large and small genetic units, and units within
units. The 'gene' was defined, not in a rigid all-or-none way, but as a unit
of convenience, a length of chromosome with just sufficient copying fidelity
to serve as a viable unit of natural selection."
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 2:59, archived)
# The part I have trouble getting my head around is that by this definition a cd or a movie or even a dance could be called a meme
none of these things are described as such, yet "SO I HERD YOU LIEK MUDKIPS" is.
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:18, archived)
# And your small-text has appeared now
I can see where he's coming from but I'd rather the word 'gene' get quantified instead of applying the same ambiguities to a new word.
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:27, archived)
# Not likely, most of his argument(s) falls to shit if you do.
He's a pseudo scientific fraud. Not to say his critics are any better.
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:32, archived)
# Genes have a semi-existence, depending on the extent of their success in an unmodified state.
Identifying their limits means predicting what form they will survive in, which is a thing best established by waiting (forever) to find out. Besides, they'll mostly only be stable for a while, and then be superseded. So it's a necessary word for a thing that definitely exists as a (semi-)coherent entity but can't be precisely delineated.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:34, archived)
# Semi-existence? FUCK ME!
*urge to kill grows*

It's(genes) a convention for discussion and
has no basis in reality, FFS. Semi my ass.
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:39, archived)
# These are my annoying words, BTW, not Dawkins'.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:42, archived)
# ARRRRGH!! He's got your mind bent.
PLSFIXKTHX! Sorry, but that is silly talk.

Hit the biochemistry books. You'll hurt
yourself thinking like that. Timecubes hoooo!
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:46, archived)
# I do actually regret saying "semi-existence"
it's not very objective of me.
Some things are briefly stable - windspeeds, orbits - and it's a subjective judgment whether or not a particular one is stable enough to be declared to exist. I suppose the thing to do with a gene or a meme is to declare some arbitrary context, the same way that you might say windspeed as measured over the course of a minute, which would be different from the speed measured over an hour. Either could be used when talking about the speed "now". Stable states definitely exist in an objective way, but they exist as part of a continuum. The pockets of stability aren't just in our imaginations, but the limits of the pockets are. Come to think of it, most things are like this a bit. Objects, for instance. We just have a lot of very customary conventions for assuming where edges go.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:51, archived)
# Noted.
Don't take my over the top reactions as more than that.
Sloppy language of that sort can get me ranting for hours. [/;-D

on edit: Much better and more useful. That's more like tool making, not assigning the screwdriver as hammer and nail.
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:54, archived)
# That's alright.
I apologise for doing all my writing in the form of edits, it's a compulsion.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 4:00, archived)
# As is mine to jump at false premisses.
My apologies if I upset you in any way.
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 4:24, archived)
# genes are just strings of amino acids
at what length of string a noticeable characteristic occurs should be pretty measurable, even if some are much longer than others.

As long as you've got a point of reference (for example, how the celsius scale has 0 degrees as the freezing point of water) then I can't see why it would be difficult.

I was working in a forensic lab when the human genome got released and sat around with my boss (who located the gene that causes alzheimers when he was younger) and we got pissed and read out pages to each other "G, C, T, G, G, A, G" etc. Yes, we're funny funny guys. Anyway, surely some number of amino acids could be used as a standard form of measurement?
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:46, archived)
# If you wish to weigh potatoes perhaps.
You used that "gene that causes alzheimers" bit just to
watch my head explode didn't you? ARGH FUCK KILL!!!!!
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:51, archived)
# FINE
"Locus that highlights a predisposition to alzheimer's disease"

What the fuck would I know anyway? I was the admin manager and I was only a year or two out of high school.
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 4:00, archived)
# Exactly why you were told it the first way. (a guess, but from long experience)
Won't beat up on your second revision, even though it is still in error.

I AM NOT A CUNT, REALLY, THEY ARE MAKING ME THIS WAY!!!


(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 4:05, archived)
# I think it's a part of that whole "remaining conversational" thing.
You know, like not saying meme.
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 4:15, archived)
# I have not used it this eve... yet.
I might not, as I also find it a rather meaningless term.

edit: SHIT DUDE, I did, but from a lyric that goes "Me me..."
www.b3ta.com/board/9193353
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 4:16, archived)
# Fair point.
Our internet text memes and image memes and link memes are trivial little things that breed rampantly. They're a new type of joke. We spread them semi-deliberately, as well. Spreading them is part of the fun. The ones that it seems like the greatest exploit to spread will be very successful, although that's tempered by part the challenge being to popularise things that really ought to be unpopular, e.g. Rick Astley.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:29, archived)
# He says it quite a lot
in the Blind Watchmaker as well.
I heartily agree with this neologism and condone its use in and out of context.
(I helped save b3ta! Fitznicely into a thimble, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:18, archived)
# He says it quite a lot
 
IS NOW A MEME
(I helped save b3ta! Rapitinui get in the cage and I'll give you a treat, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:28, archived)
# Quote : "...sufficient copying fidelity to serve as a viable unit of natural selection."
Translation: "I am talking out my ass."

Unit of natural selection, my fuck that boy is such shit.
(I helped save b3ta! Tahkcalb ω∞ for sigs, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:36, archived)
# MEM = WATER = DEATH
 

 
(I helped save b3ta! Rapitinui get in the cage and I'll give you a treat, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:42, archived)
# DON'T GO SWIMEM AT 3AM
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:49, archived)
# IT WAS ALREADY A MEME
NOW YOU JUST LOOK LIKE A CLUELESS JERK
(I helped save b3ta! hanke murphy, I'm a mess, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 3:32, archived)
# this is making me want to say it more
or is your plan some evil reverse psychology.

STOP TOYING WITH MY MINDSES
(I helped save b3ta! arrangedletters, Tue 17 Feb 2009, 2:26, archived)