By “parasitic memes” I mean memes whose main function is to copy themselves—as opposed to, say, actually provide value to a human in some way (so that the human then passes it on). [...] And I noticed that the papers, blog posts, commenters, etc, who were most full of shit were ~always exactly the ones which answered that question [“what diet/exercise/supplements/lifestyle changes should I make to stay healthier?”]
“x is healthy” is a factual claim. Those papers/blog posts/etc, if true, would “actually provide value to a human in some way,” but are false by your account.
That falseness would also be hard for most to verify, because such claims are supposed to come from a specialized understanding. This gives them low entanglement with other beliefs in the audience’s world model, which is the property you note (in ‘idea 1’) that value claims have.
I point this out to help locate what your heuristic is really approximating[1]. I.e., two components of something like memetic fitness: (1) a reason to care, (2) low entanglement with other beliefs.
Yeah, admittedly health is kind of a borderline case where it’s technically factual but in practice mostly operates as a standard value-claim because of low entanglement and high reason to care.
I basically agree with your claim that the heuristic is approximating (reason to care) + (low entanglement).
I point this out to help locate what your heuristic is really approximating[1]. I.e., two components of something like memetic fitness: (1) a reason to care, (2) low entanglement with other beliefs.
By the term “reason to care” do you mean that the claim is relevant to someone’s interests/goals?
eg, a claim of the form “X is healthy” is probably relevant for someone who highly values not dying
eg, a claim of the form “Guillermo del Toro’s new movie is on Netflix.” is probably not relevant for someone who does not value watching horror films
“x is healthy” is a factual claim. Those papers/blog posts/etc, if true, would “actually provide value to a human in some way,” but are false by your account.
That falseness would also be hard for most to verify, because such claims are supposed to come from a specialized understanding. This gives them low entanglement with other beliefs in the audience’s world model, which is the property you note (in ‘idea 1’) that value claims have.
I point this out to help locate what your heuristic is really approximating[1]. I.e., two components of something like memetic fitness: (1) a reason to care, (2) low entanglement with other beliefs.
and as wording practiceYeah, admittedly health is kind of a borderline case where it’s technically factual but in practice mostly operates as a standard value-claim because of low entanglement and high reason to care.
I basically agree with your claim that the heuristic is approximating (reason to care) + (low entanglement).
By the term “reason to care” do you mean that the claim is relevant to someone’s interests/goals?
eg, a claim of the form “X is healthy” is probably relevant for someone who highly values not dying
eg, a claim of the form “Guillermo del Toro’s new movie is on Netflix.” is probably not relevant for someone who does not value watching horror films