I’m updating: I concede I was likely talking nonsense regarding suicide memes. Memes are sort of like viruses in that they really want to spread themselves but don’t necessarily require that much in way of resources from the host. Yet deadly viruses exist.
So I think I’d expect deadly memes to spread in “outbreaks” and “epidemics”, like viruses do, but not to hang around a population for generations gradually sapping everybody’s reproductive ability.
I’ll try and dig up Boyd and Richerson. Do you know if they address my particular hypothesis (collapse precursor?) I couldn’t see any mention of it with a quick googling—are such hypotheses so easy to generate that there are dozens of them out there and people only address the leading ones?
So I think I’d expect deadly memes to spread in “outbreaks” and “epidemics”, like viruses do, but not to hang around a population for generations gradually sapping everybody’s reproductive ability.
The memes that gradually sap the reproductive ability.of many are not “deadlly”. They are more like cold viruses, and persistent viral infections.
Boyd and Richerson don’t look at your collapse hypothesis. They argue that the number of kids is so small in many cases that it can’t possibly be adaptive.
I’m updating: I concede I was likely talking nonsense regarding suicide memes. Memes are sort of like viruses in that they really want to spread themselves but don’t necessarily require that much in way of resources from the host. Yet deadly viruses exist.
So I think I’d expect deadly memes to spread in “outbreaks” and “epidemics”, like viruses do, but not to hang around a population for generations gradually sapping everybody’s reproductive ability.
I’ll try and dig up Boyd and Richerson. Do you know if they address my particular hypothesis (collapse precursor?) I couldn’t see any mention of it with a quick googling—are such hypotheses so easy to generate that there are dozens of them out there and people only address the leading ones?
The memes that gradually sap the reproductive ability.of many are not “deadlly”. They are more like cold viruses, and persistent viral infections.
Boyd and Richerson don’t look at your collapse hypothesis. They argue that the number of kids is so small in many cases that it can’t possibly be adaptive.