Memes, Trends & Cultural Evolution

WHAT EXPLAINS CULTURAL EVOLUTION? AN INTRO TO MEMETICS, TIPPING POINT THEORY, AND SPIRALS OF SILENCE & OUTRAGE

This meetup will look at various proto-scientific theories about cultural evolution - i.e. how words, symbols, fashions, beliefs and practices in human societies change & spread over time.

In the first section, we'll look at "memetics" as a conceptual paradigm for understanding cultural evolution. We'll review the major points from the debate in the skeptic community over whether a "meme" can be precisely defined and whether or not "memetics" is a valid conceptual framework. Daniel Dennett & Susan Blackmore have been the most high profile academics in the skeptic community to champion memetics, while Steven Pinker and Massimo Pilgiucci have been the most high profile critics.

Aside from the debate over memetics, we'll also look at some related concepts in the study of how ideas spread, such as Malcolm Gladwell's "law of the few" from his book The Tipping Point (and its ample number of critics), Nicholas Nassim Taleb's "minority rule", Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann's "spiral of silence" theory, and Jonah Berger & Katherine Milkman's recent research on what makes internet memes go "viral", particularly when they cause outrage.

To cut down on the amount of reading required for this discussion, I've linked several videos that summarize the 4 areas of research that we'll use as the basis of our discussion. In total, they come to around 35 minutes - please try to watch them before our discussion.

After each video, I've include a summary of its major points, as well as some notes that I've gleaned from articles on these subject. I don't expect you to read the articles in the bibliography I've created, but if you want to it's listed in our Discussion tab -
https://www.meetup.com/Philly-Skeptics/messages/boards/thread/50559401

I. THE SKEPTIC COMMUNITY'S SPLIT ON MEMETICS:

1. Daniel Dennett, “Memes 101: How Cultural Evolution Works” (video - 7:04 min.)
   https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5fG-3f4f0hA

"Meme" is a term introduced by Richard Dawkins in the last chapter of his 1976 bestseller, The Selfish Gene. Dawkins was trying to establish the idea that Darwinian evolution is a universal, logically necessary phenomenon, if certain conditions are satisfied, i.e. variation, selection & replication. Dawkins, however, couldn’t point to exo-biological examples to reinforce the idea of Universal Darwinism, so he then turned to cultural evolution and referred to the unit of selection as “memes” as a direct analogy with genes, the unit of selection in biological evolution. By the 1990s, several academics decided to use an evolutionary framework to understand cultural evolution, and the field of "memetics" took off - thanks in large part to Daniel Dennett & Susan Blackmore.

Although memes were coined as analogous to genes, Daniel Dennett uses the metaphor of memes as "cultural viruses" which reproduce asexually & can have a parasitic, commensalist or mutualist relationship with their host. Dennett says that many memes are like symbionts in that they benefit humans even as they spread, but that other memes that motivate suicide bombings or celibacy are akin to parasites that kill or sterilize their hosts. He likens the "cultural imperialism" that spreads Western pop culture & social norms to the developing world is akin to the unintentional germ-driven genocides the European colonists created in the Age of Exploration, and that many people in the developing world may be harmed because they don't have cultural immune systems that can keep the more deleterious Western memes in check.

Massimo Pigliucci raises 3 major objections to memes and memetics as a viable concept and field of inquiry:
(1) To begin with, how is this different from classical studies of gene-culture co-evolution, for instance those famously carried out in mathematically rigorous papers (as opposed to based on loose analogies) published by Cavali-Sforza at Stanford in the 1970s and 80s?
(2) Second, what, exactly are memes, i.e. what is their ontological status?
(3) Third, how do memes compete with each other, and for what resources? Is it even possible to build a functional ecology of memes, without which the statement that the most fit memes are those that spread becomes an empty tautology?

Steven Pinker raises another 4 objections:
(1) Despite the fact that the concept of "memes" was invented about forty years ago (in 1976), memetics hasn't taken off as a field, suggesting something is probably wrong with the core concept.
(2) Mutations in evolution have to be "blind" (i.e. designed without a designer); whereas cultural evolution has intelligent design, and so it doesn't need evolutionary theory to explain it.
(3) Memetics can't explain the human creativity that leads to the creation of new memes. If cultural evolution depends on Lamarck's 1st principle of evolution (i.e. directed change based on "felt need"), then it explains too much - i.e. it begs the question of where the "felt need" comes from.
(4) If memes are more like viruses than genes, that might answer some critics' objections, but this presents the problem that memes lack adaptations to defeat the human mind's "immune system" - and so would be rejected.

Dennett & Blackmore accept that these & other objections Pigliucci & Steven Pinker are partly valid but argue this is merely because memetics is still a proto-science. Dennett argues human cultural evolution is too rapid to be explained merely by the more orthodox gene-culture co-evolution (a.k.a. "dual inheritance") theory, because while "genes hold culture on a leash... this leash is indefinitely long, in the sense that the [genetic] constraints can be so co-opted, exploited, and obtunded in a recursive cascade of cultural products and meta-products [so] that it is not clear that there are any points in imaginable cultural design space that could not, in principle, be occupied."

In terms of the ontological status of memes, Dennett & Blackmore claim they are "ideas" and exist somewhat independently of their medium. The same applies to genes - they are information not necessarily always stored on DNA. Genetic code can exist in written form or on a computer disk, although in those storage states they're non-operable.

The ecology of memes have historically been human brains, as memes have depended on human memory & human communication for most of their existence, although the invention of writing gave memes another medium to populate. Since we don't yet fully understand how information is stored in the brain, historical studies of cultural evolution have to analyze a variety of proxies such as the various "emic units" that linguistics deals with - e.g. phonemes (speech sounds) and graphemes (written symbols). The closest analogy to a meme in semantics is a "sememe", a proposed unit of transmitted or intended meaning that is elementary & indivisible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emic_unit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sememe

With the advent of computers, memes have begun to occupy memory space on computer hard drives and compete for processing power. Daniel Dennett sees the internet as an ideal way for scientists to study the spread & evolution of memes in a more precise & quantitative manner, calling the internet the "Drosophila [i.e. fruit fly] of memetics". He suspects that a science of memetics was too difficult prior to the invention of internet, which is why it didn't take off prior to the 2000s.

Dennett argues that memetic theory doesn't posit that all cultural change is blind, in fact there's a lot of purposeful "memetic engineering" conducted by humans, but he argues that some cultural change is almost certainly "blind" in the sense of contingent & accidental. He also doesn't think that memetic theory is a substitute for an overarching theory of human consciousness as it originates in the human brain, so he doesn't expect it to furnish an explanation for where our psychological needs & desires originate.

II. THE TIPPING POINT'S "LAW OF THE FEW" DEBUNKED:

2a) Rupert Ray, Overview of "The Tipping Point" (Video, 2:12 minutes)
https://vimeo.com/108900294

The above video gives a quick summary of Malcolm Gladwell's 2000 bestseller, The Tipping Point, in particular his "three laws of epidemics":

• The Law of the Few - i.e. the success of any social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of a few people with a particular and rare set of social skills (mavens, connectors, salesmen).

• The Stickiness Factor - i.e. the aspects of a message that render it not only contagious but also memorable.

• The Power of Context - i.e. epidemics are sensitive to the conditions of the time & place in which they occur.

2b) Duncan Watts, "Watts Anti-Tipping Point Debate" (video - 4:58 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtnR5H6AVVU

Gladwell's "law of the few" had marketing researchers scouring around for "Influentials" for the next few years, but in the late 2000s, Duncan Watts -- a network-theory scientist -- conducted a series of experiments that suggested that the "law of the few" is wrong. Social epidemics don't tend to show "Influentials" as highly-connected social hubs, and the spread of ideas & fashions appears to be far more dependent on large, diffuse networks of regular people. Watts' research suggests that a trend's success depends not on how persuasive the early adopter is, but on how susceptible the society is overall to the trend - i.e. Gladwell's "power of context" is far more important.

Martin Farncombe, a corporate logistician & editor of the "Practical Memetics" online journal, agrees that the "law of the few" is overrated but thinks that the "stickiness" factor is often more important than the "power of context" (or at least the initial conditions) in determining the eventual popularity of an idea. He points out that social contagion can be quantified as a "infection rate" and that the "stickiness factor" is essentially the product of a second important quantity -- the "defection rate". The spread of a belief is determined by 4 variables:

• The number of times someone expresses an idea (0 to ∞)
• The number of potential new hosts reached per expression (0 to ∞)
• The probability of the message being noticed & accepted by each recipient (0-100%)
• The probability of the accepted message being retained by each recipient (0-100%).

When you multiply these variables, you find that if you want to spread a belief, infection rate (the 3rd variable) matters more than defection rate (the 4th variable); therefore, the trick is to make a message virulent rather than long-lived. This bears out our everyday experience – catchy songs and interesting lies go round a population much more readily than difficult but important concepts that are more likely to be retained due to their long-term utility.

Farncombe points out that since we live in a sea of conflicting messages and people change their minds in the face of media bombardment, defection rates cause beliefs to hit a plateau & stabilize over time as they reach a saturation point within a population. Because of the mathematics underlying the Markov Chain Equilibrium, provided the infection rate is stable, the end state depends entirely on the defection rate -- or "stickiness" as Gladwell called it -- and not at all on the initial state. A low initial state may mean it takes longer to get to the saturation point, but the percentage of believers at the end is the same. Farncombe uses data on US public opinion in the early years of the Iraq War (2003-2004) to suggest that the reason George W. Bush got reelected in 2004 was that most Americans still believed Saddam Hussein had WMDs and the invasion of Iraq was justified. He argues that this must be due to a combination of the Bush administration's moral authority and a low defection rate from the belief that Saddam had WMDs.

• Note: For more fascinating articles on tipping points, including the downfall of McCarthyism, Richard Nixon's impeachment, urban accommodations for cyclists, and the public acceptance of same-sex marriage, see the bibliography.

III. THE VOCAL MINORITY, THE SILENT MAJORITY & THE SPIRAL OF SILENCE:

3a) Nicholas Price, Overview of "The Spiral of Silence" (Video, 2:25 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Bwq67vrMY

The above video is cheesy & low budget, but it was the best short illustration of the major points of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann's "spiral of silence" theory. It posits the most people have a fear of social isolation, which results from the idea that a social group or the society in general might isolate, neglect, or exclude members due to the members' opinions. This fear of isolation consequently creates a "social desirability bias" - i.e. a tendency to voice opinions & act in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others and to remain silent instead of voicing unpopular opinions. As more people are intimidated into silence on an issue, the remaining people who hold the unpopular opinion experience even more social pressure to also become silent, which creates a downward spiral in terms of the number of people willing to openly embrace a stigmatized opinion.

The "spiral of silence" theory is related to "cultivation theory" which posits that mass media (news & pop culture) and social media are important factors that structure both the dominant social norms and people's perception of the dominant social norms. (This is what the video calls people's "quasi-statistical sense".) A person's assessment of their social environment may not always correlate with reality, because the norms of a highly vocal minority are more publicized and thus may appear more prevalent than those of the silent majority.

Researchers have found that despite the level of personalization afforded by of internet forums, social networking sites & blogs, the "spiral of silence" is still operational online. Pew Research conducted a study of online discussion of Edward Snowden's leaks about the NSA spying programs in 2014, and they found that people were less willing to discuss the Snowden-NSA story on social media than in person. 86% of Americans were willing to have an in-person conversation about the surveillance program, but just 42% of Facebook & Twitter users were willing to post about it on those platforms. They found that social media did not provide an alternative discussion platform for those unwilling to discuss the Snowden-NSA story in person. Of the 14% of Americans unwilling to discuss the story in person with others, only 0.3% were willing to post about it on social media. In both offline and online settings, people said they were more willing to share their views if they thought their audience agreed with them.

3b) ZeroFoxGiven, "Understanding the Intolerant Minority" (video - 10:39 min, start at 1:48 & listen til 8:50)
https://youtu.be/pJ7KFBoDMPU?t=110

As the above video explains, Nicholas Nassim Taleb has a theory that ties in with the "spiral of silence" which he calls the "minority rule". But whereas Noelle-Neumann's theory depended mostly on social desirability bias, Taleb's theory depends more on the "concentrated benefits" a minority can reap from forcing the broader society to accommodate their preferences and the "diffuse costs" of accommodating a minority that is both intransigent & highly vocal. Taleb predicts that countries with minorities that require special dietary accommodations (e.g. kosher, halal, or organic/non-GMO) only need around 5% to adopt these diets before the entire food industry will switch to their preference to eliminate the costs involved in separating food types, provided there isn't a significant portion of the population that adamantly objects to eating this type of diet. Taleb ties the minority rule into Karl Popper's "paradox of tolerance" and asserts that liberal democracies must be intolerant of intolerance even though it sounds paradoxical because otherwise they will be overwhelmed by the social norms of intolerant minority groups.

IV. WHAT MAKES FAKE NEWS & OUTRAGEOUS INTERNET MEMES GO VIRAL:

4a) Hank Green, "Why Do So Many People Share and Believe Fake News?" (video - 6:21 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYT8lWfKcCA

Hank Green cites studies that indicate that false information is often believed due to a confirmation bias & motivated reasoning, as well as the "illusory truth effect" that primes us to believe stories we're continually exposed to it. He also mentions a study published in Nature in March of 2018 that looked at how fake news spreads on social media with a massive longitudinal data set following Twitter stories from 2007 to 2016. It included 125K stories shared by about 3M users, and found that fake news spreads faster & farther than the truth, especially in the case of political news. It found that fake news is primarily being shared by real people, not bots. The authors think fake news may attract more attention because it's more novel & emotionally arousing than real news.

4a) CGP Grey, "This Video Will Make You Angry" (video - 6:14 minutes)
http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/this-video-will-make-you-angry

CGP Grey gives a short summary of some of Jonah Berger & Katherine Milkman's research into what makes online content go viral, particularly their work on content that provokes outrage. In general, Berger & Milkman have found that "emotional arousal" - both anger & humor - plays a big role in motivating people to share content. Curiosity also plays a role, which is exploited by clickbait titles that create an "information gap" by saying things like "You Won't Believe What Happens Next..." Clickbait's leading titles also create an anticipation of pleasure, which can even work in cases of offensive content where there's a sort of perverse pleasure in "hate-watching" it. Another aspect that help online content go viral is "insider signaling", i.e. showing that the person sharing the content has a connection to an exclusive group that's socially desirable. Content that's not emotionally arousing can still benefit from being practical & memorable, which helps explain the popularity of "listicles" - i.e. a succinct list with bullet points creates more "cognitive ease" than a dense article.

CGP Grey's video explores the case of outrageous content where anger & insider signaling interact to create a "perfect storm". Grey notes that the even though the people on opposite sides of an online debate think of themselves as opponents, from a memetic perspective they are best seen as symbionts who are using anger to help spread a message with two sides. The rationalist blogger Scott Alexander had a popular essay that speculated on this dynamic entitled, "The Toxoplasma of Rage." Scott hypothesizes that the strongest form of signaling is believing & promoting your side's weakest case or most extreme argument, since it shows you're a "true believer". [An alternate explanation is that fake stories can be more emotionally provocative because they're not constrained by the facts.] When people make weak or extreme arguments online, they're more likely to get push back which leads to a flame war. Scott notes that controversial content on social media tends to rack up page views, and speculates that this is because it splits people in half according to identity politics. Those who agree with a controversial article or video can re-post it to signal their allegiance to their "team", while those who disagree sometimes not only denounce it but also re-post it so their "team" can go and hate-read or hate-watch it. As people comment on controversial posts in their newsfeed, debates break out in the comments and the algorithms sense so much user engagement that it can even become a trending topic.