{"id":4006,"date":"2017-01-23T22:47:03","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T02:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/?p=4006"},"modified":"2017-03-09T18:45:39","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T22:45:39","slug":"memetic-zoo-collaborative-space-woke-creatures-share-slang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/2017\/01\/23\/memetic-zoo-collaborative-space-woke-creatures-share-slang\/","title":{"rendered":"The Memetic Zoo – Collaborative space where woke creatures share slang"},"content":{"rendered":"

January is gray<\/span>, and this now\u00a0is the Ur<\/em>-Jan, but today for a change was bright. \u00a0Thanks to the snain<\/em>,\u00a0red letterin<\/span>g, h’rissa<\/span>\u00a0and light.<\/p>\n

And to you, dear Reader, for\u00a0truth, presence, and ideas catalysed\u00a0in telling \u2013 rarities that should be commonplaces. And for this box of potential thoughts about thoughts\u00a0I will think Thursday.<\/p>\n

I still have\u00a0so many things to ask: what you know of supersimultaneity<\/strong>, quantified serendipity, if you feel a cool thrill\u00a0in the small of your back when a crux or potentiality approaches, foreshadowing and afterimages. Sometimes I wake with the certainty I must pursue\u00a0such things with all who might answer, before my pulse\u00a0cools\u00a0and I file it away as\u00a0dream residue for review. Next time<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Today drew out instead\u00a0improvements in preservation and propagation: idiogenics, cryogenic\u00a0Seed Vaults<\/a> and Culture Vaults, a vicariant<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>Greenland<\/a>. Advances in meme propagation as a critical piece of biological\u00a0development, including\u00a0RNA and human\u00a0speech, but countless other innovations besides. Revisited a recurring dream of\u00a0a\u00a0summer camp (memezoo<\/em>!) for animals who have learned to communicate with humans, to demonstrate relevant universalities. \u00a0These prodigies\u00a0& their humans could\u00a0spend time\u00a0with the most precocious of their own species, sharing their newfound memetics<\/strong>, solving puzzles together, creating cross-species pidgins and developing contextual slang, to see what emerges \/\/ a place where Batyr<\/a> and Kosik<\/a> could have met, and Kanzi<\/a> could build language bridges\u00a0with\u00a0more than just his step-sister.<\/p>\n

And what is\u00a0Earth herself but\u00a0a planet\u00a0methodically coated by a memetic zoo? \u00a0Once we have a more balanced sense of non-human memetics, we may be able to see our own more clearly, in both historical and current context.<\/p>\n

\n

\"techsolid\"<\/a>Then\u00a0Tech S\u00f8lidarity<\/span>\u00a0met in a\u00a0converted warehouse, 150 people totally\u00a0focused\u00a0on the moment, technologists listening and thinking for over an hour. At most a handful of computers out, checking data or taking notes for the room. But the same narrow cross-section as before,\u00a080% men, 90% white.<\/p>\n

We agended\u00a0aligning national efforts\u00a0towards: visualizing data for local politics, streamlining calls to city pols; visualizing gerrymandering & voter disempowerment; securing voting machines;\u00a0coordinating and sustaining responses to alt-facts<\/code>\u00a0(like the Guardian’s dangerously wrong\u00a0WhatsApp<\/a>\u00a0bashing<\/a>); listing\u00a0things tech design decisions have broken & proposing fixes; devising mottos for technologists\u00a0(Protect the Vulnerable?)<\/small>; building toolkits\u00a0for curators and reviewers to ward off vandals and trolls. \u00a0And\u00a0finally, looking for interfaith<\/strong> groups holding similar gatherings of religious leaders, with which we might cross-pollinate.<\/p>\n

I worked with the group\u00a0gathering voting-machine tech & policy wonks who could provide checklists and advice\u00a0that we could adopt and share with city councils and mayors.\u00a0We glissed\u00a0an arpeggio of steps\u00a0from procurement &\u00a0policy to auditing &\u00a0security,\u00a0which could each be adopted by someone.\u00a0Only pranksters whispered about blockchain<\/span>, but agreed we needed a tacky\u00a0sign to raise whenever the word came up. Next time.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

They\u00a0too agreed not to wait too\u00a0long before the next, and to endeavour|fail|evolve rather than simply passing on the meme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January is gray, and this now\u00a0is the Ur-Jan, but today for a change was bright. \u00a0Thanks to the snain,\u00a0red lettering, h’rissa\u00a0and light. And to you, dear Reader, for\u00a0truth, presence, and ideas catalysed\u00a0in telling \u2013 rarities that should be commonplaces. And for this box of potential thoughts about thoughts\u00a0I will think Thursday. I still have\u00a0so many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[205,78850,214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-glory-glory-glory","category-noetic","category-poetic-justice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVvB-12C","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4006"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4035,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4006\/revisions\/4035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}