Social systems: data decay, contrast based defragmentation, debugging CBT
I read many books, but some are more mind opening than others. Re-reading Snow Crash(by Neal Stephenson) at the moment, the base setting seems to be a future society where overall social consciousness has been removed but localised/franchised ideals crystallise. This book seems ideal for english high school study as it provides both entertainment and numerous introspective themes for analysis that those teachers seem to love. From what I remember it might be a little high reading level for most students though.
Anyway, it got me thinking, which is sometimes good:
Flotsam and jetsam of the social consciousness. Degraded and fragmented data systems
Unfinished ideas, side tracked beliefs, social and political reforms based on fallacies and agendas. When positive associations with these meme sets grow too few for the social conscious to relate to... they are relegated to the background, devalued... but sometimes they remain potent within individuals or fringe groups of society. There remains the potential for these meme sets to become malignant or even actively malevolent.
In snow crash Neal Stephenson likens memes as the operating system of society.
(Side tracked a bit, reading about discordianism, it's like a bunch of benevolent, genius stoners created a religion just to mess with people)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordianism
http://discordia.wikia.com/wiki/Discordipedia
I see discordian activity as something which can fidget with the edges of the social system without opposing it or actively destroying it. These types of activities allow an improved contrast based analysis of the system(society) and allowing for clearer social defragmentation. Clearing the system of junk that builds up over time benevolently allows individuals and society to repurpose themselves/reconsider their established values. This is seen as threatening to people who rely on such systems for physical/social/economic survival. However, change does not have to be malicious. Change can be quirky and mischievous, eye-opening and inspirational, analytical and calming.
So if old ideals are re-evaluated and defragged, who is writing and developing the new programs filling up the social system. Popular culture, advertising, movies, tv shows, books, games, forums and bulletin boards all act as recursive programs, not only spreading and writing data to the system but also influencing the next generation with deep seated legacy code and fixed data structures.
Saw my psych today(if you read this and are curious: attention/anxiety/confidence/depression problems etc some markedly improved but some ongoing) and he referred me again to CBT, cognitive behavioural therapy. Which in this frame of reference I can liken to a social debugging/reprogramming tool that allows faulty recursive subroutines to alter their input/analysis/output structures without stripping and rewriting entire blocks. (Changing a persons consciousness/expectations/reactions without drugs, medication or blunt force trauma to the brain.) (NLP is to CBT what hacking code is to programming? kinda? maybe?)
How difficult would it be to make a metaphorical app or patch to effectively apply CBT to an individual and have significant short term outcome.
(Hey, how freaky would it be to create a literal app or patch to apply CBT etc? Excellent beneficial potential combined with extraordinarily scary potential if used to inject malware. Maybe that's what advertising is; social patching... or transmission vectors for viruses and trojans)
Back to the book, there are a lot of references to memes as a kind of social virus. Some more malevolent/benevolent than others but almost always from a self interested individual source.
In reverse it makes me wonder why there is so much malware but I had never heard of ben(evolent)ware until 5 minutes ago. How many programs go around entering peoples computers before fixing their security holes and optimising their graphics cards?
Interesting link on malware/benware with a bit of logic and discreet maths being used to define certain terms:
A General Deļ¬nition of Malware by Simon Kramer
http://www1.spms.ntu.edu.sg/~ccrg/documents/NTU_4on1.pdf
Wow, looking at the logic used and applying it to social systems... everything is social malware unless it is non-damaging or only damages social malware.
Discordian ideals have the potential to damage social malware.
Similar to the australian tv show, the checkout which scrutinises advertiser/consumer practices with an entertaining slant.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/thecheckout/
I've got no idea where I'm going with this. At least it kept me entertained for a few hours. Posted for the hell of it.
