Use Memetic Condoms – Protect Your Brain!!!

Malaria is a disease that affects hundreds of millions of people every year. Despite a clear need, no vaccine offering a high level of protection currently exists. Mosquito nets create a protective barrier against malaria-carrying mosquitoes that bite at night. It is obvious why the effort is made to prevent potential victims from being infected with the disease.  At the same time, scientists work tirelessly to find a vaccine and to eradicate the disease.

Similarly, there is still no vaccine for HIV/AIDS.   Much like mosquito nets for malaria prevention, the use of condoms has been widely recognized as a key to HIV/AIDS prevention until a cure or vaccine can be found.

Great strides are being made in learning about the human brain and how it functions.  Still, we are unable to classify the cognitive disruption of rational processes which I experienced while in the religious cult I was part of.  We are unable to accurately diagnose what I refer to as a memetic infection.

I know for certain my cognitive processes were manipulated.  I sold flowers and candy on the streets for five years, devoting myself completely to the cause of sending money to Sun Myung Moon.  I did this because I had been infected by a memeplex from which I could not escape.  Much like the fluke Daniel Dennett describes in the TED talk below, causing an ant to climb a blade of grass to its death, I would have done anything I was told to do.

There are no serious downsides to mosquito nets or condoms.  There are costs involved with education but many lives have been saved because of those efforts.

Why can’t we build memetic condoms, protection against cognitive manipulation?

This is a project I will be working on.  It is a collaboration between science of the mind, marketing, education and memetics.  I look forward to sharing this undertaking with a growing number of thinkers and doers.  Together we can protect the minds of those most vulnerable to coercion of all types.

Daniel Dennett on Dangerous Memes