This doesn't even have an ending, but since I'm just emptying out the drafts folder

Memetic Parasitism

I heard a rather infuriating commercial on the radio today. There's no need for me to recount it directly -- we've all heard the type. The narrator spoke of the joy a woman feels in her husband's proposal, of how long she'll remember its particulars, and then, for no apparent reason, transitioned from this to a discussion of shiny rocks, and where we might think of purchasing them.

I hardly think I need to belabor the point, but there is no natural connection between shiny rocks and promises of monogamy. There was not even any particularly strong empirical connection between the two until about a hundred years ago, when some men who made their fortunes selling shiny rocks decided to program us to believe there was.

What we see here is what I shall call memetic parasitism. We carry certain ideas, certain concepts, certain memes to which we attach high emotional valence. In this case, that meme is romantic love, expressed through monogamy. An external agent contrives to derive some benefit by attaching itself to that meme.

Now, it is important to note when describing a Dark pattern that not everything which resembles this parttern is necessarily dark. Carnation attempts to connect itself in our minds to the Burns and Allen show. Well, on reflection, it seems this is right. Carnation did bring us the Burns and Allen show. It paid the salary of each actor, each writer, each technician, who created the show each week. Carnation deserves our gratitude, and any custom which may result from it. Romantic love existed for many centuries before the shiny-rock-sellers came along, and they have done nothing to enhance it.

Of course, I think most of us have seen this pattern before. This comic makes the point rather well, I think.

So, right now, I know that the shiny-rock-sellers want to exploit me, this outrages me, and I choose to have nothing to do with them. How do we excite people's shock and outrage at the way the religions have tried to exploit them?