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Vaniver comments on Open thread, Jan. 19 - Jan. 25, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 19 January 2015 12:04AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 19 January 2015 10:18:30PM *  15 points [-]

I think you're better off looking into theories of memetics; that is, a marketplace doesn't seem to be as good an analogy as an ecology. That makes the somewhat less cheery argument that 'good' doesn't mean 'true' so much as 'effective at spreading,' and in particular memes can win by poisoning their competitors through allelopathy, just like an oak tree.