In response to (a) the fact that behavior is decentralized makes it very hard to attack “keystone” beliefs—there are too many keystones—and this makes this supermeme very resilient. Another point of resilience is certainly that very few are capable of seeing it. It is similar to Neo seeing that something was not quite right in the matrix movie (prior to the blue pill).

In response to (b) (and partially c), the real question is whether we are in a climax stage wrt our environment or we can expect some succession. I think we are but that the environment is and will change due to our actions. We are still operating as if the environment is an untouchable boundary condition but it is not. When the environment starts interacting dynamically with the sociotechnological system, the supermeme has to evolve.

I have not put it specifically in these terms, but a lot of the stuff (3 chapters) in the book I am working on will cover this.

@Alex Oliver – Also, people are more likely to believe a big lie …

@AJ – That is what I was trying to say.

@hickchick – You could also move out of Tornado Valley.

@mockum – The second paragraph is what is obvious. The 4th and 5th paragraph (between the two single lines) is the hidden part (hidden to the consumer/personal finance strategy level, obvious to the company strategy level). I like to think of these posts as a kind of ‘book of five rings’ writing where rereading after a while will bring new understanding as they operate on several different levels. Another way to say it is that I’m too lazy to write everything out

I think the problem with your entries of this sort is that you quickly shift through too many topics and ideas. You don’t fully develop any one idea.

What I’ve found w/ some of my writing is that it makes complete sense when I first type it. If I come back to it after thinking about something else, I’ll notice all types of omissions and unfinished thoughts.

You can stand out in a field and hope it doesn’t blow you away.

You can hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.

I can honestly say that it never occurred to me to TRY TO BECOME GREATER THAN THE SUN and change weather patterns.

Or, they have many options for the same choice (or a very limited set fo choices).

Great post!

ERE, the two ideas that most struck me in your post were the “emergent supermeme” and “more telling is the absence”. I’ve been practicing synthesis lately and so I’m left here with the suggestion that what is most telling is not the supermeme that emerges, but the supermeme that does *not* emerge. I read Bastiat’s “That Which Is Seen And That Which Is Not Seen” essay several years ago and am still reeling from it. So we are here ruminating on your post about what we see unfolding “in front of us [the curtain]” and what we suspect perhaps unfolding “behind the curtain”. We’ve “gone meta” and The Curtain has emerged as a property of our avenue to understanding our environment. The curtain supermeme has emerged, but most importantly, what supermeme(s) has(have) *not* emerged?

Your post really underlines why watching tv and generally ingesting mass media is probably not good for figuring things out on your own. All that not listening to the experts takes a great deal of time and concentration. If you spend 10 hours a week on TV (and ingesting conventional wisdom), you probably need to spend at least another 10 counteracting all the assumptions you find in there–that’s a lot of work!

And your point about having all the info not necessarily helping couldn’t be more true.

I recently purchased US health insurance so that if I had a terrible car accident during my visit home I would be cared for. I had way too much information available–pages and pages of items comparing one insurance to another and all I wanted was something to keep us from going bankrupt in case of dire emergency. I thought I’d chosen wisely (but certainly didn’t take the time to sift through all the info because it would have taken months!) I purchased a short term insurance that I thought would be good for my 1 month visit.

But while I was gone, DH had a bad accident in France(thank god it was in France!). This demonstrated to me first hand that having short term insurance for a catastrophic accident (or long term illness) is worthless. DH has already been in the hospital for one month. If his insurance was ending now, he’d be in a heap of trouble because he still needs 2-3 months of (expensive!)rehab before he can walk.

Incredible. I had all the information–more information than I could even ingest–I’m of above average intelligence and education too (ok, ok, everyone thinks they’re above average, but I’ve had the IQ test for what it’s worth). But wow, what a bad insurance decision I made–luckily nothing bad happened because the insurance I chose was basically worthless!

Anyway–cool post–your posts always get me thinking.