Dan Dennett: Dangerous memes | Video on TED.com - 2 views
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Alexis Schomer on 02 Nov 12It is crazy how he talks about memes as viruses that infect people and influence others. Our ideas are not our own but are passed down by others and influenced. I think in the beginning when he is talking about evolution he is saying that human "evolution" is actually not benefitting us the same way an animal's evolution benefits it.
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Devon Meredith on 04 Nov 12I think there is obviously a big distinction between how evolution affects humans and animals but Dan Dennett's ideas are definitely defined. Your statement about how our ideas are not only our own thought but influenced by others is a great statement because it is so true.
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When he started talking about the fact that ideas became infectious, he totally captivated my attention. I see ideas in the same way; and the way he explained it made it so interesting! But when he got into the part about memes, I kind of got confused, since my frame of a meme is that of my generation, rather than what he was talking about.
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I agree, I really like how he started out his presentation and seemed to follow along with what he was talking about, understood how ideas became so infectious. I started getting lost when he talked about memes. I didn't really understand memes in the first place, but the way he described it was not very interesting so it was harder to follow. He would randomly draw my attention back, like when he talked about celibacy and joked about no one it died out.
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I agree to an extent. I think that ideas are passed down and influenced to an extent but there are also many new ideas. People have evolved in so many ways and that is partly because people come along with new and educated views. With great advancements in educations and technology people are able to have new ideas about things.
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This is definitely a point I agree with. It seems as though he is saying that our ideas are not original, but a different version of someone else's idea. The meme subject was slightly confusing, and I lost track of what he was trying to say.
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I agree as well. Ideas are definitely infectious. I feel as if we are in a society that is so accustomed to that. We see something, a meme or not, that influences us to feel a certain way. We tend to pass these feelings towards others.
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I really liked Dennett's metaphor about the ant and the parasite to explain how in humans, ideas can be like parasites in the way they develop and spread. I agree that spreading ideas can be harmful to other cultures that are not accustomed to them. It is easy for us to not acknowledge the impacts of our ideas on other cultures because we are already used to them. However, we must use realize our the potential impacts that our ideas can have on other cultures and societies.
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When everybody's ideas are shared, they do act as parasites. Some people might be immune to them in the sense that it may not affect them directly, but to a different person it can have an impact on them, negative or positive. As humans, we pursue ideas that we feel are important or that make us happy.
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agreed, however its human nature to share and create ideas. Government or american citizens definitely don't consider the effects that our decisions have. But anything potentially could be harmful, such as idea, speech, or actions. I agree with you though most people might not see ideas as a bad thing, only because there blind any effects.
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Humans are often blinded by ideas, as messr. Dennet pointed out. Ideas definitely aren't innately good or bad, even if the idea is sketch, but rather it's what people do with those ideas and how they capitalize on the emotion the idea incites.
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I really liked the point that he brought up when he said that when he say that "we are all responsible for our ideas . . .and there likely missuses". I feel like a lot of people take an idea and blow it out of the water and make the idea go much bigger then intend. We have to watch what we say because someone could take it in a different light.
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I enjoyed the way he spoke about the spread of ideas and evolution of memes. Its relation to the spread of a virus is impressive and accurate in many ways. Viruses are dangerous agents which multiple quickly and can be considerably difficult to exterminate in some cases. The formation of a parasitic pathogen is an interesting comparison because, like an idea or meme, it does not need to ensure the survival of its host to remain in existence. He does a wonderful job of observing the similarities when he includes the fact that ideas, like viruses, do not rely on genetic transmittal for dissemination but rather, exist because we exist. As with any other infectious agent, an idea or a meme can be destructive, and may reverse or undermine our more self-preserving processes.
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I find it interesting how most of the ideas that spread the most over the internet and through technology are the toxic ideas. The toxic memes establish a prominent position in our mind and that is what many focus on. We are the carriers of these toxic memes, much like the ant is of the fluke parasite.
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I find it interesting how most of the ideas that spread the most over the internet and through technology are the toxic ideas. The toxic memes establish a prominent position in our mind and that is what many focus on. We are the carriers of these toxic memes, much like the ant is of the fluke parasite.
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I really like Daniel Dennett and his movie the four horsemen, this was not his best performance speaking wise and he is definitely not the speaker that Christopher Hitchens was or Sam Harris is. However, I like this talk, I like that he uses his knowledge of science to help explain the severity of the take over of the mind that these memes have on people just like the parasite he talkes about in the beginning.
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The idea that certain ideas can spread and harm certain other people was an interesting one. We all like to think new ideas and progressive though as a good thing, but this TED talk presents a different view on the issue. Personally, I believe that cultures are ever evolving and sometimes new ideas are needed, even if there are growing pains. But these pains can also have a negative effect. A good example would be the Arab Spring in the last few years. Although it is objectively good that harsh dictators are taken out of power, new ideas can create an even more dangerous form of society. As with all of life, there is the good and the bad with this shift.
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We are responsible for what we do with others ideas. We are responsible for the outcomes of how we implement the idea. He talks about the spreading of toxic ideas (memes) on a worldly scale but we can also see this a prevalent theme in politics, especially in this election. The motive of many of these campaign tactics is to see who can spread a toxic meme the fastest. People become wrapped up in this negative exchange which is influencing people (probably in the ways that they intend) for the wrong reasons. Reform is needed in the campaign process to bring things like elections and policy making back to the initial responsibility of government, to protect the people and make a good society for people to flourish.
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I really liked the comparison between the parasite in the ant and the ideas in a human, as I was watching this video I couldn't help but feel very compelled by his words, I think that his talk was a very accurate description of how things in the mind work. The concept that an idea can be a virus in the brain and take over is scary but true. I hate to make this reference, but I think that Inception is really based on that idea... his wife kills herself because the idea, or virus, says that her world is not real.
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Personally, although I found many of his ideas, such as the danger of spreading certain ideas to other cultures, to be intriguing and, in some senses, true, I was very turned off by his flippant treatment of religion as a whole. I think it is simply ignorant and prideful to look at something, like religion, which has been an intrinsic part of humanity since the beginning of human history and which many very smart, well-educated people have held to, and to simply brush it off as an "infection of ideas." He came across, to me, as very disrespectful, narrow minded, and pompous. I think he had a lot of great ideas and he seems like a very smart man, but I think it is simply prideful to so easily disregard religion as a whole. Some of the most intelligent and well-educated people in all of human history have also been some of the most fervently religious, and I feel that Dennett injures his own argument by treating them so flippantly.
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He has very strange trasitions between subjects. I like how he connects the infectious fluke to emotions that infectious to humans. Memes are very strange. There are different species, some that can be pronounced and some that can't. Why were memes feared? And why does "meme" now a days mean pictures with funny comments on them? Againt things repeat themselves no matter how much you try to keep them from happening again. I like how he says the way to fight memes is to inform yourself and fix it rather than just be mad about it. Very smart man.
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One thing that I really found interesting was when he said that people take ideas out of context. He said that people have to watch what they say because others might twist them into something completely opposite. An example of this would be my English class. In class we analyze book after book and sometimes it makes me wonder what if the author only meant what was said and not some analyzed piece that we came up with.
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Dennet's TED Talk about comparing developing memes to viruses are interesting. However, I disagree because people today are exposed to media information and this creates new cultures and ideas. Sure they "retire" old customs, but life changes and with today's technology,
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(cont.) ...the pace is much faster and more accesible than ever before.
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I like that simple analogy to get across a pretty important point. We have now, with globalization, a pretty small world. Ideas are rubbing next to each other more and more. We see that now with the Middle Eastern ideas and ideologies and our ideologies of 'free' in the West. We have to be cognizant of how we approach these other cultures and societies because if we are not then we will continue to have the problems that we have today. Hopefully people will start to look more openly at other cultures and religions. To do that maybe we need to look at our own beliefs, we think that what we believe in is the right thing, maybe it is, but maybe it isn't. We can't just be critical of someone else just because they believe or live by a different code.
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I liked how he combined his philosophical ideas with science. I liked how he related sickness with ideas. He brought up a good point, technology does spread ideas more, either good or bad. The 'toxic' ideas do wipe out a lot of important things, like culture and tradition depending on what information is being presented. I agree completely with Dan Dennett.
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I thought that this TED Talk was very interesting. Dan is basically stating that we as humans are easily influenced from other ideas. We sometimes are influenced by toxic ideas that can hurt us. We need to change this and spread encouraging ideas instead.
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I completely agree that we should be spreading encouraging ideas instead of degrading ones. Relating this to the political adds we were seeing so much of a few weeks ago, we need to focus on the positives more.
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