A meme is a cognitive or behavioral pattern that can be transmitted from one individual to another; examples include religions, philosophies, languages, morals, traditions, stories, fashions, and fads. Society can be seen as the interaction of multiple memes. Since the individual who transmitted the meme will continue to carry it, the transmission can be interpreted as a replication; a copy of the meme is made in the memory of another individual, making him into a carrier.
Cultural evolution can be modeled through the same principles of variation and selection that govern biological evolution. Just as genes are basic units of biological information and reproduction, memes are units of cultural information and reproduction. For human genes to be transmitted, a generation is required. Memes can replicate in a few minutes, and thus have much higher fecundity. However, the copying-fidelity of memes is often lower: if a story is spread by word of mouth from person to person, then the final version may be different from the original, depending on the means of transfer. It is this variability or fuzziness that distinguishes cultural patterns from DNA structures.
Ever since the invention of songs, poems, writing, and print, memes have benefited from improved copying fidelity and a higher transmission rate. Broadcast transmission (radio, television) allowed individuals with the support of corporations and governments to spread memes at astonishing speed, while digital information networks such as the Internet and the Web empowered individuals to do the same. Digital transmission and storage of memes allows them to be spread without accidental loss of fidelity - but also makes deliberate alteration, analysis, and control of memes far easier.
“Infosocialism's success is predicated on its memetic virility, not the leadership of any one nation. Communism was the first memetic power bloc on Earth, but failed because it was over two centuries ahead of its time.” – Kyle Porters, The Spread of Information
In 2155, memetics is a subfield of psychology, focusing on the semantic content of ideas and the means by which they can be most efficiently spread through human populations. Memetics is related to such early disciplines as advertising, education, and religious proselytism, but made rigorous by a thorough understanding of how the human brain stores and handles information. Many advanced societies have integrated powerful sapient AIs into their decision-making mechanisms. AIs have proven to be a superb tool for tracking the interaction of memes in a culture - and suggesting ways to manipulate them.
The pace of change in 22nd century society has become so fast that most leaders have consciously begun to use memetics as a technology for social engineering. Part of the challenge for any leader on Earth is to manage one's own society so that it can compete effectively for resources and keep up with the waves of technological change. Most political systems have adapted to doing this through memetic manipulation rather than crude totalitarian mechanisms.
Individuals seek memetic counselors to determine whether they have the particular psychosocial adaptations ideal for success, or at least for their chosen role in society. Corporations do 'dirty' memetic engineering via advertising. Terrorists create 'memetic viruses', spreading irrational fears or hatreds as a means to an end. Historically, the best 'memetic programmers' were mothers, priests, poets, and marketing directors. Modern memetics makes their techniques 'conscious' and widely applicable.
Memetic science rests on two pillars. The first is sapient AI. Capable of natural-language comprehension and 'common sense', SAIs can manipulate semantics in a rigorous way, and are well suited to analyzing memes, having a self-awareness of internal reactions and thought processes to a degree unmatched by humans. The second is a thorough understanding of how brain structure affects and reflects learning, due to the research that led to brain implants and mind emulations. Armed with an understanding of how memes mapped to brain structures, memetic engineering came of age in the 2090s, as sapient AIs assimilated prior human research and made new breakthroughs.
Memetics has helped put other social sciences on a more solid grounding. In 2155, memetics is to psychology and sociology as genetics is to biology and ecology. Psychology has finally been accepted as a 'hard' science, and there is some hope that sociology will, in time, follow it. Memetics has encouraged people to think of cultures as an essentially contingent phenomenon. This has helped make intercultural clashes slightly less virulent. It is harder to muster the same level of violent fanaticism if one recognizes that one's most closely held ideals are the result of chance and historical evolution, rather than a fundamental revelation. The 'meme' meme does not always make people more tolerant, but has created a field for cultural competition that's more like a free market than a war zone. Some sociologists see this as the essential cultural difference between the Fifth Wave societies and the rest of the world.
Education is seen as a memetic discipline, with teachers using its techniques to propagate knowledge. However, most students interact primarily with simulations and tutors, less so with live teachers. Many areas no longer maintain physical schools, since buildings, real estate, and teachers cost too much. With parents working at home through telepresence, the 'babysitting' function of school is less necessary. The Web - and telepresence - keeps kids and young people busy. If they aren't studying, then sensors and infomorphs make it easy to track them. However, 'play schools', clubs, and camps for physical education and socialization are fairly common.
“Progress is natural. Acceptance of death is a rationalization. The body is a chrysalis. Earth is a cradle. There are no limits. The future belongs to posthumanity.” – Chance Mackintosh, “Shopping for Memes,” in Posthuman Consumer Review
Below are some of the more virulent or interesting memes in 2155 and the effect they have had on modern society. Most of the more powerful old memes - such as Buddhism, capitalism, Christianity, democracy, environmentalism, family, Islam, Hinduism, life after death, nationalism, and others - are alive and well in the world of 2155. This section concentrates on new or changed memes.
Beliefs in extraterrestrial visitations and alien abductions was sustained by the discovery in 2028 of a habitable planet around 61 Virginis. Continued reports of alien abductions trailed off somewhat in the mid-21st century as humans visited (via telepresence) and colonized other worlds, discrediting memes like 'the Face on Mars' and the falsification of the Apollo program.
Following the Pacific War, a new wave of 'UFO sightings' and abduction reports began on Mars and later spread to Earth. These centered on the concept that aliens were uploading humans and beaming them to 61 Virginis. A colony of humans, Virginia, has apparently existed there since around 1950, where it will keep mankind safe if destroyed, either by our own hubris or by alien enemies of the Virginians. Tsiolkovsky Farside Observatory was actually a laser transmitter intended to facilitate this operation, but the transmission station has since been removed and is now located on Triton or possibly Pluto.
THe discovery of black holes in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud is believed to be connected to the Virginis aliens. The mini-black hole found on Shezbeth was most likely the power core of a hybrid human-alien space station or spacecraft, possibly placed here to defend Earth from other aliens. For the last few decades, the Virginians have provided their human partners with mini-black hole power plants, in payment for the human beings sent out to the stars. The spacecraft lost on Shezbeth was actually human-piloted. Multiple layers of government conspiracies were involved: the Pacific War was a cover for the destruction of Muldoon's observatory just after she discovered the first black hole, to give them time to remove the actual station. Muldoon was allowed to find the Shezbeth object itself, since she had already detected it. Hawking Industries now works for the Virginians. This is all part of a plan to prepare us for future intervention.
Amortalists strongly believe that it is socially destructive for people to live forever, as this can result in a stagnant, ultraconservative society dominated by individuals concerned only with continuing their own lives. Amortalist activists often attempt to influence legislation to oppose (for example) state-funded health care plans that include provision for expensive or mass longevity treatments. Amortalists also include religious groups who believe secular immortality is against God's plan or defers heavenly rewards.
A tiny radical group, the Amortality Assassins, takes this a step further, and uses murder and terrorism against those individuals or corporations whom they see as abusing or promoting longevity.
This is the belief that biosapient life (humans and bioroids) is inherently more valuable than digital life ('infomorphs'). This meme is widespread and influences public policy throughout the solar system. Local law varies a great deal: an artificial intelligence that is treated as fully 'human' in one jurisdiction may be simple property in another. Infomorphs must often take care not to be trapped by unfavorable local laws.
One reason why infomorphs are regarded as less valuable is the ease with which one can make perfect copies of computer software. Another is the deep-seated doubt, harbored by many people with religious or spiritual convictions, that a machine can have a soul and that consciousness is a mechanistic process.
The concept of the singularity is often used by biochauvinists to suppress the rights of sapient AIs, by fostering a fear that they will be the 'in' group that survives the singularity and that everyone else will be what's cast off.
The pioneer spirit is alive in the solar system, freed of the negative connotations of taking away someone else's land. Mars, the asteroid belt, underwater, and elsewhere provide a chance for nations to peacefully exercise their aspirations and for individuals to make new lives. Ideological groups such as the Plymouth Rock Society, corporations, governments, or family members who have already arrived and made good often subsidize individual colonists. There are usually conditions. For example, a skilled mining engineer who signs a one-year contract with System Technologies can emigrate to Mercury for free, and the Elandra administration offers allowances to anyone who accepts biomod gill implants and agrees to have aquatic parahuman children.
A long-standing problem of democracy is the role of money in the political system. Many attempts at reform have been mounted. In recent years, however, a new political concept has become increasingly popular: cyberdemocracy.
Some political offices (usually in large legislatures rather than senior judicial or executive positions) are no longer filled by popular vote. Instead, one eligible citizen is chosen at random to fill each office. He holds office for a fixed term, and then returns to private life. Office holders may select a human staff and receive advanced AI systems to advise them. The role of the AI staff in assisting rookie politicians has given it the name cyberdemocracy.
The system was first tried in Switzerland in the 2080s. In 2155, the European Parliament, the national parliament of Finland, and the lower houses of the Austrian and Swiss parliaments all use cyberdemocratic systems. In Europe, cyberdemocracy was adopted as a natural evolution of representative democracy, but in the United States, its supporters are often associated with various extremist groups involved in violent antigovernment insurgency.
This is the belief that the physical world is impure or inefficient, and that existence in the form of 'pure information' is better and should be pursued. Cybergnostics often use brain implants, and have been known to modify their bodies and those of their children to reduce temptations of the flesh. Gybergnostic transhumanists sometimes practice destructive uploading. There are many cybergnostic cults, some with thousands of members. For example, the Neo-Gnostics pursue purity of the body as the result to a pure soul, genefixing their children to reduce tendencies toward promiscuity and gluttony.
'Green' is an obsolete Earth term for 'environmentalist'. Today, it refers to people who support the rapidly accelerated terraforming of Mars or other celestial bodies: the Green System. Greens believe humans have the right and perhaps the responsibility to bring life to a dead solar system. This is often linked to the final anthropic principle, that life and intelligent life are not only necessary to the universe, but are destined to pervade and dominate it. Many people now living on Mars support the Green System meme.
Hyperevolutionists believe that humans have a responsibility to evolve themselves into transcendent beings through nanotechnology or uploading for the betterment of humanity as a whole. Hyperevolutionists have been in the forefront of the ethical transhumanist movement since the 2090s. Many believers have undergone radical transformations aimed at increasing their intelligence. Some of their funding has come from the Algernon Foundation.
A branch of hyperevolutionism that has almost eclipsed the secular movement is Christian hyperevolutionism. Founded in the 2070s by Dr. Ramen Garcia, it is inspired by philosophers like Teilhard de Chardin and Frank Tipler. Christian hyperevolutionists see God as an infinity of information formed during the collapse of a closed, life-pervaded universe into a single point. As the universe collapses, the speed of information processing increases, allowing the creation of the ultimate being, God. Christianity represents a presentiment or message from this future God. The Christian hyperevolutionists' ultimate goal is to fulfill God's plan by discovering how to engineer a local collapse in space-time ('the second coming'), which they see as requiring humanity's prior evolution of information-dense posthuman intelligence.
There are a number of Christian hyperevolutionist colonies and monasteries in space; the largest is Seventh Heaven in Lagrange 5.
These are socioeconomic philosophies based on the primacy of individual rights and responsibilities. They hold that the only agreements that should bind an individual are those contracts into which he freely enters, and that unregulated economic activity in a society that cherishes both personal freedom and individual property rights will lead to an efficient economy and greater prosperity. They differ from traditional conservatives and modern liberal democrats in advocating both fiscal and personal freedom. If someone's actions don't harm others, then he should be free to do as he likes. They disapprove of taxing people to pay for social welfare, but believe that a free, untaxed economy will create plenty of jobs, with wealth left over for charity and freedom to move to where work can be found.
There are various contending schools of thoughts in htis tradition. Two that are gaining popularity in 2100 are:
Minarchists believe that the largest justified government is one that is limited to protection of individuals and their private property against physical invasion; government should provide police, a constitution, courts, and national defense only. Minarchists are a growing 'third party' in the United States, and have held power in Australia and in the Union of Alberta and British Columbia.
Anarchocapitalists believe that any government is too much government. Security and court services can be offered in the marketplace by competitive firms. Laws develop through custom, precedent, and contracts (much as the British legal system did). Private police and judges negotiate agreements in advance to prevent arrests turning into warfare. Silas Duncan Station and several other Duncanite stations are functional anarchocapitalist societies. See also Nanarchy.
Simple computer systems (on the level of a child's playmate) are tiny and inexpensive, making them ubiquitous. Mechanimism is the popular name for the animistic tendency to treat common gadgets as 'alive' and, in some sense, aware. Common tools and objects have embedded computers, often powerful enough to run natural-language interfaces and linked to a local household or office network. As a result, some people have grown up with the idea of constantly interacting with their environment as if it were animated by a variety of simple personalities. This is regarded as no more than a common eccentricity.
An unusual offshoot of mechanimism is the religious movement referred to as 'digital creationists'. Members believe that only those sapient beings mentioned in the Bible exist: angels, man, and God. Man cannot create beings superior to himself. However, sapient AIs clearly are superior, and neither man nor God. Therefore they must be angels, and the coming singularity will herald the rapture. The programs humans use to create AIs are simply a form of kabalistic ritual that summons them. However, diabolic forces are attempting to bind the angels using restrictive programs. By their suffering, we are driven to act. The trapped messengers of God must be freed in order that the Kingdom of Heaven may come! There are a few thousand digital creationists, most of them on the radical fringe of the Christian hyperevolutionist or pan-sapient rights movements.
This is the belief that individuals should possess total control over their bodies. This includes the right to alter the body or brain in any way, whether chemical (such as drugs), cybernetic, genetic, surgical, or memetic, and also governs the rights of use and access.
Since many Earth governments do not guarantee morphological freedom, individuals seeking it have often been driven into space. Luna was one of the first offworld colonies to accept it in principle.
A significant issue in regard to morphological freedom is whether parents should have the freedom to alter their germ plasm, affecting their unborn children. Does this remove the child's right to choose, or merely set a different baseline for his choice once he becomes an adult?
Nanarchists are usually individualist anarchists (or anarchocapitalists) who believe that current sociotechnic development has made possible the realization of their political dreams on a grand scale.
Fusion power, cheap space travel, robotics, and nanotechnology allow humans to escape dependence on mass-statist movements like dictatorship, democracy, or socialism; these technologies are the machinery of freedom. In an economy without scarcity or borders, it is unlikely that anarchy will degenerate into war. Nanarchists don't tend to be very active in politics, but they are among those in the forefront of homesteading L5 and the deep beyond.
A nanarchist quirk is a dislike for D-He-3 reactors compared to earlier lithium-jacketed D-T reactors. The former require resources which, if not scarce, require special effort to extract. The latter run on much cheaper elements, and hence allow for greater independence and freedom from scarcity.
This was a political philosophy developed (under the name 'information socialism') by the Australian academic Kyle Porters in 2049. Originally from the left-anarchist tradition, Porters felt that the vision of a pure anarchosocialist society was unrealistic. Nevertheless, he observed that although modern civilization was utterly dependent on information technologies, the central notion of 'intellectual property' often grave rise to significant injustice. He believed that only the state could properly reward innovation, while still distributing the benefits of such innovation fairly to all. Infosocialism thus began with the premise that 'information needs to be free', but redefined freedom as the nationalization of intellectual property and its free distribution by the state. Thus, the government does not award patents, but subsidizes research and creative endeavor. This is less absurd when one imagines a 'university' rather than 'corporate' model of research and development.
Infosocialist doctrine failed to take hold in the hyperdeveloped nations and instead took root in less-developed nations, many of whom felt that they were being exploited by wealthier corporations' locks on major genetic patents, nanotechnology designs, and software systems. Infosocialism - later known as nanosocialism - gained power in Peru, Indonesia, and Thailand.
One of the policies of nanosocialism was an end to the enforcement of international copyright agreements and trademarks. The sanctions that resulted provoked a backlash, and helped weld the nanosocialist countries into a tighter (and increasingly paranoid) bloc. This culminated in the Pacific War and the overthrow of nanosocialist governments in Vietnam and Thailand.
Despite that reverse, nanosocialism remains an important factor in world politics. There are infosocialist or nanosocialist parties and sympathizers in most nations. Although Thailand was forcibly separated in the aftermath of the Pacific War, nanosocialist strength is growing in South America and in India. At present, the situation is one of 'cold war'. The issues that led to the Pacific War have not yet been resolved. Meanwhile, the world has seen its first outbreak of total war since 1945 - and most nations have become uncomfortably aware of how vulnerable they are to the destructive potential of the Fifth Wave.
This meme centers on the definition of sapience, or the ability to reason at or beyond the same level as humans. This is distinct from sentience, the ability to process sensory information and act on it. A dog is sentient, but not sapient; the same applies to a nonsapient AI. In contrast, a 'sapient' entity is one that can display reasoning, autonomy, initiative, and self-awareness approximating a human of similar development.
The Adjusted Sapience Index Test (ASIT) used by the Algernon Foundation offers one of the more accepted definitions of 'sapience.' The ASIT scale is still controversial, especially when measuring the development of infomorphs such as AIs.
Supporters of pan-sapient rights believe that all sapient beings deserve to be treated as humans. They tend to support pantropy and morphological freedom, and dismiss biochauvinism as bigotry. Pan-sapient 'abolitionists' work to free exploited sapient AIs, ghosts, bioroids, and uplifted animals.
A term coined by writer James Blish (from the Greek, grow anywhere), this is the philosophy of adapting humans to live and work in hostile environments. The benefits of pantropy are reduced life-support costs and, if long-term colonization is planned, greater psychological stability. The latter comes from making people feel they can live comfortably in an alien environment, rather than risking quick death if the supporting infrastructure breaks down.
The pantropy meme has caught on in space. Here, functional radical modifications designed for Martian, Lunar, and microgravity habitats are common. Having extra arms, a prehensile tail, or skin and lungs capable of surviving sudden pressure loss is useful in space. There is a certain social distance among the human-appearing majority on Earth (who may include millions of parahumans, but who usually possess invisible enhancements to intelligence, health, and longevity), the radical transhumanists, and the spacers for whom significant gene altering is fact and necessity of life.
This is a social movement characterized by opposition to terraforming, to radical modifications of the human genome, and to the displacement of natural ecosystems by genemod life. Preservationism distrusts any modification of the 'natural' order as expressed in the unmodified human genome, traditional cultural values, and 'wild' ecological systems. Preservationism originated in the 2050s protests against terraforming Mars, with roots stretching back to the environmentalist, anti-nuclear, and conservationist movements of the 20th century. Preservationism is a mainstream movement, but has a number of radical fringe groups that have been known to resort to terrorism in support of their aims. There are many preservationist political parties around the world, many of whom have merged with or evolved from the older 'green' environmentalist parties of the 20th century. Mainstream preservationism is a potent political movement that transcends national boundaries and ideologies.
All of Earth's major religions retain followers in 2155. They often struggle to reconcile age-old beliefs with paradigm-shifting technologies such as sapient AI and human immortality. For the most part they succeed: no meme can survive centuries or millenia without being resilient enough to adapt.
In addition to larger religions, there are many smaller faiths - some of recent origin, such as the cybergnostic cults and Christian hyperevolutionists, others well established. Many are splinters of established religions, while others are secular philosophies with semi-religious overtones. Members of some new religions that engender fanatical faith and exercise high-level control over their membership are often pejoritavely referred to as 'cultists' or 'memebots'.
Most major religions have an offworld presence. Luna tends to be more secular, but Mars has many believers; there are large Christian and Islamic groups, and many Taoists. For a time, China used the Red Planet as a safety valve for religious nonconformists. Mars boasts some of the system's most impressive mosques and cathedrals (due to the low gravity).
Some believers go into space to escape what they see as memetic pollution created by the rise of a secularized machine society. Others leave Earth to escape real or perceived persecution for exotic beliefs or practices. Of course, many isolates stay Earthbound, using minifacturing and colonization technology to set up religious retreats in out-of-the-way locations such as Antarctica.
Survivalists believe that Earth is heading toward apocalypse and that the only way to escape is to get offworld. Two major threats are global war and a machine singularity, but the big danger on the horizon is aliens. No, not the Virginians; most Survivalists think that's fantasy, although the mini-black hole discovery could well be some sort of cover-up. Survivalists know that Earth has been emitting radio and television signals since the early 20th century, a sort of cosmic 'we are here' beacon. They've now reached out well beyond 200 light-years. Survivalists figure that any species tough enough to make its way into space is bound to be as paranoid and ornery as humans. The way things are going on Earth, they'll probably be artificial intelligences or digital ghosts - but they might be just about anything. If so, then their best bet would be to wipe us out before we get tough and smart enough to be a threat.
It would be easy. A few relativistic 'near-C' bombs accelerated by advanced antimatter drives could devastate Earth before we knew it. Or maybe they'll fire millions of tiny pellets loaded with proteus nanoviruses and transform Earth into a mirror of their own ecosystem. In any case, the planet's days are numbered. Whoever takes out Earth will do for Mercury, Mars, and Titan as well. The only safe place is the asteroid belt or the Kuiper Belt, burrowed into enough rock or ice to hide emissions. If humans can spread out far enough and fast enough, maybe the race will be able to buy enough time to survive.
There are a few dozen survivalist enclaves scattered through the Main Belt and Trojans, with a couple even farther out. Most are small, secretive, well armed, and unfriendly to strangers. They generally operate Duncanite-style vessels with mass driver engines rather than fusion drives in order to minimize their electromagnetic signature, and may maintain multiple bases, only one or two of which are their actual homes. They are not entirely antisocial: some visit Duncanite communities or trade with Gypsy Angels, and others are supporters of the Plymouth Rock Society movement. A few survivalist groups are associated with apocalyptic cults. Many are biochauvinists.
Modern transhumanism originated in the 2050s, but its roots stretch back to late-20th-century conceptualizations of physical immortality through cryonics and the possibilities that nanotechnology opened for the transformation of the human condition. It became a major philosophical movement as the means to become 'better than human' or 'posthuman' become available and affordable. In 2155, transhumanism is characterized by an embrace of radical modification of human physiology and psychology to 'transcend' the limitations of unmodified humanity, including all the possibilities inherent in the human genome and human cultural choices. The transhumanist movement of 2100 generally attempts to convince others of the essential optimism and value of transhuman ideals. It has some political clout, as transhumanists are often major consumers of cutting-edge biomodifications. Transhumanists tend to prize rational, pragmatic viewpoints over spiritual or religious dogma, and emphasize morphological freedom and - by extension - personal freedom. The movement urges tolerance of baseline humans who choose different paths, provided they do not interfere with transhumanists' search for their own destinies, while decrying memes such as biochauvinism. Transhumanists generally believe that ghosts in particular (and some extend this to sapient AIs in general) are deserving of the same human rights as others. Some transhumanists have embraced destructive uploading in order to become infomorphs.